The Second Period Was Nothing Special Either. After class came a long break, so they could rest a little longer. / Having a Chat with Hoshinomiya (Mid-Autumn Festival Bonus Chapter 2/8) ...

Kushida Kikyo looked at the message from Hoya and couldn't help pouting. He really does know how to order people around.

But Karuizawa?

Kushida Kikyo glanced at the delinquent girl chatting with some of their female classmates, then pursed her lips.

Why had he chosen her? Was it random, or had he singled her out?

Over the past few days, Kushida had gotten to know most of her classmates. She had a rough idea of Karuizawa's situation, too.

A pretty delinquent girl could wield a certain amount of influence, but not enough to be a threat. Otherwise, Kushida would have regarded her as one.

"Kushida? I wanted to ask you something..."

A classmate came over, and Kushida immediately greeted him with a warm, gentle smile. "Oh, sure. What did you want to ask?"

She seemed as busy as ever.

The break passed quickly, and before long, their second class began.

The second class wasn't anything special, either. Once it ended, they had a longer break and could rest a little more.

"Karuizawa? Do you have a moment?"

"Hm? Kushida? What's up?"

The delinquent girl hadn't expected Kushida to call out to her, so she turned to look. Kushida leaned in and quietly asked, "It's nothing much. I was wondering if you wanted to go to the bathroom together."

Going to the bathroom together was incredibly common among high school girls. Boys did it, too.

The bathroom wasn't really the point. It was a chance to chat along the way.

The school didn't have many students, but it was spacious, so going to the bathroom took a few minutes. The first-year bathrooms were especially crowded, so the two decided to use the one in the teachers' area. Students were allowed to go there, but it was farther away, so not many did.

Perhaps that was why Kushida wanted company. The walk was long, but going there and back together made it more bearable. The two girls chatted and laughed as they headed toward the bathroom, but...

"Hey! Don't you people watch where you're going?"

Karuizawa bumped into a girl. She'd been talking to Kushida and hadn't paid attention to what was ahead.

And so, she'd collided with the girl's shoulder.

"Ah, I'm sorry."

"Do you think saying sorry is enough?"

But the other girl didn't let it go just because Karuizawa apologized. Instead, she grew more and more aggressive.

Hearing those words—the very ones that could trigger her PTSD—Karuizawa's pupils widened. She couldn't help remembering what she'd gone through during her three years of middle school.

Bullying had been an inescapable part of her middle school life. She could still feel the wound on her abdomen aching faintly. She took a step back, but that small, timid movement only made the other girl bolder.

"Yeah. If saying sorry were enough, what would we need the police for?"

"Can one little apology really make up for what you did?"

"Oh, dear. Then if I say sorry, will that make it okay, too?"

The same words could have different effects depending on where they were spoken. If someone bowed to people who'd committed a grave offense but thought an apology was all they needed to do—people who'd dumped nuclear wastewater into the sea—then saying, "If saying sorry were enough, what would we need the police for?" would be perfectly reasonable.

But here, the words were just an excuse to start bullying her.

Did school bullying need a reason? Not really. Sometimes a stronger person simply took a dislike to someone weaker and started picking on them.

That was life. You could end up being bullied at any time.

Karuizawa's mouth hung open, but she couldn't say a word. The three girls were so intimidating that she could barely even speak.

"I... I..."

She could only make meaningless sounds, unable to form a single proper sentence, as she watched the three girls slowly close in on her. Sweat covered her body, but it did no good.

"You've got such a pretty face."

As one of the girls lightly scratched her cheek with a fingernail, Karuizawa's body began to tremble. Girls could be far crueler than boys when it came to bullying. At its worst, they might hit someone with a pipe; at its mildest, they might disfigure someone's face.

It wasn't as if people never had their faces disfigured by scratches. Boys might just beat someone up, but girls cared so much about their appearance that they were more likely to ruin it.

"Hey, you three! What are you doing?"

Suddenly, someone stepped in to stop them.

Karuizawa looked toward the newcomer. He was a man who didn't look particularly strong.

Even a man who wasn't especially strong had an advantage over a woman of the same build.

His voice was cold, and his eyes narrowed slightly. He held a book that had been rolled up. "You three. I remember Ryuen telling you not to cause trouble."

