STD Positive (cont.)

Three days after ‘that day’, one day after forming the Unofficial Literature Club and 16 years and change of living in total, I discovered the modus operandi of Kitazawa High School.

On Thursday, 18th April—

I, Mizuhara Kohei, learned about the existence of a certain STD System.

…That was a word away from sounding like something entirely different.

Anyway.

That was also the day I requested to meet Mari—an arrangement born out of bizarre mental gymnastics.

At 3.30pm, after all lessons for the day were over, I found myself sitting at Kitazawa Café with a cute girl that had shoulder-length hair dyed brown. Someone whose facial features ranked 3rd for girls in the first-year cohort according to the ‘Aesthetics’ rankings.

When placed in that context one might argue it makes more sense to describe Mari as beautiful, but personally, I would never use that kind of crass diction on a childhood friend.

—I’d like someone to call me smart rather than pretty for a change, Kohei-san.

Or so she said.

So as you can see, while I could (and am tempted to) go on for pages and pages debating whether ‘beautiful’ or ‘cute’ was a more fitting descriptor for Tsujimoto Mari (an argument that would inevitably include details of her figure, which ranked dead average at 60th)—it would amount to absolutely nothing.

I had no right to see her in that way.

I’d done some horrible things to her.

Yet I somehow managed to avoid confronting that topic, since our conversation ended up focusing on Kitazawa High School.

“What I don’t understand is... How? How has none of this leaked to the public?” I asked, a sentence completely unrelated to making amends.

“Why are you trying to phrase it like you’re puzzled?”

“Because I am?”

“But you're more annoyed than puzzled, aren’t you?”

“Hey. Don't respond to questions with questions.”

Poking at her curry rice with a spoon, Mari’s 98th-percentile face stared at me with discontented, narrowed eyes.

“Come on, Kocchan. You know the answer to everything you're asking. I mean, they made us sign a non-disclosure agreement, surely you remember that? Even high schoolers will keep their mouths shut if you hang expulsion over their heads.”

Not to mention, she added, “the fact that the scholarship must’ve been worth at least a couple hundred million yen per student—factoring in all the facilities and the system they’d built.”

“B-but still… Objectifying everyone? That has to be illegal.”

“You? Getting offended about objectifying people? Please. Weren’t you the one who came up with an ‘Elite Four’ in middle school? The one where you put me as the ‘Setagaya Ward Champion’?”

“Flbbltltlbt.”

That was a long time ago...

A long time ago.

Like six months, to be exact.

You can’t hold something that happened eons ago against someone.

“To me, it sounds more like you thought you could graduate high school being your edgy self. ‘Look at me, I have no friends! I’m so cool and self-reliant! I’m not going to join any clubs—just hunker down in my room and write literary novels no one will ever read because they’re boring while complaining that light novels are garbage!’”

“W-what happened to being nice?!”

“Gross. Did you really just ask that? You, of all people?”

Satisfied with her response, Mari took a violent stab at her food and shoved it into her mouth.

Munch munch.

In a very pouty manner.

Of course, I understood why her mood was so sour—but I didn’t feel like confronting that issue whilst mindbroken by the STD System. Instead, I stared at my ice water contained in the shape of a tall glass.

Ah, the water cycle.

Condensation is so cool.

“Are you even going to survive in this place?” Mari asked after swallowing.

“…That’s the plan.”

“Doesn’t sound like a feasible one, then.”

“Gah.”

Mari wasn’t being snarky—she was just telling the truth.

Mishima had gone through a thorough explanation of the STD System as well as its implications on advancing grades in class.

Essentially, on top of grading almost everything you could conceivably measure (like VO2 max, academic results, working memory, et cetera) the STD System also provided grades on things that seemed completely subjective—like how attractive a person’s facial features were or their moral integrity. One example would be Mari’s 86 (A) for Japanese Literature.

On top of a score, three percentile scales were offered as benchmarks.

The first was a scale that included only your batch, the second included the historical data of past Kitazawa students, and the last was a comparison against the average Japanese high schooler—all the data used was adjusted according to the year you were in.

For instance, Watanabe had a score of 78 (B+) in the male 100m sprint with a timing of 11.8 seconds. This apparently put him in the 99th percentile nationally for U16s, but his pace only managed to rank 9th when it came to our Kitazawa cohort of 120 boys. From what I know, the slowest time at the most recent Kanto track finals was just above 11 seconds, so a B+ probably meant someone on the cusp of breaking into national-level.

