Classroom of the Elite - Seven Years After

Layered Personalities

"This is an announcement to all students, you will have received an email to your phones earlier. Check the contents of the mail and follow the instructions closely," a voice rang out on the announcement system. It repeated the message soon after for all ears who hadn't been paying attention to this important bit of information.

I thought that was how it was going to be. It appears that another special exam will begin in just a short amount of time. Just a moment later, I heard a notification on my phone go off, and assumed it to be the email that they spoke of. After opening it I found the following text written in the email:

"A special examination will be starting soon. Gather at the designated time in the designated rooms. Students who are more than 10 minutes late for the meeting will receive a penalty. Go to room 201 on the second floor by 20:30 today."

I put my phone back on the coffee table in front of me. I still had a relatively large amount of time before my assigned time, so rather than lingering outside of my room I decided it would be best to continue reading my book until the assigned time. I also ate a light meal out of some of the leftovers in the minifridge that had been provided to us in the hotel room, but it appeared as though some of my food had been stolen. What kind of person steals food from someone who isn't even their friend? It clearly had my name on it, it was impossible to miss. Guessing by the action, Maruyama would be the most likely candidate.

I checked the time and found that down to the exact minute I was right on time to be leaving. I only had to leave around ten minutes beforehand just to have time to walk and encounter any unnecessary holdups. I was rather good with navigating my way through the ship, so it shouldn't take me longer than that considering its location on the cruise ship. My sense of direction was actually really good, so that lie Mikuri and I told yesterday evening was extremely easily disproved.

While exiting my room, I came across Mikuri who conveniently left at the exact same time as me. This was not a good sign.

Despite my attempts to avoid her line of sight, she caught me right away. "Oh, hey Nakanishi!" I sighed. I really didn't want to get involved with her right now when I had somewhere to be. "Are you leaving for your assigned time too?"

Well, there seemed to be no avoiding the fact that I would be with Mikuri during this special exam seeing where this conversation was heading. "Yeah. Though now that I'm assuming we have the same time slot, I don't feel too happy about it."

She let out a polite laugh. "Don't be so mean, you're going to hurt my feelings." She smiled while we continued to walk. "So...20:30 in room 201 then?"

"Unfortunately."

"Don't get too beat up about it. I need you by my side after all." I know she wasn't trying to be menacing, but those words felt extremely threatening with my current predicament.

We made our way to the room five minutes early. There was most likely no rule about entering before the assigned time, so we went in without hesitation. The room was oddly dim, but turning the corner we saw a table with five seats, one of them already filled by our teacher. I glanced over at Mikuri briefly just to gauge her thoughts, but she kept the exact same face as I had seen in the hallway. A small smile was always plastered on her lips. We sat down wordlessly while Akiyama-sensei only stared in silence with his arms crossed.

Once we were both seated, he spoke. "We're only waiting for one more."

"May I ask whether this person will be a part of our class or not?" Mikuri questioned.

"All the individual groups are made out of people from only their own class," he stated bluntly.

This didn't appear to be some sort of veiled secret and rather a component of the exam, so he explained it without hesitation. The look on his face looked less innocent in the dim light. Actually, it was strange how his eyes ever managed to appear innocent in the first place. Sure they feel empty, but on occasion it feels like rather than darkness it's just a bright curiosity reflecting the world in front of him. It was the look I had seen in his eyes while he gazed out into the ocean.