Chapter 3: Just A Hunch

Chapter 3: Just A Hunch

Chapter 3:

Just A Hunch

I PUT ON my personal clothes, which I hadn’t worn for a while since I’d bought them, and then poured some warm water into a cup. As I was pouring, I noticed the light seeping in through the window. I opened the curtains.

“Wow, it’s really piled up…”

The rain that had been coming down all day had turned to snow while I wasn’t watching, and it kept falling all throughout the night. It was snowing intermittently right now, and it was supposed to stop for a while at noon, but apparently it was going to start really coming down tonight. And according to the report on the TV, snowy days were going to continue for a while.

“No wonder it’s gotten colder,” I muttered.

The season when hot coffee tasted better had officially arrived. I stood in front of the kitchen, holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee in my right hand. In my left was my phone. Displayed on the screen were products and their prices. I didn’t know this until recently, but apparently, Keyaki Mall had been running web advertisements for the people living on campus here at ANHS. The battle for deals during the Christmas shopping season continued even through the end of today, the 25th, and they were hosting a big sale to coincide with that.

I learned this fact suddenly last night, when it had come up in a group chat made up of people from class. I had guessed they were getting all excited talking about how they had spent their Christmas Eve or how they were in the process of spending it. The first topic that got brought up in the group chat centered around two people in particular: Ike and Shinohara. Even though the two of them were in the group chat themselves, the fact that neither of them had read messages in the chat since it started after nine o’clock at night had caused an awful lot of talk amongst our classmates.

Was it just a coincidence? Or were they together? Of course, almost everyone thought it was the latter. Some rather intense students from the group chat had tried calling Ike and Shinohara, half out of envy and half in an attempt to tease them, but they both had their phones off, so no one was able to get through. However, no one saw the fact that they had their phones off to be a coincidence, and the chat continued.

Afterward, the flurry of messages continued even as the chat moved on to different topics, but I was amazed how they could talk for hours on end without running out of things to say. One of the subjects that had pinged my radar was the big sale.

“Huh… Even home appliances are cheap, too?” I remarked.

As I slowly brought the coffee to my mouth, taking care not to burn myself, I slid my finger across the screen. There was a variety of items, like ones that were popular with boys, such as game consoles and video games, and things that you could call everyday necessities, such as hair dryers and electric toothbrushes. There was even cookware, like mixers and slicers. I was cooking more often these days, so more than a few of these things were catching my interest. I was somewhat interested in the yogurt maker, and moreover, I noticed that it was in the special offers category in the web ad. “While supplies last.”

I figured this was, simply put, a high-pressure sales thing. I would have preferred to have kept my Private Point spending down…but I could make up that expense in the future by using the yogurt maker. Just how much yogurt would I need to eat during the time I had remaining here at school to make this expense cheaper than it would cost to just buy yogurt from the sto—no, that was an unproductive train of thought. I simply wanted this yogurt maker. And I wanted to try using it. Maybe that was all there was to it.

It was obvious that if I considered only the cost effectiveness of the product alone as important, then I would have no other choice but to decide against buying it. The more I racked my brain over it, the less likely I’d be to buy the yogurt maker. So, I stopped thinking. They were selling it at a discounted price, so I was going to buy it. That was it. The remaining question was what to make of this “while supplies last” part.

Keyaki Mall was not likely to have a system in place designed to hold a large amount of inventory, as it primarily targeted students. It was more than possible that they only had a few units available for sale. Above all, this big sale seemed to be popular among the students. I hadn’t paid any mind to it last year, but the popularity of the sale had spread without me realizing at the time, and some things ended up selling out (according to the class group chat).

“Maybe I should go and check it out…?”

To be honest, this sort of sale was completely foreign to me, so I really had no idea how it all worked. Was anything and everything an experience to be had? Or should I wait and see? As I waffled back and forth, still holding my phone, I got a message.

“Good morning. Is it okay if I give you a call? I don’t want to be a bother.”

