"Well, well—did you come to ask me for leave?"
"I could tell something was off with you during class this morning."
In the teachers' office, Chie Hoshinomiya watched An Xiao shuffle toward her, yawning repeatedly, and asked curiously, "Ahh... I'm fine. I just need to take a nap when I get back. I mainly came to ask you a favor." As he spoke, he raised the bag in his hand.
"...What's this?" Chie Hoshinomiya leaned forward and took the bag from An Xiao. But when she saw it only contained pineapples, she looked distinctly disappointed.
"What about those snacks made with alcohol you promised me? I've been looking forward to them for ages." Hoshinomiya-sensei narrowed her eyes and spoke in a suspicious tone.
"An Xiao, you didn't use the liquor I gave you to do anything naughty, did you? Relationships between boys and girls that aren't wholesome are forbidden!"
"..." An Xiao.
"That pause was pretty suspicious." Chie Hoshinomiya.
"Sensei, sometimes I can't help wondering if your head is filled with nothing but alcohol and all sorts of other nonsense."
An Xiao lightly tapped Chie Hoshinomiya on the head with the book beside him.
After spending more than a month together, An Xiao had gotten quite familiar with this teacher.
Though sometimes he wished they weren't quite so familiar.
"Ow! Honestly, An Xiao, I'm your teacher. You could at least show some respect." Chie Hoshinomiya rubbed the spot he'd tapped and complained.
"Sure, sure." An Xiao gave her a perfunctory reply, then got to the main reason he'd come.
"Actually, I wanted to ask you something."
"Do you have any old test papers from the school's first-year exams?"
At An Xiao's question, Chie Hoshinomiya raised her eyebrows slightly and said with interest, "What made you think of asking me for those?"
"I'm a teacher, you know."
"Shouldn't I be asking a teacher?" An Xiao asked, confused.
"Should you be asking a teacher?" Chie Hoshinomiya looked just as puzzled.
The two stared at each other for quite a while.
"All right. I guess this is a cultural difference."
Once she realized An Xiao wasn't joking, Chie Hoshinomiya sighed helplessly.
"So, how many points are you willing to pay?"
Getting down to business, Chie Hoshinomiya's expression grew more serious as she looked at An Xiao.
"Wait, you're charging me for this too? Aren't you supposed to give me study materials for free?" An Xiao said, speechless.
"Nope. Everything at this school has to be bought with points, including old practice questions."
"Fine. Ichinose will reimburse me in the end anyway." An Xiao scratched his head and decided not to overthink it.
He then spent 20,000 points to buy past midterm exam papers and quiz questions from Hoshinomiya-sensei.
An Xiao glanced through the papers Hoshinomiya-sensei handed him. His gaze stopped on a quiz from last year. He furrowed his brow, flipped through it a few more times, then stared at Hoshinomiya-sensei in disbelief.
"Isn't the school pretty well-off...? Surely things aren't this bad?"
"Maybe I should give the papers back and you can return my points?"
Leaving the quizzes aside, the midterm papers from the past few years were practically the same. The questions weren't exactly identical, but they were more or less alike.
In the science subjects alone, they'd only changed the numbers in many questions. Some hadn't even been changed at all.
At this point... it was basically cheating, wasn't it?
All in all, An Xiao was a little worried.
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Chie Hoshinomiya sat there with a smile, her eyes narrowed into slits.
"That's how the school's done things for years."
Seeing that Chie Hoshinomiya was still smiling, An Xiao let out a sigh of relief.
So it wasn't a problem after all.
His homeroom teacher couldn't possibly screw him over about something like this.
She'd have to be an idiot to do that.
"Then I'll be off..." An Xiao gathered up the papers and was about to say goodbye, but then he remembered what had happened over the past few days. Taking the opportunity, he asked what had been on his mind.
"By the way, Hoshinomiya-sensei, you told me to target Class D as much as possible, but... doesn't that seem unnecessary?"
A class that had learned the news half a month early, yet still had far fewer Class Points than Class C, which hadn't known anything. A nasty boy who casually made dirty jokes. A red-haired boy who seemed like a total hothead. And a girl An Xiao knew with a rather "unique" personality...
An Xiao thought that if this class managed to make it to graduation in one piece, it would already be a miracle. There was no need to go out of his way to target them.
"Looks like you really do know a fair bit about Class D..." Chie Hoshinomiya said, then changed the subject. "But there's still a lot you don't know. At least, as far as I know, there's one student in Class D who could lead the class all the way up to Class A."
????????
Wait, what kind of monster could pull that off?
There was someone like that in Class D?
Before An Xiao could ask for more details, Chie Hoshinomiya shrugged. "I don't know who it is either. You'll have to figure that out yourself."
"..." An Xiao.
"Oh, right. The school held a meeting this morning. They've changed the scope of this midterm exam."
"W-what did you say?" An Xiao stiffly turned around, shook the papers in his hand, and gritted his teeth. "Are you kidding me?"
Chie Hoshinomiya looked at the furious An Xiao with interest. She watched him for a while, then, just as he turned back and started toward her, pulled a note she'd prepared from her desk and slapped it onto the papers in his arms.
"Relax. The scope changed, but it won't make any difference to you."
"Sensei, has anyone ever told you that you have a nasty personality?" An Xiao forced a smile, understanding what Hoshinomiya-sensei meant.
"No, but people often tell me I'm cute."
"Then you must be single."
"An Xiao, boys who talk too much don't tend to be popular with girls." Hoshinomiya gave him a dangerous smile.
"Well, I'd better get going."
With everything more or less taken care of, An Xiao decided to make his escape.
But when he reached the door, he remembered how Kushida and the others had acted after trying it. He hesitated, then asked, "Sensei... you can hold your liquor, right? I added some of that rum you gave me to the pineapples. It really packs a punch."
"Really!"
Seeing Hoshinomiya-sensei's eyes light up, An Xiao knew his warning had been wasted. He closed the door and left the office.
A week later, An Xiao encountered the kind of idiot he'd been talking about.
Although he still didn't know who the hidden talent in Class D was, he did find out who Class D's most problematic student was.
Before you continue