March 2nd. 6 am. Hideout.

"Daniel, you're here at last! What the fuck took you so long?!"

"Aniki!"

"Phone breaking bastard..."

Yesterday, Kawahara told me to be at the usual place at 6 am... It's weird to consider me an option when I'm technically banned from this place, but according to the events that took place after the exam, it makes sense.

Sleepy as hell, here I am. By the way, I had to break into King George's room. Thankfully, he was sound asleep. After making my way down here and seeing the unlocked gigantic golden door open before me, I took a step forward and was greeted by Kawahara, Kuzan, and Rayazaki.

"It's 6 am... You're lucky I even bothered to come..."

Though, we have classes in about 2 hours.

"What matters is that you came. Have a seat. Kuzan, coffee for 3."

"Don't you mean 4, master?! I matter too!"

"On with it!"

"Aye!"

After the typical dialogue between Kawahara and Kuzan went down, I had a seat, but on the couch parallel to the couch where Rayazaki was seating on. Kawahara was on his usual supreme desk. Furthermore, Rayazaki is viewing me with hatred.

Despite that, I felt the need to talk to Kawahara, before I relaxed my posture back.

"Kawahara... You seriously need to change ways. How did you even access this place in the first place?"

Perhaps I'm still too sleepy to think straightly, but I don't think there is any way to possibly access this place unless we go through King George's room. That path should not be an available path right now for obvious reasons.

The door to the underground is locked, so how exactly...

"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. My room has now secret access to this place. Damn, I forgot, I guess. Happens."

"Happens, my ass you fucking idiot!! I could've died just now! Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?! What if we are here chilling one day and he decides to visit us!? We're all fucking screwed!!"

Is this guy even for real...?

"Stop bitching! You got here, it doesn't matter how you've done it!"

"Are we just going to forget the fact that I had to go through that monster's room at night?!"

"That's pretty brave. I praise your efforts."

I don't want your damn praise!

In spite of all this, I'm fairly aware of why we are here. We are just waiting for Kuzan to come with the coffees. I don't necessarily think that this time and hour are extremely convenient because they are not. However, coffee is more than welcomed.

But... why is he here though? I can understand Kuzan, but did Rayazaki also...?

"Kawahara, where is Hyunda? If we are going to compete as a team at the spring festival, then shouldn't he be here?"

Speaking of him, he fired a question that I was starting to question as well. I just wouldn't ask because Kawahara didn't specify on what this was about. Initially, I thought of not coming, but whenever Kawahara is up to something, it's usually not a good thing to ignore it.

Still, how rare. We are all in our school uniforms.

And since no one gave Rayazaki a straight answer, swiftly a few seconds after Kuzan returned to the main room and distributed the 4 coffees along with all of us, he answered.

By the way, Kuzan, yesterday, decided to buy a wig, which gave him the appearance of someone with light spiky dark hair. Well, that's almost the same as his previous hair, but his previous hair was far spikier.

"Hyunda said that he wasn't going to come. I did attempt to insist, but it was all for naught. I'm sorry."

Did Hyunda not show up because he had no way to come here in the first place? Or did Kawahara instruct Kuzan to tell Hyunda to come into Kawahara's room so he could get here? If not, then it makes sense for Hyunda not to be here yet I digress. Kawahara surely must've thought of something that would make the most sense.

Or he maybe he just couldn't be bothered? I don't know what to think when it comes to him. His actions don't make sense to me.

"There you go, Rayazaki. Also, what happened to 3 coffees only?"

Kuzan did not reply however and just had a seat next to me.

"Daniel, word, please."

Kawahara called out to me and I met his active eyesight despite being daybreak.

"What?"

"Can you get that bastard in here?"

By 'bastard', I'm fairly sure he's referring to Hyunda. No, I'm certain.

"Why do you need him here though?"

"He's part of the team and also, I need to ask him a few questions. That's why you should get him in here. Tell him to contact me once he feels up to the task."

Why is Kawahara acting like I'm suddenly his property?

"Why don't you do that?"

