They returned to Class 1-B carrying the textbooks and the contract Hoshinomiya Chie had printed. The room was warm with the low hum of students, but when Hoshinomiya announced the class leader election, every gaze snapped to Jin as if pulled by a string. He had just laid out their strategy; he had argued for unity and a direction. Expectation sat heavy on his shoulders.
Jin leaned toward Ichinose Honami and murmured something she could barely hear. Then, with a sudden, deliberate brightness in his voice, he rose.
"Everyone, I nominate Ichinose Honami as our class representative."
A ripple of surprise, then approval. "She has qualities I don't," he went on. "She's led a class before. She can hold us together. I'll be her assistant—supporting Ichinose-san and doing what I can for the class."
He had rehearsed the move. Leadership would tie him down; being the visible leader would complicate the quieter work he preferred. As assistant, he could steer without being the face everyone watched.
Most of Class 1-B had already been won over by his strategic presentation. Some wanted Jin to lead, but he refused openly, leaving them little choice but to back Ichinose Honami.
Their assent came fast and nearly unanimous. Hands rose. Voices chimed in unison.
"If Arima trusts her, so do I."
"Ichinose-san can unite us."
The election closed almost before it started.
Ichinose Honami stood with a shy, awkward smile and accepted. Afterward the entire class—every student present—signed the confidentiality agreement advisor Hoshinomiya Chie had readied.
The paper was thin, the signatures quick; the real weight of it sat in the silence after the pens were set down.
Before he had stood, Jin had whispered one more thing to Ichinose Honami. Team unity would be their single greatest asset; leadership required a different temperament.
He admitted his own shortcomings: he was not good at managing people. Ichinose Honami, with her prior experience as class rep, fit the role better.
"I trust you completely, Ichinose-san," he said, sealing it. "This is what's best for Class 1-B."
She smiled then, compelled by the trust in his eyes. She could refuse, but to do so would be to reject the momentum he had started. She agreed.
They were still gathering their things when Jin lowered his voice and asked, "Ichinose-san, do you have a moment? It's important—about Class 1-B's survival."
The sun slanted through the corridor windows, casting long, sharp shadows as Jin and Ichinose Honami stepped away from the buzzing energy of Class 1-B.
Ichinose Honami expected a briefing on logistics; instead, Jin's voice dropped into a register that felt several degrees colder than the spring air.
"Our atmosphere is too lax, Ichinose-san," he began. "We are riding a wave of good feelings. But waves break. If a variable we haven't accounted hits us, this unity will shatter into panic."
Ichinose Honami looked at him, her brow furrowed. "That's why we have the safekeeping plan. That's why we're working together."
"The safekeeping plan protects the classmates. It doesn't win the war," Jin replied, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
"I have another plan I didn't disclose to the others. I'm calling it the 'Enemy Absorption' Plan."
He spoke with a chilling, clinical precision. The goal wasn't just to beat the other classes, but to cannibalize their strength.
He proposed accumulating a massive reserve of Private Points—not for luxury, but to buy the "high-value assets" of their rivals.
"We identify the geniuses, the specialists, and the leaders in Classes A, C, and D," Jin explained.
"When they hit a wall—when their own classes fail them or they face expulsion—we offer them a lifeline."
"We pay the twenty-million-point transfer fee. We turn our rivals into our foundation. We don't just reach Class A; we become a class that cannot be moved from the top."
Honami's breath caught. The pieces of the puzzle—his inquiry about housing forty students, his refusal of the leadership mantle—suddenly locked into place.
"You want to… buy classmates from other classes?" she whispered, incredulous. "And you kept this from the others?"
"I'm protecting them from the burden of the truth, you already saw them in despair only just sacrificing 50,000 private points. Just imagine if I tell them my goal is 150 million private points, not only they would think I'm crazy but they might not agree with safekeeping plan." Jin said, turning to face her.
"Honesty is a luxury for those who aren't at risk of falling. Do you want to graduate from Class 1-A, or do you want to be 'nice' while we're relegated to the bottom? This is about survival, Ichinose-san."
The question was a physical weight. Ichinose Honami felt the friction between her ethics and the terrifyingly effective safety Jin was offering.
Looking into his eyes, she saw no malice—only a relentless, terrifying devotion to their success.
She thought of the others in class, careless, good-natured, loyal because they trusted Jin. She thought of the empty chairs that might one day remain if Class 1-B failed.
She chose.
They walked on, hand in hand with the secret now between them.
Standing outside the heavy doors of Class 1-A, Jin and Ichinose Honami paused, the weight of the contract and the notebook of hidden rules tucked securely in hand.
From within, the muffled sounds of a high-stakes class representative election filtered into the hallway.