It was from Ichinose. We’d just hung out at the gym yesterday. Was this a discreet, well-mannered way of confirming whether Kei was with me? Even though Kei wasn’t feeling well, just out of consideration of the unlikely possibility that she was here? No, I didn’t think so. Ichinose already knew that Kei had the flu. She wouldn’t think that Kei could have gotten over it already. I supposed it was just a polite formality on Ichinose’s part. I decided to just call her back directly, thereby implicitly telling her that it wasn’t a problem at all.

“Good morning. Is it okay to talk now?” she asked.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Um, I was wondering, what are your plans for today, Ayanokouji-kun?”

“Plans? Nothing in particular.”

“I take it Karuizawa-san’s condition still hasn’t improved.”

“I mean, it’s influenza, so it’ll take a while for her to recover, I imagine.”

“I see… I was thinking that I’d like to pay her a get-well visit or something, but I’m guessing the school issued a warning against that, right?”

“Yeah. They said something about avoiding any unintentional contact.”

The school had sent emails to students and anyone else affiliated with the school, urging them to avoid casually dropping by to visit people who were sick and to avoid going out carelessly while the flu was going around.

“At any rate, I’ve been checking on her,” I added.

“I see. That’s good to hear, I’m glad.” She wasn’t just saying so—she sounded genuinely relieved by that. “I know that this is a tough time for you right now, but…do you have plans to go to Keyaki Mall today?”

“Not sure… Well, I was thinking of going out later, but—well, if there’s something you want to talk about, how about we decide on a time and head to Keyaki Mall then?”

“We can’t. I know this might sound fussy, but really, it’s not a rendezvous or a date or anything. I just wanted to know if you were going to Keyaki Mall today, Ayanokouji-kun.”

“So, should I just answer with ‘I think I’ll probably go,’ then? Is that okay?”

“Yes, that’s perfectly fine. Thank you,” Ichinose said. “If you ever have any trouble, let me know, okay? I want to help you, too, and Karuizawa-san.”

We ended the call shortly after that, but in the end, I didn’t figure out what Ichinose wanted after all. Anyway, be that as it may, after looking at the time, I made up my mind.

“All right.”

It was 9:45. It was the perfect time for me to leave the dormitory, as Keyaki Mall would open soon. I was curious about what Ichinose had said too, so I decided to take the plunge and head out. I was going to take the shortest, most direct path to the mall and then head for the electronics retailer. Then, I would pick up the yogurt maker without even looking at anything else. If I ended up carelessly buying this or that, it just meant I had gotten roped in and manipulated by the mass marketing strategy.

I set my empty coffee cup down on the sink and headed for the front door. Mission: Start.

3.1

I ARRIVED AT KEYAKI MALL at 9:55 a.m. on that same day. It looked as though seven students were already here, waiting for the mall to open at the entrance closest to the dorms. The gender ratio was five girls and two boys. The girls were clumped into one group of three and one group of two. Both groups were engrossed in friendly conversation. You would have no way of knowing they were steeling themselves for battle.

The boys, on the other hand, comprised one first-year and a third-year. Even though they looked behind them, they didn’t look like they were expecting anyone else to come, and they went back to fiddling with their phones. It looked like they weren’t together. While it was perfectly conceivable that they could be headed for the electronics retailer, I couldn’t imagine that they were after the yogurt maker.

The first-year boy was somewhat overweight, wore glasses, and was holding his phone horizontally with both hands. He was busily sliding and tapping his fingers against the screen, likely playing a mobile game. Someone of his demographic would be interested in game consoles and game software.

However, there was one thing that felt strangely off. Why weren’t any of my classmates here? I took out my phone and opened the group chat once again, which had gotten so animated yesterday. More than a few of them had said that they were planning to go to the electronics retailer today to buy something, their messages phrased like declarations of intent. Among them was Hondou, who had excitedly posted messages to the group chat saying that there was something he had wanted for a long time featured in the advertisement. I didn’t want it myself, but even so, competition over it was apparently not meager by any means.

Many people voiced concern about whether they’d be able to buy their items even if they rushed to the store as soon as it opened, and several people had warned others to be careful not to oversleep. The clock on my phone marched on, and it was now 9:56. The store’s opening time was inching closer and closer. However, there was no sign of Hondou, nor of anyone else from my grade. Based on the flow of the conversation in the chat, it was strange nobody was there.

