"Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts."
"The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't."
- The Prestige
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"Good morning, Yamauchi!"
"Good morning, Ike!"
Arriving to class, Ike wore a broad grin as he called out to Yamauchi. It was rather unusual for them to get here so early. It'd been one week since the entrance ceremony, and Ike and Yamauchi would always make it to class right before the bell rang.
In this one week I had made a lot of progress, I had started interacting with Kushida's group. Surprisingly Kushida was the one who invited me to ask if I knew anything about Horikita. Which surprisingly was the name of my neighbor. It explained a lot about her actions in the club fair but I was still surprised. After letting Kushida down due to my lack of information on Horikita, she still invites me to their hangouts.
I was also frequently interacting with Karuizawa's group. Often eating lunch with them at the cafeteria. Although I ate from my bento, which I prepared with my newly learned cooking skills, all thanks to Chiaki. For all it's worth, she is a patient teacher.
The Boys group was successful, within a week the group's member toll was 11 with the addition of Hirata, Onizuka and Kikuchi. We met early in the morning at 5 am for workout and often hang out at the Game zone at the Keyaki mall.
"Whew, man! I was looking forward to today so much that I barely slept last night!"
"Ah ha ha! This school is just the best! I can't believe that it's almost time for swimming! And when I say swimming, I mean girls. And when I say girls, I mean girls in school swimsuits!"
I forgot this was going on in the background.
"Hey, Ayanokouji!" Yamauchi called my name. When I looked at him , I saw him beaming at me.
"What is it?" I asked trying to hide my annoyance.
As I approached them, I could hear Ike expressing his doubts about including me in the some plan.
"Don't worry, we are not including him in the plan. It is only known to you, me, Professor, Sudo, Hondo and Miyamoto. We will only include him in the bet." he whispered. Before Ike could protest any further he talked to me.
"To tell you the truth, we're taking bets on the girl's chest sizes."
"We've come up with some probabilities." The Professor took out a tablet and opened a spreadsheet. The names of all the girls in our class were displayed. There were numbers listed as well. I honestly had no interest in gambling, but I couldn't let this opportunity go to waste.
"Umm. So, is it okay if I join you?" I asked.
"Yeah! Come on, do it. Do it!" clearly he didn't expect the golden boy of the class to participate in his degeneracy.
As of right now, Hasebe was the likeliest contender for the biggest breasts in the class. The odds sat at one to eight. If I remember correctly she is one of the inactive member of Kushida's group. She rarely comes to karaoke evenings and prefer keeping to herself. Even though we didn't interact much, I still felt disgusted by the action of these debauched individuals.
"This is way more elaborate than I would have thought. Aren't youobserving them a little too closely?"
"Come on. We're men, aren't we? Men have only two things constantly on their minds: tits and ass!"
What kind of stereotyping is that? Because of these kind of specimens. The whole gender is labeled as perverts.
"So, what's your wager? It's 1000 points to join."
"I see..."
"Come on, play with us. It's no fun if there are only a few people betting, you know?"
"I'll do it!" said Onizuka.
"Me too, me too!" joined Kikuchi.
"I have experience scouting girls and checking out their tits!" said Ijuuin.
While I considered the offer, members of 'The boys' group crawled out of the woodwork around me, getting blatantly excited over the size of the girl's breasts.
"That's the spirit. By the way, my money's on Sakura," Yamauchi chimed in. Sakura was a somewhat plain girl who wore glasses, but because I'd barely talked to her , I honestly didn't know that much about her. While it looked like he was pondering something, Yamauchi tapped the Professor and Ike on the shoulders and whispered something to them.
"I'm only telling you guys about this. The truth is, I actually confessed to Sakura."
"What?! S-seriously?!" Ike was the most surprised and flustered by this. Yeah, right and I nearly killed a trained assassin with a baton at the age of 8.
"Yeah, seriously. But keep this on the down low. It's just between us, okay? I mean, I thought she was really plain at first, but then I saw her wearing regular clothes. She was huge, man."
"You doofus. If she's not cute, you shouldn't ask her out, even if she's got huge tits. I wouldn't date anyone unless they were in the same league as Kushida or Hasebe. I'm not interested in such a Plain Jane." He spoke harshly because no one else was around.