I should probably also mention that aside from the three As—Academics, Athletics, and Aesthetics—the other categories were unfortunately greyed out on the app for the time being. Mishima had told us those would only unlock after the spring semester, and I reckoned it had to do with the school needing to gather data.

In any case, those ratings weren’t the source of my worries. It was because on top of academic and disciplinary requirements, the other criterion students had to meet to advance years was to fulfil ‘Development Goals’. Each semester, the system would automatically target your two weakest areas and force you to train them.

Like.

The example Mishima gave was that for ‘Interpersonal’, a student observed to be weak at social interaction might receive a Development Goal to build new relationships.

“...You know what,” I said, “you’re right. I’m starting to think this school was a mistake.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t see how I’ll survive here. I’m not a very adaptable person. Frankly speaking, I find this entire concept of a ‘holistic education’ to be nothing more than a special form of torture—I’d rather get stepped on by a dominatrix than be forced to do things out of my comfort zone.”

Well.

I’d implied the dominatrix part was part of my comfort zone, but regardless…

“That does sound like you,” Mari sighed. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Which part?”

“…Not the part about having a sub fetish. The part about you potentially flunking out.”

Coolly sipping on her drink, Mari averted her gaze.

“But even if that happens, I want you to know I’m proud you got here in the first place.”

“Th-thanks, I guess?”

Wow.

I really was expecting “your existence is the real mistake here”, or something.

I’d been spending too much time with Yukimura.

Mari is such a nice—

“Considering you’re an idiot.”

“I was just about to praise you!”

And don’t insult people!

It’s not polite!

“I don’t want praise from a guy who says things like ‘I’m not ready for a relationship,’ only to hit on another girl.” Her tone was full of contempt, like how I’d imagine a dog feels when their owner doesn’t actually throw the stick.

“H-hitting on another girl?!”

Did she mean Sakura?

What a jealous childhood friend.

We weren’t even dating… I mean Sakura and I, of course.

“Getting close to someone and trying to smash them aren’t the same thing, by the way,” she said, beginning to stir her drink rapidly.

“Well, they very well could be.”

“Quiet. Stop talking. Just shut up, idiot.”

Mari ignored her straw and chugged her lemonade directly instead.

Gulp gulp.

In a very pouty manner.

Then after going through her entire drink in a few seconds and slamming it on the table, she proceeded with a declaration.

“I’m mad, Kocchan.”

“I can see that.”

“...Why are you like this? Why would you respond like that?”

“Because honestly,” and though I lead off that way, nothing about my following sentence was truthful, “I have no idea what you’re mad about. Not even the vaguest hint.”

The corners of Mari’s mouth twitched upwards in response.

“Don’t try to play dumb. I can tell when you’re lying, idiot.”

“I don’t know about you, but I prefer Kocchan.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Ugh.”

Well, evidently, my signature move of ‘ignore the problem until it goes away’ wasn’t going to work.

She’d said the exact same thing in the library about being able to see through my lies—and though I was aware her anger had something to do with Yukimura, I wasn’t exactly sure what. From the way it sounded, it went beyond just figuring out I lied about her not being in my room… that reminds me, actually.

“Watanabe said something to you, didn’t he?”

“Why does that matter?”

“I’m not close to that guy at all, so...”

Looking away violently to the side, Mari pouted.

“Hmph. Not telling you.”

It was very Yukimura-esque, but it felt ten times less cute and twenty times more lethal.

“......”

“......”

“Okay then…”

There wasn’t a word exchanged after that for a good two minutes, and neither did she seem interested in her curry rice any more—so I took it as a cue to do something else.

I stared at my ice water.

Japan is such a peaceful country, isn’t it?

In the present tense, because it still is.

It really makes you feel like no matter what happens, you can live your life in peace…

……

…...

“Yo, Kohei! And Mari-chan, too!”

“Ah, hello!” Mari yelled back, waving at that someone behind me.

Not a shred of a pout on her face—instead, there was only a radiant smile.

“Not, that, guy,” I blurted, knowing full well there was only one person in the entire school who would make me splice commas like that.

Watanabe Yousuke.

But as I turned around to face the most handsome boy in my year according to some shady grading system, I noticed someone else was next to him. The pair strolled up to us with the confidence and swagger only jocks could muster—both of them dressed up in tracksuits.

“Mizuhara-kun,” said a generically generic female voice. “Nice to see you here. Are you on a date?”

Pushing back the strands of hair that weren’t bunched up in her high ponytail, Sakura Emi greeted me in a polite tone other heroines could learn a thing or two from.