Stepping just inside the threshold, they saw a tall, imposing student dominating the podium.
He wasn't conventionally handsome, but his presence was undeniable. With a shaved head that caught the overhead lights and a posture as rigid as a soldier's, he radiated an aura of absolute stability and iron-clad authority.
Behind him, the whiteboard bore his name in thick, aggressive strokes: Katsuragi Kohei.
Katsuragi Kohei was mid-speech, his voice booming with a pragmatic conviction that seemed designed to anchor the room.
He spoke of discipline and collective success, his eyes sweeping across his peers with the gaze of a natural commander.
To any observer, he looked like the undisputed pillar of Class 1-A.
However, the whiteboard told a more divided story. Beside Katsuragi Kohei's bold signature sat another name, written in delicate, flowing, and dangerously elegant calligraphy: Sakayanagi Arisu.
Jin's gaze lingered on the name. To the rest of the school, Sakayanagi Arisu was the fragile, sophisticated genius who led from the shadows.
To Jin, she was simply his self-proclaimed "chess friend"—the girl who moved people like pawns with the same calculated grace she used on a chess board.
The atmosphere in the room was electric, split between Katsuragi Kohei's stoic traditionalism and the invisible, refined influence of the girl who hadn't even needed to stand up to challenge him.
Ichinose Honami glanced at Jin, her expression mirroring the tension in the air. "It seems we've arrived at a turning point for this class," she whispered.
Jin nodded, his grip tightening slightly on the notebook. The hidden rules within its pages were about to meet the most disciplined class in the academy, right as its internal power struggle reached a boiling point.
The corridor outside Class 1-A felt heavier than the rest of the school, as if the very air were pressurized by the weight of expectations.
Jin leaned his shoulder against the cold stone of the doorframe, his gaze drifting through the glass pane of the classroom door.
Beside him, Ichinose Honami stood unusually still, her signature warmth replaced by a flicker of apprehensive curiosity.
"So, we've walked right into the heart of the storm," Jin murmured, his voice barely a breath. "The Class 1-A elections."
Ichinose Honami leaned in, her eyes scanning the room. She was looking for the authority figure—the anchor that usually held a room of teenagers in place.
"It's… strange," she whispered, her brow furrowing. "Arima-kun, look. Why isn't there a teacher in there? Did the period end early? Or did they just leave them to it?"
It was a valid question. In any other classroom in the Advanced Nurturing High School, the absence of a homeroom teacher during a formal proceeding would be an invitation for chaos.
There would be the low hum of gossip, the tapping of phones under desks, or at least the restless shifting of students bored by the bureaucratic process.
But as they peered inside, the scene was eerily static. The students, clad in their sharp maroon uniforms, sat with a level of posture that bordered on the military.
Each desk was a fortress of focus. There was no idle chatter, no leaning back in chairs, and certainly no one looking toward the door where two outsiders stood watching.
They were a collective machine, eyes fixed forward on the candidates at the podium.
Jin narrowed his eyes, his pupils tracking the subtle lack of movement. "See that? Even without a supervisor, the discipline doesn't crack.
They aren't behaving because they're being watched; they're behaving because it's their default state. Class 1-A truly is built differently."
Ichinose Honami didn't respond immediately. Her usual optimism seemed to hit a glass ceiling as she observed the sheer efficiency of their rivals. In Class 1-B, she led through kindness and camaraderie.
Her classmates were her friends, and while they were capable, there was always a sense of casual lightness to their interactions. Here, there was no "lightness." There was only the objective.
"I see it now," Ichinose bHonami said softly, her voice tinged with a newfound gravity. "The gap... it isn't just about test scores, is it?"
She turned her gaze toward Jin, seeing him in a new light. She had wondered why he often remained an outlier in their own class—why he seemed to operate on a different frequency, often choosing to handle matters solo rather than relying on the "power of friendship" that Class 1-B held so dear.
Looking at the iron-clad order of 1-A, she finally understood his skepticism. He wasn't being cynical; he was being realistic.
The school's system of meritocracy was laid bare in that silent room. Class 1-A was a monolith, a singular entity designed to win.
While 1-B was still learning how to be a team, 1-A was already functioning as a professional organization. Even a trivial internal election was treated with the solemnity of a national summit.
"They don't waste energy on being teenagers," Jin remarked, his voice devoid of admiration, sounding more like a strategist assessing a formidable wall.
"They only spend it on being winners. If we want to bridge this gap, Honami, we can't just be 'good students.' We have to be something else entirely."
Ichinose Honami looked back at the classroom, her expression hardening. The girl who always smiled was gone, replaced by a leader who had just realized exactly how high the mountain was.