Classroom of the Elite: Checkmate

Chapter 9 - Queen (Part 1)

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Authors Note:

Just a quick reminder that this story is tagged as 'Mature' and thus contains content that might not be suitable for some people. If you feel triggered or uncomfortable reading about mature themes, then I'd advise you to stop now.

You have been warned.

For everyone else: Enjoy the show.

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Before we knew it, yet another week had passed in the blink of an eye.

Hirata and Kushida convinced everyone that abiding by the rules would be the best course of action for the class. Since Horikita had followed these regulations since the beginning, only two people didn't adhere to the proposals of our interim leadership: Sudou Ken and Kouenji Rokusuke.

Since we had made no progress in uncovering a way to receive more points yet, Sudou kept his previous promise and did whatever he wanted during classes. He was late eight out of ten times, used his cellphone during lessons to play games, or slept because he was tired from training until late the day before.

Even his few friends, Ike, Hondou and Okitani, weren't able to change his behavior for the better. Whenever they tried to convince him to follow the rules, he began to lash out at them, which led to the current situation where the three just left him alone to not cause any further discord in their group.

Sudou wasn't willing to comply, and all they could do was hope that this wouldn't affect their points this month, in case we managed to gain any. The rest of my classmates were understandably angered because of Sudou's antics. The girls in particular could be heard badmouthing him whenever he left the room, and I doubted that they had forgiven him for offending Hirata the week prior.

The boy in question wasn't swift enough to put out these fires, but he tried to excuse Sudou's irresponsible, and outright damaging behavior as much as he could, while thinking of a way to make him follow their lead.

Why wasn't I doing anything then?

The answer to this was simple.

Sudou kept shoveling his own grave. The deeper this hole got, the harder he would have to work to climb back out later. I just had to make sure that the tunnel didn't cave in on him while he happily shoveled downwards, towards his inevitable turning point.

The second troublesome student, Kouenji, behaved rather well, as he was not using his phone during lessons and always arrived in the classroom on time. He sometimes found it more important to comb his hair than to listen, which would still cost us points if we had any, but other than that, he was acting rather amicably.

To my disappointment, Horikita hadn't changed at all after her discussion with Chabashira-sensei.

It was astounding to me that an individual could be this dense about their own abilities. Even after multiple people had told her that she was placed in Class D for a reason, she couldn't accept it and blamed anyone but herself for her current situation.

Aside from the problematic students, there was also Chabashira-sensei, who had acted exemplarily after our fruitful exchange on May 1st.

Just as promised, there wasn't a single indication that she treated me differently than anyone else. Even Kouenji would have trouble to detect anything about our discussion, as long as he didn't ask her about me in particular. Every time I glanced at her serious and confident appearance, I couldn't help but relive the sound that the clipboard made after hitting her butt.