“…What is going on?” I wondered.

Something was off—students who were supposed to have been here weren’t. And looking at the seven people who were here right now, none of them appeared to be anxiously fidgeting or anything. Normally, wouldn’t people be sticking close to the entrance, prepared to fight over the slimmest advantage? Were these things that you could still buy, even if you were leisurely playing a mobile game? I felt a vague uneasiness, but I mustered my courage and decided to find out. Fortunately, the student amusing himself with games was my kouhai.

“Do you have a second?” I asked.

“…Yes?” replied the student.

The first-year looked up at me, with a somewhat irked expression on his face. He really had been playing a game, after all. Perhaps he had pressed the pause button: the screen was paused. I immediately got the impression that he really didn’t want to be talked to by a senpai, but I didn’t have any other choice. I was trying to confirm something.

“So what brings you to Keyaki Mall?” I asked.

“Huh? What? Are you imitating a TV show or something…? I don’t understand what you mean.”

“…Uh?” I had tried to speak to him as naturally as I could so as not to scare him, but I’d somehow put him on high alert. However, I didn’t have any time to waste, so I cut to the chase. “I was wondering if you came to check out the sale going on at the electronics store today. They have cheap game consoles and stuff.”

I tried to emphasize the game part as much as possible. He must have gotten my meaning then, because he responded with an “Ah!” However…

“Yeah, even though the game console is technically called the latest hardware, it’s the old LCD type, plus it’s an unpopular version too, since the controllers break easily. They call it a big sale, but it’s more like a clearance sale. Even the games they’re selling are ones that didn’t get great reviews. They’re old. They’re selling them for like 20 or 30 percent off the MSRP. Besides, I’m the type of person who buys the digital games for consoles, anyway.”

…I see.

I could understand the individual words coming out of this kouhai’s mouth, but I couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about. One thing was for sure, though: he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in the sale.

“I’m just heading to the bookstore. Today’s the release date for a manga I want. Oh, I bet you’re wondering why someone who downloads games is going to buy the physical version of a book rather than the e-book version, right?” said the student.

“Uh no, I—”

I tried to grip the torrent of words, but approximately 20 percent of it had already slipped out of my head. My brain was refusing to commit the information to memory, partly because he mumbled and partially because it was all nonsense. “It’s certainly true that for the e-book versions, you can buy them as soon as the release date rolls around, plus being able to read it whenever you want via your phone or tablet or whatever is appealing. But I like the feel of the book in my hands. I suppose you could say that I’m in the camp that wants to keep physical copies of manga and novels around forever, I guess. I’m only talking about manga and novels, though; I’m not opposed to going with e-book versions for other things in the slightest. For instance, catalogs about the year’s best products to buy, photo books, stuff like that. I tolerate those kinds of things. Up until junior high, I went with physical editions for those, too. Since I came to this school though, I have more access to phones and tablets, so I made the switch. Oh, is it okay if we end this conversation here, though? I’m in the middle of an event right now in my game, and you’re distracting me.”

After my kouhai had finished his intense information dump (which I hadn’t really listened to), he went back to fiddling with his phone. He no longer so much as even glanced in my direction.

The time was 9:58. It really was getting to be the time when familiar faces and other students interested in the sale should have been showing up. Maybe the sale wasn’t getting as much attention as I had thought? Perhaps that was because, like my kouhai had said, it was more inventory clearance. However, I heard that last year was a huge deal, and judging at least from the reactions of my classmates, including Hondou, it seemed like people had really looked forward to it.

Wait, don’t tell me, did I get the date wrong? They had said “tomorrow” in the chat, but wasn’t it possible that they had made a mistake? Or maybe it was “tomorrow” meant day after tomorrow, since the group chat started in the evening right before midnight.

I was starting to think maybe that was it. I hurriedly took out my phone and brought up the online ad again.

“…It’s today,” I mumbled.

I hadn’t made a mistake. The opening of the store was getting closer and closer, and yet not a single student had come here.

