Chapter 29:

"Politics" (fin.)

Why I Write


40 minutes before Mino Ruri’s ‘confession’, I actually happened to spot her before school at a vending machine outside the female dorms.

“Mino-san,” I called out to her. “What a coincidence to see you here.”

Rather than afford a small wave or acknowledge my greeting, her hands merely reached for the hem of her skirt—and then balled up into tiny fists.

She evidently had no sense of humour.

“What do you want?”

“Please don’t act so seriously. It just makes it more difficult to give this story a decent ending,” I said.

“...Story?”

“Special Project, I meant. Slip of the tongue.”

Before she could get any more annoyed with my early-onset dementia, I pulled out my school issued tablet from my schoolbag. I immediately realised I’d mistimed my theatrics by a few minutes after glancing at the time.

“Would you like a drink, perhaps? My treat.”

Mino shook her head in disgust.

“Look, Mizuhara-kun. You dragged me here because you said you wanted to apologise. If you don’t have any intention of doing so, I’m going to leave.”

She’d done a good job of appearing standoffish so far, but subtle cues of her body language were betraying her. Silly girl. Didn’t she know that whether your arms were crossed or not was the ultimate sign of interest? A quick search on the net for the ‘Sigma Male’s Guide to Body Language’ would’ve told her that, so it was clear she was a complete beginner when it came to social interaction. Pity. It was so obvious she was enraptured by our conversation…

Not really. She’d actually turned around and taken two full steps away by the time this monologue finished. Bloody tsunderes.

“Okay, fine. I do want to apologise...”

At my earnest admission, Mino stopped in her tracks and faced me once more.

“...in advance. Heh. Heheheh.”

Hahaha! Ahahahahaha! I cracked up a little after giving her that little curveball of an ‘in advance’. Oh, I was so clever. I’d be the only clown wearing a monocle.

“......”

In the meantime, Mino held both her hands to her temples.

“You seem different,” she said.

“No?”

“Yes,” Mino insisted. “You’re much more spirited, and less serious… that’s not a good thing, by the way. Frankly, it’s even more annoying than the last time you tried to talk to me.”

Last time being the confrontation in the classroom, of course.

I glanced down at my tablet and noted down the time. 7.59am.

“Mino-san. What do you think of Yamada Junpei?”

She furrowed her brows, as if to say, Just ignore the previous conversation thread, won’t you?

“...I don’t feel particularly strongly about him either way,” she replied.

That was a good response. But it wasn’t exactly easy to build upon in order to stall for time, so I decided to give her another question.

“Okay. Then, what do you think of getting to Class A?”

“How are those two things related at all?”

“Oh, sorry. What do you think of getting to Class A?”

My use of ‘then’ must’ve confused her, so I omitted it on the second attempt.

Her face screwed up, as if I’d just done something completely bonkers. “Uh… I guess it’d be nice, but as long as I graduate, I don’t care either way.”

“I see.”

Her response to everything was the same, apparently. ‘I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect me.’ Not a particularly rare mindset to have, but annoying nonetheless—which was why upstanding citizens such as myself were responsible for motivating these sorts of pawns.

Mino started to adjust the collar of her already-neat school blouse. “If that’s all, please leave me alone.”

As she finished her sentence, the time ticked over to 8am.

“Last question, Mino-san. If you had to pick between living or dying, which would you choose?”

“...Living. Isn’t that obvious?”

Fortunately for her, she didn’t have much time to feel annoyed by my rhetorical question—because I’d flipped over my tablet.

And then her eyes widened in horror once she registered the details on the screen.

Mino Ruri certainly wasn’t slow. Though I’d be inclined to agree that academics is merely a product of how much someone wants to exert themselves, there’s still an element of natural ability to it. If both a talentless individual and a genius worked with the same amount of discipline towards studies, the genius would naturally pull ahead. Her ability to score in the 99th percentile nationwide for academics showed that, to some extent, she was an intelligent person.

That’s why after asking her a bunch of cryptic questions, subtly hinting at expulsion, and showing her the results of the class poll on my tablet as they arrived, she understood the point I was trying to make.

She was smart enough to understand the difference between the haves and have-nots.

“What… are you trying to do to Yamada-kun?”

“Yamada? Oh, I don’t think you’re looking at the correct name.”

I pointed to the ‘Mino Ruri’ on my tablet—Mino, as in ‘three fields’, and Ruri, as in ‘lapis lazuli’.

“Two exemplary votes and one deplorable vote. 32nd place. She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

“You...”

The look on her face was probably best described as a mixture of fear and anger. An exquisite straddling of the line between the two emotions.

“Simmer down,” I said. “I’m not just trying to twist your arm here. That would set a bad precedent for our working relationship in the future—I simply threw a vote at you to demonstrate how serious I am regarding this proposal.”

“......”

“This is a limited-time offer. Reject it, and I’ll make sure you get expelled.”

