Horikita Suzune walked in with her usual cool expression and immediately, she saw Chabashira-sensei sitting at one of the couches there, drinking tea. That was when she noticed that there was someone else with her, and it was a person whom she was overly familiar with.
"Ayanokouji-kun? Why are you here?" she frowned in confusion at seeing him here in the teacher's office, before shaking her head. It doesn't matter if he was here. "Never mind. Sensei, I need to speak with you urgently."
"Then take a seat beside Ayanokouji. It's a good thing that I prepared three cups of tea beforehand," she told the girl, who did as she was told and sat right beside her classmate. "So, what did you want to talk to me about, Horikita?"
"I was right... Horikita was planning to talk to Chabashira-sensei," Kiyotaka thought to himself, taking a hidden glance at his classmate. "But why now? Why not earlier right after she left the classroom? Unless..."
"I will be frank. Why was I sorted into Class D?" asked Suzune, taking a sip of her tea to calm herself.
"That's quite frank."
Suzune frowned. "Today, you told us that the school sorted superior students into Class A. You said that Class D was filled with the leftovers, the delinquents and failures."
"That's true. Based on your question, you must consider yourself to be a superior person."
Kiyotaka kept his attention towards Suzune, wondering how she would react to this. If her personality was to be taken into account, then she would no doubt refuse to take this lying down. He really lucked out by becoming friends with her before all of this.
"I solved nearly every problem on the entrance examination. I made no substantial mistakes during my interview, either. I can understand if I wasn't put in Class A but at the very least, I shouldn't have been sorted into Class D."
"You solved nearly all of the problems on the entrance examination, eh? Normally I couldn't show the examination results to individual students, but I'll make an exception in this case. I just so happen to have your answer sheet here," Chabashira said, removing Horikita's answer sheet from her clipboard before showing it to her.
Suzune's eyes widened slightly in realization. "You're prepared for this. It's almost as if you knew I'd come here to protest."
"I'm an instructor. I understand the mind of a student, at least to some degree, Horikita Suzune. Just as you said, you did well on the entrance examination. You had the third-highest test score among the first-year students and were close to the highest and second-highest-scoring students. You did exceedingly well in the written test. And you are also right on your second point. We found no particular problems in your interview. On the contrary, we evaluated you quite highly."
"Then why?"
"Before I answer that, why are you dissatisfied with Class D?"
"Who could be happy with an incorrect evaluation? On top of that, you said that the class rankings greatly impact our future prospects. Of course I'm dissatisfied."
"Incorrect evaluation, you say? Then perhaps your self-evaluation is far too high." Sae laughed. "I acknowledge that your academic ability is excellent. You're certainly very smart as well. However, who exactly decided that smart people are categorically superior? We never said that."
Kiyotaka was starting to put the pieces together in his mind after those words, while Suzune was struggling to understand everything.
"But... that's just common sense."
"Common sense? Didn't common sense create our current, flawed society? Before, Japan relied solely on test scores to separate the superior and inferior. As a result, the incompetents at the top tried desperately to kick down the truly superior students. In the end, we settled on a system of hereditary succession."
"...which also means that the school didn't sort students based on academic ability alone," the young man concluded in his thoughts.
"You're a capable student, Horikita. I don't deny that. However, this school's goal is to produce superior people. If you believe academics alone place you into a higher class, then you are mistaken. That was the very first thing we explained to you. Besides, think rationally. Would we have admitted someone like Yamauchi if we decided superiority based solely on academic merit?"
"Tch..." Suzune gritted her teeth. It was clear that she was slowly losing her patience.
"Furthermore, you may be too hasty in proclaiming that no one would be happy to be incorrectly evaluated. Take Class A, for instance. They are under incredible pressure from the school, and are also the target of extreme envy from the lower classes. Competing every day with that kind of pressure bearing down upon you is far more difficult than you might imagine. There are some students who are happy to be incorrectly evaluated at a lower level."
"You must be joking. I can't understand how a person would think like that," Suzune retorted, folding her arms across her chest.
"Is that so? I think that Class D boasts some of those people. Strange students who would be happy to remain where they are until they graduate."
"I almost felt like she was talking to me right there," Kiyotaka thought.
"You still haven't given me an explanation, sensei. Was I honestly sorted into Class D? Did anything go wrong with the grading? Please double-check," the black-haired student said, still believing that there was some kind of mistake with her placement in Class D.
"I'm sorry, but you weren't sorted by mistake. You are definitely in Class D. You are at that level."
Disappointment flashed in the girl's eyes. "Is that so? Then I will ask the school again, at another time."
"Horikita's not going to give up. She merely determined that Chabashira-sensei is the wrong person to ask," the young man shook his head in slight disappointment.