I wondered how much delusional Yamauchi can be. When he said that he'd asked Sakura out. Did he really think anybody with more than one brain cell would believe him. I had my doubts. In the end, I decided to place my bet on the girl with the highest odds.
"All right! The pool!"
After lunch had ended, it was finally time for swim class. Finally, the moment Ike and the others had so desperately been waiting for. Without eventrying to hide his excitement, Ike leapt up and headed with the others toward the indoor pool.
Upon entering the locker room, Sudou promptly removed his uniform and started to change, showing off his physique. He'd built up his body through his years of basketball playing. Even in comparison with the other students, he was clearly in incredible shape. While the others wrapped themselves in bath towels, Sudou unabashedly wore only his underwear. He stood there, semi-nude, and took his swimsuit out of his bag. I couldn't keep myself from blurting something out.
"Sodou, I get it, you want to show of your body but seriously wrong crowd."
Sodou's face became the same color as his hair with anger. But before he could do anything, Ike and Yamauchi called him to discuss about their plan. A moment later, they left the locker room. We quickly finished changing as well.
Upon seeing the Olympic size pool, Ike cried out, "Whoa, this is the biggest pool I have seen in my entire life."
The water was clear and beautiful, and because it was indoors, we didn't have to worry about the weather. The perfect environment.
"What about the girls? Aren't they here yet?"
Ike looked around, sniffing the air like a dog.
"They take a while to change, so they're probably not ready." said Okitani.
Five minutes had gone by and neither the girls had come out of the locker room nor any teacher had arrived.
Yamauchi started to get impatient and asked Ike, "Why are they taking so long, our plans will be ruined. Is professor in his position?"
"Hey, should we go and check in the girls locker room?" said an impatient looking Makida.
"I don't know, isn't it kinda risky." replied Minami.
"Yes, but the rewards are good too. If the girls are taking this long then clearly they are busy doing something else. If one is lucky enough, they might see the girls totally nude. But again only the best can sneak in, check out the girls and come out without getting caught." said Yukimura.
"But, is there someone here, who is man enough to do this." said Ijuuin.
Hearing this Ike and Yamauchi had an excited glint in their eyes. They whispered something about screw the plan, we will see the real thing.
"Don't worry guys, we will be the representative of the manly club. We will go in and come out uncaught and tell you guys the tale of our adventures." declared Yamauchi.
"Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you guys take a picture with your phone and show us later." advised Minami.
"Great idea, don't worry I will go and watch the entrance. I will alert you guys if the teacher arrives." said Makida. This removed any doubts from their mind as they saw all the boys helping them.
"Let's enter the girls locker room and take their naked pics. Let's do it Ike."
"Yeah, let's do it. For big tits and ass." shouted Ike.
They brought out their phone that they had kept in their lockers. Switched on the camera and started towards the girls locker room.
They slowly opened the door and entered. It was empty in the front side. So they assumed most of them would be towards the back. As they went to the second row, the girls were present but they were fully dressed and looking at them with disgust.
Chiaki was recording the whole thing and at that moment the teacher arrived too. Accompanying him were Makida and Miyake. We were already in the locker room, tailing Ike and Yamauchi.
"Sir, these pathetic guys entered the locker room without permission and were trying to take our pictures. We caught them red handed. We also have proof." Karuizawa said pointing towards the recording.
"What! No we didn't do such thing. You guys didn't come out for a long time so we were worried and came here to check if everything was okay." Ike defended weakly.
"Actually no, you guys were planning on entering the locker room and take pictures of girls. I have the recording." Okitani played an audio clip where they were clearly discussing about entering the locker room and shouting about big tits and ass.
Ike and Yamauchi looked at him with betrayal.
"This is a serious offence, if a complaint is submitted by the girls then they could be expelled, or in worse case scenario imprisonment." the teacher said.
Ike and Yamauchi were on the verge of crying.
"What Ike and Yamauchi did was wrong, but they shouldn't be expelled for it." said Kushida coming to their defense.
" I think expulsion would be too much but what about getting permanent ban from any swimming pool in the school premise? And 10 round of the whole school campus." I said. The girls quickly agreed. Honestly for a person with a physique like them, expulsion would be better as 10 laps of the school campus would kill them. But I guess they were brave or they loved the school too much, as they chose my punishment.
