"Politics" (cont.) II

[Popularity Contest: Forecasted Poll, Monday, 22th April]

Class 1-F:

1st: Sakura Emi (+6)

2nd: Kagawa Ayase (+4)

3rd: Sugihara Junko (+3)

Bottom 3:

38th: Okumura Daiichi (0)

39th: Ueda Yuji (0)

40th: Yamada Junpei (-10)

NEW RULE: Student expenditure will be limited to 5,000 points per day until the end of the Special Exam on 26th April.

***

Today was Monday—two days after the class meeting on Saturday (in the narrative present).

After I’d slipped away from Sakura and her disgusting afterparty, I went home and collated a shopping list worth 150,000 points. The next day, I made 2 or 3 round trips to and from the department store.

Some of the items I’d bought were completely non-offensive, though I did look like a weirdo buying women’s lip gloss in bulk. As for the remainder, it made me realise that the good part about having someone buy 10,000 points worth of stuff for you wasn’t necessarily the ‘10,000 points’, but the ‘for you’ part.

Figurines, undergarments for the opposite gender, trashy manga, excessive amounts of petroleum jelly… The list didn’t end there, but rather than make you question why the school sold such things, the point I’m trying to make is that survival is often a shameless endeavour. You don’t have time to listen to your moral compass or feel affected by the death stares of cashiers—you simply truck on like the faithful gofer you are.

But even my masterful gofer-ing had its limits. I’d initially wanted to hand out the gift bags in person on Monday, but it was physically impossible to haul 150,000 points worth of things to school by myself—and so I begrudgingly spent Sunday doing my best Santa Claus impression.

Leaving a bunch of unmarked bags outside people’s houses.

Why was it important that I handed over the bribes in person? It wasn’t. In fact, observant readers might point out that it actually makes more sense to not reveal my strategy so blatantly. To that, I would like to pose this question: Which produces a higher testosterone count in one’s body, working inconspicuously in the shadows, or directly taunting the person you’re trying to expel? Anime villains have demonstrated it’s clearly the latter. Then again, this is all conjecture, as I never really had a choice in the first place.

Sadly.

It is with deep regret that I transport us back to the present moment in the story—1 minute before homeroom on Monday.

The moment I slid open the door, all eyes in the classroom were on me. From the beautiful Sakura Emi to the shy Mino Ruri who abhorred eye contact to even the fashionista Kagawa Ayase, literally everyone in the classroom had their sights set on me. And by literally, I mean literally—I counted all 39 pairs.

Also expected was someone rushing to greet me the moment I entered.

“Mizuhara, you bastard!”

Not a particularly kind greeting, but I did empathise with Yamada Junpei. After all, I wasn’t even going to afford him a physical description before ending his school life prematurely.

“Yamada?” I responded.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

He attempted to rush out of his seat to confront me, only to be held back by his two other idiot friends.

All three of them were part of the Sakura Fanclub—the Alpha Clique—yet somehow wholly irrelevant to the class’s social makeup. Mere orbiters. If any of them were to be expelled as a result of the Special Project, I sincerely doubted there would be anyone who would miss their presence.

My personal opinion. To be taken with a pinch of salt.

“Calm down,” I said. “Yelling isn’t very civilised. And school is starting soon, so maybe your question can wait?”

“You piece of—”

At that moment, the bell rang, and then a geezer in a checkered shirt walked in.

“Settle down, everyone. Class is beginning shortly.”

To be more precise, I assumed that he had a checkered shirt—I didn’t have eyes on the back of my head. Though when someone wears that every day without fail for two weeks straight, it becomes less of an assumption and more of a given fact.

What I didn’t have to guess, however, was Sakura’s response to his entrance.

After all, she’d told everyone she planned on doing this.

“Mishima-sensei! Would it be okay if we spent homeroom discussing the Special Project?” she asked in her best class representative voice.

Almost instantly, the class erupted into cheers of support for her request.

Not lost among the noise was Yamada Junpei’s yelling—whose expression told me he felt indignant at his sudden 40th placing. Too bad I was going to ensure it stayed that way.

“Tch.” Mishima clicked his tongue. “I was just about to let you guys do that… Now I don’t seem as cool of a teacher.”

While I did empathise with his ‘I was just about to do that’ moment, no one in their right mind would ever think of Mishima as cool.

The moment he gave his okay, the rest of the class mellowed down and turned back onto the juicy drama unfolding before their eyes.

“You heard him, Mizuhara. No more running. What the hell is your problem?”

Poor ‘Junpei-kun’. If only Sakura had never made that off-hand comment about him, maybe I wouldn’t have fixated so hard on making him my scapegoat. To be fair, there was also the part where he threw deplorable votes my way… but I didn’t really care about that anymore.

