According to the diary, the other person shouldn't know exactly who could see it.
They needed to keep themselves hidden.
If they were found out, given how nasty that guy was, who knew what he might write next?
That was why she had held back the information she'd learned from the diary.
And now Horikita Suzune had just come right out and said it???
Did she really not care about her own dark past at all?
Just imagining that if she stepped forward, the person behind the diary might expose her past by name made Kushida Kikyo feel cold all over.
Damn it. The other person hadn't left a single clue, and no matter how much she wanted to find a way to get them expelled, she couldn't.
She couldn't even say for certain what the other person's gender was!
Nothing she saw through the written words was necessarily true. Even a joking tone could have been carefully thought out before being written.
In all three diary entries so far, the other person didn't seem to have said or written anything genuinely about themselves.
...At a time like this, she almost envied Horikita Suzune for charging ahead so recklessly, without worrying about anything.
Even if she was sure to face everyone's doubts next.
"Horikita, what do you mean by that?"
As everyone was left confused by Horikita Suzune's words, the ever-helpful Hirata Yosuke took the initiative and stepped forward.
Everyone had questions about what Horikita Suzune had said. Each of them had something they wanted to ask.
But none of them wanted to be the first to stand up.
They needed someone else to step forward and say what they were thinking.
So Hirata Yosuke did.
"Could you explain, Horikita?" His eyes fixed on Horikita Suzune at the front of the room.
Hirata Yosuke's gaze, along with everyone else's, stabbed into her from every direction. The uncomfortable stares made her feel a little ill at ease.
But Horikita Suzune didn't back down. She'd already made up her mind.
"Before you enrolled, you all heard that the school guaranteed employment and further education, right?" Horikita Suzune met Hirata Yosuke's gaze without the slightest hesitation.
"What does that have to do with anything? Wasn't the school established by the government?"
"As long as we behave until graduation, we can choose any major company in the country. What's the problem?"
"Isn't that why we were admitted here? Because the school had already approved us?"
The students in the class didn't sense anything wrong at all.
Horikita Suzune calmly shook her head. "That's incorrect."
"To be precise, it's incomplete."
"Only students who graduate from Class A can benefit from the school's guarantees," she said.
As soon as those words left her mouth, all of Class D erupted.
"Hey, are you kidding? Why only Class A?"
"Isn't that fraud?!"
"The teacher never said anything about that! What proof do you have?"
"If we can't get guaranteed jobs..."
Their emotions boiled over. They didn't need Hirata Yosuke to relay their questions; they blurted them out themselves.
"Everyone, calm down." Hirata Yosuke turned and motioned for them to quiet down. Once they'd all fallen silent, he turned back and asked, "Horikita, what's your basis for saying that?"
Horikita Suzune couldn't have said something like that without a reason.
"...I already confirmed it with Chabashira-sensei," Horikita Suzune said calmly. "And that's not all. The school evaluated and ranked us before we even enrolled."
"From A to D, in descending order."
"Of course, I don't accept the school's evaluation, so I'll find my own way to move up to Class A."
By saving up Twenty Million Personal Points...or winning the Special Exam.
"To do that, I need your help." Horikita Suzune took a deep breath and stated her purpose. "Give me two hundred thousand."
"Chabashira-sensei charged me twenty thousand to confirm the information about employment and our class evaluations."
"But confirming the first month's Special Exam details will cost two hundred thousand."
She hadn't intended to ask her classmates to pay back what she'd already spent. But she couldn't come up with two hundred thousand on her own just to find out the Special Exam details.
"Huh?"
"Hey, hey, was this your real goal?" Yamauchi Haruki couldn't help jumping up. "After all that, you just want to ask everyone for money?"
"The school already gave us one hundred thousand, though," Kanji Ike chimed in.
Kushida Kikyo broke her silence and asked with concern, "Horikita, are you having some kind of trouble?"
"If you are, I'm sure everyone would understand if you just told us. We could put together two hundred thousand and lend it to you. You could pay us back over the next few months. There's no need to make up a story like this."
With Kushida Kikyo speaking up, the others gradually began to chime in too.
"Yeah, the school already said it guaranteed employment. Why would they lie to us after we got here?"
"What about Chabashira-sensei? If you could confirm it with her, why didn't she tell us from the start? Why make you pass it on?"
"And she even charged you? What kind of teacher charges students?"
"Exactly, exactly."
"Hah. What stupid questions. Since Horikita girl confirmed the answer with Teacher, why not just ask Teacher to confirm it again?" Apparently fed up with the foolish comments around him, the blond, long-haired Koenji Rokusuke scoffed and spoke in a booming voice.
