As long as he came to her, he could ask her to lead the class. In return, she would give him the greatest assistance she was authorized to provide.
So Chabashira-sensei waited another three days, and naturally, nothing happened.
Still, there had been a little progress for the students.
The study group had finally gotten underway.
As the group leader, Nakano had started tutoring the struggling students.
"You've all seen the class's grades. My score speaks for itself, so I won't say anything else. If you want better grades, do problems, do problems, do problems."
"Do more problems. The more you do, the more you'll learn." Group Leader Nakano delivered his little speech. "Can't solve them? Then can't you memorize the answers?"
The group members soon discovered, to their dismay, that Group Leader Nakano had brought them a mountain of problems.
But it wasn't long before—
"I think you should start with the basics," Nakano told Sudo. "Before you work on these problems, you need to dig out your junior high textbooks and study them again. The school library has copies you can borrow for free."
Nakano was fairly patient with Sudo, though not because he wanted to help him grow or anything like that.
In the original story, Sudo was Class D's top athlete. He was an all-around talent in sports—in other words, unless his opponent was a monster, they basically couldn't beat him.
That level of skill was enough to threaten the upper classes.
So whenever Sudo competed in a sporting event, students from Class A would be tense and take it seriously. If Nakano then showed off a level of athletic ability beyond Sudo's, the students in Class A would surely learn to adapt.
It was hard enough dealing with one cheat, and now there was a monster, too? How were they supposed to win?
Then all Nakano had to do was present himself as an easygoing guy. He could avoid competing, take it easy, and still collect money from three classes.
So, Sudo, keep digging deeper into your athletic potential and give Classes A, B, and C a taste of what you can do. The more pressure you put on them, the more likely Nakano will be able to collect money and sit back.
"I have to read the textbooks myself?"
"Do you think you can solve these problems? You need a foundation for a lot of this," Nakano Yuu said. "Cramming at the last minute won't save you. You probably think you're great at sports, but you have to understand that if you fail even one exam at this school, you'll be expelled. Would you be okay with getting expelled before you've even had a chance to show off your athletic ability?
"And there's a Special Exam every month now. Maybe next month won't be a written test, but what about the months after that? Are you sure you'll be safe?"
"So while you're still a first-year, you should start working on the basics and improving your academic ability. No matter how good you are at sports, you still need a certain level of academic ability to back you up."
Nakano didn't mince words.
Uh...
Sudo thought Nakano Yuu's advice sounded a little harsh, but when he thought about it, it made sense.
His goal was to develop his athletic ability. He wanted to use the one thing he was good at to climb the ranks.
"Then I'll go read some textbooks, too." Seeing Sudo go to pick out junior high textbooks,
Kanji Ike gave up at once. He'd picked up the mountain of problems but had no idea where to start.
"Um, I'll go look for some textbooks, too." After managing twenty problems, Sotomura quickly stood up.
His grades were actually a little better than Sudo's and Ike's, so he could have kept going for a while. But Sudo and Ike had both left, and there were only two girls left here besides Nakano.
Uh...
Was he supposed to talk to the girls?
He might have chatted with Yamauchi and the others about things like the girls' bust-size rankings, but he'd hardly ever spoken to a girl directly.
The awkwardness and nerves hit him at once.
So he quickly chose to make his escape.
"..." ×3
The study group had started with six people, but half of them had left in no time.
"These problems—" Unlike Ike and Sudo, Nakano Yuu's study group had a hidden top student, in addition to Sakura, who was working through the problems with a pained expression.
Matsushita stared at the mountain of problems Nakano had brought. She found quite a few of them difficult—not the sort of problems struggling students could handle easily.
Then she realized that he wasn't looking at her at all.
"Study on your own," he said. "I'm sure you can pass the exam."
"..." Matsushita Chiaki.
6.
Less than half an hour after arriving at the library, Matsushita had already felt the difference in how she was being treated.
Back when Sudo and the others were still there, Sakura had asked questions, too, and he'd answered them in great detail.
But with her, it was just, "Study on your own. I'm sure you can pass the exam."
Did he literally believe in her abilities, or did he just not want to deal with her?
If it was the former, then her grades were only average, and hardly enough to guarantee her safety. Or had he noticed she was hiding her academic ability?
After all, Nakano was a super-genius. Maybe people who were good at studying were especially sensitive to grades and could spot other top students.