In all honesty, he shouldn't be surprised that Horikita was like this since her 'heroine summary' already told him everything he needed to know. It's just that he had gotten used to a more open side of Horikita in the past weeks that seeing her like this made her seem like a completely different person when she's around him.
"You'll get the same answer from anyone in a higher position. Besides, there's no need to be disappointed. As I told you this morning, it's possible for one class to overtake another. You could reach Class A and overtake the other classes before you graduate."
"I can't imagine that it will be easy, though. Forget overtaking Class A; how in the world could we even gain points if we have immature misfits in our class? I can't see how it's possible," Suzune argued. She wasn't wrong, the difference in points between Class D and the other classes was overwhelming and to make matters worse, unity was a major issue within them that can't be remedied through nice words and comforting gestures.
Sae shrugged. "I don't know. You alone get to decide how you head down that path. At any rate, Horikita, do you need to be in Class A for any special reason?"
That was a question that the girl couldn't answer right away, mainly because she didn't know what to say. "Well... I suppose that's enough for now," she finally spoke after thinking hard about what she should answer. "But know that I'm not yet convinced that I was sorted correctly."
"Understood. I will keep that in mind. Now then, Ayanokouji, I'll explain why I called you here." Chabashira-sensei dismissed the girl's concerns and shifted her attention to the young man who had been listening silently until now.
"Well then, if you'll excuse me..." Horikita muttered as she prepared to leave. She was actually planning to talk to him about all this, but she could just wait until their teacher was done with him.
"Wait, Horikita. It would be in your best interest to stay and listen. It may provide you with a hint on how to reach Class A."
Suzune looked at her friend for a moment, as though she was considering Sae's words, before she sat back down. "Please keep it brief," she said.
Chabashira-sensei chuckled as she glanced over her clipboard, before turning back towards the young man in front of her. "You're an interesting student, Ayanokouji."
"I don't think I am," he humbly denied.
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ "Well, when I read over the entrance exam's results, your scores piqued my interest. I was honestly shocked," she removed another answer sheet from her clipboard and showed it to her two students, one that Kiyotaka was familiar with. "Fifty points in Japanese. Fifty points in mathematics. Fifty points in English. Fifty points in social studies. Fifty points in science. In the recent short test, you scored seventy points. A slight improvement, but not enough. Do you know what this means?"
A stunned Horikita looked over the test paper and then shifted her focus to her friend. "This is a rather frightening coincidence," she mumbled.
Chabashira smirked. "Oh? You believe that getting 50s in every subject was a coincidence? He did it intentionally."
"It's a coincidence. There's no evidence that it isn't. Besides, what would I gain by manipulating my scores in the first place? If I was intelligent enough to achieve high marks, I would've tried to get perfect scores."
Chabashira sighed in exasperation.
"Listen. Only 3 percent of students solved the fifth math problem successfully. You solved it perfectly, and even used a complex formula to do so. However, the tenth problem on the test had a completion rate of 76 percent. Did you make a mistake on it? Or did you do it on purpose?"
Kiyotaka shrugged. "It was a coincidence. Perhaps I simply did not know the answer to the question, sensei."
"For crying out loud! I respect your frank attitude, but it'll cause problems for you in the future, Ayanokouji!" the woman said.
"I'll simply deal with them when they come."
Sae let out a deep sigh. "Why do you pretend not to know?"
"Like I said, it was a coincidence. It's not like I'm hiding that I'm a genius or anything." Kiyotaka wanted to groan. Even he knew that that attempt in lying was horrible.
"I wonder. He may be even more intelligent than you, Horikita."
Instead of reacting in a negative manner to such a claim, Suzune simply stared at Kiyotaka in wonder. She was thinking of the possibility that everything their teacher was saying about her classmate was true, but a lot of things won't make sense if that was truly the case.
"I don't like studying, and I don't plan to try hard. That's why I got those scores," the young man said in a last effort to explain how he got a 50 in every test.
"A student who chose this school wouldn't say something like that. However, some students may have different reasons for getting in. You, for example, and Kouenji as well. I think you're fine with being in either D or A."
"What makes you think that, sensei?" Horikita asked.
Chabashira-sensei smirked. "You want me to explain it to you in detail, Horikita?"
"Yes."
"As much as I would like to, I'm afraid I don't have any more time. It's almost time for the faculty meeting, so I have to leave. Don't worry, Horikita. You can talk to him yourself if you want answers. Now, I'm going to close the door, so please get out."
The two quickly left the office, but they didn't go anywhere yet. They simply stood outside the office, not knowing what to do.
"Want to head back to the classroom?" Kiyotaka asked, taking a glance at the girl.
Suzune didn't respond at all and simply kept her head down, as if she was thinking deeply about something. Seeing her in this state, the young man chose to walk away. It's probably even for the best that they stay away from each other until tomorrow...
"Wait." Horikita called out, stopping him before he could even move. "Was your score...really just a coincidence?" she asked.
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