Today was May the 1st, judgement day.
Chabashira-sensei strode into the room, holding up a rolled-up poster, with a stern expression on her face.
"Heyyyy sensei, I checked my point balance this morning, but I only got like 28,000 points. Where is my other 82,000 points?" Yamauchi cried out. Did he just?
A couple other students also attempted to ask questions.
Hirata was looking at me, and I looked at him. We both knew that something went wrong.
"Yamauchi-kun, I've already explained this before. Points are deposited on the 1st of every month. I've confirmed that points were wired this month without any issues.
Yamauchi and Ike both exchanged glances. Some other classmates exchanged glances with each other. And then simultaneously, everyone looked at Koenji.
It looked like he paid attention to this, but with a large smirk on his face now.
"Are you kids really that dumb?" Sensei made sure to look at both Yamauchi and Ike very clearly before looking forward. She sighed in frustration.
"You lot were this close to have kept most of your class point. Koenji told you all, even Hirata warned you guys right after." Chabashira shouted at the class. How did she know about Hirata, she left the class after the class introduced themselves to each other. I instinctively looked around to the corners of the class. There are small cameras present.
I thought back to sensei, hmm so that's what it is.
"A total of 42 absences and late arrivals. 111 incidences of talking or using a cell phone in class. That is quite a few infractions over one month. I suppose it could have been a whole, whole lot worse. However, in this school, your class' results are reflected in the points that you receive. As a result, you wasted the majority of the 100,000 points that you should have received. That's what happened."
"I should have explained this all to you on the day of the entrance ceremony. This school measures its student's true abilities. This time, you were all evaluated a lot lower than before. That's all. Does anyone have any questions?"
No one did. A pencil rolled on the floor, it was quite loud. She said this in robotic fashion, devoid of any emotion. Or at least that is what it seemed like at first glance.
"Then..." Chabashira rolled out the poster onto the board.
"Are these... the results for each class?" Horikita tentatively took a guess.
Class A: 940 Class Points
Class B: 650 Class Points
Class C: 490 Class Points
Class D: 280 Class Points
"Isn't something about this odd?"
"Yeah. The numbers look too even."
Horikita and I had both noticed something strange.
"In this school, 1 class point is equivalent to 1000 private points to every student in that class for the 1st of every month."
"But, but my 100,000 yen! My 100,000 yen lifestyle! This isn't fair!" Yamauchi cried out in agony.
"Had you lot really expected the school would give every single student here 100,000 points every month with no strings attached?" Sensei chose to address the class instead. "Do you guys understand why you lot were placed in class D? Do you finally understand now?"
"The reason we were placed into class D? Weren't we simply accepted into this school?"
"Huh? But classes are normally divided up like this, right?"
Students exchanged glances. Koenji then let out a majestic laugh, like he did the first day of school.
"You fools, do you still not get it? I suppose defective products wouldn't understand their own defections after all. It shouldn't even take a perfect existence like myself to explain. So I refuse to elaborate." Koenji mocked the class D students, but before they could argue back, Chabashira-sensei spoke up.
"Anyways... In this school, students are sorted by their level of excellence. The superior students are sorted into Class A, the least capable in Class D. It's the same system you'd find in the major cram schools. In other words, Class D is akin to the last bastion for failures. You are the worst of the word. You're defective. This is just the result of you being defective."
Horikita's face stiffened. She definitely felt shocked by this line of reasoning. Good.
"Now then, I have one more bit of bad news to share with all of you." She stuck up another poster. Judging from these, we have quite a few idiots in this class." She glanced at both Ike and Yamauchi, as well as Sudou.
"The majority of the class scored below 60 marks. The average across all the classes was 66 marks. Though I am quite glad about one thing. If this was a real test, 7 of you would have dropped out, so good thing it wasn't."
"D-drop out? What do you mean?"
"If you fail on a midterm or final exam at this school, you drop out. If we apply that rule to this test, anyone who scored below thirty-three points would be out." She then drew a red line above seven people's names
"Oi teacher, don't joke around! Don't joke about kicking us out!"
"These are school rules. You should prepare for the worst"
"The teacher's right. There do seem to be a lot of morons here." Koenji wore a very smug grin, while he polished his nails, his legs continued to be propped on the desk.
"I would gladly accept any generous donations of the private points from those who have given up already." Koenji then exclaimed, making sure that everyone heard that in the class.
"What the hell, Koenji? You scored below the red line, too!"