"Come to think of it, isn't our next class with Chabashira-sensei?" Ayanokoji suddenly remarked, his voice calm.
"R-Right, I guess it is." The three noisy boys belatedly shut their mouths.
"But...isn't class supposed to have started already?"
The break wasn't especially long, but it wasn't that short either. At Ayanokoji's reminder, the students suddenly realized that class should have started by now.
Then where was Chabashira Sae?
"Looks like you have a lot of questions for me." The bell rang right on cue, and Chabashira Sae walked in through the door.
For the first time, the cold ponytailed homeroom teacher wore an expression that almost looked like a smile. She walked up to the lectern, taking the place Horikita had occupied.
She glanced at Horikita, who had stepped aside, and the corner of Chabashira Sae's mouth lifted.
It seemed her warning had helped after all.
"Is what Horikita said true?" Hirata Yosuke asked in a grave, utterly serious voice.
"Yes."
"..."
"..."
That single word from Chabashira Sae shattered everyone's hopes and doubts.
The gal beside Hirata Yosuke was still unwilling to give up.
"That thing about only Class A getting the school's recommendation, and the school's evaluations of us..."
"All of it's true," Chabashira Sae said coldly. "And so is the price of two hundred thousand Private Points."
"But she left something out."
She paused briefly, then spoke softly under everyone's gaze.
"Tomorrow, the price will be one hundred thousand."
Hesitate. Waver. Weigh the pros and cons of the price being cut in half, then make a carefully considered choice.
Just wait patiently for one day, and you could cut the cost in half.
Look how good a deal it was. What generous terms.
If you didn't accept the school's evaluation, then prove it to me.
You're not defective products.
You're the exceptions who can rise to Class A.
The third day wasn't too late. If they could use this chance to unite, if they could notice the trap she'd laid, and if they added that Joker to the mix, then challenging Class A wasn't impossible.
"O-One hundred thousand?!" Yamauchi Haruki couldn't help shouting. "That's half as much!"
"If it's one hundred thousand, even Horikita could manage that in a month, right?!"
"Hey, Haruki, Horikita has expenses too. She still can't afford one hundred thousand." Ike spoke up. "But if we lend her the points she's short this month, she can pay us back when next month's points arrive."
Chapter 39: Buying It Tomorrow Is Just as Good
"I don't have one hundred thousand points to lend her," Yamauchi Haruki said with a pout.
Yamauchi's reaction reflected how the others felt. When they heard that Chabashira Sae's price would be cut in half if they waited just one day, almost everyone instinctively thought they might as well ask tomorrow.
Likewise, when Kanji Ike said they could simply lend Horikita the money, most of the class thought that sounded like a decent idea too.
After all, Horikita Suzune had already spent twenty thousand to confirm the information. Spending another hundred thousand wasn't out of the question.
There were forty people in the class, and spending a hundred or even two hundred thousand on information meant each person would have to contribute five thousand.
They seemed to get one hundred thousand every month, but that was still a lot of money for students. If they could avoid spending it, then of course they'd rather not.
It'd be best if Horikita Suzune covered the whole cost herself.
Most of them had that thought, even if they didn't say it aloud.
"Um..." Kushida Kikyo cautiously raised her hand. "I remember Horikita said at the beginning that 'we're already far behind'...right?"
"What did you mean by that?"
Kushida Kikyo brought up the opening remark everyone had ignored.
"...Classes B and C already know about the Special Exam," Horikita Suzune said calmly.
Her voice was even, as if she were talking about something completely ordinary. But Kushida Kikyo wasn't about to let the matter drop so easily.
"How did you find that out, Horikita?" Kushida Kikyo asked. As if realizing she sounded suspicious, she quickly waved her hands. "Ah, of course, I'm not saying I doubt you. It's just that if you explain where the information came from, everyone will find it easier to accept, right?"
Horikita Suzune: "..."
The diary told me.
...Even if she said that, no one would believe her.
Before she knew it, the diary had appeared on the lectern again.
Horikita Suzune reached out, picked it up in front of everyone, and opened it to the page that had updated yesterday. Then she turned the diary around, trying to show it to the whole class.
"It's written in here."
"..."
Even though she seemed to have done something remarkable, none of the students below the lectern reacted.
It was as if they hadn't seen anything, or even heard her. They simply watched her, waiting for an answer.
"Horikita?" Kushida Kikyo called her name, apparently because she hadn't received a response to her question.
"..." Seeing that no one seemed to react to the diary in her hands, Horikita Suzune let out a quiet sigh and set it down.
As expected, no one would accept a move that felt like cheating.
Pressing a hand to her forehead in frustration, she said softly, "I have my own sources."
"Do you always have to dig into other people's private affairs, Kushida?"
Before you continue