Swimming Pool Incident (3)

"By the way, President, did you make some kind of deal with Chabashira?" Kitahara whispered, sticking close to Horikita Manabu as they walked into the changing room.

"..."

Horikita Manabu didn't answer. He merely cast a flat, indifferent glance at him before turning his head toward the person hiding behind the locker.

"Come out. The Student Council is already aware of your actions."

"..."

Seeing that the person hiding behind the locker refused to emerge, Kitahara followed Horikita's signal and quickly dashed behind the unit, discovering Yamauchi trembling in fear.

Seeing him in such a state, Kitahara couldn't help but think that for someone with this little courage, he was quite the talent to pull off something like this.

"Forget it, I'll do you a favor..."

With that, Kitahara dragged Yamauchi out.

At this moment, the collar of his school uniform was soaked with cold sweat, and he was clutching a sealed box to his chest.

"P-President..."

His teeth chattered, and his gaze darted around, unable to meet Horikita Manabu's icy stare.

"I, I was just passing by..."

"Pfft... To think someone could 'pass by' into the girls' changing room—that's impressive." Hearing his excuse, Kitahara couldn't help but laugh.

Horikita, standing to the side, frowned slightly; he hadn't expected the boy to keep making excuses under these circumstances.

Hearing Kitahara's mockery, Yamauchi's face flushed bright red.

His legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed to the floor, his hands gripping the box tightly as if it were his last lifeline.

"Hand over the box," Horikita Manabu said coldly, his voice devoid of any warmth.

Yamauchi's body shuddered, and finally, he slowly handed the box over.

After taking the box and giving it a brief inspection, Horikita said to Yamauchi, "Very well. The evidence is now complete. Wait for the Student Council's notification."

"So... President, will I be expelled?" Yamauchi asked, looking at Horikita with a tremor in his voice.

Hearing Yamauchi's question to Horikita, Kitahara felt a sudden spark of curiosity.

After all, wasn't Yamauchi supposed to be expelled by Sakayanagi during the future praise-vote exam? If he were expelled now, how would things develop from there?

After a long silence, Horikita spoke slowly: "You will not be expelled for the time being, but your actions this time have seriously violated school rules. You will be given a major disciplinary warning."

"If you commit another offense, you will be expelled immediately."

Upon hearing that he wouldn't be expelled for now, Yamauchi let out a sigh of relief. His legs gave out, and he knelt directly on the floor, kowtowing repeatedly. "Thank you, President. I will definitely turn over a new leaf."

Watching this scene, Kitahara felt a bit strange. After all, this matter already touched upon legal issues, yet the final result was only one step above the warning Kushida had received earlier.

Before Kitahara could open his mouth to ask, the changing room door opened once again.

Chabashira walked in. She glanced at Yamauchi, who was still kneeling on the floor, then turned to Horikita.

"Has the matter been handled?"

"Yes," Horikita Manabu replied with a nod.

"Then I'll take him away now," Chabashira continued.

"Proceed," Horikita answered curtly.

Standing to the side, Kitahara listened to their brief exchange and realized his suspicions were correct.

However, Kitahara still felt a lingering doubt; he sensed that the situation was far from simple.

"...Where exactly is the problem?"

"Alright, we should head out too," Horikita said, looking at Kitahara, who was deep in thought.

"Oh... right." Hearing Horikita's words, Kitahara replied instinctively.

Once they stepped out of the changing room, Kitahara noticed that Ryuen and Sakayanagi's groups, who had been there earlier, had all vanished.

"I see. I finally understand what was wrong." Noticing this, Kitahara finally cleared his head.

Kitahara looked at the President and said, "I was just doubting the results of how you handled them, and now I finally understand where the problem lies."

"..."

"President, if you can't even convince me with the way you handled them, how can you expect the other students to accept it?"

"..."

"In other words, by keeping Yamauchi out of the students' sight, there is still room to manipulate the situation."

Hearing Kitahara's analysis, Horikita spoke:

"This is because the school does not want the impact of the incident to spread, so they handled it this way before any serious consequences could arise."

"So their departure was arranged by Chabashira?" Kitahara said, looking at the now-empty space.

"Yes, that is indeed the case," Horikita admitted.

"I see... so that was the deal between you and Chabashira." Kitahara said, looking at Horikita with a steady expression.

"..."

Seeing that his expression remained unchanged, Kitahara decided not to press the matter further, even though he knew there were likely other deals between Horikita and Chabashira.

After all, the reasons provided by Horikita Manabu were more than sufficient; if the school wanted to keep this incident from becoming common knowledge, the current approach was indeed logical.

As for the method used to make them leave, Kitahara could roughly guess that they were still following the path of the original story.

I didn't expect that even with my involvement, the trajectory of events would still circle back to the same outcome as the original.

But I suppose I can't say that entirely, at least they still received disciplinary action.

Returning to the moment when Kitahara and Horikita Manabu had just entered, Ayanokoji and the others had originally been on their way, following Kushida's suggestion.

However, after Ayanokoji sent a message and received instructions from Chabashira, he parted ways with them.

At the same time, Ayanokoji took Horikita with him.

Once they had walked to the side, Ayanokoji said to Horikita, "There is something I need your help with."

"..."

Why am I doing something like this?

Standing on the diving board, Horikita looked down at the crowd gathered below and said:

"First, I would like to say that our Class D of the first year is composed of students labeled as defective."

"Not to mention that we are a group of problem children."

"To those in Class C, although you came to cause us trouble over a trivial matter before, I am very grateful to you now. Thanks to you, I have come to understand one thing."

"I understand how difficult it is for a class full of problem children to climb the ranks, but the distribution of Class A through Class D is not based solely on academic grades or athletic ability."

"Therefore, even a bottom-tier Class D can be promoted to Class A."

"We can also aim for promotion to Class A, so our goal is to reach Class A."

"..."