"Even though I would have reported this to the school, but it falls in the hands of students to settle their disputes. So, hereby I declare that Ike Kanji and Yamauchi Haruki will be permanently banned from entering the indoor swimming pool or any other swimming pool in the school premise. Now you may go and complete the second part of your punishment. Keep in mind that there are security cameras that will keep an eye on you. If you didn't complete all 10 laps, you would have to restart again. Is that understood?" said the teacher.
Both of them nodded.
"Now rest of the boys leave the girls locker room immediately, this is the only time you are allowed. If any of you try to enter again, you will share their fate."
"Yamauchi and Ike, don't forget we still have the recording and we knew what you were planning, you were going to secretly record us in our swimsuit with the help of Sotomura and were betting on our sizes. If you try to plan something like this again, we will know and we won't hesitate to submit this recording to the school." said Chiaki sternly.
"But how did you know?"
"One of your friends, who was decent enough told us about your plan. Now we won't name them, as a gratitude for helping us."
"Somebody betrayed us. Who? Who did it? Was it you Sodou?" cried Yamauchi.
Sudou who till now was just silently watching, said with indignation "What, I already told you at the start, I didn't wanted to do anything with this but I still went along as you guys are my friends but the first person you suspect is me. If there was no teacher around I would have busted both of your heads."
Seeing Sudou angry, They were smart enough to escape while there was still some time left. We too left the girls locker room and moved towards the pool. Soon all the girls started coming out, well not all as there were some went and sat at the second floor observation deck.
As they came out, they started to surround me.
"Thank you so much, Ayanokouji-kun without you we would have been exposed to the eyes of those human garbage."
"Yes, Ayanokouji-kun you are so great. You are the best."
"It was nothing, the other boys helped as well." I said humbly.
"Ayanokouji-kun, you are so hot." That came out of nowhere.
"Ayanokouji-kun, how do you have a body like that.", how did the topic suddenly changed to my body.
The girls started to ogle me. They were just talking about how Yamauchi and Ike were degenerates to ogle them and now this.
Thankfully, Chiaki came to my rescue.
"Guys would you not to that, you are making him uncomfortable."
"Of course, Matsushita-san we wouldn't dare to check out your boyfriends hot body."
I am right here, you know. It seems that me regularly visiting Chiaki's room for learning cooking has sparked some rumors.
"What! No I wasn't saying that. And stop speculating that Kiyotaka and I are dating, Mori-san." said Chiaki with a red face.
"But you guys are childhood friends, call each other by first names and Ayanokouji-kun visits you in your room alone. These facts points towards that something is going on between you and Ayanokouji-kun." Mori said trying to corner Chiaki.
It seems we are jumping topics today. But it did provide me with an opening as most of the girls were focusing on Chiaki's interrogation. I escaped from their clutches but Chiaki noticed and looked at me with betrayal.
But little did I know, when I reached the boys they started to tease me too.
The teacher arrived again after escorting Ike and Yamauchi to their fate. He was macho-looking middle-aged man, the kind of guy who apparently devoted himself to sports, gathered everyone together and started the class. He looked like a PE teacher, but also seemed like the kind of guy who was attractive to men and women alike. Seeing majority of the class present, he was satisfied.
"After you warm up, I want to see what you can really do. Swim for me," the coach said.
"Excuse me, sir. I can't really swim, though..." Ijuuin sheepishly raised his hand and spoke up.
"Since you have me as your teacher, you'll be swimming by summer time. Don't worry about a thing."
"Well, we don't really need to force ourselves to swim, do we? It's notlike we're going to the beach or anything. I mean other than the artificial beach at the north quadrant."
"No way. I don't mind at all if you're bad at swimming now, but I'll make sure you guys are winners in the end. Besides, being able to swim will definitely come in handy later in life. Definitely."
Swimming would definitely come in handy? Well, I suppose knowing how to swim would be convenient. However, hearing a teacher at this school say something like that was worth noting. Though, he could also be that he just wanted to keep the students from sinking like rocks. Everyone started their warm-up exercises. The girls trying to take a peek at me and Hirata.
The teacher asked us to swim for about fifty meters. Students who could not swim were allowed to touch the bottom of the pool with their feet. I hadn't been in a pool since last summer. The water must have been temperature controlled, because I didn't feel chilled when I entered and adjusted rightaway. After getting in, I started to swim lightly.
After fifty meters, I waited for everyone else to finish.
