The story returned to the previous day.
After turning down Yosuke Hirata's invitation, Horikita Suzune walked straight out of the noisy classroom.
She neither returned to her dorm nor went to the Library. An unnamed anger simmered inside her, and she walked without stopping until she reached the Faculty Office.
Opening the office door, Horikita Suzune found Sae Chabashira leisurely drinking coffee at her desk.
"Chabashira-sensei, there's something I've never been able to understand."
She bluntly questioned why, with her excellent grades and no obvious shortcomings in other areas, she had been assigned to Class 1-D, a gathering of defective students and underachievers.
Sae Chabashira seemed to have expected her visit. With a calm expression, she took an entrance examination score sheet from a drawer and pushed it toward her.
Horikita looked down and found her name prominently listed among the top five in her year, with quite a good interview evaluation beside it.
This only puzzled her further, and her brows knitted tightly.
Faced with Horikita's confusion, Chabashira-sensei said mildly, "Academic qualifications and scores aren't everything. This school's goal is to produce truly outstanding people. Its evaluation criteria are far more complicated than you imagine."
She used Ken Sudō, whose grades were abysmal, as an example, pointing out that although he was a poor student, his physical abilities in sports had irreplaceable value.
"Besides, aren't there students in your class who actually feel happier being placed in a lower-ranked class?"
Chabashira spoke pointedly, thinking of Kiyotaka Ayanokoji.
Sae Chabashira offered some encouragement, saying that it was still early. Although Class D's points had been reset to zero, they still had a chance of reaching Class A if they used the right methods.
At this point, she thought of Ken Kaneki again, wondering where he was and what he was doing.
Seeing Horikita's expression, Chabashira-sensei could not help growing curious. Horikita was a new student and, unlike her, had no revenge to pursue, so why was she so fixated on Class A?
"Is there some reason you absolutely have to reach Class A? Don't tell me it's for further education or a good job."
She knew that was not Horikita's goal, or at least not her only goal.
The question struck a sore spot, leaving Horikita momentarily speechless, and silence fell.
In truth, of course she had a reason. Everything she did was to catch up with her brother, who shone like a star, Student Council President Horikita Manabu, and to gain his recognition.
But her lofty pride would never allow her to reveal such a private reason to Chabashira-sensei and seek sympathy.
Seeming to notice Horikita Suzune's reluctance, Sae Chabashira did not press further.
"If you want to reach Class A, get to know Ken Kaneki, Koenji, and Ayanokoji. You might gain a great deal."
Sae Chabashira offered the well-intentioned advice, leaving Horikita somewhat bewildered.
She turned and pulled three sets of examination papers from the Filing Cabinet behind her, handed them directly to Horikita, and gestured for her to look.
Horikita took the papers in confusion, and Chabashira explained at just the right moment, "These are the entrance examination papers of Ken Kaneki, Rokusuke Koenji, and Kiyotaka Ayanokoji."
Horikita looked closely, and her pupils abruptly contracted.
Ken Kaneki's and Rokusuke Koenji's papers were nothing short of perfect. Both had entered the school with the staggering achievement of full marks in every subject, and their interview evaluations were tied for first.
When she saw the uniform scores of 50 on Ayanokoji's papers, she was truly floored, so shocked that her scalp tingled.
Wait, this guy could even control his interview score?!
That was Horikita's most honest thought at that moment, and she was quite impressed by Ayanokoji's performance.
"Never mind that Ayanokoji scored 50 points in everything, exactly half marks. He answered all the hardest questions correctly, including the final question, which had a pass rate of only 3%."
Sae Chabashira smiled helplessly at this. If Ken Kaneki had not come to make that wager with her earlier, she really would have been interested in taking a look at Ayanokoji.
But now the die was cast, and Ayanokoji was on Ken Kaneki's side, so it would hardly be appropriate for her to approach him.
Horikita naturally understood what this meant. That boy Ayanokoji was controlling his scores. Judging by his performance, he was most likely just like Ken Kaneki and Koenji, capable of placing first in both the written examination and the interview.
Horikita's grip on the papers tightened slightly, and she could not help asking, "If the three of them are so incredibly capable, why were they assigned to Class D too?"
Chabashira-sensei did not answer. She merely smiled.
"All I can tell you is that even people far more capable than you were assigned here. What do you still have to complain about?"
Horikita thought it over and felt that was true. At last, this ironclad fact had struck a small crack in her proud heart.
In the end, the matter could only be left unresolved, and Horikita turned and left the office unhappily.
After Horikita left, silence returned to the office. Sae Chabashira leaned back in her desk chair, somewhat dazed.
When the points had been announced that morning, Class D's glaring zero had already declared her defeat in her wager with Ken Kaneki.
She knew she might lose her virginity today, yet, strangely, she felt no regret at all.
For that distant, long-cherished wish of reaching Class A, she was willing to give everything.
Looking back on her past, she had once had a boyfriend, but because of the covert interference and pestering of Class B's homeroom teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie, they had eventually parted ways. Nothing physical had happened between them during that time.
If Ken Kaneki really did take her today to collect on that absurd wager, he would be Sae Chabashira's first man in the true sense.
After work, Sae Chabashira returned to her room in the Teachers' Dormitory with mixed feelings.
She showered in the bathroom and changed clothes, then sat on the sofa, quietly waiting for Ken Kaneki to message her.
But time ticked by, and no matter how long she waited, her phone screen remained silent, making a trace of doubt rise in her heart.
As the night deepened, Sae Chabashira lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
After waiting a long time without any result, she finally lost patience. She picked up her phone, typed and deleted in the chat box, and eventually sent only, "You there?" In her anxious uncertainty, she looked just like a young girl experiencing her first stirrings of love.
After sending the message, she stared fixedly at the screen for a while. When no reply came, wild guesses began running uncontrollably through her mind.
Had he forgotten? Or was he simply not interested in her?
Still, her years of teaching experience and mature judgment allowed her to quickly steady her emotions without completely losing her composure.
To conceal her fluster, Sae Chabashira began sending messages at intervals, trying to mask her inner turmoil with a businesslike tone, asking things such as whether he intended to settle their agreement.
As she stared at the chat window, she never imagined that, at that very moment, Ken Kaneki and Shiina Hiyori had long since sunk into the Pure Land of Bliss in a suite at the Luxury Hotel.
She waited in torment in bed like that for a long time. Only at midnight did her phone finally vibrate.
Chabashira immediately grabbed her phone, only to find that Ken Kaneki's message said he had a bit of a cold and needed to take tomorrow off.
Chabashira-sensei froze. She hurriedly messaged him to ask about his condition, but received no further response.
And so, in the stillness of the night, she could not help letting her thoughts run wild for a long time again.
Meanwhile, at the Star Hotel, Ken Kaneki held the soft, delicate Hiyori in his arms and drifted blissfully into sleep.
All that tossing and turning and anxious uncertainty eventually became the unread message tinged with concern that lay quietly on Ken Kaneki's phone screen the following morning.
Chabashira-sensei, meanwhile, had been sleepless all night. Seeing the panda-like circles around her eyes that morning, she pouted and went back to bed to catch up on sleep.
She had no classes to teach that day anyway.
(Oh no, tomorrow's weekend is gone. It's a makeup workday. No, my time off. Boo hoo hoo...)
Before you continue