So... had he figured her out? How had she given herself away?
Matsushita couldn't tell what he meant, but her social awareness was decent.
She'd already noticed that Nakano Yuu had lent Sakura 30,000 points at the start of the month, and that Sakura often snuck glances at him in class.
Now, in a corner of the library, there were only her, Nakano, and Sakura. It was a pretty unusual situation.
If she kept sitting there, she'd look like the one behaving strangely.
And so—
In just an hour, the six-person study group had gone through defections, fallen apart, and learned to take a hint, until only two people were left together.
"I have no idea how to solve these two problems."
"I think I might need to start with junior high, too..." Sakura finally looked up, her face full of disappointment.
Then she noticed something strange.
"Where... where did everyone go?"
How had it ended up with just her and Nakano here? W-wasn't that basically a boy and girl alone together?
Waaah!
She was absolutely not prepared for something like this!
Sakura felt like she was turning into a steam engine.
P.S. Today's update.
P.S. The website's system will be updated tomorrow morning, and I won't be able to access the author's backend, so tomorrow's update will be at noon.
Horikita: I'm Starting to Understand Nakano Yuu!
Sakura soon turned into a steam engine.
Sakura had always deliberately dressed down, but both Nakano and the readers knew she was a cute girl hiding her looks.
And when she blushed, her cuteness went up another notch.
Still, since it was study time, Nakano had to maintain the professional standards of a top student acting as a tutor.
So—
"Sakura, keep studying," Nakano Yuu said. "After we finish tutoring, I have something I'd like to ask you."
"I gave you all some fairly difficult problems today. I wanted you to get used to this level of difficulty. Once your academic ability catches up, you'll be able to solve problems like these with ease."
"Oh, I see." Sakura let out a little sigh of relief. She'd found all the problems difficult—much harder than the written entrance exam.
She couldn't solve most of them, even though she hadn't managed to solve many questions on the entrance exam, either.
Waaah.
She knew she was bad at studying.
So she obediently went back to the problems.
But about ten minutes later—
"Y-you want to ask me something?" Sakura suddenly looked up. "W-what can I do? I-I'm not ready at all!"
??
Sakura, what are you talking about? What do you need to get ready for?
He just wanted to ask you a few questions.
Nakano was pretty sure Sakura had misunderstood him, but this was a library, not the kind of place where she could get the wrong idea. So he said, "I just wanted to ask you about—"
"You know, right? This school has an absurd number of cameras," Nakano Yuu said.
"Mm, yes. There are at least two hundred cameras," Sakura replied, nodding quickly.
"..." Nakano Yuu.
But her answer made Nakano take a closer look at her.
So she'd actually counted them?
But it made sense that she'd pay attention to that sort of thing.
"Actually, Sakura was a print model in junior high, right?" Nakano asked.
"Th-th-th—"
This time, Sakura couldn't even get her words out properly.
"I-I—"
So he really had found out? He knew she'd been a print model before.
"I know everything about you," Nakano said. "And I deliberately arranged for us to be alone so I could talk to you."
"E-everything?" His words startled Sakura Airi.
"I-I'll be honest," she said.
Wait.
You're just going to be honest like that? Shouldn't you at least question him or doubt him a little?
"Do you think I'm the kind of person who'd find out someone's secret and use it to threaten them?" Nakano asked.
"Um..."
Faced with Nakano Yuu's question, Sakura Airi actually thought about it seriously before quickly shaking her head.
"I don't think you're that kind of person, Nakano," she said. "You've never looked at me in a strange way."
Really?
That line sounded familiar. Right—it was what Sakura said in the original story after she ran into trouble and the male protagonist rescued her.
It was also the line that showed her affection for him was growing.
But didn't that mean he'd already gotten under her skin?
Nakano didn't mind gaining a little admirer. In fact, he'd planned to do just that.
Besides—
He knew Sakura was a stunning beauty hiding her real appearance, and he also knew she secretly took selfies of herself.
Those photos didn't show the beautiful girl she really was, deliberately made to look plain like she did now.
That made him curious.
So at the very least, he should get her to lend him the photos to look at, right?
No.
Quickly suppressing that thought, Nakano said, "I don't mind that you're trying to keep a low profile right now. Everyone has their own way of living."
Before you continue