He lightly tapped the book against his hand, once after another, each beat pressing down on them. His appearance was a lifeline for Karuizawa.

"Get back. Remember what you should and shouldn't be doing."

"Yes."

Just a few words were enough to put an end to the bullying. The three girls slunk away, and Hoya walked over to Kushida. "Ah, sorry about that, Kushida. And sorry to you, too."

As he spoke, he looked at Karuizawa. "I'm really sorry. I didn't think anyone in my class would do something like that. Don't worry, I'll make sure you both get an explanation."

After saying that with ease, he said goodbye to the two girls and left. From the way he was headed, it looked like he was going to find a teacher.

"Who was that?"

Karuizawa asked Kushida, who was beside her. While supporting Karuizawa, whose legs were still weak and trembling, Kushida calmly answered, "Hoya. He's Class C's second-in-command."

That was right. She'd been calm. From the moment things had started, she'd watched it all as an outsider.

The three girls had clearly surrounded Karuizawa on purpose. And Kushida? Both Karuizawa and the three girls seemed to have forgotten she was there.

That made sense. It was a show targeting Karuizawa, and Kushida wasn't part of the plan. She was just the classmate who'd brought Karuizawa out.

In other words, it didn't matter who brought Karuizawa out, as long as the plan worked. Then Hoya could calmly swoop in and play the hero.

The rescue had been crude—so crude that it seemed completely natural, as if he'd simply been passing by, noticed what was happening, and chased the three girls off.

But from the victim's perspective, there was no doubt his simple actions would be romanticized.

Chapter 20: A Chat with Hoshinomiya (Mid-Autumn Festival Extra 2/8) "Second-in-command? Then who's the leader?"

"Ryuen Shoko, a woman who's really good at fighting. They say she won over the whole class with her fists. The only person who can sit on equal terms with her is Hoya. He can't be bothered to manage things, so Ryuen usually rules their class through force."

Kushida's words revealed one thing: Hoya being the second-in-command didn't mean he was inferior to the leader. He was just lazy, not incapable.

Kushida couldn't figure out why Hoya had chosen Karuizawa as his target.

She was a little stronger than the other useless girls in their class, but only to a limited extent. What did he want with her?

Isn't having me enough?

Of course, she meant as a pawn, not as a girlfriend.

For some reason, Kushida even seemed a little... jealous.

Perhaps what had happened the previous night had affected her deeply. Like someone with Stockholm syndrome, she seemed... a little infatuated with how it had felt.

Yesterday, she'd been terrified. But when she returned to her dorm and thought back to the way he'd pinned her to the ground like a hungry wolf, only to suddenly stop, she couldn't tell which side of Hoya was the real one.

The less she could tell, the more curious she became. And the more curious she became... well, she started to fall for him.

Ordinary women might have become wary after something like that. But how many people in this school's Class D were normal?

To be popular, they pretended to be sweet and gentle. To make someone keep a secret, they chose to get the other person's fingerprints on their chest. Anyone capable of that already had an inclination toward masochism in their subconscious.

When she'd pressed Hoya's fingerprints against herself, had she really never considered what might happen if he went through with it? Had she not been looking forward to it?

We couldn't know. But we did know that Kushida wasn't a normal girl. Her past was just as interesting.

Stopping a case of school bullying hadn't given Hoya any sense of accomplishment. After all, he'd arranged the bullying himself, and the three girls had been his plants. Their job had been to let him step in and play the hero.

Holding his phone, he messaged the three girls, telling them to carry out the final step. Then he transferred two thousand points to each of them as a reward. Now he felt like his heart was bleeding.

He needed to find a money tree...

That was all well and good, but it was only the first month. Where was he supposed to find a money tree? Which student had that many points?

So he wasn't looking at the students at all. He was looking at the teachers.

Kazuma Sakagami? He might be a decent choice. In this school, teachers could give students points. So Hoya could find an excuse to ask him for some. But this time, the person he wanted to approach wasn't Kazuma Sakagami.

Chabashira Sae would soon make her move, and Hoya naturally needed to come up with a countermeasure. There was only one person he could go to.