"Pah. Where exactly are you looking at, boy? Look again."
Starting from the bottom of the page, Sudou scanned upward, and there he found Koenji Rokusuke's name. He had full marks, tied with my name.
"Ayanokouji?! You too?!"
Whack. A loud thud came from one side of the classroom. It was Sudou. "Dammit! Won't the other classes make fun of us?"
"Well I hardly see why they wouldn't. But next time, how about you listen to the ones who actually know what they are talking about. Bear with it. Tolerate it. It is your best option." Chabashira said.
"And another thing. Koenji, Ayanokouji. Well done for being one of the three people in your year to get full marks on this exam. You shall be compensated with 10,000 private points." One of the three?
"And I forgot to mention. If you don't graduate from class A, you won't receive the perks of graduation that this school boasts. We do not allow mediocrity to possess such perks." Chabashira dropped the final nail in the coffin.
"Th-that's...absurd! We didn't hear anything about that!" Another top student said. It was Yukimura, who scored a respectable 90 tied with Horikita.
"How disgraceful. There's nothing more pitiful than men losing their cool." As if prompted by Yukimura's words, Koenji let out a sigh.
"Don't you feel dissatisfied being in class D, Koenji?" Yukimura asked.
"Dissatisfied? Why would I feel dissatisfied? I don't understand."
"Because the school says we're so low that we're basically delinquents and failures. we've been told that there's no guarantee whatsoever that we'll advance into higher education or get a job!"
"Pah. Utter nonsense. That's so marvelously stupid that I can't even find the words. Although... I can see why you were placed in class D already." Koenji didn't even face Yukimura when he said this. "The school simply has its own way of evaluating its students that it favors. And whether or not I drop out of this school has no effect whatsoever on my future prospects. I am also 100 percent positive that the school would come crying to take me back."
"And I would like to make this abundantly clear to everyone, since the rest of you clearly did not heed to my warnings. I do not plan on helping this class in any sort of way. Unless of course, I am thoroughly compensated, that is." Koenji finally stood up while saying this, not looking at anyone in particular, and then sat down.
"It looks like your bubbles have been burst. If you had simply understood the harsh reality of the situation from the start of the situation, then this homeroom period might have meant something. For now though, your midterms are in 3 weeks. Please think things over, and don't drop out. There are ways to avoid failing these midterms." Chabashira exited the room.
Before anyone could react to Chabashira's exit, Hirata immediately stepped up to the podium.
"I understand that you're all confused right now, but everyone needs to calm down and think rationally about this." Hirata, sensing the classroom tipping toward crisis, stood and attempted to rein everyone in.
"How are we supposed to calm down? Aren't you frustrated that she called us a bunch of failures?!" Yukimura shouted.
"Even if I was, isn't it better for us to band together so we can turn things around?" Hirata asked.
"Turn things around? I don't even agree with how we were sorted in the first place!"
"I understand. However, sitting here whining won't help us right now. And another thing, we don't fully understand how they sorted us around but Koenji gave us a clue. It is how the school has its own way of evaluating its students. There are some incredible students here, you even managed to solve one of the difficult problems in that exam we had. Perhaps the school has chosen to balance the classes in a way to give the lower classes a competitive chance."
"Th-that..." Yukimura attempted a rebuttal, but came up short. Great work Hirata.
"Besides, it has only been 1 month since we have started here right? Like Hirata-san said, it's better if we all do our best together, right? Do you think I'm wrong about that?" Kushida came in for support.
At this point Yukimura's anger had vanished.
I had noticed Horikita was looking at me intently. But... I chose to ignore it.
After everyone left, I had made sure to leave so that Horikita wouldn't catch up to me. She surely should have regretted not getting my number. I made sure to give Hirata the whereabouts.
"Ayanokouji-kun, thank you for giving me ideas on how to calm down the class. But why didn't you ask Kushida for help?"
"In truth, Kushida-san would have been able to support you easily anyways, like she did." I said. In reality, I don't trust Kushida, but I can't just say that.
"By the way, why are you planning on adding Kushida to the group with Horikita in it? She should be enough to handle her own group, right?" Hirata asked.
"It is to help Ike, Yamauchi and Sudou. Those three are the biggest risk of expulsion, as well as my friends and Kushida can help bring them up to study. The three of them need as much support as possible." I said.
"Furthermore, maybe she can bond and make some friends through this as well."
"Well, once again, thank you Ayanokouji-kun."