The Interlude of Waiting

The next morning, Kanzaki Toru opened his eyes before his alarm went off.

The single room in the dormitory was small but well-equipped. It had a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, air conditioning, and a small window facing east. Morning light seeped through the gap in the curtains, casting a thin, long strip of light across the ceiling. He lay there for a few seconds before sitting up and picking up the terminal from his nightstand.

The screen lit up. One hundred thousand personal points. One thousand class points. No change.

He set the terminal down and began to wash up. As the cold water splashed against his face, the thoughts from last night resurfaced. The homeroom teacher, Chabashira, had left at least a few questions unanswered in yesterday's explanation. How did class points increase or decrease? What were the class point totals of the other classes? She had said, "Detailed rules will be explained gradually in future special exams"—which meant this school had a hidden set of rules that students had to figure out for themselves.

Throwing a group of people who didn't know the rules into a closed environment and making them find their own way—that in itself was quite interesting.

He changed into his uniform and pushed open his door. Several students were already moving about in the hallway, most of them from Class D, wearing various expressions. Some were excited, some were yawning in a daze, and others, like him, were expressionless. No one took the initiative to greet him, which he found quite satisfactory.

Stepping out of the dormitory building, the April morning still held a chill. Dew clung to the lawn, sparkling in the sunlight. In the distance, he could see a few students jogging, moving at a leisurely pace as if enjoying the morning air. Everything was quiet and orderly, like a carefully designed postcard.

Kanzaki Toru pulled his uniform zipper up to his chin and walked toward the school building with his head down.

About half the class had already arrived. The seat at the back by the window, his usual spot, was empty; he sat down and hung his bag on the side of the desk. In the corner by the wall in the front row, Sakura Airi had already arrived. She kept her head down with a book spread out before her, but her eyes weren't on the pages; they were on her terminal. Her fingers slid gently across the screen, moving slowly, as if she were repeatedly confirming something.

Kanzaki Toru didn't call out to her. He leaned back in his chair and scanned the others in the classroom.

Yoshida, the light-brown-haired boy from the bus yesterday, was sitting in the middle of the room, chatting animatedly with those around him. His voice was loud, and his laughter could be heard throughout the entire classroom. Beside Yoshida sat a red-haired boy who seemed to be of a similar type; the two appeared to have hit it off just yesterday. Further up in the front row sat a boy with glasses, as thin as a bamboo pole, who was hunched over a difficult-looking reference book, completely uninvolved in Yoshida's conversation.

A black-haired boy sat near the door, quietly flipping through some materials by himself. His features were regular, his posture relaxed, and he gave off an unremarkable impression. If one weren't observing him intentionally, one might overlook his existence entirely. Kanzaki Toru's gaze lingered on him for a second. This person was a bit like him—both were deliberately lowering their presence.

A chair scraped in the front row. Sakura Airi stood up and walked toward the door with her head down. She was likely heading to the restroom. Her pace faltered as she passed Kanzaki Toru's seat, but she didn't stop or speak, continuing out with her head bowed.

Kanzaki Toru didn't move. What he noticed was something else—Yoshida's gaze followed Sakura's retreating figure until she disappeared through the door. Then, Yoshida turned his head and said something to the red-haired boy, and both of them laughed. The laughter wasn't loud, but the sound made Kanzaki Toru feel uncomfortable.

He turned his gaze toward the window and stopped watching.

At 8:30 AM, Chabashira walked into the classroom. Without expression or pleasantries, she began taking attendance. After finishing, she gave some routine instructions regarding the course schedule, her tone as flat as if she were reading an instruction manual. Once finished, she left.

She hadn't mentioned anything about special exams.

But Kanzaki Toru noticed one thing—before Chabashira left the room, her gaze swept across the class. That look wasn't like someone watching students; it was more like someone observing the operation of an experimental apparatus.

Morning classes began. The teacher lectured at the front, and the students below reacted in various ways. Some took notes diligently, some slept on their desks, some played on their phones, and some chatted quietly with their neighbors. Not a single teacher made any attempt to stop them.

