Bab 16: Chapter 16
I got up 2 hours before school started and left Ayanokoji's room to head towards mine. Thankfully, no one was there, so I was able to go in and shower. I was wondering what Sakayanagi would think as she had wasted probably over an hour waiting outside my dorm room just for me not to show up. More importantly, I messaged Ayanokoji to let him I was out of his room and that I would meet his class outside their room to cancel the contract.
-*-
Ayanokoji, who was currently lying on the cold floor, did not get a wink of sleep as he was trying to figure out what Hikigaya's goal was. Eventually, he came up with the only logical solution, someone had paid Hikigaya the private points to cancel the contract, and Hikigaya, knowing he would cancel the contract anyway, decided to use it as a bargaining chip to avoid Class A. This also means that he somehow offended Class A.
Ayanokoji, who was used to having little to no sleep, was lying down until finally, he received a message from Hikigaya, saying that his dorm room was clear. Ayanokoji immediately got up and left Horikita's room to go back to his dorm. After ensuring that his room was fine, and seeing that Hikigaya even made his bed, Ayanokoji breathed a sigh of relief. He took a quick nap before being awoken by a message sent by Horikita.
[Horikita: I'm waiting in the lobby]
Ayanokoji got himself ready and headed down to the lobby to see Horikita waiting angrily in the lobby. What did he do to make her mad? He awkwardly walked up to the Ice Queen and asked.
"What?"
"Should we tell our class about the situation?"
"I mean he can't go back on his word"
"let's just wait, don't tell anyone about this yet."
After that, Horikita sped up to get some distance from Ayanokoji and walked to school. Meanwhile, Ayanokoji was wondering. Is it that bad to be seen walking to school with him?
The rest of the day passed normally, but Ayanokoji could tell that Horikita was anxious as Hikigaya could have used some unknown plot hole to avoid canceling the contract. The end of the day was nearing, so Ayanokoji quickly reminded Horikita that she should tell Class D to wait behind until he came.
When the bell rang, Horikita had a quick conversation with Hirata where she basically asked him to stall the class in here for a bit. Hirata didn't know what was going on, but he somewhat trusted Horikita, so he walked up to the podium.
"Before we get going, the midterms before summer vacation are coming up, so I was thinking we should start study groups for the low scorers"
Hirata's popularity could instantly be seen as a swarm of affirmations filled the air, and everyone listened except for Koenji, a tall muscular student with blonde hair. Horikita began tapping her desk anxiously as she knew Hirata could only stall the students for so long, and Hikigaya was still nowhere in sight. He can't go back on his word, can he?
As if reading Horikita's mind, Hikigaya knocked on the Class D door, and Hirata opened it up. Before the students could react to his appearance, Hikigaya said.
"Alright, let's go to the student council room."
"..."
Hikigaya was confused at their silence. Did they not know what was going on? Surely, the two Class D members from yesterday told them about the joyful news. Surely, the cancellation of the 20 million debt should have been immediately shared with everyone else, but it seems Horikita chose to keep her mouth silent.
Hirata, who was still somewhat shocked by Hikigaya's appearance, chose his words very carefully trying not to offend the student to whom they owed 20 million private points.
"uh sorry, do you have any business with us?"
Hikigaya quickly grasped the situation, took a glance at Horikita who was sitting in the corner, and said.
"ah, I'm canceling the contract due to some external matters"
Immediately, the silence of Class D exploded into confusion. First, this guy extorted them 20 million private points, and now for some reason, he was deciding to randomly cancel it. It had not even been a month since the signing of the contract.
Hikigaya was visibly annoyed at the confusion as this task was supposed to take a maximum of 10 minutes, but the two Class D students decided not to disclose last night. The murmurs circulating around the classroom and the constant glances at Hikigaya made him comfortable, so he annoyingly said.
"I'm a bit short of time, can we go now?"
Hirata glanced at Horikita, making up some weird scenario in his head, and quickly took control of the class. The student was clearly impatient, and annoying him anymore could lead to him possibly changing his mind. Hirata spoke up again.
"Alright, we'll follow you"
Hikigaya left the classroom and headed towards the student council room with the entirety of Class D following behind him. If people saw him now, they might actually think he was a popular kid.
The students flooded into the student council room. Manabu and Nagumo, who were the witnesses, looked up from their papers. While Manabu got up from his desk and headed toward the group of students, Nagumo broke the silence by asking.
"Hikigaya are you finally introducing us to your friends? I thought you didn't have any at this point."
Hikigaya's expression immediately darkened. Did this guy seriously have to expose him in front of over 40 students? Hikigaya searched his mind for a petty retort, but he realized he had nothing, Nagumo was right. That infuriated him even more. Before Hikigaya could act on his anger, Manabu turned towards the students with the contract in his hand and asked.
"Do both parties agree to cancel the contract?"
".. yes"
"yes"
"Alright, it's done, you may all leave now."
