So.
Nakano decided to keep ignoring Chabashira.
"Just now." But at that moment, the person sitting beside him spoke up. "Chabashira-sensei seemed to send you some kind of signal."
?
What signal?
Nakano Yuu turned to look at Horikita Suzune.
Apparently understanding his confusion from his expression, Horikita added, "I saw Chabashira-sensei tap your shoulder lightly three times."
Oh.
So she'd seen that.
But didn't Horikita usually pay close attention in class? Even when he often looked at her during lessons, she never noticed. Yet Chabashira-sensei had only put a hand on his shoulder, and Horikita had spotted it.
Still, Nakano knew that Horikita and Chabashira-sensei had a lot in common. Chabashira was like a grown-up Horikita, so perhaps he could work backward from Horikita to figure out a few things about Chabashira.
But Horikita was still rather innocent, nowhere near as crafty as Chabashira-sensei.
So she needed some training.
"What do you think the teacher was signaling when she put her hand on my shoulder just now?" Nakano Yuu asked.
"Maybe she wanted you to follow her... No, wait. Probably that you should go see her when you have time," Horikita replied.
"If she'd only tapped your shoulder once, it might have been an accident, or maybe she wanted you to follow her right away."
"But three times probably meant she had something in mind," Horikita said.
Oh, oh, oh.
So you did understand after all.
"Then," Nakano said, turning to Horikita, "let's run a test."
"?"
Horikita's pretty brows furrowed slightly. Nakano picked up the eraser on his desk and handed it to her.
"Pretend you found my eraser, then give it back to me," Nakano Yuu said.
"..." Horikita.
Horikita Suzune had no idea what he was trying to do, but she placed the eraser back on Nakano's desk. As she was about to withdraw her hand, she suddenly felt a large hand press down on the back of it.
Then.
Tap, tap, tap.
His fingers tapped the back of her hand three times.
At that moment, Nakano withdrew his hand, freeing Horikita's left hand.
She kept her expression blank.
Nakano, meanwhile, looked a little confused.
"I just tapped the back of your hand three times too, but I know I was just touching you. So does that mean Chabashira-sensei..." Nakano Yuu paused, then added, "Was she trying to touch me too?"
"..." Horikita.
Horikita's gaze sharpened for an instant, then turned bewildered.
She'd thought Chabashira-sensei might have wanted Nakano Yuu to go see her, perhaps because she had something to tell him.
But Chabashira-sensei hadn't said so outright.
So.
Maybe Nakano's guess was right—but wouldn't that mean Chabashira-sensei was a pervert?
"Still, Chabashira-sensei isn't that kind of person," Nakano Yuu said. "So I wasn't that kind of person just now either. You can't think I'm a pervert."
"All right, you're free now," Nakano Yuu said.
"..." Horikita.
What kind of test had that been, anyway?
It hadn't been a test at all. Nakano had realized Chabashira-sensei had touched him and, feeling it was unfair, had taken it out on her not-yet-grown-up counterpart.
Unlike Nakano's attempt to disarm her, Chabashira left the classroom after finishing her lesson and returned to the faculty office.
The office was spacious. As homeroom teachers at the school had to stay with their students until graduation, the school gave them certain benefits.
For example, this office was reserved exclusively for the homeroom teachers of the four classes.
When Chabashira arrived, she went straight to her seat.
She was feeling conflicted.
That was right.
She was also a graduate of this school. She was from the twelfth cohort, while the students were from the seventeenth—five cohorts apart. But she'd started school early, so she was only thirteen years older than them. This year was her twenty-ninth birthday.
She'd been in Class D, but through the whole class's hard work, they'd risen to Class C and even reached Class B. In the end, though, her mistake had cost them their chance to compete for Class A.
Her classmates had blamed and resented her, but all of that had stopped when they graduated.
Everyone had gone their separate ways. Life went on, after all. There was no use dwelling on the past.
She'd relied on her excellent academic record and studied hard for her entrance exams, managing to get into a prestigious university. Then she decided to become a teacher and returned here.
She'd already led three cohorts of Class D. She'd once been a Class D student, and now she was the homeroom teacher of Class D. She saw nothing wrong with that. But watching her students remain clueless, watching them fall behind, watching them shrink from every challenge, watching them eventually get expelled—
Many of them were still capable students who'd been placed in Class D because of some particular issue, yet in the end, they too had failed to escape expulsion.