Kanzaki Toru maintained a state between attentiveness and distraction. He occasionally wrote a few words in his notebook, but for the most part, he just sat quietly. He was observing. Observing the teacher at the podium, observing his classmates, and observing the subtle distances forming within this classroom.

After the first period, Yoshida's table became the classroom's temporary social hub. Several boys gathered there to chat, their topics ranging from games to girls, their voices loud enough for the whole room to hear.

"By the way, have you guys heard? There's a karaoke bar and a movie theater in the school!" Yoshida said excitedly. "Want to go together this weekend?"

"Sure, why not! We've got points anyway, might as well use them." The red-haired boy agreed.

"But we only get one hundred thousand points a month. What if we run out?"

"We'll get more next month. Besides, didn't they say? I heard Class A has 940 class points, and we have 1,000, so it's about the same! No need to be so nervous."

Kanzaki Toru's pen paused at those words. Class A had 940, and Class D had 1,000. At first glance, they did seem similar. But if class points determined the distribution of personal points, then it wasn't a matter of being "about the same"—Class A's points should have been far higher than Class D's. Why were they lower instead?

The numbers didn't make sense.

Unless—Class A's high point total had been deducted by some rule. And Class D's 1,000 points were merely a starting point. A point from which one could fall.

He kept this thought to himself, not discussing it with anyone.

Lunchtime. Kanzaki Toru didn't head to the cafeteria immediately, instead taking his time packing up his things at his desk. The people in the classroom gradually cleared out, but Sakura Airi remained seated, not moving. The book from the morning was still spread out before her, but her bento box remained unopened.

"Not going to eat?"

He asked casually, standing in the aisle with his bag slung over his shoulder.

Sakura looked up slightly. The eyes beneath the brim of her hat looked even more uneasy than yesterday. "...Not hungry."

Kanzaki Toru looked at her for two seconds, not calling her bluff.

"The cafeteria bento is pretty good. Set A, four hundred points. If you don't like crowded places, the convenience store sells bread, too."

Sakura's fingers twitched, but she didn't speak.

Kanzaki Toru didn't say anything more and turned to walk out of the classroom. He had said enough. If she didn't want to go, ten oxen couldn't drag her. If she did want to go, what she needed to overcome wasn't the price of the bento, but all the gazes she might encounter on the two-hundred-meter walk from the classroom to the cafeteria.

He ate lunch alone in the cafeteria and, on his way back to the classroom, stopped by the convenience store to buy two bottles of water. One for himself, and one to place on Sakura Airi's empty desk. It wasn't out of special concern; it was just a passing thought. If she really went the whole day without food or water and suffered from low blood sugar, it wouldn't benefit Class D.

The afternoon classes were just as lax as the morning ones. The history teacher lectured on the Warring States period while a third of the students listened, a third played on their phones, and a third simply slept on their desks. Kanzaki Toru listened to the lecture, spinning his pen, his mind on something else.

If the class points in this school could fluctuate, the method of that fluctuation must be hidden in some rule. Chabashira had said "special exams" would gradually reveal the rules, but there had been no notification regarding any such exams yet. This meant that while the current phase seemed calm, it might actually be a critical period for gathering information. If one missed this stage, those who held no information when the real exams arrived would be the first to be eliminated.

He needed information. And besides official school notices, there was one other channel—the upperclassmen.

Sakura had noticed the gazes of those second-year students at the store entrance yesterday, too. They weren't just looking at freshmen; they were evaluating them. This meant there might be an information gap between the different grade levels at this school. It was highly likely the upperclassmen knew the rules. But they wouldn't tell you for free. You either bought it with personal points or—traded it for something else.

After school, the classroom returned to the chatty atmosphere dominated by Yoshida. Some were making plans for karaoke, others for the movies or the arcade. Kanzaki Toru packed his things and was about to leave when he saw Sakura Airi in the front row stand up as well. She put the bottle of water into her bag—she must have seen it. Then, with her head down, she walked quickly out the back door.

