So the monthly Special Exams had punishments too—even expulsion.
And this level of difficulty was actually an easygoing life in the eyes of that troublesome underclassman?
Did she have some kind of misunderstanding about what "easygoing" meant?
Or was the White Room just that much more difficult? As a White Room student, she naturally wouldn't care about the exams here. So this Amasawa girl was actually very strong, right?
So...
Perhaps she really could make a stunning impression in this midterm exam.
Kushida seemed to be feeling a little better, too.
[But it won't help for Kushida-senpai to ask me to tell you the strategies for passing every Special Exam.]
[Even though I came from two years in the future, I didn't take the Special Exams you had in your first year.]
[At most, I can give you a few pointers to help.] Amasawa Ichika added. She had already realized that this somewhat silly senpai seemed to be plotting something.
"..." Kushida.
She couldn't get the answers outright, but this was basically like getting a cheat code, wasn't it?
Kushida thought it was still a good deal.
As she thought about it—
"Then what did you mean about me being expelled? How did that happen?"
Kushida immediately asked about the part she cared about most.
"You said I was forced to leave school a month before you were expelled."
"Could it have been... Horikita—" Kushida's face turned pale again.
Did that mean Horikita Suzune had still exposed her past?
As expected, she couldn't feel at ease as long as Horikita Suzune was around.
[If you're worried about Horikita-senpai, then you can stop worrying.] But then Amasawa's voice rang out.
Her words left Kushida confused.
Because Amasawa said—
[The person who ultimately got you expelled was Nakano-senpai.]
"Nakano-senpai... By Nakano, do you mean—" Kushida focused intently.
[Naturally, I mean your classmate, Kushida-senpai: Nakano Yuu.]
"No way." Kushida found it unbelievable. "I haven't done anything to offend him."
[You didn't offend him. In fact, you and he had a pretty good relationship.]
A pretty good relationship?
[You're also quite famous among us first-years, because you're his little soft toy.]
Oh.
So that was it.
She was that famous among the first-years, huh?
So what kind of reputation did she have?
Wait.
A soft toy.
That abbreviation for "soft toy." Kushida's expression shifted rapidly. She thought she understood.
What?
What did you mean by that? Take it back right now.
She couldn't accept that at all.
At 7:45 the next morning, in the classroom.
It was the second day of a new month. Since the morning homeroom didn't seem likely to be taken up, going by the class's usual habits, someone ought to be absent or late.
But the students were still very concerned about the class evaluation score being reduced to zero, as announced the day before. So when Nakano arrived, he realized he was the last one to enter the classroom.
After hanging his schoolbag on the hook beside his desk, he took out his math textbook and set it aside, though he had no intention of looking at it.
He looked toward the front of the room.
There were still fifteen minutes before the eight o'clock homeroom. The students were relaxing or chatting with their friends.
A month had been enough for most students to form their own circles, and naturally, they now had people they could chat with.
They could talk about whatever they liked, but the rush to borrow money, like the one the day before, had already begun to die down.
After all, their classmates didn't have any money either.
Of course, there were still a few loose ends.
For instance, this.
"Hirata, please. I really don't have a single yen left."
Yamauchi and Ike came over to Hirata Yousuke and pressed their hands together. It was the classic "sumimasen" gesture, but they really were asking him for something.
They wanted Hirata to lend them money.
Well, if Hirata could lend them money, he would've done so already. He only had 2,000 points left for emergencies, and the boys knew that. But Yamauchi and Ike's request clearly wasn't as simple as that.
They wanted Hirata to find money for them. More specifically, they wanted him to ask some other well-off students to lend them money.
Clearly, they hadn't found anyone willing to help during the first wave of requests the day before.
But the class had no allowance right now. Even if someone had money, it would only be because they hadn't spent much last month and had saved it. And with next month looking just as bad, most people who were willing to lend had already done so yesterday. Today, nobody wanted to spend any more.
That was right—spend money.
