On March 6th, guided by the biological clock honed over many years, Yukio woke up at dawn. After a quick wash, he went out for a morning run, keeping to the habit he'd maintained for more than a decade.
Habit is a frightening kind of power. As a child, Yukio had thought that maybe, with his family background, he could live happily without effort. But in the end, he decided nothing was more important than good health.
So he started training young and gradually built the habit of morning runs. Once it becomes a habit, it turns as natural as breathing and drinking water. Getting up early every day is far less difficult than before the habit took root.
After a few easy laps, Yukio casually pulled out a tissue, wiped his sweat, tossed it into a trash can, and headed back to the dorms—planning to enjoy a sweet little nap.
After the voting exam came a two-day weekend; not sleeping more would be an insult to these waning days of winter.
Only, when he reached the first-year dorms, he ran into someone utterly unexpected—the Class D homeroom teacher, Sae Chabashira.
Chabashira wore her familiar black office-lady outfit, face cool and aloof, almost a mirror of Horikita's demeanor. The V-neck blouse with its top button undone was like a mysterious night sky that stirred a constant urge to explore.
She was holding a hose, watering the flowerbed outside the dorms like a diligent gardener.
It made Yukio feel distinctly awkward. "Um, Chabashira-sensei, even if it's late winter, you should be watering at a warmer time around noon, right? Morning and evening watering can freeze and damage the roots."
"…" Chabashira's cold expression faltered for an instant, as if someone had punctured a secret. She looked very ill at ease.
"As I thought." Yukio walked a few steps to the faucet and turned it off. You can't be killing the flowers—smelling them on my runs is half the fun. "If you're here this early, Sensei, you must have another purpose, right?"
A homeroom teacher getting up early is understandable—lesson prep, other work, whatever.
But showing up at dawn on a weekend, when hardly any first-years are awake, just to water the flowers outside the first-year dorms? That's stealing the dorm matron's job, no matter how you spin it.
And after three semesters of morning runs, he'd never once seen any homeroom teacher come help with the watering.
The moment he saw Chabashira, it clicked. She was here for something else.
Was it Horikita she wanted? Matsushita? Or… that Ayanokoji?
While Yukio was thinking, Chabashira, still holding the now-shut hose, suddenly spoke. "If you don't mind my asking—Yukio-kun, how do you plan to use that sum of points?"
Huh? For me?
Yukio didn't quite get it. She'd come for him? And about that enormous pile of private points? However much he'd raked in, what did it have to do with Chabashira?
"Class secrets. Not convenient to say." Yukio parried without answering directly. She wasn't his homeroom teacher—why should he be wary of Chabashira?
If he were in Class D, he'd at least explain a little. But he wasn't.
A different class's homeroom teacher coming to ask a student outside her class how he planned to use his private points? How bizarre.
Chabashira frowned, as if faced with a particularly thorny problem. After a moment, she put the hose back, took a slim woman's cigarette and lighter from her pocket, and, without minding the student before her, lit up and exhaled. In the wreathing smoke, her gaze turned complicated.
"Haa… Yukio. Haven't you been probing ANHS's rules all along? Don't you like making deals?"
"If I told you all the rules I know from the school's side… could I trade that for seven hundred million private points?"
"?" What are you even thinking?
Yukio blinked. First thought: just how fanciful did Chabashira have to be to dream of swapping some rules for seven hundred million?
Never mind that thirty billion could replace the chairman—and once he did that, he could access the S-System and see all the rules. Just over these three semesters alone, with student council authority and Hoshinomiya as his insider among the faculty, the rules Yukio knew weren't necessarily fewer than Chabashira's. They might even exceed hers. In that case, only a fool would pay seven hundred million for duplicate intel.
…Wait. Yukio suddenly realized the crux: what did Chabashira want seven hundred million for? In ANHS, what can you do with that amount… practically only a mass transfer.
More precisely, it's eight hundred million—that's what it costs to transfer a full forty-person class with no expulsions entirely into Class A.
But Class D had already seen three expulsions. That means seven hundred forty million would transfer the remaining students.
In other words, Chabashira likely had around forty million saved herself as faculty funds and needed seven hundred million from him. With that, she could finally fulfill her long-held obsession—raise Class D to Class A.
Yukio and Hoshinomiya were on excellent terms now—so good that a pat on the shoulder could say everything between them. And from what Hoshinomiya knew of Chabashira, Yukio naturally understood just how fierce her desire was to see Class D rise to A.
Back during the training camp exam, Hoshinomiya had told him their old grudge: ten years ago, both she and Chabashira were third-year Class D students at ANHS.
At the time, they were less than 100 class points behind Class A. In the final special exam—the one that could have flipped D and A—Chabashira let the class down, and Class D plummeted, losing all hope.
Perhaps it was remorse, perhaps atonement. In any case, Chabashira came back as a teacher and would only take Class D. Ten years of teaching, hoping to lift D to A—never once succeeding.
This time, in Yukio, she saw hope for Class D's ascent. With that massive stash of private points, just a portion would make her ten-year wish come true in one stroke.
That was why Chabashira had come to him.
Yukio understood—and refused without a shred of hesitation. "Haha, forget it. I'm not interested in the school-side rules anymore."
He was saving the thirty billion to replace the chairman. Not a single point would go to Chabashira.
What he hadn't expected was her reply: "Name your price. Seven hundred million—whatever it is you want, so long as you want it and I'm capable of doing it, I will give it everything I have."
...
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