“My problem? It’s not my fault the class doesn’t like you,” I said, channeling the logic of a certain raven-haired senpai.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Junpei-kun spat. “The poll’s miraculously reversed after you went and chatted up everyone on Saturday. Do you think I’m dumb?”

Well... yes.

“I think Yamada-san is right,” interjected a female voice. “I think you should explain your actions.”

It belonged to Sugihara Junko—a competent, level-headed girl whose defining feature was a beauty mark under her left eye (though some will take offense at this statement and tell me to reverse the order of description). I doubted that her reason for butting in had anything to do with helping Yamada, though. If anything, it felt more like she was peeved I hadn’t approached her clique on Saturday when I’d been ‘politicking’.

“I heard that you’ve been paying people off to vote for Yamada-san. Is that true?” Sugihara asked, her expression one of mild annoyance.

“Yeah, I did.”

In response to my admission, I could see some familiar faces shifting uncomfortably in their seats—as well as Mino Ruri.

“You bastard!” Yamada cried. “That’s… that’s not playing fair.”

A statement both naive and hypocritical.

And yet... it was still true.

“I was just doing what I thought was right,” I said. “Tell me, Yamada. Is it fun to sexually harass girls?”

Unlike what a certain series of attorney games would tell you, accusing someone doesn’t immediately turn their expression into one of grave shock. Then again, my claim was entirely baseless aside from one throwaway Sakura comment, so it made sense that he would only grow more furious in response.

“Sexual harassment?” Sugihara regarded Yamada with her default expression—that is, mild annoyance.

On top of Sugihara’s comment, I could hear frenzied murmuring going on around the class plus an ooh from Mishima. Even Sakura had tilted her head in curiosity.

“W-what? Don’t believe him! I have no idea what the hell this idiot is saying!”

Now, if I were truly an idiot, I would’ve responded with that’s exactly what a sex offender would say. But I had an even better trump card.

“Please just give up already, Yamada. I don’t want to reveal the identity of the victim. It wouldn’t be fair to her,” I said.

After that line, the frenzied murmuring around the class turned into outright chatter.

Yamada looked like he was on the brink of letting fists fly—if not for the two idiot friends who were holding him back.

Ueda Yuji’s jaw was completely slack.

Mino Ruri squirmed uncomfortably in her seat.

Even Sugihara Junko no longer looked mildly annoyed. Just plain irritated.

Despite all of this hubbub, however, Mishima Akihiko didn’t intervene—the class representative of 1-F did.

“Everyone, quiet!”

Sakura’s authoritative voice reverberated throughout the room, silencing it completely.

“Mizuhara-kun,” she continued. “That’s an awfully serious accusation you’re trying to make. I don’t mean to make light of what you’re saying… but could you at least provide some proof of your claims?”

“Y-yeah! Proof. Show me the proof,” Yamada echoed.

What a sad stock character. If only he had more reactions than simply being angry, perhaps I would've been a tad more sympathetic.

Eh. Not really.

I hated simps.

“Quiet, Junpei-kun. I’m not on your side, I'm merely clearing the grey area from this situation. If it turns out Mizuhara-kun is telling the truth… then I’m sorry, but he was right to lobby everyone against you. Even if it cost him some points.”

Sakura’s last word was intonated rather weirdly. What could have been the cause of it, I wonder?

“E-Emi-chan… Even you're taking his claim seriously?”

Yamada slumped back into his seat, looking despondent—from the stress, perhaps. He didn’t need his two friends to hold him back any more. At this point, it looked like even he understood punching me in this situation would only make him look more guilty.

“Like I said, it’s an if.” Sakura set her gaze on me. “Because Mizuhara-kun… you’ve honestly done nothing except throw out a so-far unsubstantiated statement. And if you’ve had to bribe others to get your point across, that only makes it harder to believe.”

So, I’m sorry to say this… but could you please provide some evidence?

What was fuelling Sakura’s comments, I wondered? Was it her sense of justice? Or was it her realising my point promise had been incredibly flimsy from the start?

I tried my best not to smirk.

From how things looked to her, it probably seemed like I forced the school to patch the Special Project all by myself. Perhaps that was indeed the case. Perhaps I just got lucky and acted on the loophole before the school closed it.

“I know who the victim is,” I spoke. “But since this is a rather sensitive issue, I’d prefer if I didn’t reveal her identity publicly.”

“...So, what do you suggest?” Sugihara replied instead.

“For now, all I can reveal is that the victim was in this class. So why don’t we have a neutral party like Mishima-sensei handle it? For instance, he could—”

“I-it’s fine.”

An unexpected voice cut through the air.

“It’s true… What Mizuhara-kun is saying is true,” said Mino Ruri.

Her gaze was downcast—a habit of her natural disposition, but also something that added credibility to her statement.

A splendid lie.

At this school, money really could buy you everything.