Does This Count as Randomly Winning Someone's Favor?

Who Did I Just Happen to Raise the Affection Level With?

Bang!

The desk flew straight at him.

"Y-You, what are you doing?!" Yamauchi jumped in fright. The desk had nearly fallen on him just moments ago.

"I'm just teaching you a lesson!" Nakano-kun said, his face expressionless. "You gossip about girls for no reason, and even lie just to satisfy yourself. Don't you think that makes you scum?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Yamauchi snapped, looking disgruntled. By then, he'd also noticed the whole class looking over, including Sakura, whom he'd lied about.

Whether from shame or anger, Yamauchi's face flushed red.

"Why are you defending her so much? Do you like her?" Yamauchi challenged him, unwilling to back down.

"So what if I do?" Nakano Yuu said, unfazed.

Yamauchi just kept muttering insults under his breath.

Ooh.

But the girls looked at Nakano-kun in surprise. His affection level had probably gone up by ten.

They hated it when the boys discussed the girls' looks and speculated about their bust sizes. So whether or not Nakano-kun liked Sakura, the fact that he'd stopped them—and even objected to what they were doing—made them feel like they'd found a clear spring in this garbage class.

Even Hirata-kun, who was so popular, hadn't stopped them.

"What are you all doing?!" Just then, their homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae, walked in, her face expressionless.

She took in the disorderly classroom.

"Nothing."

Noticing that the woman had arrived and that her gaze had landed on him, Nakano Yuu hurried back to his seat.

However, the girl sitting beside him greeted him of her own accord.

It was Horikita Suzune. She'd been as cold as ice earlier and hadn't even looked at him after he entered the classroom.

"I didn't expect you to act so impulsively," Horikita said, somewhat surprised by his reaction. She didn't believe Nakano-kun when he said he liked Sakura. The only thing he liked was money.

This guy had cheated her out of a full 80,000 points yesterday. She knew that very well.

And what he'd done just now was probably out of a sense of justice.

But did someone who squeezed money out of his classmates just to cover his living expenses really have a sense of justice? That was what left Horikita conflicted.

"Sometimes I act on impulse, too," Nakano Yuu replied.

Then he stood up and said to Chabashira-sensei, "Teacher, I'd like to report that these guys were ranking the girls in our class by bust size."

Are you a little kid?

You're reporting something like that to the teacher?

The boys who'd taken part in the poll instantly felt their scalps prickle.

Chabashira-sensei's expression darkened in an instant.

It looked like she was angered by the boys' filthy behavior.

Nakano-kun knew very well that their class was probably about to lose a huge number of points again because of this.

That was why Chabashira's face had darkened.

She must have completely given up on Class D.

So, going by what he remembered, Chabashira Sae usually let the students study on their own during homeroom, and sometimes didn't even come to class. Why had she made a point of coming in today?

It wasn't even her history class next period.

So, thanks to Nakano-kun's little report, the boys who'd taken part in the poll were made to stand for the whole morning study period.

He might have earned the dislike of those garbage classmates, but Nakano-kun thought it had been worth it.

First of all, stopping Yamauchi had partly come from a sense of justice, but he'd also had another reason.

For example:

Sakura-kun being put in an awkward position after Yamauchi singled her out was one thing. More importantly, Nakano-kun had watched the anime, so he knew very well that Sakura-kun was only making herself look plain. She was actually quite cute—so cute that she could hold her own against Ichinose Honami of Class 1-B, the school beauty of their year in the original story.

He was an ordinary high school student. It would've been strange if he didn't have at least a few thoughts about her.

At least, Nakano-kun had confirmed that he was perfectly normal that morning.

And, well, they were high school students. Even if you weren't dating, spending time with pretty girls still made for a nice school life, didn't it?

Besides, he felt a little sorry for her.

Nakano-kun still remembered that, in the original story, this Sakura-kun had been expelled by the protagonist. It had been truly awful. She was a good girl who'd done nothing to betray her class, and she'd trusted the protagonist so much, yet when someone had to be expelled, he'd tossed her aside without a second thought.

How cruel.

Nakano-kun didn't approve of that approach. And fortunately, Ayanokoji-kun hadn't enrolled, so Sakura-kun wouldn't have to suffer such a tragic fate.

So, had he raised her affection level?

After Chabashira-sensei left, her face dark as she ordered the boys to stand, Nakano-kun suddenly turned toward Horikita-kun.

?

Horikita Suzune looked over.

No, not at you.

Nakano-kun noticed Sakura Airi sitting to Horikita's right. She was holding up a book, her gaze directed toward him. Their eyes seemed to meet by chance, and Airi lowered her head.

But Nakano-kun had only glanced over by chance. Which meant she'd actually been looking this way for quite a while.

Oh.

Hey.

Come to think of it, he seemed to have raised her affection level too much.

Then Nakano-kun realized that Sakura-kun had been staring at him for the entire homeroom period.