More like, why me? If Kuzan couldn't do it, then why doesn't he do it? I understand that Kuzan is contracted to him and it makes sense to utilize him, but me? I'm not.

"You're going to be like that? After what I've done for you?"

"What you did was out of your free will. Bribes don't work."

Even in the scenario where I'm in debt, I won't pay back. I don't have the obligation to do so.

"One day, you'll regret saying those words to me."

Doubt it.

"Kawahara, if Hyunda isn't here, then what's the point? Also, what are we going to do this early in the morning? Why here of all places?"

Rayazaki has been holding his phone but for naught. Could it be that he's starring at the text history? Hold on, let me check...

Hahaha, he is! Poor bloomer. It must be rough when you have to wait for your crush to reply back. Boy, do I fucking pity you.

"The bastard's not necessary. Although, it would help if he was here. Nonetheless, given the events that happened, on March 20th, the spring festival will start. Before that, we need to completely crush them."

Kawahara's words brought up a sensation of confusion immediately, but Rayazaki was way ahead of me when it came to that.

As I sipped the coffee, I watched Rayazaki let out his doubts.

"How can we crush them before March 20th? Don't the events of the spring festival start only on March 20th? What's the point of 'crushing' them before the time? That makes no sense."

Exactly. The spring festival events, which are not even announced yet, will only start on March 20th. There's seriously no logic to what Kawahara is saying.

Despite that, Kawahara looked down on us from his position with eyes of mockery. Kuzan was fairly relaxed, perhaps he knew what was already in store.

"Rayazaki, your naivety is your biggest downfall."

"What?!"

"Tone down. My point wasn't to mock you just now, it was to point it out just so you are aware."

Prone to always argue back, Rayazaki exhibited a tremendous amount of fury in response to Kawahara's lax and over-confident words. Though, it is true. Rayazaki's fairly naive.

"The fight has already begun. We don't know what sort of events we will compete in, but one thing we know for sure. We already know who our enemies are. Virtually speaking, the rest of the classes could be labeled as our enemies, but our primary enemies are those six punks. Therefore, we have to crush them morally before they attempt to stand up."

So his point wasn't to highlight our performance in the upcoming events but before that. Our enemies are already well-known as Kawahara openly declared war to them. However...

"Kawahara... You declared war to them... How are we supposed to morally crush them before the festival if they might already suspect that we are way ahead of them? Our movements will be suspected..."

I spoke in Rayazaki's turn, but he didn't seem to differ with my take on this, as he took it well-received.

Still, I don't think I'm incorrect here. How exactly are we going to approach them in order to morally crush them? Now that Kawahara has spoken on the 'morally crush them' idea, I couldn't help to agree.

By crushing someone for what they believe in, then they have nothing else to believe in, thus they hit a state of despair and hopelessness. Pretty good idea. But it won't work. Because verbal contact needs to be made.

"Movements? Our movements will not involve 'them'. However, it will involve something that is related to 'them'. Something very precious, you could say..."

Why is he smiling so mischievously now? Did I say something funny?

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"I don't get it, Kawahara. How are we supposed to morally crush them without making movements that will not involve them? As the Phone breaking bastard said, our movements will be suspected, so it's completely illogical to create direct contact..."

Is he seriously still mad that I broke his phone? Why can't people see just how much I care for them? My methods aside, the intention behind it was truly good.

"You don't get it because I haven't explained how we are going to crush them so one-sidedly. This absolute crushing menacing act that we are about to commence will go under the project name of: 'Steal Your Girl' project."

......What is he talking about...?

"I like it already!"

"Shut up, Kuzan."

"Aye..."

After Kawahara turned Kuzan's joy from up to down, Rayazaki was the first to protest. He rightfully slammed his coffee onto the not-so-far table that was splitting us currently.

"I've got no clue what this project is on about, but I'm already out."

"You're out without even listening to it? Come on. You're better than that."

Unfortunately, I couldn't exactly agree with Kawahara's project. Because, under my assumption, it will mean that a load of work is ahead of me... Again...

And, there's also that...

"Rayazaki, it's nothing like you are thinking! Just listen to master!"

