Time flew by, and the third month since the start of the school year arrived.
During this time, Onizuka and Sakura Airi had often kept in touch on LINE.
Their relationship had advanced by leaps and bounds, to the point that they now called each other by their first names.
However, even though they interacted more and more often, Onizuka could still sense that Sakura seemed to have some reservations, as if a thin sheet of paper still remained between them.
As for that, Onizuka figured it was best to let things take their course. He wasn't in any hurry.
Some of the students in the class began checking how many points the school had deposited that month, only to find that it was still zero.
Maybe they had already gotten used to life without points?
Faced with this result, they reacted much more calmly than before, no longer angry or disappointed.
Instead, they seemed numb-or perhaps despairing.
As the morning bell rang, the classroom gradually fell quiet.
Chabashira-sensei still entered the classroom right as the bell rang.
The paper rolled up in her hand caught the attention of most of the class. Their gazes all focused on it, waiting for the news.
Seeing the students in the class like this, Chabashira-sensei raised the paper in her hand.
"Looks like you're all quite concerned about your results this month?"
"Of course, Sae-sensei! This affects how happily we'll live this month."
"We worked really hard last month! And nobody got expelled in the midterm exams. It'd be pretty unreasonable if the school didn't reward us with some points, right?"
Bang!
Hearing Ike say this, Yamauchi suddenly couldn't contain himself. He slammed his fist on the desk and stood up.
"Stop struggling, Ike. I've already checked. The points deposited for our class this month are still zero. Stop acting like an idiot!!!!"
Ike stared at Yamauchi in disbelief.
"Huh? How can this be? We worked so hard!"
"Who cares? No points means no points! Why don't we all just give up?"
The classroom immediately sank into gloom. A few students looked at one another, and the atmosphere grew heavy.
Everyone had worked hard, but this result seemed to cast doubt on their hopes for the future.
Sae Chabashira, standing at the lectern, didn't immediately stop them.
After they had calmed down for a while, she rapped the lectern hard, drawing their attention.
"Well, for now, don't be so pessimistic. As things stand, you do have some points. Your efforts last month weren't wasted."
Then she pinned the paper in her hand to the blackboard.
Class A Class Points: 1013 points
Class B Class Points: 660 points
Class C Class Points: 600 points
Class D Class Points: 87 points
Onizuka raised his head, too, and looked at the class points. Class A's total had already reached four digits. As expected of Class A.
And Class D hadn't gotten zero, as everyone had guessed. Their total had actually increased quite a bit.
At the sight of this, the students in the class erupted into discussion again, all talking about the points. Voices of dissatisfaction rang out across the classroom:
"Hey, Sae-sensei, what's going on? If we have Class Points, why aren't we getting individual points?"
"With 87 Class Points... that's 8,700 individual points for each of us! We won't have to pinch pennies anymore!"
"Yeah, yeah! I don't want to eat the mountain vegetable set meal anymore!" someone complained, clearly fed up with the school cafeteria's food.
There was little change in Chabashira-sensei's expression as she replied impassively:
"The school has discovered some very serious problems with this point distribution, so it will be delayed for a while. Please bear with it."
"Of course, if you can't, you can report it to the Student Council or directly to the School Chairman. There's nothing I can do about it, either."
Chabashira-sensei then ended the class meeting and left the classroom, leaving the students full of questions.
Hearing Chabashira-sensei say this, the corner of Onizuka's mouth lifted slightly. He knew that Ryuen and the others had started taking action.
At this school, the only thing he could think of that would be called "a very serious problem," aside from a violent incident, was something that could make the school delay distributing points.
But he wasn't in a hurry yet. He would wait until Ryuen made this fire burn a little bigger-big enough that they couldn't easily put it out-before it was time for him to act.