"Nakano-kun."

When homeroom ended and their short break began, someone stopped Nakano Yuu. It was Hirata Yousuke, one of the popular boys in class.

With his light green hair and handsome features, he was excellent in every way, from his personality to his athletic ability and academic performance.

He always helped mediate between classmates, to the point that some students called him Hirata Mom.

"Nakano-kun, you have a strong sense of justice," Hirata-kun said. "I like you. I'll talk to Yamauchi and the others, so don't worry. I won't let them come after you."

"..."

No, no. He really wasn't worried about trouble from Yamauchi and the others.

And as for boys liking him, he didn't want that.

Probably thanks to Hirata's intervention, the boys who'd ranked the girls didn't go out of their way to pick on Nakano Yuu over the next two days.

Nakano-kun was perfectly happy to enjoy the peace and quiet.

He took out his phone. Horikita Manabu had already been added as a friend.

Once they were friends, Nakano-kun immediately made use of the GPS function, checking the other guy's location several times. He was either in the third-year building or the Student Council Office.

It looked like Chabashira had indeed given him the right number.

And Ryuuen, the easy mark Nakano-kun had deliberately contacted, had indeed gotten things done.

When he arrived in class that morning, he heard his female classmates discussing the problems the students in Class A were having.

Apparently, someone had been sending them spam messages during class, and they'd also gotten prank calls the afternoon before yesterday.

During the same class, several students' phones had started ringing. It had created a very unpleasant atmosphere.

Then, after class, some students from Class C had followed them around. The Class C students hadn't actually done anything to them, but being followed constantly had worn them down both mentally and physically.

And yesterday afternoon, an A-class student had finally lost patience and attacked Ryuuen from Class C.

Once someone had thrown a punch, there was no way things could end peacefully.

By the end of the first month, Class A's remaining class points would probably be lower than they'd been in the original story.

It seemed that even the excellent Class A had its share of dead weight.

He was thinking about this when—

"Tomorrow's the end of it," the black-haired girl sitting beside him suddenly said as school let out that afternoon.

Nakano-kun understood what she meant. Tomorrow would mark the end of the Behavioral Norms Exam for their first month at school, and the school would reveal its true nature to all the new students.

The information Nakano-kun had obtained just before the deadline would also become old news—common knowledge that everyone had heard.

"Probably," Nakano Yuu said. "Chabashira-sensei's history class ended this morning, and she seemed even more halfhearted than usual."

"...Mm." Horikita Suzune nodded.

Horikita's impression was that Chabashira-sensei had completely given up.

And that resignation probably meant she had no hope left for the class.

She knew the specific reason. If everything really happened as Nakano Yuu had said, then tomorrow their class's evaluation score would drop from its original 1,000 points to zero.

That had to be unprecedented in the school's history.

As the homeroom teacher of a class like that, Chabashira wouldn't have anything to be proud of.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow," Nakano Yuu said.

He was looking forward to the Student Council President reaching out to him of his own accord after that common knowledge was announced tomorrow.

After all, he had plenty of living expenses, but it still wasn't enough.

So—

"Want to go shopping together tomorrow evening?" Nakano-kun invited Horikita Suzune.

"Shopping?" Horikita furrowed her brow slightly.

"You know I'm collecting living expenses. When I buy things, I have to carry a lot of shopping bags myself, so sometimes I'd like someone to help me with them."

In other words, he was short a bag carrier and needed someone to help.

"Of course, I'll pay you," Nakano Yuu said.

So he didn't need help; he wanted to hire someone?

Horikita was about to say that she wouldn't accept handouts, but then she remembered that if their class evaluation score really was zero when it was announced tomorrow, they wouldn't get any living expenses next month or even the month after.

The school would provide humanitarian aid, but there were still things she'd need money to buy.

And the fewer than 2,000 points she had on hand really wouldn't be enough.

"I understand," Horikita Suzune said stiffly.

Nakano-kun didn't care about her attitude. What mattered wasn't how she felt, but that she'd be going with him tomorrow evening.

Thinking about this—

Nakano Yuu suddenly looked toward Horikita Suzune, as if he'd remembered something, but Horikita's expression didn't change.

She'd probably figured out that when Nakano Yuu looked over sometimes, he wasn't looking at her, but at Sakura Airi, who sat beside her.

Even though school was over, Sakura-kun hadn't left. She'd opened a book and was reading. It looked like she was absorbed in it, but if you watched closely, you'd notice her ears seemed to twitch now and then, as if she were eavesdropping.

Of course, the reason Horikita thought that was that Sakura was holding her book upside down. She was clearly more interested in something else.

Well, well. Was she listening in on his conversation with Horikita-kun?

And just as though she'd realized the two of them had stopped talking, Sakura-kun glanced over. When she noticed Nakano-kun's gaze sweeping her way, her whole body stiffened.