What is going on…?

When the store opened, I was going to head straight to the electronics store and buy a yogurt maker. Nothing could go wrong, right?

“Oh, hey, that reminds me. Yuuko just sent me a picture a minute ago. She says that the line at the north entrance has gotten crazy. Here, check it out.”

“Whoa. And I even went last year. But I couldn’t buy what I wanted, since they didn’t have enough in stock at all. Hey, why are people lining up at the north entrance, though?”

“Oh, you remember last year, there was someone who got hurt when everyone scrambled toward the store? From Class B?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Everyone was in such a hurry that they ignored her. It was awful.”

“Yeah, exactly. Apparently, that’s why people are supposed to go to the north entrance starting this year. One of the employees guided people there.”

The terrible truth—what I needed to hear but didn’t want to—finally reached me. Time cruelly marched onward, and it was now ten o’clock in the morning at Keyaki Mall.

3.2

B USINESS WAS BOOMING AT the electronics store, with lots of students and other people affiliated with the school continuing to crowd it. I kept watching the store from a slight distance, observing the situation as it unfolded. Customers who had queued up in line thirty minutes before the store opened got in first and snatched up all the featured products. I wondered how many of the good items would be available to the general consumers; the ones coming in like normal.

Even so, I wasn’t worried.

What kind of student wants a yogurt maker? I mean, I was sure that there weren’t any students who wanted one. So, there wasn’t any need to worr—

Those thoughts had been running through my mind as I entered the store later, but my hopes had been thoroughly dashed.

There was a notice that the yogurt makers had already sold out. Reality once more smacked me in the face. On seeing this news, I fell into despair and almost reached for one of the newest models of yogurt makers, but the price was more than double the cost of the model that was on sale. I somehow managed to refrain from buying it, and left the store. Even now, students who bought the things they had wanted from the various retail stores were walking out of the shops, beaming.

“I’m so disappointed…”

It was no exaggeration; that was truly how I felt. I put how I really felt right then into words. I had made the painful mistake of not researching the buying patterns associated with this kind of sale, to my great sorrow. Was this the end of the road for losers? For the side of the battle that didn’t gather intel?

There was a supermarket in the mall that was on my way back. After finding myself sucked inside, as though something had led me there, I headed straight for the dairy section without even taking a basket.

Milk and yogurt were available for purchase from numerous manufacturers. If not for my error in tactics, I could have gained the power to transform this milk into yogurt myself. I had yearned to test it. That desire now surged within me, stronger than before. The distance between me and the milk cartons and the yogurt, which I normally reached for without a thought, now felt insurmountable. It was not, alas. It was not a mere problem of distance.

It was as though invisible glass was blocking me. This must have been how that one boy had felt when he really wanted the lamp shaped like a leg on the other side of the display case at Christmas…Wait, no, was that what he wanted?

Men and women alike were pushing past me for the milk and yogurt, one after another, snatching them up. I was actually running low on yogurt right now myself back in my dorm room. However, getting some right here would be…like admitting defeat, wouldn’t it? I told myself to leave, but my legs wouldn’t move.

The reason being… Well, the milk was on sale for a special price.

Furthermore, yogurt was also about twenty yen cheaper than normal. If it hadn’t been for the yogurt maker incident, I most definitely would have just bought my items and gone back to my dorm.

“…”

I couldn’t move away from the dairy section. I had dairy sleep paralysis.

“Eggs are cheap now too, huh…” I mused.

Due to inflation and the situation out there in the world, prices in general had continued to go up and up. Even though this school was somewhat isolated from society at large, with its own unique rules, we weren’t separate from the rest of the world. Upon graduation, students’ days of confronting the prices on the shelves in front of them and consulting with their wallets would begin. Granted, I didn’t have any plans to deal with reality like that when I graduated, but still… Well, I guess I was an ordinary person for the time being anyway, so it was probably fine for me to think like that.

It had been a mistake for me to come here thinking that I was just going to take a peek at things. At any rate, I couldn’t just stand around here forever, that was for sure. I forced my heavy legs to move, dragging myself away, firming up my decision to leave.