"He he he, that was an easy win for me. Did you all see my superswimming skills?" Miyamoto cried. He'd swum expertly, and now got out of the pool with a smug, self satisfied grin. It seems the clowns are gone but they left the circus behind .
"Well, it looks like everyone can swim, for the most part."
"Of course, sir. Back in junior high, people called me 'the flying fish' you know." Miyamoto you are becoming second Ike.
"I see. In that case, I'll have you start competing against each other.We'll separate groups by gender. Fifty-meter freestyle."
"C-compete?! Are you serious?" the clown cried.
"I'll give out a special bonus to the first-place winner: 5000 points. The student who comes in last place, however, will have to take supplementary lessons. Get ready."
The skilled swimmers cheered with joy, while the less confident students groaned.
"Because we have almost similar amount of girls and boys, I'll split both girls and boys into six groups of five people. The winner of each group will move on to a final round. Now three groups of boys and three groups of girls are... " he started to group the students.
"I'd never imagined that the school would award points as a prize. Perhaps this was a way to light a fire under the students. Rather well thought out, I would say." said Yukimura.
Excluding the observers, Ike and Yamauchi and Ijuuin who couldn't swim, there were fifteen boys and fifteen girls competing. The girls started first, while the boys sat on the sidelines, filled with excitement as they cheered. The first group contained Azuma, Ishikura, Inogashira, Maezono and Kushida. It was an easy victory for her as others were not athletic.
As the race was going on Horikita, who is in the last group came to me.
"What was all that about, the girls were saying you made a plan about trapping Ike and Yamauchi?" Horikita asked.
"The first time we talk and you ask me that. No hi or hello, my name is Horikita or something." I said teasingly.
"I don't waste time on pleasantry, now answer already."
As much as I would have liked to ignore this demanding bitc... , unfortunately she is my classmate and even though her nature is the worst, she is academically capable. That much I have noticed during the classes.
"It all started when The Professor ca-"
"Who is this Professor?"
"Seriously? When Sotomura came to me and told that Ike and Yamauchi had approached him to record the girls in secret, as he is the only one in their friend group who can handle technology. So I being a gentleman informed the girls about this and told them to wait inside the locker room. We will encourage Ike and Yamauchi to enter the room and record it and thus trapping them. It was a simple plan really, nothing too complex." I finished explaining. Before she could ask any further questions, I dipped.
The competition was ongoing and the second group was dominated by Onodera while the third group was getting ready. I thought about what actually happened.
The explanation I gave Horikita was barely scratching the surface of my motive for doing this. When Professor came to me, I saw an opportunity to experiment on how the class would work under me and it went perfect. Even though this experiment will cost us a lot of points, as the teacher would report this to the school. But now not only the girls trust me and willingly follow me but I also increased there trust on the boys in our group, by being involved in flushing out the perverts. Which would exponentially decrease the chances of a fight breaking out between the boys and the girls. Although I did had to sacrifice Ike and Yamauchi for it. And it's not like that came without it's benefits. I purposefully instructed Chiaki to reveal the information that they were betrayed by someone they trust and not reveal there name. Now they would be paranoid about who is the traitor which would prevent them from making any more plans like these which could hurt our class seriously. The recording of Ike and Yamauchi would keep them in check and make them easily controllable. About the teacher coming late and agreeing to what I said, I had paid him in advance with points. Which further solidifies my theory of buying anything, even instructing teachers as long as it didn't hurt anybody. First week of the first-year barely passed and the whole class was working efficiently under me. A satisfactory outcome. I guess next week will be the perfect time to reveal the S system. The stage is set and the show is about to begin.
While I was doing my monologue, girls group were already finished with Chiaki beating Horikita by 0.12 seconds. Horikita had a expression of displeasure in her face. But seeing that her time was better than the winner of first group coach gave her a wildcard entry to the final round.
As the final round of the girls begin, bets were made by the boys. This time on who would win rather than their breast sizes.
Even though Chiaki was capable my money was on Onodera, looking at her form and because she had joined the swimming club it was a no brainer.
My prediction stood correct when she won with a considerable margin. Her time recorded was 26.31 seconds with Chiaki coming in second at 27.52 seconds followed by Horikita and Kushida. Even though Kushida came last the girls and boys were cheering for her.
