Classroom of the Elite, but It's a Diary Style 40

Rather, it was shock.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, there's no need for that--" Retracting her hand as quickly as a startled rabbit, Wang Meiyu waved her hands repeatedly and said, "My, my, my sexual orientation is very, very, very, very normal..."

"Th-that, the coffee, thank you very much, I, I'll be going now!"

Standing up abruptly and bowing deeply, Wang Meiyu began to flee in a state of utter panic.

"...So you're a lesbian?" Kamuro Masumi suddenly blurted out from the side.

Watching Wang Meiyu's stumbling gait as she took the wrong direction several times and nearly collided with other students, Sakayanagi Arisu gripped her cane with immense force, gritting her teeth as she said:

"I! Am! Not!"

Her sexual orientation was, of course, perfectly normal too!

Damn it, truly damn it. If that were the case, wouldn't she just be a laughingstock in the other person's eyes for an entire month, having smugly confirmed an answer and smugly declared victory?

Moreover, in the eyes of others, wouldn't she just be a lesbian who inexplicably approached someone else and intended to confess?

"Clatter--" Just as Sakayanagi Arisu felt a wave of irritation so intense it made her chest ache, the sound of pages turning suddenly came from beside her.

Almost instantly, Sakayanagi Arisu realized what had happened.

The Diary had updated.

"..." Silent, expressionless, and wearing a deadpan face, Sakayanagi Arisu turned away, no longer watching Wang Meiyu as she disappeared into the distance, and reached out toward Kamuro Masumi without a word.

The meaning was clear: help her up.

Kamuro Masumi could clearly sense that Sakayanagi Arisu seemed to be getting angry, and having no intention of continuing to tease her, she stood up quite readily and helped her Little Princess back to her original seat.

The coffee in front of Wang Meiyu's seat had barely been touched, and Sakayanagi Arisu's own coffee remained largely full; the only cup that had been drained of more than half its contents was the one Kamuro Masumi had just ordered.

Turning her head and seeing that Sakayanagi Arisu had no intention of drinking her coffee after sitting back down, but was instead sitting there in sullen silence, Kamuro Masumi took another sip of her coffee and curled her lip: "It's actually quite good; what a waste."

"..."

Sakayanagi Arisu was not sulking.

When she realized her chest was starting to feel uncomfortable, she simply closed her eyes to calm her emotions.

As a delicate girl born with a slight physical defect, she knew full well how much emotional distress could harm her body, and in the vast majority of cases, she was able to control her emotions quite well.

Just now, she had simply lost control for a brief moment.

The reason she appeared to be angry in Kamuro Masumi's eyes was only because she had opened the Diary.

The content on the Diary was refreshing bit by bit, and the person on the other side was currently wielding their pen, writing down unbridled words.

Regarding today's entry, Sakayanagi Arisu already had an expectation.

Since she had identified the wrong person, the other party would certainly seize upon this pain point to press their advantage.

Therefore, although she had opened the Diary, she was not in a hurry to read it, choosing instead to close her eyes and organize her thoughts.

Returning to yesterday's entry.

Yesterday was the thirty-first day since the Diary appeared, and also the final day of the Behavioral Norms Exam.

She wouldn't summarize the content of the Diary; it was nothing more than those provocative words.

The important point lay in the 'comment' function that had been unlocked later, and the words she had left behind that were now covered in messy annotations.

This was the fundamental reason she had sought out Wang Meiyu again today.

Initially, she had assumed that Wang Meiyu—no, the person behind the Diary—had given up after doing nothing for a month. In fact, the other party had explicitly written the word 'surrender' in the Diary, which was why they had remained inactive.

But facts proved that the other party was not surrendering at all; that person had simply chosen to endure until the day Class D faced its zero-point ending.

Those incredibly arrogant words were proof of that, and the crimson annotations left recklessly over her comments were a provocation.

...Truly damn it.

She had only left a single question mark, yet it had been covered by a pile of nonsense in that glaring red text.

It was absolutely intentional, a complete show of force against her, trampling her dignity underfoot.

What made it even more unbearable was not just that.

Annotating was one thing, but the text color was clearly different; surely no one would be stupid enough to think the added text was written by her.

What she couldn't stand was the number pulsing next to her own comment in the comment section.

'Like Count'

Sakayanagi Arisu recognized this thing.

A clenched fist, a thumb pointing high upward, the glaring symbol of a 'like'.

The number displayed above this symbol was '7'.

She no longer doubted what this number represented, as it was clearly not content that could be arbitrarily tampered with by the recorder.

In other words, there were at least 7 other people who could see the Diary and the comments, people who watched the Diary fabricate rumors and might actually believe them.

It couldn't possibly be worse.

Chapter 65: Shinomiya Kaguya is Troubled

Shinomiya Kaguya.

The eldest daughter of the Shinomiya Group, the ice-cold beauty known to everyone at Shuchiin, a top-tier student, and an athletic prodigy—she was, in the eyes of almost everyone, the ideal.

Logically speaking, a young lady of such standing should have no worries in the world.

But in reality, she had been incredibly restless for the past month.

"...Not writing again."

The reason lay in the Diary currently in her hands.

A month ago, it had appeared out of nowhere, invisible to everyone else, and had stuck to her like a stubborn plaster.

Whether she was waking up, eating, attending class, or commuting, the moment she reached out her hand, the Diary would inexplicably appear in her grasp.

At first, she thought she was simply ill and suffering from hallucinations.