But just as I was in the process of making my withdrawal, a very emotional time in my life, someone called out to me.

“Did something happen? This is the first time I’ve ever seen you look so crestfallen, Ayanokouji.”

“…Kiryuuin-senpai.”

Strangely enough, even though my legs should have been feeling heavy, they suddenly became exceptionally light, and I was now able to leave very easily. That was probably because I had originally just stopped here to look at the yogurt lined up on shelves forlornly and had no real need for real yogurt in my life.

I left the store empty-handed and Kiryuuin followed me. While we engaged in conversation, I explained the situation to her—eloquently, of course. Perhaps I had wanted someone to listen. I guess I just wanted someone to understand my yogurt-maker disappointment.

I told her about how I had found out about the sale last night, and about how I had rushed over to the mall when the stores opened, but I had misunderstood where I was supposed to have lined up. As a result of that misunderstanding, other people bought them all up, and I couldn’t get one.

Once she had finished listening to the whole sequence of events, she chuckled, as though she found it amusing. “You never cease to fascinate me, Ayanokouji. You really are quite a special man.”

“I am? But I’d describe myself as the sort of ordinary high schooler that you’d find anywhere.”

“See? You’re funny! Well, no, actually, I suppose it’s partly true,” said Kiryuuin. “I laughed because you were acting so normal, so much like a high schooler. I think it’s odd that you’re so fixated on a yogurt maker, but I supposed if you replaced it with something normal, it wouldn’t be so strange.”

“I see…”

“But still, you really wanted a yogurt maker that badly? I think it would be much cheaper, tastier, and safer to just buy the yogurt directly from there,” said Kiryuuin, casting a glance back toward the supermarket that we were walking away from.

“There’s meaning in making your own food. I lost that opportunity.”

“Even though you don’t have any expression on your face, I can feel your ardor.”

“Do you not cook, senpai?” I asked.

She nodded unreservedly, without a moment’s hesitation. “When I was little, I challenged myself to do so in order to please my parents, but I haven’t cooked at all since then, no.”

“Were you met with disastrous results when you tried cooking?”

“No? Well, the result was indescribable, somehow,” she mused. “It wasn’t particularly good, nor was it bad. My parents seemed pleased with what I had made for them. Normally, I probably would have worked to improve my cooking so I could see their happy faces again.”

From the sounds of it, she hadn’t decided on an orthodox path in life. She had completely abandoned the path of the culinary arts.

“I normally get something from the convenience store or the school cafeteria,” Kiryuuin added. “Even when I do stop by the supermarket, I’ve gotten into the habit of buying ready-made things from the grab-and-go area.”

I’d kind of had the feeling that she might have cooked, but from the sounds of it, the opposite was true. She didn’t cook at all. Actually, the strange thing was that when she told me that she didn’t cook, it felt perfectly natural.

“What about you? How did you come to like cooking?” asked Kiryuuin.

“My high school debut,” I replied. “It’s my first time living on my own, plus there’s the fact that I started in Class D, and we lost our Class Points early on.”

“So, you decided to cook for yourself and save on food costs?”

“Even though the school provides ways for us to eat for free, it would be agony to eat nothing but that all year round. Besides, by cooking again and again, I improve my skills and become more efficient. I’ve just recently started to think that I’d like to maximize my cost-effectiveness.”

The yogurt maker had the potential to be a new step up for me. I was beginning to lament its loss again.

“And? If you really wanted the yogurt maker, couldn’t you have simply bought one anyway?” she asked.

“No, because the difference in cost between the one featured in the sale and the other one they had in stock was outrageous,” I sighed. “It looked like it came with a lot of different features, but I just wanted to be able to ferment milk, so I decided that I didn’t need it.”

That was exactly what they wanted. The stores wanted you to feel desperate to get your hands on something, so you’d be willing to put down a hefty sum of money.

“Did you try checking online?” she asked.

“No, not yet.”

“In that case, you should take a look before you get discouraged. There are things you can get for surprisingly low prices. There are a few sites I recommend.”

