Shinjo Kiyotaka Ayanokoji

"Shinjo! What are you doing?! Why are you stopping me?!"

"I'm just giving you a chance to think this through. You don't want to get expelled for violence and end up with nowhere to turn."

"I..."

Seeing that Sudo seemed to have calmed down a little, Shinjo took a couple of steps toward Yamawaki.

"You, from Class C, shouting here won't do you any good. Whether you believe it or not, our class will pass this exam without a hitch."

"You! And who are you supposed to be? Stop spouting nonsense. You think you're..."

Before he could finish, one of the students beside him leaned in and whispered in his ear:

"Hey, did you hear him? That big guy called him Shinjo..."

Yamawaki's expression changed when he heard that. "Y-You're that damn Shinjo Kiyotaka Ayanokoji?!"

Ayanokoji: ??????

Ayanokoji stared at Shinjo, utterly baffled. He didn't know what was going on, but Shinjo was definitely involved somehow.

To have the students from Class C suddenly hold a grudge against him was definitely not a good thing.

"Um, I'm Kiyotaka Ayanokoji..."

"Who cares who you are?! Everyone named Ayanokoji or Shinjo is rotten!"

"I..."

That was enough to reignite Sudo's anger after he'd only just managed to calm down. Insulting his best friend right in front of him was like insulting his father—a disgraceful act!

"I think you really are asking for a beating! Shinjo, don't stop me! I'm gonna teach him a lesson!"

"Come on! Come on! If you don't fight me, you're no man!"

"I'll show you just how much of a man I am!"

Sudo raised his fist and swung. Ayanokoji hurriedly pulled his chair aside and prepared to step in, when...

"Enough! Stop it!"

This time, it wasn't Shinjo who interrupted Sudo, but another girl who had been reading nearby.

"Y-You. Who are you?"

"Who I am doesn't matter. As a student using the library, I can't just ignore this disturbance. If you insist on using violence, please take it outside."

(In the original novel, Ichinose's hair was described as blonde in this part, but it looked pink in the anime. I'll call it rose gold for consistency.)

"Also, you from Class C, your words were a bit out of line. If you keep harassing students from other classes, I'll have to report what happened to the school."

Yamawaki from Class C seemed to know the girl. Seeing that she was determined to intervene, he had no choice but to call off today's business.

"Ichinose... Fine, we'll do it for your sake. Let's go. Studying in a place like this might turn us into idiots."

"Y-Yeah, right."

After leaving them with a final threat, Yamawaki and the others slunk out of the library.

Ichinose turned back to Shinjo and the others.

"If you still plan to study here, please keep it down."

Then, as if she'd just taken care of something utterly trivial, she strode away.

"Um, I just remembered something really important. The material we've been reviewing isn't on the exam?! Is that for real?!"

"If that's true, what was all our hard work for?!"

Even Suzune Horikita's brows furrowed. She was sure she'd heard the exam scope from Teacher Chabashira.

"Actually, I can answer that."

At Shinjo's words, everyone turned to look at him.

"Can someone explain what's going on with Shinjo Kiyotaka?"

"Don't mess around, Ayanokoji! Your situation doesn't matter at all!"

"Yeah, Ayanokoji, just stay quiet for now."

For some reason, Ayanokoji had lost all support from the group. He could only sigh and fall silent, hoping Shinjo would give him a satisfactory explanation later.

"Do you know what's going on, Shinjo?"

"About that, I'd actually planned to tell you all tomorrow."

As he spoke, Shinjo glanced toward Ichinose and raised his voice slightly.

"Well, the truth is, I got my hands on the answers for this exam~"

!!!!!!

The others exchanged baffled looks. At first, they seemed slow to process what he'd said, then they rubbed their ears in disbelief.

"What did you say?! The ans—"

Just as Sudo was about to shout, Shinjo hurried over and covered his mouth, then put a finger to his lips to signal silence.

But he was only doing this for Ichinose's benefit, since she'd already caught wind of what was going on.

Sudo realized he'd overreacted and nodded frantically to let Shinjo know he could uncover his mouth.

"You said you have the answers? Are you serious?"

"How could I lie about something like this? Though, actually, I only got them from a second-year student this morning. They cost me a whole twenty thousand points!"

"But how can you be sure they're real?"

Suzune Horikita was skeptical. If you could just buy the answers to an exam, what was the point of studying hard?

Shinjo gave her a mysterious smile.

"That's a separate piece of information. Kei bought them from a third-year girl. The first midterms at this school are the same for every year's incoming students, so..."

"So as long as we memorize the answers... we'll breeze through this exam?!"

The Idiot Trio looked especially excited. Even if you studied hard, you could still mess up during the exam. But getting the answers ahead of time was a different story!

"Exactly! I'd planned to let you study hard for a few days first to improve your grades. I was worried you'd stop paying attention in class if you got the answers too soon, so I thought I'd give them to you later. But... if you want them, I'll ask Kei to send them to everyone tomorrow."

"Long live Shinjo! Now I can finally sleep in peace."

"Yeah, yeah. My head's almost gone bald from all the studying these past few days."

"Give me a break, Yamauchi. Don't think I don't know you went bald because you used free shampoo."

While the others were busy celebrating, Ayanokoji and Horikita had clearly realized something strange.

"So the exam scope Teacher Chabashira gave us was fake?"

"Uh, that's exactly right."

Bang!

Horikita slammed her hand on the table. Ichinose, who had been eavesdropping nearby, jumped.

"That's outrageous! Why would she... why would she do something like that?! No, I have to ask her what's going on."

After speaking, Horikita looked over at the Idiot Trio, who were practically ready to pop open champagne, and said weakly, "Class dismissed."

Then she left the library without looking back. Kikyo Kushida and the Idiot Trio also made excuses and followed her out.

"So, can you answer my question now?"

Shinjo shrugged, walked over, and patted Ayanokoji on the shoulder.

"About that... did you know there's a ranking of the most handsome boys among the girls?"

"????"

"Well, I figured you probably didn't. Actually, besides the handsome ranking, there's also a gloomy ranking, a disgusting ranking, a most disliked ranking..."

Shinjo rattled off the bizarre rankings as if he knew them by heart.

"Okay, okay... I just want to know what this has to do with the rankings."

"Of course it has something to do with them! You're sixth on the handsome boys ranking, I'm second, and Hirata's third. Everyone else in the top ten is from Class A. So it's only natural that those Class C nobodies who didn't make the list would resent us."

Ayanokoji felt like Shinjo was brushing him off, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

It wasn't as if he could threaten him with a knife to get an answer.

And even if he did, he doubted Shinjo would tell him the truth.

"Fine... But I don't feel like I'm popular at all. I've never even gotten a love letter from a girl."

"Oh! That? Maybe it's because you're in the top five on the gloomy ranking."