Just like always, Kuzan is smiling brightly. I wish he stopped doing that. He's hiding far too many emotions. Though, he must think to himself that it's for the greater good.

"I don't know man... I refuse to go out of my way for another gi--"

"Let me explain before you idiots start to assume unnecessary things. The 'Steal Your Girl' project or SYG for short is the project name that I'm giving to the project. As you two might've assumed, this will involve stealing someone's girl. However, let's look at reality. Everyone's single."

I don't agree with this.

"Sagasuga isn't single, I think."

I wanted to say that Sagasuga isn't single, without a doubt, but I'm not sure anymore. I've never been curious to the point of knowing the situation as a whole.

"Why would you say that?"

"You don't really pay attention to what goes around unless it concerns yourself, but I think that he and Tateyana are in a relationship..."

In response, Kawahara's eyes widened supremely.

"Really?"

For him to be asking a question of confirmation, he must have his share doubts. Nevertheless, it's not exactly the truth, because I don't know the reality of the situation.

"I said 'I think', which means I'm not certain anymore."

"That's valuable information, Dan. You do know when to be useful at times! Why can't that change to 'all the time'?"

Don't ask questions you already know the answer to...

"Dude, go on!"

Rushedly, Rayazaki said Kawahara to move on. Kawahara does have the habit of not getting straight to the point very often.

"Regardless of what Dan said, you can't deny that it's a fact that the majority is single. You can't interact with other students aside from the ones in our class, which ultimately cuts down the chances of you hooking up with any other girl from this school. What exactly does this mean? Kuzan, do you want to answer my question?"

"Sure I do!"

Having finished drinking his own personal coffee, Kuzan happily continued.

"It means, the chances of us, the boys, looking at the girls from our class in a romantic light, are super high! Like, super, duper, mega high!"

It's true. Let's imagine that you are in a scenario where there are more than over a thousand students in your school and the only ones you can interact with are the 23 students in your class (if you count yourself out). Out of those 23 students, there are 12 girls.

Noticeably, this is only relevant if you are truly taking into consideration the female students in your class. If you are a 15-year old teenager, then I don't see how this shouldn't be the case.

Unless you are like me and feel extreme repulsive dishonesty when it comes to the concept of love.

"Correct, Kuzan. And so, out of all of those 6 bastards, I'm fairly sure that some of them might've developed crushes thus far. Rayazaki, you are in that circle too."

You are as well.

But your bipolar attitude is making me impossible to figure out who your crush is. You constantly argue and make everyone else hate you in the process. Actually, I'm surprised Rayazaki is standing here without completely losing his shit.

What exactly happened?

"Yeah. You're goddamn right. I love my princess. You got a problem?!"

Princess, lmfao.

Kawahara and I let out small laughs in response to Rayazaki's cringy words. Kuzan was trying to hold himself back but it was eventually all for naught since he gave in as well.

"I fucking hate you guys! Stop laughing!"

"Haha --- Well... You have your own case. But, I'm going to ask you to put aside your crush right now."

Kawahara just asked the impossible for Rayazaki. As I thought, it will have to come down this way.

Though, I said impossible due to the following reaction.

"Stop fucking around. She's not a crush! It's just a question of time. I'm making progress."

No, you're not.

All these sorry attempts of flirting should have you receiving a block from Hinagiku. It's common sense to not spam the text history with useless and meaningless texts, but you do it anyway.

You're a disgrace to the male gender, Rayazaki!

"I honestly don't care. Everyone knows that you love Hinagiku. It's only a matter of time before someone starts taking advantage of that factor. Let go of this one-sided crush. It's making you weak."

Once again, Kawahara says the impossible. As Rayazaki is right now, it's impossible for him to abandon his one-sided crush. He loves too much. I don't even know why though.

But teenagers are often illogical when it comes to love and just prioritize the way they feel in the moment instead of prioritizing how they should feel in general.

"Shut up. You don't get to call the shots here. Not what we agreed on."