But after many attempts, she realized this was no hallucination, but some incomprehensible supernatural phenomenon.

After hesitating for a long time, she finally chose to open the Diary.

And then, she saw the... "gibberish" written on it?

A mess of nonsensical ramblings, seemingly directed at students from another school, and the subject of these messages was, by default... Advanced Nurturing?

Shinomiya Kaguya certainly knew of Advanced Nurturing; as a school designed to cultivate expendable resources for the upper echelons, it held a certain level of notoriety among their circles.

But clearly, no true person of power would ever actually send their own kin to attend school alongside the expendable tools destined to become nothing more than underlings.

...Unless it was like the Koenji Group, acting to forge closer ties between the politicians behind Advanced Nurturing and their own conglomerate.

Otherwise, Shinomiya Kaguya could not think of any reason why students like them would choose Advanced Nurturing over Shuchiin.

Between the trivial "privileges" and the ubiquitous "connections," everyone knew which was more important.

At least among the great families she knew, almost no one would dump their own heir into that high school.

Although the affairs of Advanced Nurturing had nothing to do with her, Shinomiya Kaguya, out of a sliver of curiosity and a basic sense of awe toward the supernatural, she tried reading the Diary carefully for a few days.

The content of the Diary was mostly related to people within Advanced Nurturing. Not being on the scene, it was honestly hard for her to understand what was being written, especially since, aside from the targeted exposure of certain people's dark histories, the Diary was filled with a large amount of incomprehensible, bizarre talk.

After reading the Diary for three consecutive days and observing no other special reactions—the Diary could not be destroyed, reading it had no effect on her own mind or body, and she felt no gain in any special power—Shinomiya Kaguya didn't feel she had gained anything.

She had assumed the Diary was truly just as it seemed: something that existed to expose things for the recorder.

Then, she saw the entry for the fourth day.

'I still cannot forget that one sentence from the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family: "I want to be a photographer."'

...?

Who?

The eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family, the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family...

Isn't that just me?!

It is common knowledge that the head of the Shinomiya Family, Shinomiya Gan'an, has three sons, but there is only one who can be called "the eldest daughter."

That is her, Shinomiya Kaguya.

Shinomiya Kaguya had never imagined that a diary from as far away as Advanced Nurturing could possibly mention her out of the blue, let alone contain content that would pique her curiosity so intensely.

"Photographer"... what on earth is that supposed to mean?

She couldn't help but want to scream, couldn't help but want to demand answers.

But the Diary would not give her any response.

This was something she had already confirmed long ago.

The only feedback the Diary ever gave was the cold, echoing voice of "Reading points plus one" that rang in her ears every day after she finished reading.

She had no way to satisfy her curiosity.

Normally, the simplest and most direct way to satisfy curiosity would be to rush into Advanced Nurturing, find the owner of the Diary, and drag them out for questioning.

Setting aside whether the owner of the Diary was truly a first-year student at Advanced Nurturing, the key point was...

She couldn't do it.

Even though she was the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya Family, she had no real power.

She was like a super-doll, meticulously packaged and showered with all sorts of affection, but that was all it was—affection.

Despite looking down on Advanced Nurturing in her heart, she truly had no way to intervene in the school's affairs.

The only thing she could do was dispatch the only talent she had at her disposal: the super-maid, Hayasaka Ai.

"My lady, you don't actually expect me to be able to do something like that, do you? I'm a maid, not Doraemon." Although she said this with an expressionless face, Hayasaka Ai eventually brought her a list of students enrolled in Advanced Nurturing this year.

She knew Hayasaka Ai would come through!

She didn't count on infiltrating Advanced Nurturing; if she really made Hayasaka Ai go through the trouble of sneaking in to find someone who hadn't left a single clue, that wouldn't be a task—it would be a punishment game.

But as long as she had the list, she believed that with her own intelligence, she would surely be able to identify the person's true identity based on the clues that might appear in the Diary's future records!

That's right, she was going to join the game of hide-and-seek that the other party had declared on the very first day!

As an audience member from the sidelines.

Shinomiya Kaguya's fighting spirit was ignited.

On the first day, Shinomiya Kaguya was full of imposing momentum; on the second day, Shinomiya Kaguya showed slight signs of flagging; on the third day, Shinomiya Kaguya's brain crashed.

Ever since the 3rd, when he mentioned her and then said he needed some time to settle down, the other party seemed to have suddenly calmed down, starting to write a diary that contained absolutely no information in a perfunctory manner.

For over ten days in a row, it was either "nothing happened today," "I want to touch legs," "what should I eat tomorrow morning," or other foolish nonsense like whether or not to have a late-night snack.

The writing completely lacked the grand, domineering feeling it had when he first declared war.

...It was simply impossible for anyone to find the other party's identity using such meager clues.

The more she looked at the later diary entries, the more Shinomiya Kaguya realized that counting on finding the other party's identity was already an impossible task.

Therefore, she changed her strategy.

As a member of the Shinomiya Family, she shouldn't waste too much effort on meaningless things.

Rather than waiting for the other party to slip up, it was better to hope that the other party would suddenly have a lapse in judgment and, as if under her control, start scribbling down the actual ins and outs of "I want to become a photographer."

Thus, today, Shinomiya Kaguya was also waiting in high spirits for the diary to write about her.

...Oh, wait, no.

She was feeling troubled about something else.

"Why! Won't you let me leave a comment!"