Because lending money didn't mean it would come back to you right away. The other person might not be able to repay you immediately, and since they were in the same class, the situation was clear enough.
Just then—
"Actually..." Sudo seemed a little hesitant, but he still stepped forward. "If you join a club and become an official member, you can get 20,000 to 30,000 points a month from the school as a living allowance."
"The school seems to give more benefits to students with ability. Just join a club, and you'll have a chance!"
But—
"They have benefits like that? Then, Ken, hurry up and become a regular! I don't need much. Just lend me 10,000—just 10,000 points."
Yamauchi and Ike immediately grabbed Sudo, one on each side.
Nakano watched for a moment, realizing all he could do was cheer them on. What kind of thought process led to that conclusion?
Their good friend had offered them a way to earn living expenses, and all they wanted was to sit back and make him share half of it.
"But Kushida seems to be in a terrible mood today." Nakano's gaze soon shifted to someone else.
The little angel with short blond hair was sitting near the teacher's desk.
Kushida was chatting with her friends as usual.
"You can tell that kind of thing, too?" Horikita calmly flipped open her math book.
Actually, he could tell not only how Kushida was feeling, but often had a pretty good idea of how you, Horikita Suzune, were feeling as well.
Still, there really was something wrong with Kushida.
[You're pretty impressive, Kushida-senpai. You can chat with your friends and talk to me at the same time.]
Amasawa Ichika's voice rang out, and she realized she could indeed remain inside Kushida-senpai's body.
[I'm in a terrible mood right now,] Kushida said inwardly.
But she kept smiling as she chatted with her best friend, Wang Meiyu, about an idol drama they had both watched.
Girls usually talked about things like this: good food, fun, and TV shows. Then there was sitting together and badmouthing people they disliked. If they both disliked the same person, the conversation grew lively.
Wang Meiyu didn't have that latter bad habit, though, so Kushida found it easy to keep up with her.
But inwardly, she felt awful.
If you looked closely, you could even see a trace of fatigue on her face. It was a lingering effect of hearing the night before that Nakano Yuu had gotten her expelled.
Yes.
She'd been unable to sleep. She simply couldn't accept a future like that.
"You mean I got expelled because I got pregnant?"
Kushida had nearly gone mad the night before.
[That's right, Kushida-senpai. It was shocking that you got expelled for that reason.]
[The Student Council President at the time even used it as a cautionary example. After that, the school stopped selling condoms. (laugh)]
So the school had changed its policies because such an outrageous incident had occurred.
At first, the school must have tacitly allowed students to get involved with each other, and even provided contraception. But someone had actually gotten into trouble. Naturally, the school couldn't keep letting the students run wild. Every student had been specially selected to attend, so losing even one or two would be a waste.
"..." Kushida fell silent.
But what had she done to deserve being treated like this?
And to be expelled in such a humiliating way. That kind of dark history would definitely rival the one from middle school, when she had made her class fall apart.
"I can't imagine things ever getting like that between Nakano-kun and me," Kushida said stiffly.
[Who knows? But later on, I happened to hear you tell the story once. It started with the first semester's midterm exam.]
[You and Nakano-senpai had that hand-on-the-chest incident that went beyond friendship.]
"Hand on the chest?"
[You basically guided his hand onto your chest.]
"I'm not an idiot!" Kushida said. "There's no way that could happen, and I certainly wouldn't do it myself! I don't believe you!"
And so, their conversation ended.
"Everyone!"
Just then, Hirata stood up and walked from his seat to the front of the classroom.
Compared with the lingering money-borrowing frenzy in the class, Hirata's announcement was still about what they'd discussed the day before.
The written exams.
The midterm exams.
"I haven't gotten the exam outlines for the five subjects yet, but I got a short test from Chabashira-sensei."
"So I asked Chabashira-sensei if we could use homeroom for a study session. Then we can all work on this together," Hirata said.
So they were going to check everyone's academic level, then?
Before you continue