Undercurrents in Motion

He didn't know much about Matsushita Chiaki, only that she seemed to have a good relationship with Karuizawa Kei in the simulation, so he asked with interest:

What is it about Matsushita that you admire?

"Hmm, let me think, her style of doing things is probably a bit like Ayanokoji's."

"Ayanokoji?"

"There are only slight similarities. Ultimately, Chiaki's way of thinking is more like Ichinose's; she pays more attention to the atmosphere and the feelings of others."

Sakayanagi Arisu explained patiently.

"Her life has been relatively smooth from childhood to adulthood. She comes from a happy family, has a relaxed educational philosophy, and enjoys excellent conditions. In addition, she is quite talented and ranks among the top in both academics and sports."

Whether it was a misperception or not, Kitagawa Ryo could detect a deep sense of envy in Sakayanagi Arisu's tone.

"Parents are grateful for their children's excellence, and children are grateful for their parents' excellence."

"Chiaki's relationship with her parents is also harmonious and complementary. According to her own words, although it wasn't the best life, it was still a very lucky one. She will probably date step by step, and then marry a financially capable man after she grows up and start her own family."

Sakayanagi Arisu put down her teacup and said with a smile:

"Occasionally, teenage girls experience confusion, unsure of which path to choose for the future—an international airline or a large, top-tier company? She came to this school to broaden her future options, such as pursuing further studies at a top university overseas."

"If what Arisu says is true, then why was Matsushita assigned to Class D?"

Kitagawa Ryo listened for a long time but couldn't find the slightest flaw in the other person. If he had to find a comparison, perhaps he was somewhat similar to Hirata, who had never experienced his friend's suicide.

Matsushita Chiaki wasn't someone he deliberately placed in Class D, so what were the school's reasons for assigning her to Class D?

"If I had to say, it would be ambition, but that's not quite accurate. Let me think..."

Sakayanagi Arisu feigned deep thought, gently tapping her other hand with her cane.

"He's a boring person."

"However, for me, people who are particularly boring and people who are particularly interesting are essentially the same kind of people, so I really like Chiaki."

Sakayanagi Arisu somewhat brushed off the topic:

"Speaking of which, are you really not going to care about the class anymore?"

"From the perspective of other classes, Class D is currently a disorganized mess, full of loopholes. Putting aside everything else, if I wanted to target Class D, Sudo would be the perfect powder keg."

"Boom!"

Sakayanagi Arisu snapped her fingers in front of Kitagawa Ryo.

"Didn't you already have someone keeping an eye on him?"

Kitagawa Ryo glanced casually at Sakayanagi Arisu.

"It seems Liang hasn't completely given up after all."

Upon hearing Kitagawa Ryo's reply, Sakayanagi Arisu chuckled.

"So, you're saying you condoned those two idiots' actions?"

"More or less."

Kitagawa Ryo stood up and filled another kettle with water to boil.

He might know some of the reasons why Sakayanagi Arisu values Matsushita Chiaki so much, but perhaps Sakayanagi Arisu herself hasn't realized it yet, just like her attitude towards Kamuro Masumi back then—she cared, but not completely.

Parents are grateful for their children's excellence, and children are grateful for their parents' excellence.

Kitagawa Ryo let out a barely perceptible sigh. In this respect, neither he nor Sakayanagi Arisu had actually achieved anything.

For some reason, Chabashira Sae's mood suddenly improved these past two days, completely unlike her gloomy self of the previous days. Hoshinomiya Chie couldn't bear to see Sae's smiling face constantly flashing before her eyes, so she simply left the office and headed towards the infirmary.

Besides being the homeroom teacher for Class B, Hoshinomiya Chie also serves as the school nurse at Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School. However, she usually has another teacher to switch shifts with, especially during the busy period at the beginning of the school year, when she basically just goes to the infirmary to report for duty.

Hoshinomiya Chie was feeling rather down today, so she decided to go to the infirmary to clear her head by herself.