The Class D students, who were somewhat suspicious, immediately brightened their expressions. They no longer had to save their points every month to work towards the unfeasible goal of 20 million points, they could finally use their already minimal allowance on themselves. It was time to celebrate. Sudo was especially happy, as he had been the cause of this contract, but now with it gone, his classmates wouldn't ignore and glare at him anymore. His social standing was back.
The Class D students left the room with joyful expressions on their faces, and some of the students even smiled at Hikigaya. If only they knew the truth. Hikigaya decided to stay in the student council room for the time being as he would probably be swarmed with questions from Class D if he left them.
On the other side of the door, Hirata cheerfully spoke.
"Just because we're no longer in debt doesn't mean we should excessively spend our points, let's still be careful"
The other students of Class D quickly asked.
"Hirata, did you do this?"
"Why did he cancel the contract all of a sudden?"
"Who cares, we're free"
Hirata glanced at Horikita and took the hint that she didn't want the credit or attention for this matter, so he responded.
"No, I didn't do anything, but no matter the reason, this calls for a celebration."
The Class D students who had survived on 5,000 private points for the last month were almost resurrected by the word, celebration. They could finally go out, do karaoke, buy clothes, and eat some decent food. The past month had been grueling for them.
Thanks to Hirata's quick actions, no other classes knew about the contract, so their social standing didn't suffer, however, the loss of private points had demotivated them heavily. Now, with the weight of the contract gone, the students were reenergized and ready to move up to Class A.
Towards the back of the group, Horikita had essentially given up on understanding Hikigaya's logic as there were far too many variables for her to sort through. She didn't forget them but kept them in the back of her mind as they were definitely important pieces of information. Next to her, Ayanokoji had somewhat figured out the situation as he had figured out that the 20 million private points came from Horikita's older brother and the student council president.
However, Ayaonokoji still had some doubts as to why Sakayanagi was waiting outside Hikigaya's door, and after listening to Horikita, he was also confused about why Hikigaya hid himself from his classmates. Ignoring the classes's celebration plans, the duo left and headed their separate ways.
-*- (POV Back to Hikigaya)
I waited for the murmurs outside the door to stop and left the school without any trouble. Today, I would treat myself with my 10 million private points! Before leaving I recalled how Kamuro saved me from talking with the evil white-haired girl, so I had to thank her. However, I had no idea how to thank her as I obviously couldn't message her as her deleting of the message yesterday showed that her boss checked her phone, and meeting her in person was much more dangerous. Speaking of that, since there was no message today, my dorm room should be fine
I entered the fairly crowded mall and looked around for a bit. This was my first time exploring the mall, so I had to look for some restaurants to eat at. After looking around for 5 minutes with no luck, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Surprised that some recognized me, I turned around and saw Amikura, my deskmate.
" *PFF* are you lost?"
"..."
I guess from someone else's perspective I would look lost as I was just aimlessly wandering around the mall looking for a place to eat. Still, it felt weird to be called out, but maybe she could help me.
"not really, I'm just looking for a place to eat"
"hmmm, the bento place near the west entrance is pretty good"
"alright thanks"
I swiftly turned around and headed towards the bento place as I knew that she was probably helping me because of Class B's comradery, but I didn't want their pity. I headed in and glanced around, but the place was mostly empty. After being escorted to a table, I checked out the menu and ordered wagyu yakiniku ju. Sure, it was expensive, but now I had money to spare.
As I waited for my food, more people kept crowding in. Maybe, I was wrong about this being an unpopular restaurant. My food came in a timely planner, but when I was about to start eating, the bell indicating someone's entrance rang again.
I glanced at the door and saw a familiar set of purple hair. Ah, this isn't good. I could see that the white-haired girl was with them as well. I grabbed the pair of chopsticks and faced downwards at my food to hide my face. Did they follow me here? I realized that wasn't the case when they ignored me and sat far from me, but I wasn't gonna take any chances.
I quickly gulped down the food. The seasoned meat and onions combined to make an explosion of favors, I would have to come back here soon. While eating, I saw that the group was distracted by a waiter, so I took a glance.
There was Kamuro, a blonde-haired boy with a ponytail, and Sakayanagi. Kamuro was facing towards me while the other two's backs were facing towards me. I can't tell if I'm lucky or unlucky at this point.
Seemingly responding to my thoughts, the bell rang, and the trio of Hirata, Manabu's little sister, and Ayanokoji walked in. Is this restaurant some class meeting place that I don't know about? There were 4 groups in the restaurant. One group is looking for me, the other group is probably going to discuss me, and the last one is an unknown.
I know the names of about 10 people in the entire school, and 4 of them are here. Seriously, what are the odds?
[A/N: 2 Chapters Today, 3 starting tomorrow. Thanks for the power stones!
How many more chapters of relationship-building do you guys want before I skip to summer vacation like they did in the anime? I was thinking 4-5 more]
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