"That's true. You said that you'd only obey my orders if it benefitted you. Right now, you can't see the reason why you must do what I'm telling you to do. You'll gain that reason soon enough. Hell, if I'm lucky, it will be today."

With that said, Kawahara was ready to move on with his explanation, as usual. To him, insisting with Rayazaki didn't make much sense right now.

There's also the fact that Rayazaki mentioned something like 'Not what we agreed on', which means that something did happen.

"Rayazaki aside, I'm going to have you two do the majority of the work for now---"

"Hold on. I never said that I was going to agree with this."

Why is he taking for granted that I will cooperate? Plus, I have an extremely serious reason as to why I can't participate in this stupid project of his.

"Don't be stupid, please. You've been denying cooperation left and right only for the purpose of denying me. Or is this still about the free-will bullshit? Because I can't see any other reason here."

"I just don't have a reason to partake in this project, honestly. What do I even stand to gain?"

"Oh, what? You're just like Rayazaki. You two numb-skulls can't take a hint. Fair enough. Well, that sucks then. I'll wait, I guess."

Huh? What? He's just not going to insist like that? That's rare for him... Usually, he insists so much but now he just gave up.

He also said something about not being able to take a hint. That's pissing me off... Is it something extremely obvious? This was all because he didn't want to lose in that stupid argument and thus, he decided to drag everyone else along the way.

Whatever...

8:30 am. Block F.

There was a reason why I wasn't just walking inside the main classroom. There was a small concentration on the primary door.

How rare. Usually, everyone is already in class. This time around though, almost every single one of us was outside.

Seeing my table partner on the edge of the window with her back against the wall, I asked her what was going on.

"What's this?"

"How should I know?"

Thus, I turned around and directed myself to the classroom instead of wasting more time with her.

After passing through some of my classmates, I got a good hold on the scene.

"How horrible... Who did this...?"

"The boys, without a doubt! I bet Kawahara ordered someone to do this! That must be it."

Hinagiku and Akimiyashika were discussing something at the center of the class. Right now, inside the classroom, there was only Akimiyashika, Hinagiku, and Yuka-sensei. They were all concentrated onto one place alone.

If I recall correctly, that's Ikkiri's seat...

The atmosphere, in addition, is pretty awkward. Why is no one coming in?

"Excuse me..."

As I spoke those words, Akimiyashika's death stare glare assaulted my entire soul straight up.

"Get out! Who told you to come in?!"

She's right. No one is coming in for a certain reason. While it is unfortunate that my table partner did not give me an honest answer, I don't really have to barge here. I can just ask my other classmates.

That would be the morally right approach.

"No one. but no one has told me to come inside this classroom from day one, so why should I bother at this point?"

And once again, Basara-sensei is not here. How unusual...

"Then, here is the first time! Leave! Wait outside until further instructions!"

Why the hell is she so bossy today? What have I done to receive this treatment? Aren't you being aggressive for no reason, Akimiyashika?!

"I'm not leaving. Give me a reason to, if you are going to argue that I should leave."

"You are still here?! Go aw --- Ah..."

Something interrupted her speech, and curious enough to know what interrupted her speech, I looked where she was looking, which was the entrance door.

There, the figure of Ikkiri slammed the door with all of her might. Just like the majority of the girls, she was wearing a long skirt along with her uniform.

"Aki! What's going on?!"

Her semi-aquatic blue hair was without a doubt her most noticeably feature. But, her natural enthusiasm would be a contender for sure. Nevertheless, Ikkiri loudly asked Amikiyashika, who suddenly became pale, what was going on.

"Ikkiri, don't come in yet!"

Although Akimiyashika attempted to warn her, Ikkiri kept on walking at a fast pace to the current location.

We didn't cross glances because she was more curious about the whole situation. Simultaneously, Yuka-sensei placed her right hand onto Akimiyashika's shoulder before saying her own words of consolation.

"Whoever did this, used permanent color pens for sure. Therefore, it's impossible to remove it even with cleaning. Plus, the cameras are broken. You noticed it, haven't you?"

