On the Sunday night, before the Paper Shuffle Exam, I felt the cool breeze brush past my skin as I walked my way back to the school dormitory. The icy sensation of the cold pierced the tip of my nose. It makes you wonder if it'll snow this year.
For now, I should get inside the building. It'll become a pain if I suddenly catch the flu.
"Good evening, Ayanokouji-kun..."
"Oh, Horikita. Good evening."
I entered the dorm lobby and saw her sitting on one of the couches. She loosely wore her brown cardigan so I could clearly see the white camisole underneath. As a guy, I can't say I don't appreciate the view. At the end of the day, Horikita was a very attractive girl.
"Where did you go?" she asked, starting the conversation.
I took my seat on the other end of the couch.
"I just got back from the convenience store. How about you? What are you doing here?"
"I... just needed a change in environment. I didn't feel comfortable in my room."
"I see..." That reason was unusual for someone like Horikita. "Is everything alright?"
"To be honest, I can't be too sure. The issue with Yamauchi-kun and Ryuuen-kun had a very troublesome development... And there's the exam tomorrow, too."
"How's the class's performance?" I asked.
"Based on the mock exam, our class's performance was amazing. The questions were harder than our regular exams, but we managed to pull through and increase the class average."
That should've been good news but... seeing Horikita's aloof expression, I could tell that it wasn't much of a good news.
"It's not enough, is it?"
"Unfortunately..." she shook her head. "If we don't count the midterm exam during the first semester, we've actually hit our all-time high in terms of class average, which is 77.43 points. Every pair was well above 1,000 points, too. It's a stellar result but..."
"77.43 points... That's actually very high. But it can't compare to Sakayanagi or Ichinose's class. I can still remember that their classes' average scores were at least 82 points during the first semester's final exam."
I don't know how they did during the last midterms, though. (1)
"Yes... It'll be a huge gap in the total score. Even if their results are worse this time, the chances of them beating us are still extremely high..."
With an average score of 77.43 points, the class would either have 24,776 or 24,778 points in total for their overall score. Even if an opposing class's average score is only ahead of us by two or three points, the gap in overall score would still be a significant number. (2)
To put things into perspective, a class getting an average score of 80 points would have at least 25,600 points in total. That's a difference of more than 800 points.
If we're going to trust the data, then this exam is already over before it even started. We'd lose 100 class points if Class B and Class C beat us...
"I assume you didn't tell the class?"
"That's right. It would only dampen their morale. They must take the exam at peak condition no matter what."
I also think that's for the best. Even if we lose this time, the thing that matters the most is the steady improvement of the class.
"Have you given up on trying to get a higher score than Sakayanagi and Ichinose's classes?" I asked.
Horikita stayed silent for a short second before answering.
"Yes... I don't see any point in trying any other method at this stage. This kind of exam favors the class with the most number of academically gifted students. Unfortunately, we're not in that class. It's the same with Ryuuen-kun. He tried to use a traitor like Miyamoto-kun to sabotage us, and he failed. If everything else continues normally, Class D would have a harder time winning than us."
Getting paired with Ryuuen's class was our only way out, but unfortunately, we weren't so lucky.
"Speaking of Miyamoto, he talked to me yesterday."
"He did?" Horikita's tone turned urgent.
"Oh, he hadn't told you yet? Well, I guess he was supposed to keep it a secret. But yeah, he apologized for yelling at me and grabbing me. He said he only did it on Ryuuen's orders."
Her eyes narrowed as she turned her gaze away from me.
"But why would Ryuuen-kun give him such an order...? I don't understand..."
"I don't know either."
I stared at Horikita while she desperately tried to think.
"Speaking of which, we've received news from Miyamoto-kun that he failed in trying to use the bug against Ryuuen-kun. That was probably the reason why Ryuuen-kun was on guard against me and Hirata-kun when we tried to use it ourselves..." Horikita explained. "He didn't mention it to you?"
"No, not really."
If I remember correctly, Miyamoto used one when he gave the decoy questions to Ryuuen. And the other bug was borrowed by Horikita.
"Well, I guess that makes sense," she replied. "You see, Miyamoto-kun repeatedly apologized for delaying the news. He said he didn't know how he'd tell us about his failure. And he was afraid that you'd get angry at him for losing your bug. He begged us to keep it a secret from you, but I think you should still know. I'm sorry, we got your property taken away. I'll take responsibility for his mistake... though I don't think you're the type of person to hold that against him, anyway."
So Ryuuen found the bug and took it away from him, huh?
"I won't resent him over that. It's not much of a loss, to begin with."
"I see..." Horikita's expression dimmed. "But now that Ryuuen-kun knows about the bugs, I'm afraid he'd try to stock up on them..."