With that, she took out her phone and typed some keywords into the navigation bar. We stopped at the end of the walkway so as not to get in the way of other walkers, and I looked at the items available for sale. And I saw that the price was almost exactly the same as the special sale price offered today.

“That is surprising,” I remarked.

“That’s how it is with ‘sales,’” Kiryuuin explained. “It’s not just the electronics retailer at this school that’s having trouble dealing with inventory because they can’t get people to buy products of the same model number. That’s just a matter of common sense. Anyone our age ought to know.”

“This has been a learning experience.”

“Why don’t you buy it online, then?”

“I do see that I could buy the item for the same price, yes, but I also discovered something new. I’ve decided that I’ll look for something simpler to buy after I get back to my room.”

When I looked it up with Kiryuuin, it turned out that the yogurt maker that had been on sale, the one I originally wanted, had more features than I needed, too. I could get a different model, one that was more stripped down, for a cheaper price.

“More than anything else, though, I feel like I’ll have lost if I buy the same model online. By the way, Kiryuiin-senpai, are you all finished shopping?”

“I only followed you because I saw you hunched over earlier and thought something interesting was going on,” she replied. “I didn’t have any business in the supermarket in particular.”

“It’s rather unusual for you to go out of your way to come talk to me just because you think that I look curious.” I wondered if she had nothing to do over winter vacation and just had a lot of time on her hands.

“I know what you’re thinking. But let me assure you, no, I didn’t just poke my nose into something seemingly trivial just because I’m a person with a lot of free time on her hands.”

“That’s nice if true, but I find that doubtful.”

After I told her what I honestly thought, she gave me a wry smile and then explained once more: “The fact of the matter is that it’s because it’s you, Ayanokouji.”

“I’m not worth the compliment, though.”

“You surely understand that there’s no point in acting modest by now. When I saw you engaged in combat on the Uninhabited Island, the sight was burned into my brain, whether I wanted it to happen or not.”

She was talking about what happened in the summer, when I had finally settled things with Tsukishiro on the beach. Kiryuuin had been in the fight too, helping me by trading blows against Shiba, whom I had thought to be Tsukishiro’s subordinate. I supposed it wasn’t unreasonable for her to see me as special, and not just physically, since that was an unusual situation.

“That’s precisely why I’m so disappointed,” she added.

“Disappointed?” I asked.

Kiryuuin let out a deep breath, like a girl might do before she was about to confess romantic feelings that she had been keeping hidden in her heart for a long time. “Over the summer,” she said, “I often thought to myself, ‘If only this school had a system to repeat a year.’ That went through my mind a lot.”

“Repeating a year?”

That was a thought that students who weren’t set to graduate from Class A might consider at least once, out of desperation and pain. But they would have to immediately give up on the thought. Besides, this school didn’t allow students to repeat a year ever.

“Seems like a preposterous thought, doesn’t it?” said Kiryuuin.

“Definitely. Many students don’t resist the established rules.”

Anyone could break the rules. But pushing back on them, overturning them? Convincing the school to allow something outside the rules, getting them to change the rules? Much harder.

“Even so, I wanted them to consider the option of allowing me to stay here next year,” she said. “If they granted me that, then I would be able to see your progress over that year from up close.”

“I never imagined there was a student who’d think that way,” I said. “You really are a strange one.”

This was Kiryuuin we were talking about, though, so I guessed it was more than just a passing fancy that had popped into her head just now.

“There’s nothing you cannot buy with Private Points,” she went on. “But when I tried to check the answer with the teachers with that understanding in mind, as a fundamental premise, the answer I got back was ‘no.’”

“I’m just asking out of curiosity, but would the answer still have been ‘no’ even if you had the largest number of points ready? Twenty million?” I asked.

I figured that if the school didn’t allow for students to repeat a year, then if there was a way to overturn that stance, it would be by paying a huge price. It would’ve been nice if Kiryuuin had answered my question, but from the look on her face, she didn’t even need to give me one.

“The biggest purchase at this school is the right to stay in any class you like,” she said. “If you’re some kind of weirdo, you could imagine, say, moving into Class A right before graduation, repeating a year, and attaining the dream you’ve held onto for three years.”

