Classroom of The Elite: A New Masterpiece

Chapter 4 - An Unusual Outing

"Well, for what I like, I enjoy quite a few sports, especially Kendo. I do enjoy reading quite a lot too."

"I thought so! You definitely look more like the athletic type... especially with a body like that~" Sato responded excitedly to my comment. 

"Did you get to join any clubs?" Hirata continued the interview.

"Uh, no, I didn't really plan on it, and a sensei told me since I joined late, it would be hard to join anyways." 

"Ah, that's too bad. I joined the soccer club, and I know we would've loved to have someone like you join," Hirata answered back with a smile. 

"And I'd say my favorite food would have to be ramen," I continued. 

"Eh?! Ramen? Not something like pizza, or cake, or ice cream?" Karuizawa couldn't help but be disgusted at my desired choice of food. 

"Anyways~, what's your family like Fukumoto-kun?" Matsushita interjected, saving me from having to explain my apparent horrendous choice of food. 

But, it was the most dreaded question asked. The one I wished to answer the least.

I stared back at my reflection in my green tea. Thinking of the best response to not ruin the mood.

"I lived most of my life with my uncle. You could say he was like my dad in a way. As for my mother and father, I only have faint memories of what my mother looked like when I was young, but I don't remember anything about my dad." 

I could feel the mood get darker with each word that left my mouth, everyone started looking away from me to not feel the guilt of asking such an unknowingly tough question. 

"Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you remember something hard like that," Matsushita looked at me with an obvious sense of concern for me. 

"Don't worry about it. None of you knew, so it was obviously gonna be asked at one point or another," I tried to reply with a happier tone, but my efforts did little to change the mood. 

"Well... What do you think of the school Fukumoto-kun?" Mei-Yu Wang tried to get the ball rolling again and lift up the mood. 

"My thoughts about the school... Honestly, I find the school far too indulgent." Everyone perked up upon hearing my quick evaluation of the school. "Personally, I don't understand how this school can offer all these facilities and points to this many students without there being an underlying system built upon an idea like meritocracy or worth that's attached to these points. A system that we first years cannot truly comprehend, yet." 

Everyone looked slightly confused about my evaluation of this school, but Matsushita was the first to question my theory, "What do you mean by meritocracy and worth? If there was an underlying system attached to these points, wouldn't the teachers have told us about it?"

That was a great question. What were the criteria to judge students as worthy of these points? As for the teachers not telling us, we would have to look at this establishment objectively. 

At the foundation, this is still a high school, an institution to prepare us for the future, a future where we are not always told everything. But are expected to discern the truth for ourselves. 

"Yeah, why wouldn't the school tell us. That would seem unfair." Karuizawa interjected, obviously dissatisfied with a theory that put us at any risk. 

"I don't know the exact reasons or exact method as to which the school uses to justify this amount of points. But, at the moment, it's just a theory, and until there is definitive proof to back it up, nothing will change."