Using her key to open the infirmary door, Hoshinomiya Chie draped the white coat hanging on the rack inside over herself and tidied her hair and makeup in front of the mirror. Thinking back, it had been a long time since she had groomed herself like this since learning that Chabashira Sae had become the homeroom teacher of Class A.

Although she is often praised by her students for looking young, and they can't even recognize her as their homeroom teacher when she's standing in a crowd of students, Hoshinomiya Chie can still feel the passage of time on her face, especially after she started drinking every night to drown her sorrows recently, her complexion was noticeably worse than before.

Ten years have passed since I graduated from this school.

However, Hoshinomiya Chie very well that she had not yet moved on from that time ten years ago, or rather, she had not yet moved on from her hatred for Chabashira Sae.

Hoshinomiya Chie sighed, and just then, she heard a clear knock on the door.

The person who pushed open the door and walked in was none other than Yagami Takuya from the class.

"Are you feeling unwell, Yagami?"

Hoshinomiya Chie, however, did not forget her work. After straightening her collar, she sat down in front of Yagami Takuya and asked him in a friendly manner.

"I don't feel uncomfortable at all."

I've heard that Yagami Takuya is quite popular with the girls in the grade, Hoshinomiya Chie, resting her chin on her hand, seems to confirm this. After hearing that he's not feeling unwell, she lazily leans on the table and teases him:

"So those are the ones who come to the infirmary to slack off."

"That's because our homeroom teacher is also the school nurse."

Yagami Takuya lay down on the bed inside, casually pulling aside the curtain for privacy.

"So it's not unreasonable for students in our Class B to have some conveniences here, is it?"

Before Hoshinomiya Chie could react, she paused for a moment and explained:

"If you need some commonly used medications, the infirmary has plenty..."

That's not what I meant.

Yagami Takuya's voice carried a faint hint of laughter:

"I remember the homeroom teacher seemed to always want to bring Class A down, right?"

"Now there's a great opportunity!"

Hoshinomiya Chie felt her heart suddenly clench, all the blood rushing to her head, and her voice trembled slightly:

"What opportunity?"

Yagami Takuya paused, chuckled softly, and then said:

"Then we'll need your cooperation, class advisor."

As one of the two most outstanding students in the 5th generation of the White Room, Yagami Takuya was initially only assigned to the school as Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's assistant. However, for him, who had witnessed Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's failure several years ago, this was a very good opportunity.

Yagami Takuya took a deep breath and began to explain his plan to Hoshinomiya Chie, little by little.

He will prove himself to be the most successful one in the White Room.

"Drop out of school...?"

Horikita Manabu heard this somewhat troubling phrase again. This year's freshmen had only been in school for half a month, but this was already the second time he had heard the word "drop out" in his First Year.

The last time was when Sakura Airi used the incident of a school-hired staff member being a stalker as leverage to expel him from school and expose him, ultimately obtaining ten million Private Points as compensation and hush money from the school. However, since only the Student Council president, Horikita Manabu, who handled the matter, knew about it, it didn't cause much of a stir on campus. Most students didn't even notice that the electronics store in Keyaki Mall had a new employee, which was exactly what the school wanted.

"Yes."

The Student Council secretary, Tachibana Akane, who had been following Horikita Manabu closely, flipped through the documents in her hands and said with a serious expression:

"A large-scale brawl broke out Class 1-C and Class 1-D year."

Chapter 49: Undercurrents

"A large-scale fight broke out Class 1-C and Class 1-D year."

After saying this, Tachibana Akane paused, and Miyabi Nagumo, who was sitting to Horikita Manabu's right and dealing with club-related matters, looked up with interest and asked:

"Fights among freshmen have happened before, after all, these are lower-ranked classes like Class C and Class D."

Since neither of the two First Year Student Council members were in the Student Council today, Miyabi Nagumo had no qualms about it.

"If it were just a simple brawl, that would be fine."

Although Tachibana Akane disliked Miyabi Nagumo, she wouldn't show it openly. She continued, "..."

"What I just said was just the content of a whistleblower letter, a formal complaint filed by Tokito Yuya, a student in Class 1-C."

