"Ike, sit down. These are the school's rules, and they're not up for debate. The results are final, so prepare to accept them."
"How could this happen? I don't want to get expelled!" Yamauchi said despairingly.
"This is all your own fault. If you'd attended the study group properly, things wouldn't have come to this." Yukimura Teruhiko, who had never spoken up before, finally said.
"What are you talking about? If Kushida hadn't given us the test papers, I wouldn't have slacked off on my revision," Sudo retorted stubbornly.
"Oh, so you're blaming Kushida? You were the ones who wanted to take a shortcut. Kushida was only trying to help," said several classmates who usually hung out with her.
"It's easy for you to say when you're not the ones getting expelled. If you were, you'd—"
"That's enough. Quiet down." As the argument grew more heated, Hirata couldn't take it anymore and raised his voice to stop them.
"I won't let anyone in our class get expelled. I'll find a way to handle this," Hirata solemnly promised his classmates.
Then Hirata asked Chabashira-sensei, "Sensei, is there any way to keep them from getting expelled?"
"There is, of course, but you can't afford the price." Chabashira, who had been watching the class's behavior all along, replied.
"Chabashira-sensei, please just tell us what the solution is. We can figure out how to deal with it together," said Hirata's girlfriend, Karuizawa Kei.
"Yeah, Sensei, just tell us," the people around them chimed in.
"The solution is simple: points. It takes 20 million points to cancel the expulsion penalties."
"20 million points?" Hirata murmured. Then he turned to Kitahara and asked, "Kitahara, could you lend us the points you have? We'll pay you back later."
"Ah, Hirata, I think you misunderstood what Chabashira-sensei meant. She wasn't saying 20 million points would cancel everyone's expulsion penalty. It takes 20 million points to cancel the penalty for one person."
As soon as Kitahara finished speaking, the hope in Hirata's eyes vanished. He knew Kitahara wouldn't lie to him for no reason.
"Sensei, I'd like to ask how many points the three of them are short of passing by. If possible, please let me buy those points." The one who spoke was Horikita Suzune, who had remained silent until then.
Hearing Horikita, Chabashira laughed. "I never thought you'd come up with that idea, Horikita. It seems I underestimated you all."
After saying this, Chabashira turned and posted the scores on the blackboard. Then she told us, "The expulsion threshold is 50% of the class average for each subject. Your average score on this exam was 60.56, so the passing line is 30.28."
"Sudo, Yamauchi, and Ike scored 24, 26, and 22, respectively."
"I have to say, you're pretty impressive. The passing line was already so low, and three of you still failed."
"Sensei, just tell me how many points it'll take to buy those points back," Horikita continued.
Chabashira promptly answered, "100,000 points per point."
"I see. Then they're short by 18 points, so it'll cost 1.8 million points." After saying that, Horikita had nothing more to add. She merely glanced at Ayanokoji, signaling that she'd said what he wanted her to say and that the rest was up to them.
Seeing this, Hirata stood up again and said, "Everyone, we only need 1.8 million points to save them. I'm asking you all to help."
Koenji was the first to act. He got up and headed for the classroom door. "Someone as beautiful as I am has no obligation to save them," he said as he left.
No one said anything about his behavior. They all knew he was simply like that and didn't care about anyone in the class.
In this situation, Kushida, the class's little angel, spoke up again. "I still have 20,000 points. It's not much, but I'd like to do my part."
The three of them looked at her, touched. "Thank you so much, Kushida. You're our savior."
Following Kushida's lead, several others started donating some of their points. But then Karuizawa Kei spoke up. "We're already struggling to afford our daily expenses. If we give up some of our points, things will get even harder. We'd be better off asking Kitahara, who has plenty of points..."
She hadn't finished, but everyone knew Kitahara Seiichi had as many as 10 million points. If he helped, they wouldn't have to contribute their own.
Everyone turned to Kitahara, who had been watching the whole thing.
"Um, Kitahara, could you help them?" Kushida asked with a smile.
Hearing Kushida's request and seeing the pleading looks in their eyes, Kitahara replied without changing his expression, "No!"
At Kitahara's refusal, the class erupted. They hadn't expected him to care so little about the class. Sudo strode over angrily and grabbed Kitahara by the collar. "You've got all those points, and you still won't help us? You're unbelievably selfish!"
Just as another conflict was about to break out, Hirata quickly grabbed Sudo again and pulled them apart. "Kitahara must have his reasons. If he doesn't want to help, that's his choice."
Kitahara straightened his collar and looked coldly at Sudo. "That's the second time you've done that. If there's a third, I won't hold back."
Hearing Kitahara's threat, Sudo flared up again. "What the hell do you mean by that? You wanna fight?"
"Heh. You tell me. It's not like you have anything to lose—you're getting expelled anyway," Kitahara said calmly.
As Kitahara and Sudo argued heatedly, the big-brained Ike spoke up. "Kitahara, you've been hanging out with that Banjo guy these past few days, and the test papers were provided by Banjo, too. So you betrayed us and teamed up with Banjo, didn't you?"
Hearing Ike, Kitahara chuckled. "Sorry, I couldn't help laughing. I only found out the day before the exam that you'd bought test papers from the upperclassmen, so..."
As soon as Kitahara finished speaking, the classroom fell silent again. Seeing that the class still hadn't managed to gather enough points, Chabashira lost patience. "If you still haven't solved this by the end of school this afternoon, I'm sorry, but you'll have to be expelled." With that, Chabashira turned and left the classroom.
Seeing this, Kushida suggested, "We could still borrow points from the other classes."
"Right, Ichinose is so kind. She'll definitely help us," said several students from Class D who were friendly with Class B.
Hearing this, Hirata seemed to think of something and spoke up again.