"He can't. He probably managed to buy one, but that's it. If I count the one he got from Miyamoto, he'd only have two bugs in total."
"How...?"
"It's out of stock. And they won't restock it ever again."
"Is that so...? I see... I guess, that's a relief. How many did they have left when you bought yours?"
"Apparently, they only had five in stock. I tried to buy the three remaining ones before summer vacation, but the employee told me that a class couldn't possess more than two of them. I only found out about it when I returned to buy more. And by the time I got there, only one bug was left, so Ryuuen might've bought that one."
According to the employee, a second-year student bought two of the three remaining bugs.
"A class...? Not student?"
"Yeah. It seems like the school deliberately put those bugs in the shop and made some restrictions."
"How absurd..." Horikita sighed.
She leaned back and tried to relax, but she didn't stop thinking.
I should probably return to my room now. I wanna put the things I bought inside the fridge.
"Can I ask you something, Ayanokouji-kun?"
"Oh, sure," I replied.
"Sakayanagi-san and Katsuragi-kun looked for you on Wednesday, right? What did you talk about?" she asked.
"Hmm... The talk between me and Sakayanagi was a bit personal."
"So it wasn't related to the Paper Shuffle at all?"
"No, not really."
Not on the surface, at least.
"If that's the case, then I won't pry. What about Katsuragi-kun?"
"With Katsuragi... He asked how I would win this exam if I was the current leader."
Horikita's method of ameliorating the class as a whole was known to our opponents. And Katsuragi, in particular, didn't believe that we would improve in time for the Paper Shuffle.
After hearing the results of the mock test earlier, it seems like Katsuragi was right.
In other words, his question indirectly criticized Horikita as our current leader.
"I see..." She didn't seem to have dwelled on it, which was admirable. "What did you tell him?"
"I said I'd do the same thing you did. In this type of exam, there's not much strategizing to do unless you want to be like Ryuuen. Your approach will probably benefit the class in the long run, which is honestly better, in my opinion."
"Is that so...? Um... Thank you..."
For the first time, I saw Horikita blush in shyness.
I thought I'd give her a genuine compliment as a friend.
"I'm glad to hear that from you..." she smiled.
If Horikita wasn't as strong as she was, her confidence would've been crushed long ago. But she kept moving forward and tried to prove herself as a worthy leader along with Hirata.
"I know I said that you're still behind the others, but you're a good leader. And from here on out, you'll only get better."
Horikita needed reassurance, and I'm probably the only one who can give that to her as someone who was once in her position.
That said...
She might not be able to smile for a while after today...
Author's Notes:
1. Since Kiyotaka was no longer part of the leader squad, he didn't bother analyzing the results of the midterm exams during the second semester. That's why he only remembers the one before it.
2. An overall score of 24,777 or 24,779 points is also equal to an overall average score of 77.43 points, but each item is worth 2 points in the Paper Shuffle Exam, so the overall score can't be an odd number.
2.1. The canon stating that Sakayanagi's class won against Ichinose's class by 2 points meant that it was also just a difference by one student getting one more question right.
You can check Volume 1: Chapter 17.2 of Self-Test for reference. I updated the picture there so it shows the class average for each subject.
RIP for the comments though.
According to Volume 1, each individual class has its own passing grade due to the difference in class averages.
Later on, it was shown to be one step further than that since Suzune only lowered her English score to lower the class average for the English subject.
This means each class will have different passing grades for each individual subject. It was never refuted by Kiyotaka or Chabashira-sensei so we can take it as fact.
We can somewhat see that this rule was still followed until Volume 6, and it was stated to have been unchanged since the first one.
However, this is a bit of a confusing plot point. If their per-subject passing grade stayed consistently at 40 points, then it means they'd consistently scored as high as they did when they used the old test questions from the seniors. This doesn't make sense given how that strategy made their first midterm exam a lot easier. Logically, their class average and passing grade should've dropped in the following exams, but they did not.
I can only think of one rationalization for this:
The first-semester midterm exam might be what decides the passing grades for the rest of the year. However, this was never brought up as a plot point ever again. Even if Kiyotaka addressed the lack of change in Volume 6, he never thought it was strange, passing it off as a normal thing.
There's also the possibility that Kinu just forgot about it.
Also, Kiyotaka's strategy in Volume 1 was fundamentally flawed. Because he shared it with the whole class, it was inevitable for the class average to rise, making the passing grade higher, too. If he really wanted to prevent the failures from getting expelled, he'd only share the old test questions with them to keep the class average and passing grade as low as possible. But I gotta cut him some slack. It's not like he knew how the passing grade was calculated at that time.