“You’re right. I suppose there’s no purchase bigger than that,” I agreed.

The power of attaining a place in Class A vs. the cost of being held back a year was enormous. Who on Earth would want to stake twenty million points by choice to invest in a high-risk move like being held back academically?

“Still, why is it that even if you do have a huge sum prepared, being held back a year isn’t allowed?” said Kiryuuin. “Don’t you think that’s strange? Rights to prevent or nullify expulsion, to transfer classes, things like that are all included in the school rulebook, but the idea of being held back a year has been excluded from the very beginning.”

She wasn’t wrong. Private Points were immensely valuable; there was nothing you couldn’t buy with enough of them. But then there was the fact that there were some things that you couldn’t buy. The idea of a student intentionally staying back a year was something that couldn’t be deemed more valuable to a student than transferring to Class A in their own grade level. Nevertheless, if something wasn’t allowed, there was always a reason for it.

“A student who wishes to be held back would have been at this school for over a year,” Kiryuuin said. “They would have a greater knowledge base of things like special exams, and so on. From an informational standpoint, that might be unfair to the other classes.”

Information, huh? It was certainly true that you could think of it that way, but students could share information. That was fairly routine, a kind senpai offering as much information as they could to their kouhai. Besides, the information advantage wouldn’t be that much of an advantage. The special exams that the school gave each year were fundamentally different from the ones given the year before. Even if a student who was held back had the advantage in things like written tests, it was unlikely to have a significant impact on the overall situation.

“Perhaps it’s because there’s a fear that it would lead to a reduction in the institution’s value, as a school?” I asked.

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“Students who graduate from Class A at this school receive enormous benefits,” I reasoned. “Companies consider students who graduate from Class A to be outstanding, so they will hire those students on the spot. However, if there were students who were held back a year mixed in among the crowd, doubts about the value of the school would start to come up, wouldn’t they? If you were to look at just the results from the outside, from the perspective of someone in higher education or a place of employment, you would see the reason a student had graduated from Class A to have been only the result of them repeating a year. This could apply to you too, Kiryuuin-senpai. ‘She’s an odd one who didn’t graduate from Class A in her own year because she was inefficient, and she got held back a year.’ You have the ability, but that truth would become blurred to the people who do the hiring. It would become exceedingly difficult to assess your worth.”

In that case, even from the school’s perspective, those wouldn’t be students they’d want to send out into the world.

“So, you’re saying that the school has rejected adopting the system of having students repeat a year so that they could eliminate that troublesome possibility,” said Kiryuuin.

“I figured that if there were a reason for it, that would be it,” I replied.

“Well thought out on your part. If I were to interview myself for a job, I probably wouldn’t hire myself , ” said Kiryuuin. It was a self-deprecating joke that she could tell precisely because she had confidence in her own abilities.

“Please transfer to Nagumo’s class rather than considering the notion of staying back a year on a whim,” I urged.

“I’m not interested in that.”

“Even if you had twenty million points saved up and on hand, which you got solely as a result of your own abilities?”

“Even then. I don’t care which class I graduate from.”

“You’ve decided that there isn’t much difference between graduating from Class A and Class D for you personally, Kiryuuin-senpai, but if you could graduate from Class A, then that would be the best option,” I said. As long as no one would be unhappy over it, it would be better to transfer to Class A.

“The school allows you to convert your Private Points into actual currency upon graduation,” she reminded me. “That’s more important to me than graduating from Class A.”

No matter the amount, those would be precious funds for a student who had just graduated from high school. However, it still really wasn’t normal to go that route, when you weighed that option against the possibilities that awaited in the future if you graduated from Class A, which would be almost priceless.

“Private Points may be able to fulfill most of a student’s wishes, but it’s not like they can fulfill any and all of them,” I said. “I think they have that kind of meaning, too.”

“Yes, that’s true. Like it’s impossible to use Private Points to fire a teacher that you don’t get along with, for instance,” responded Kiryuuin, saying something troubling with a grin on her face.