"It should be noted that the Student Council received four similar complaint letters that day, which can be summarized as follows:"

An anonymous report alleges a conflict between Class 1-A and Class 1-D, which appears to have escalated into violence.

"Ryuen Kakeru from Class 1-C, has filed a formal complaint alleging serious violence within Class 1-C and requests the Student Council's intervention."

"And... Katsuragi Kohei from Class 1-A has filed a formal complaint against two students from Class 1-D for framing and defrauding Class 1-A, and is demanding that the Student Council make a ruling on Yamauchi Haruki and Kanji Ike from Class D."

Even the well-informed Horikita Manabu Miyabi Nagumo were completely bewildered by Tachibana Akane's series of words:

"It feels so messy."

"What exactly happened? Who is the victim?"

Faced with Miyabi Nagumo's question, Tachibana Akane shook her head in distress:

"The truth of the matter has not yet been fully investigated. Judging from the contents of the four whistleblower letters..."

"Each party claims to be a victim."

"If we analyze the four letters together, the earliest point in time for the incident should be two days ago, on April 16th."

"Hey, you two, are you up yet?"

Ken Sudō rubbed his eyes, woken by the vibration of his phone beside his pillow. He glanced at it and saw that it was a message from Kanji Ike, a classmate, in their group chat.

He didn't have many friends in class, except for Kanji Ike and Yamauchi Haruki, with whom he was relatively close. Although he had heard that the girls in the class secretly called the three of them the "Toki Idiots Trio," Ken Sudō didn't really care.

It was 6:00 AM on April 16th. Ken Sudō was a little puzzled as to why Kanji Ike had woken up so early. Unlike himself, who had joined the Basketball Club and needed to go for morning runs, the two of them would always sleep until the school bell rang before lazily getting up to go to the classroom, since the teachers wouldn't care anyway.

He casually sent an emoji to indicate that he was awake, and Kanji Ike responded with a second message:

"Actually, I found some really great desserts last night."

"So full you can't sleep?"

"Idiot, no, it's the kind of snack men want, you know what I mean?"

Kanji Ike sent a winking emoji, and Ken Sudō realized what it meant after a moment's thought.

I don't know if the keywords triggered something, but Yamauchi Haruki actually replied to the message:

"I'm telling you, Chi, you're becoming more and more boring as a man."

"How can you not share this treat with me?"

"I definitely won't forget you, I've already sent it."

Although Ken Sudō wasn't particularly interested, he still clicked on the link posted by Kanji Ike with a bit of skepticism, and the content of the link quickly appeared on his phone screen.

The woman who appeared was in her twenties and looked like a school nurse. Her distinctive uniform hugged her mature breasts and slender waist, along with her perfectly proportioned buttocks. Her hot figure was contrasted by her face, which looked as young as a high school student.

"Oh, is this a new work?"

Yamauchi Haruki sent out the message with great excitement.

"She's a teacher at our school, the homeroom teacher for Class 1-B, and also the school nurse."

Kanji Ike also responded excitedly:

"Think about it calmly, isn't this super easy to fantasize about? It's both the homeroom teacher and the school nurse, and they're real people around us. If you pair them with this picture, you can let your imagination run wild."

"To make matters worse, our homeroom teacher is a robust, middle-aged man. What bad luck!"

"Let's go to the infirmary together today since we're free!"

"Teacher, I'm not feeling well, could you give me a special check-up?"

Ken Sudō propped his head up and watched Kanji Ike and Yamauchi Haruki exchange lewd jokes. He got out of bed and stretched.

Compared to what they were passionate about, Ken Sudō only cared about his basketball. Although he had only been in the Basketball Club for half a month, he had already stood out among the freshmen of the same year, and even the coach valued him highly.

However, besides him, Kito Hayato from Class First Year -Class 1-A- year students. Although Sudo believed that his skills were superior to his, he would always lose his temper due to the opponent's provocations and make rash and basic mistakes. This was something the coach had been constantly reminding him to correct.

Holding the basketball hanging on the wall, Ken Sudō began his morning run.