Hoshinomiya Chie, Class B's homeroom teacher. A cheerful, lively, popular female teacher.

If Chabashira Sae was a woman as cold as snow, Hoshinomiya was like warmth melting snow. But the two of them were like older versions of Kushida and Horikita. Beneath Hoshinomiya's gentle exterior was no considerate heart. On the contrary, she was even better at hiding herself than Kushida.

She didn't care whether Class B could become Class A. In her view, Class A would always be Class A, without exception. A temporary victory or defeat couldn't determine the final outcome. She and Chabashira Sae had once been close friends, but after they fought over a man... they'd become friends in name only.

If Chabashira Sae's goal was to make Class D become Class A and fulfill the dream she'd failed to achieve back then, Hoshinomiya's goal was simple: to make her friend truly understand her. Someone from Class D belonged in Class D and should stay there.

That made her someone worth approaching as an ally. Hoya had already teamed up with Ryuen Shoko. Why should he be afraid of her?

"Knock, knock, knock."

"Come in... Hm? You're from Class C, aren't you, Hoya?"

Hoshinomiya couldn't help looking surprised when Hoya entered the office.

She knew of Hoya. He was Class C's second-in-command. If Ryuen Shoko had put all of Class C in order, then Hoya was the follower who was always right behind her.

After all, the term had only been underway for three days, and it was hard to get a read on the boy. She'd only taught Class C twice so far, so she recognized him, but didn't know much about him.

"That's right, Sensei. I wanted to talk to you."

"Talk? Is something the matter? Is it really okay to come to me instead of talking to your own homeroom teacher?"

"Of course. I'd like to make a deal with you."

"Oh? A deal?"

The word piqued Hoshinomiya's curiosity. "What kind of deal do you want to make with a teacher?"

"Class C wants to cooperate with Class B, so I came to discuss the details with you."

Hoya knew Hoshinomiya and Chabashira didn't get along, but he couldn't say that. How would he explain where he'd gotten that information? Showing off might feel good, but there were some things he couldn't show off about. Otherwise, it would just cause trouble later.

So his reason for approaching Hoshinomiya was simply to propose an alliance—at least for now. Class D hadn't shown its fangs yet, so Hoshinomiya didn't consider it a threat. For the moment, he just wanted to make himself familiar to her. Then, when she started feeling threatened, she'd naturally think of Hoya.

"You can discuss that with your class representative. Why come to me?"

"No, no. I don't mean cooperation between Class B and Class C students. I mean cooperation between Class B and Class C, including the teachers."

As he spoke, Hoya looked around. "By the way, Sensei, this place is safe, right?"

"What are you worried about? There can't possibly be any surveillance cameras in the teachers' office."

"That's true. Then I'd like to discuss the cooperation between Classes B and C with you."

After taking a seat, Hoya briefly explained the details of the proposed cooperation between Classes B and C.

It wouldn't just be the students. The teachers would be involved, too. The two teachers wouldn't do anything under normal circumstances, but if Classes B and C came into conflict with Classes A and D, they'd provide some degree of cover for their own classes.

"You've said a lot, and it sounds good, but... what's in it for me?"

"Bringing Class A down and burying it in the dirt alongside Class D, so neither can ever recover. How does that sound?"

"I'll think about it."

Chapter 21: Let Me See! (Mid-Autumn Festival Extra 3/8) That pitch hadn't tempted Hoshinomiya. She had no particular interest in Class A; she only wanted to deal with Class D.

But she didn't reject Hoya, either. One thing he'd said had caught her interest: burying Class D in the dirt.

She didn't just want Chabashira to remain in Class D. She wanted her to be stuck in a miserable Class D. Trash deserved a trashy fate. They deserved to end up in the most miserable state imaginable.

It was appealing, but not enough to win her over.

Hoya knew that, too. More than anything, he'd come to make an impression. This money tree would remember their conversation sooner or later. Once Class D started to show some promise, she'd be more anxious than anyone.

"Fine, then. I'll see you next time, Sensei. I'm sure that day isn't far off."

After smiling and saying goodbye to Hoshinomiya, Hoya left the office.

"Hoya, huh? Heh. Interesting."

And so, the morning passed in a haze, and before long, it was lunchtime.

"Hm? What's this?"