"By the way, President, did you make some kind of deal with Chabashira-sensei?" Kitahara asked quietly as he walked into the locker room beside Horikita Manabu.
"..."
Horikita Manabu didn't answer. He merely gave Kitahara a calm glance, then turned toward the person hiding behind the lockers and said:
"Come out. The Student Council already knows what you've been doing."
"..."
When the person behind the lockers still didn't come out, Kitahara got a signal from Horikita and hurried over. There he found Yamauchi trembling with fear.
Seeing him like that, Kitahara couldn't help thinking that it took a real talent to have the guts to pull something like this with so little courage.
"Forget it. I'll be nice and help you out..."
With that, Kitahara dragged Yamauchi out.
By then, sweat had soaked through the collar of his uniform, and he was clutching a sealed box to his chest.
"P-President..."
His teeth chattered, and his gaze darted about under Horikita Manabu's icy stare.
"I-I was just passing by..."
"Pfft... Someone actually managed to 'pass by' into the girls' locker room? That's impressive." Kitahara couldn't help laughing at his excuse.
Horikita, standing nearby, furrowed his brow slightly. He hadn't expected Yamauchi to keep making excuses even in this situation.
Kitahara's mockery made Yamauchi's face flush bright red.
His legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed to the floor. He clutched the box in his arms as if it were his last lifeline.
"Hand over the box," Horikita Manabu said coldly, his voice utterly devoid of warmth.
Yamauchi shuddered, but in the end, he slowly handed the box over.
After taking it, Horikita gave it a quick inspection, then said to Yamauchi, "All right. We have all the evidence now. Wait for the Student Council's notice."
"Th-then... President, am I going to be expelled?" Yamauchi asked, trembling as he looked at Horikita.
Hearing Yamauchi ask Horikita that, Kitahara couldn't help feeling curious.
After all, wasn't Yamauchi supposed to be expelled by Sakayanagi during the Appreciation Vote exam later on? If he was expelled now...
What would happen then?
After a long silence, Horikita finally said, "You won't be expelled for now, but your actions this time were a serious violation of school rules. You'll receive a major demerit."
"If you do it again, you'll be expelled immediately."
When Yamauchi heard that he wouldn't be expelled yet, he let out a sigh of relief. His legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees, bowing repeatedly. "Thank you, President. I'll definitely turn over a new leaf."
But Kitahara found this a little strange. Given that the matter had even involved the law, the final punishment was only a step harsher than the warning Kushida had received earlier.
Before Kitahara could ask about it, the locker room door opened again.
Chabashira-sensei walked in. She glanced at Yamauchi, still kneeling on the floor, then turned to Horikita and asked:
"Has everything been taken care of?"
"Yeah," Horikita Manabu replied with a nod.
"Then I'll take him away," Chabashira continued.
"Go ahead," Horikita answered curtly.
Listening to their brief exchange, Kitahara, standing nearby, realized his guess had been right.
But he still had some doubts. He felt there was much more to this than met the eye.
"...Where's the problem, exactly?"
"All right, we should head out too," Horikita said, looking at Kitahara as he pondered.
"Oh... okay," Kitahara replied reflexively.
When they left the locker room, Kitahara saw that Ryuen, Sakayanagi, and the others who had been there earlier were gone.
"I see. Now I understand what was off," Kitahara said, finally figuring it out when he noticed.
He looked at the president and said, "I suspected there was something wrong with how you handled things. Now I finally understand what it is."
"..."
"Even I can't accept the way you handled it. How do you expect the other students to be satisfied with it?"
"..."
"In other words, if Yamauchi doesn't appear in front of the students, there's still room to keep things under control."
After hearing Kitahara's analysis, Horikita said:
"That's because the school doesn't want the incident to spread. So they dealt with it this way before it could lead to serious consequences."
"So Chabashira-sensei arranged for them to leave?" Kitahara asked, looking at the now-empty area.
"Yeah, that's right," Horikita admitted.
"I see... So that's the deal you made with Chabashira-sensei," Kitahara said slowly, looking at Horikita.
"..."
Seeing that Horikita's expression hadn't changed at all, Kitahara decided not to press him further, even though he knew there must have been some other arrangement between Horikita and Chabashira.
After all, Horikita Manabu had given a perfectly sound reason. If the school didn't want this incident to become known throughout the school, then handling things this way made sense.
As for how they'd gotten the others to leave, Kitahara had a pretty good idea. They'd probably used the same method as in the original story.
"I didn't expect things to circle around and end up the same way as in the original story, even with me involved."
"Though I guess that's not entirely true. At least they still got punished."
The scene shifted back to when Kitahara and Horikita Manabu had just gone inside. Ayanokoji and the others had been on their way over at Kushida's suggestion.
But after Ayanokoji sent a message and received a request from Chabashira, he split off from them.
Ayanokoji also took Horikita with him.
Once they had stepped aside, Ayanokoji said to Horikita, "There's something I'd like you to help me with."
"..."
Why am I doing something like this?
Standing on the diving board, Horikita looked down at the people gathered below and said:
"First, I want to say that our Class 1-D is full of students considered defective."
"Not to mention we're all a bunch of problem children."
"To the people in Class C over there: You came after us over something trivial before, but now I'm grateful to you. Thanks to you, I've come to understand something."
"I've realized how difficult it is for this class, full of problem children, to climb to the top. But students aren't assigned to Classes A through D based on their grades and athletic ability alone."
"Then even Class D, the bottom class, can rise to Class A."
"We can aim to rise to Class A too. So our goal is to make it to Class A."
"..."