Now that I look at it, there are four cameras here. However, they are all ravaged. This means that they are most likely broken. What Yuka-sensei might've been implying would be that if the cameras were disabled before, then the one in question cannot be caught.

Though, what the hell are they talking about in the first place? I get that they are trying to hide something since AKimiyashika and Hinagiku are entirely blocking my view with their crossed arms and angry expressions, but they could explain something at least...

"Can't we just replace the tables? The problem will then be--"

"We can't, Akimiyashika. There aren't any replacements."

"But isn't it unacceptable for this to happen in the first place!? You can't start class today! Call if off, please."

Suddenly, Akimiyashika ordered Yuka-sensei to not start class today.

"Aki! Hina! Sensei! What's going on?! Answer me, please! This concerns me, right?!"

The three of them, in response, didn't exactly answer straight up though. Firstly, they attempted to mask the subject, which I still had no clue what it is.

"I-Ikkiri, umm, can you stay outside just for a tiny bit, please?"

Hinagiku attempted to drive her away, but she simply kept on approaching.

"Hina... What are you talking about? Aren't we delaying the class from starting? Why are you all so centered around my desk? Something happened, I know it! What is it?!"

Without waiting around any more, she forced her way through by passing through Akimiyashika and Hinagiku, who were attempting to block her way.

"Oh..."

I still couldn't see what was going on, but Ikkiri let out a small sound as soon as she saw it.

It's not as if I'm not curious, but Akimiyashika and Hinagiku are glaring at me like I'm some sort of sub-human being that doesn't deserve to live, or in this case, see what they are seeing.

"D-Don't worry! I can seat here! Sensei, I can do this, right?! Just until this table and seat get replaced!"

"I can allow it, yes. But are you sure...?"

What the hell are they talking about...? God, just stop glaring at me like that Hinagiku... I'm not a degenerate, for your information...

"Absolutely! I can--"

"Aki, stop. I don't really care. It's fine!"

Even though Akimiyashika was already creating other alternatives, Ikkiri quickly shut them down with her own words.

"It's not fine! I'm going to find out who did this, I promise! This is not alright!"

"It's fine! I'm telling you, I don't really care, Aki! You are so kind, Aki! But, honestly, it's fine! Sensei, let's start the class, shall we?"

I don't know why, but Ikkiri is just smiling grandly throughout this while Akimiyashika, Hinagiku, and Yuka-sensei are with expressions that resemble worry and exasperation.

Some of my classmates have started to walk in and approached the scene, which triggered Akimiyashika to speak up. However, before she could, Yuka-sensei spoke to her first.

"This won't be overlooked, Aki. But, no matter what, the class cannot be delayed. I'm asking you to understand that. I know the gravity of the situation, but the class needs to be started."

"Sensei! That's not right!"

At this point, I was seating on my seat without wanting to know what exactly happened.

"I know. I'm not saying it is, but I do vow to make this situation right. I'm sorry, but I'm starting class."

Thus, without further delay, Yuka-sensei went to call out the remaining of the students from my class and declared the class to start.

By contrast to Yuka-sensei's orders, the majority of the students started to center Ikkiri's table and seat.

My table partner was there as well. With that in mind, I got up from my seat and met up with her, but she fleed the scene to her seat as soon as she saw it, without expressing much care about it.

Oh, then it's probably nothing serious. Just girls being dramatic. Makes sense.

Or, so I thought.

But, when I got around the scene, even I couldn't hide my surprise.

"What the hell..."

On Ikkiri's table and chair, there was a myriad of words and sentences written in different colors with gigantic letters all over it, such as:

'DIE.' 'ATTENTION WHORE!' 'NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU!!' 'THIEF.' 'THERE'S NOWHERE TO HIDE NOW!' 'KILL YOURSELF BITCH!' 'M-I-N-E!!!' 'WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT.' 'PILE OF TRASH!' 'YOU'RE A WASTE OF OXYGEN!' 'YOU'RE GONNA DIE AND NOBODY WILL FUCKING CARE!' 'YOUR TIME IS SHORT.'

There were more, but I left the scene without saying anything.

What's going on...