With this the first boys group took there position. It consisted of Sodou, Minami, Hondou and Makida. It was a close affair between Sodou and Minami, both of them were athletic but Sodou took first place. He started boasting of how he couldn't wait to beat us and show us our place.
Second group consisted of the fan favorite Hirata, Kouenji, Miyake, Miyamoto and Kikuchi. This was a packed group. Hirata was good at everything, Miyake was athletic, Miyamoto for all his clowning was still a capable swimmer and Kikuchi was not bad either. The unknown variable was Kouenji, he clearly looked capable enough to win but he was heavily built which would work against him.
He put on a refreshing smile and then planted his feet by the starting line.
"Hey. Uh, why is Kouenji wearing a speedo?"
"Wh-what?"
Although the school allowed such tight swimwear, Kouenji was the only one in our class wearing it. The briefs drew attention to his crotch, and the girls all looked away.
As the signal was given, the girls started cheering for Hirata, but Kouenji surprised us all taking first place that too by a long margin.
"My abdominal muscles, back muscles, and psoas major muscle seemto be in good shape, as usual. Not a bad performance, although it looks like you peasants weren't worth wasting my energy. I expected more challenge for the perfect existence in a school like this." he finished his boasting and started his daily routine of admiring himself. The girls were glaring daggers at him for insulting Hirata.
"Hirata-kun, you were so cool! You're not just good at soccer, you're really good at swimming!" one girl cried. Even though he came second, he was still better than average.
"You think so? Thank you!" he said.
"Hey, why are you ogling Hirata-kun like that?" another girl said.
"Huh? I'm ogling?!"
There was an indignant squeal .
"Come on, girls, knock it off. Please don't fight over me. I belong to everyone. I want to be everyone's friend. Besides, what if someone who's better at swimming comes along?"Kouenji mistakenly seemed to assume that the cheers were for him.
"Kouenji, would you consider joining the swim team. You could easily win national level competition." said the coach.
"I have no interest in participating in a competition where I know I will win." replied Kouenji. In a way, I agree. There is nothing exciting about competing when there is no competition.
The third group which included me were next.
"Kya!"
A girl let out a joyful scream as I took my starting position.
It was the easiest group consisting of Okitani, Onizuka, Yukimura and Sotomura . I was expected of getting first place by the girls and I didn't disappoint them. Although my time was more than Sodou and Kouenji.
"I'm fired up!" Sudou didn't want to lose, so his competitive spirit flared. To be honest, Sudou was the only one who had any chance of winning against Kouenji. The final round was more like a one-on-one match between the two of them.
"I'm really looking forward to this. Both Kouenji-kun and Sudou-kun are so fast." Kushida said.
"I'm going to blow you out of the water. I'll use all of my power," Sodou tried to trash talk with Kouenji.
"Don't worry red-haired boy, I have no need to waste my perfect breath on someone like you." replied Kouenji.
Sodou growled with irritation.
The boys bet on Kouenji who had the best time in the class at 21.93 seconds while the girls bets were on me. Even though I had the worst time amongst the final three.
The coach blew the whistle, we jumped into the water. Miraculously I was in the lead and finished the race first with the time of 21.02 seconds. Kouenji came in second at 21.61 which was better than his previous race. Sodou came in last at 25 seconds. His expression was priceless. He was not the only one who was surprised by the results. Kouenji who till starting of the race had a smug expression was looking at me with interest and a hint of respect.
"You beat the perfect existence this time, Ayanokouji-boy, but don't think I will go easy on you next time. Until then adieu." saying this he left without a care in the world.
The girls, once again started flocking towards me. Karuizawa and company praising my looks, Kushida and her group of shy people, congratulating me. Even the boys were patting my back and asking for a treat with those 5000 points. I couldn't deny them that especially after they helped me in my plan. Although the girls were dissapointed that I was not gonna spend time with them.
The coach completed the point transfer and invited me to join the swim team, which I politely declined.
And after a enjoyable evening with the boys, a fruitful day finally came to an end.
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Sheesh!
Finished the longest chapter I have written yet. Almost 4.6k words.
This one was a rollercoaster, planning and writing this took almost 10 hours. Although I took sufficient breaks.
It will be some time before the next chapter as I am exhausted.
Hopefully, you like the chapter.
I am too tired to even write this.
So that's all for now folks.
Have a wonderful day.