Kanzaki Toru followed at a distance; he wasn't stalking her, just heading the same way. On the path from the school building to the dormitory, he saw Sakura's figure not far ahead, her pace a little faster than it had been after school yesterday. Although she still kept her head down and walked along the edge of the path, at least she wasn't completely frozen like she had been on the bus.

At the dormitory fork, Sakura hesitated for a moment and turned around. She saw Kanzaki Toru not far behind. The expression beneath her hat was unclear, but she gave a shallow nod before quickly walking into the girls' dormitory.

Kanzaki Toru stood where he was, watching her go inside. Then he turned around and, instead of heading straight to the boys' dormitory, took a detour to the convenience store from the night before.

The convenience store was busier in the evening than during the day. He grabbed a bottle of tea and, while waiting in line at the register, noticed a faded notice posted next to the counter. It detailed the point rules for in-store purchases, and below it was a line of small text—"Failure to maintain a sufficient point balance before the end-of-semester settlement date may result in restricted services." The date was from last year, and the edges of the paper were already frayed.

"End-of-semester settlement date." This term hadn't appeared in the entrance orientation. But it had appeared on a notice from last year.

Kanzaki Toru paid, twisted off the cap, and walked back while slowly drinking his tea. The sky had darkened, and the streetlights were on. In the distance, he could hear the laughter and music of the students; everything still looked like a normal school evening.

But his train of thought wouldn't stop.

The end-of-semester settlement. The fluctuation of class points. The scrutinizing gazes of the upperclassmen. The anomalous phenomenon where Class A's points were actually lower than Class D's—

These fragments were scattered in different places, seemingly unrelated at first glance.

But piecing them together pointed to a single conclusion: this school had a hidden evaluation system. Students' behavior was being graded, which affected class points, and those class points ultimately determined everyone's survival resources. No one would write these rules down clearly on paper and hand them to every new student. You had to piece it together yourself, experiment, and learn through your mistakes. And making mistakes, in itself, was highly likely to come at a price.

He pushed open the dormitory entrance and walked into the brightly lit lobby. The screen in the elevator was playing campus news, mentioning that "all classes performed well this month, and there have been no major fluctuations in class points." That single, short sentence proved that the dynamic change of class points was the norm.

Back in his room, Kanzaki Toru sat on the edge of his bed and opened his terminal. He combed through every official notification sent by the school, but found no information containing the words "special exam." In other words, up until now, most students in Class D—including Yoshida and his crowd—probably didn't even realize the rules existed and were still treating this place like a resort where they could indulge themselves.

As for those who truly realized something was wrong, they had likely already begun to act.

He thought of Horikita Suzune. The girl who had slammed her hand on the table during yesterday's class meeting to make everyone quiet down had a reaction speed significantly faster than the others. Then there was the black-haired boy sitting by the door who deliberately kept a low profile. And—Sakura Airi. Although she was afraid of social interaction, her observational skills were not poor; she had spotted the scrutinizing gazes of those three upperclassmen at the store entrance yesterday at a glance.

Class D was not entirely made up of fools. It was just that the smart ones were all hiding.

Kanzaki Toru placed his terminal on the nightstand and turned off the light.

In the darkness, he kept his eyes open, staring at the sliver of light filtering through the gap in the curtains onto the ceiling. This was a school surrounded by high walls. Over a thousand students were locked in here for three years. Everyone had 100,000 points in their hands, but the meaning and usage of those points were things you had to discover for yourself. Classes that performed well gained more points, while those that performed poorly lost them. But what was the definition of "performance"? Who was the judge? And what were the criteria for judgment?

Sooner or later, someone would reveal the answers to these questions for everyone.

But until then—keep a low profile, gather information, and find partners who could be trusted.

He closed his eyes.

Starting tomorrow, he would listen carefully in class. Regardless of whether the teachers explained the rules, at least every word could potentially be a clue.

And as for Sakura Airi—that girl wearing the white hat—if she could truly overcome a bit of her fear, she might be more useful than he had imagined. But that was on the condition that she didn't get eliminated in the first wave.