Chapter 39

"Another senior from Class C. You're the perfect person to mediate."

"But this whole thing might have been that guy's scheme in the first place!" Karuizawa's prejudice against me seemed impossible to change.

"I've already looked into that. Kitazawa didn't do anything like that, and he doesn't seem to be lying."

"You're way too trusting."

"Well, now that Kitazawa's here, let's get down to business." Hirata gestured for Karuizawa to put her hostility aside.

"Yosuke, but this guy—" Karuizawa was fuming.

"That's just Horikita's speculation. I believe Kitazawa." Hirata was the picture of a nice guy. Bro, don't do that. Even I don't believe myself.

"Let's not waste time. I'll tell you what I'm asking for. Ishizaki told me what happened. Sudo injured three of our classmates. That's an indisputable fact. If you want us to drop the complaint, Sudo needs to apologize publicly to the injured students and pay each of them five hundred thousand personal points in compensation."

Ignoring the lovey-dovey exchange between those two, I got straight to the point.

"Why is it points again!? Is money all you ever think about?" Karuizawa nearly jumped to her feet.

"Kitazawa, even so, one and a half million points is too much," Kushida said.

"It's not going to me. It's compensation for Ishizaki and the other two. Just put yourselves in their shoes. If someone beat you bloody in broad daylight, at school, would this really be too much compensation? Otherwise, Sudo can look forward to being expelled." I insisted on my terms without pulling any punches.

"But we still don't know if that's exactly what happened, do we? Sudo insists he was acting in self-defense," Ayanokoji interjected.

"Can we really trust that? None of you believe him, do you? He's obviously just making excuses after getting himself into trouble."

"But doesn't it seem strange that one person could beat three others so badly?" Ichinose began taking their side, too.

"I told you, Sudo's a dangerous troublemaker who's always getting into fights! Of course he's good at fighting. Even second-years said he was the one who provoked them—and he provoked all three of them by himself. Want me to play their testimony?"

I'd even gotten witnesses through Nagumo. I hadn't expected Sudo to have picked on second-years, too. Ayanokoji hadn't been wrong to make him clean up that cup ramen last time. I pulled out my phone and played the recording. The second-years' recorded statements, given under their real names, left everyone in Class D looking troubled. Things were looking worse and worse for Sudo.

"Come on, everyone, let's calm down. Being so confrontational isn't how you reach a settlement," Ichinose said quickly, trying to smooth things over.

"Like I said, if Class D wants to settle, then show us you're serious about it. For the past few days, you've been searching everywhere for witnesses who don't exist, hoping to get Sudo off the hook. That's neither realistic nor just. I can't just agree to settle with you for no reason. It would be disrespectful to my friends. Excuse me."

I stood up and walked away, ignoring Ichinose's attempts to stop me. The students from Class D were left at a loss.

"Sorry. I'll try to persuade him..." Ichinose hurried after me, hoping to change my mind.

"After listening to him, even I feel like we're in the wrong..." Ike said dejectedly. He'd been silent throughout the meeting.

"Yeah. Sudo's reputation has always been so bad..." Hirata was troubled, too. Kitazawa's involvement seemed to have made things even more complicated.

"But we can't just hand over points to settle this, can we? Never mind whether Sudo's temper will let him bow his head and apologize. Our class just took a hit in the midterm exams. We can't come up with one and a half million personal points..." Ayanokoji said helplessly.

"Exactly! And I think that jerk Kitazawa's just taking advantage of this to blackmail us. If we give him the points, what's to stop him from pulling the same trick again? Are we supposed to pay him again?" Karuizawa detested Kitazawa, so naturally she didn't want to settle.

"Ugh! But is there really any way to prove that those guys from Class C were in the wrong?" Ike said, sounding drained.

"If we can find a witness, it's not impossible! Let's do our best together, Ike!" Kushida encouraged him, still full of energy.

"Even if you say we should do our best together, do you really think there'll be a witness? Didn't Sudo only say he vaguely thought someone had seen it? That's probably a lie, right? And just like Kitazawa said, Sudo does often provoke people. Picking a fight with people from Class C, whom he already dislikes, sounds exactly like something he'd do."

"If even we doubt him, then nothing will ever move forward, will it?" Kushida still believed Sudo. Or perhaps she knew me too well. If I'd gone to all the trouble of coming over to make demands, then Sudo had almost certainly been set up.

"That's true, I guess... But if they decide Sudo's at fault, all the points we worked so hard to earn will be taken away, right? Then we'll be back to zero points. Zero. At this rate, our allowance will stay at zero forever. Having fun will remain nothing but a far-off dream."

"Then we can all start saving again. We've only been at school for three months," Hirata said, undaunted, as if he'd said something inspiring.

"I think points are important. Don't they affect everyone's motivation, too? So no matter what, I want to protect our class points—even if we only have a little over forty points."

"I understand how you feel. But it's dangerous to become so fixated on points that you lose sight of what really matters. The most important thing for us has always been to cherish our friends."

"Even if Sudo is the one at fault?"

"Everything Hirata says is right, but I still really want those points. Class A gets nearly a hundred thousand yen every month. I'm so jealous. Some of the girls have bought loads of fashionable clothes and bags, too. Even Class C next door has around fifty thousand. Compared to them, aren't we at the very bottom?" Karuizawa sat on the table, swinging her legs.

The overwhelming gap between students in the same year was eating away at her, especially after rich kid Kitazawa had rubbed it in her face again and again. Luckily, Kushida had lent her twenty thousand points a while back; otherwise, she probably wouldn't have had the energy to care about Sudo's troubles. It was only later that she found out the points had come from the hundred thousand I'd lent Kushida after she'd been sent to borrow it from me by Liu Xiaowu.

"Why wasn't I in Class A from the start? If I were in Class A, I'd probably be having an amazing school life right now," Yamauchi began fantasizing.

"I wish I were in Class A, too... Then I could go to all sorts of places with my friends," Kushida chimed in.

And so, the first meeting between Classes C and D over the fight ended without a result.

Where There Is Justice, There Is a Sanctuary

"Where there is justice, there is a sanctuary." — Francis Bacon

I heard that over the next few days, the students of Class D once again got busy searching for witnesses. Karuizawa even persuaded Hirata to look into the earlier fake exam-paper incident while he was at it. But it was all a waste of time. In the end, it turned out Hirata's senior from the soccer club didn't even know who I was. And faced with someone who wouldn't tell us, no matter what, why he had...