It seemed unfair to her. The system itself was flawed. Had the initial class assignments really been right?
She thought deeply about these matters.
Fiercely.
In the end.
She found herself with a wish—or perhaps it was a stubborn hope she'd never let go of.
She wanted the students of Class D to prove themselves, to rise up, and even to succeed.
Of course, deep down, she also regretted, felt sorry, and lamented that her own actions had cost her former class the chance to move up.
As an adult, she knew all too well that the past couldn't be changed.
So.
Unlike her, she hoped that a student from Class D could accomplish what the students in her own Class D had failed to do.
Reach Class A.
She might not get to see it happen while she was a homeroom teacher, but just before this cohort arrived, the Chairman had told her:
This year's new students were very different, and several students in this year's Class D were unusual.
Could that mean this cohort was worth hoping for? That they might break free of Class D's constraints?
So.
She'd let them do whatever they wanted, adopting a hands-off approach.
As expected of Class D, they'd managed to lose a thousand points—or possibly even more—in just one month, despite being given complete freedom.
When she confirmed the results, she was practically stunned.
It was the worst score any Class D had ever gotten.
But.
Now she'd found it. She'd realized that there were indeed several unusual students in this class.
And the most unusual one right now was Nakano Yuu. He'd entered using a special admission certificate—in other words, he'd gotten in through connections.
That wasn't entirely impossible. Even Ikusei High School wasn't completely immune to such things.
This student had called her of his own accord during the first month. She'd thought he must be one of the unusual students the Chairman had mentioned, and that he might be worth having faith in. But before long, she'd found his performance mediocre. He'd spent all his points and even broken one of the school's security cameras.
In other words, he really had gotten in through connections.
She'd basically given up on him.
Then, a few days ago, she'd suddenly had a thought. This year's Class D students had performed worse than any other cohort—even their class evaluation score had dropped to zero.
But.
Couldn't it be a case of being driven into a corner and then fighting their way out? It was hard for the class to unite, but now that they had no living expenses, they might naturally come together to earn money and work together during exams.
So perhaps it could be a blessing in disguise.
That was why she'd stepped in when Hirata wanted to assess the students' academic performance.
She'd given Hirata the entrance exam papers. Because of Nakano's special admission certificate, she hadn't received his written exam results.
So she decided to try again.
And she wasn't disappointed. He hadn't simply been incapable and gotten in through connections. This guy really was talented. In the updated written exam results, he'd scored above 95 in every subject, and grades like that couldn't be achieved through studying alone.
That bolstered her confidence.
Perhaps this guy could lead Class D.
Yes. If Nakano Yuu was very capable, then maybe his performance last month had been an act. Perhaps Nakano had deliberately come across as mediocre.
Mediocre Nakano Yuu.
Generally speaking, someone who wanted to seem ordinary was usually superlative.
She didn't care that Class D was now more than eight hundred points behind Class A.
The gap had to be large enough to close, and they had to actually close it. Only a Class D that managed that could hope to stay in Class A through graduation. Otherwise, they wouldn't even be able to hold on to the points they had.
During the exam, though, Nakano Yuu had made a rather puzzling move. He'd pressed down on her hand and tapped the back of it three times.
It seemed like some kind of signal.
Did that mean he also wanted to move up a class? With such excellent grades, yet stuck in Class D, he must want to advance. And he'd need some help along the way. As his homeroom teacher, she could offer assistance without breaking any rules.
At the time, she'd thought the guy might actually be quite clever.
And then.
Then nothing happened.
She'd spent the time wondering what he meant by tapping the back of her hand three times. Did he want her to contact him in three hours? At three in the afternoon?
Or at three in the morning?
But nothing came of it.
She'd spent the whole day watching her phone, but he made no attempt to message her.
Then.
Three days later, he still hadn't come.
So she started questioning everything.
She even wondered if Nakano Yuu's three taps on the back of her hand had meant nothing at all—or if he'd simply touched her hand.
"..."
But it wasn't right to make such assumptions about a student.
So she fell silent.
If he wouldn't come to her, she'd go to him.
So.
Today, she'd tapped his shoulder three times too. He knew what it meant.
Before you continue