“...What happened to not twisting my arm?”

“I wasn’t finished. There are always two sides to a coin, Ruri.”

Her eyes twitched at my sudden mention of her name.

“If you accept, I’ll make sure that your financial situation improves by getting you a spot in the top 10. Expulsion or money. I’m giving you a choice here.”

It didn’t take long for Mino to choose a second wind over certain death.

***

8.35am.

“Mino-chan? What the hell are you saying?” Yamada Junpei yelled.

Still looking towards the ground, Mino was understandably distressed. Not only did she have to muster the courage to speak up in front of the entire classroom, she was now also subject to the bellowing of an uncouth guy.

“...It’s… it’s as Mizuhara-kun said,” Mino struggled.

“That’s completely false, you bitch!”

I cringed a little. Not because of his volume which was raised yet another order of magnitude, but at how one-dimensional Yamada was.

I already knew beforehand that he wasn’t the best when it came to self-control, but it was genuinely impressive that a person could take the bait this hard and be this cringy while doing so.

“You should watch what you say,” Sugihara snapped. “Don’t you dare call her that again.”

“Screw off! You don’t understand. What she’s saying is completely baseless. She and Mizuhara are just trying to frame me!”

He pointed an accusatory finger at me.

Unfortunately for Yamada, it didn’t seem like Sugihara was interested in the truth.

“Even if that’s what you think, calling Mino-san a bitch doesn’t help your case at all,” she said. “It just looks like you’re angry you’re getting exposed… and to be honest, I wouldn’t put that past you, Yamada-kun. I’ve always thought you were petty.”

“What?”

“I said you’re petty. Didn’t you start a hate campaign against Mizuhara-kun? Was that really all about Sakura-chan, I wonder? Or was it because he knew about what you were doing to Mino-chan?”

“That’s right.”

“Honestly, Yamada is kind of a dick…”

The girls in Sugihara’s clique were eating up her display of authority.

It wasn’t just the girls, actually. The guys also seemed to be buying whatever Sugihara was peddling. Even the two stooges that always hung out with Yamada were beginning to clear away from him.

“Listen here. All of you are idiots...”

Apparently forgetting that his goal was to defend himself from Mino and myself, Yamada began to pick a fight with Sugihara’s faction.

The rest of the class broke out into chatter as well. Interestingly, despite Yamada’s generous swearing and the disorder the classroom had spiralled into, Mishima wasn’t interested in stepping in at all.

Sakura was also glaring at me from her corner.

What a beautiful sight to behold.

I’ll get to you in a moment, I communicated with a smile. In the meantime, I headed over to Mino’s table and placed a caring hand on her shoulder.

She tensed up immediately.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“......”

“No matter what happens, I’ll protect you.”

“......”

I hate you, she mouthed silently.

Rude. I pretended not to see that.

After I made my open gesture of kindness, a bunch of other caring students began to walk up to Mino to offer their sympathy as well.

The curious ones approached me instead—most of them people I’d bought things for.

Ueda Yuji sat at his desk alone in deep thought.

“Mizuhara-kun,” said Ando, a girl I’d gifted 10,000 points worth of lip gloss. “If you’d just told me about Yamada, I would’ve voted for him for free... Why did you go through all that trouble?”

I almost reflexively responded with ‘glad you asked’, but thankfully, I’d rehearsed for this exact line of questioning.

And so I went through the motions of my explanation.

“...I see. That’s actually quite honourable of you. I knew you must’ve had your reasons.”

Most people would be willing to do anything for money. Now, if you gave them money and a sense of ‘doing what’s right’, what would be the expected result? And with money, why would they be incentivised to find faults with what they were doing?

This is how you lobby people.

I ended up telling everyone who approached me the same story. I didn’t want to involve the school or anyone else, because it would’ve brought stress to Mino-chan. I’m honestly surprised she stood up for herself. Of course, if Mino was anyone else, this lie certainly wouldn’t have worked—but even the most skeptical of persons would likely believe me after seeing the nervous state Mino was in. She could barely stammer out a sentence.

A nervous state that, truthfully, had nothing to do with Yamada Junpei—and everything to do with Mizuhara Kohei.

Only two people could possibly figure this out, though. Ueda Yuji definitely didn’t care about social drama so long as his farming speed in Kazoo Lame remained unaffected. As for the other…

“Sakura-san,” I said. “You look angry.”

I broke away from the big group that formed around Mino, Sugihara and Yamada, and walked to the corner of the classroom that Sakura and I sat in.

She was still glaring at me.

“Mizuhara-kun…. Can I ask, do you know something about Ruri-chan that I don’t?”

Classic Sakura Emi.

Not only was she focused on uncovering the truth, she was also as sharp as ever on the uptake.

I took a seat next to her. “I do.”

Sakura remained silent, so I continued.

“But does it matter what it is at this point? You don’t have to be a genius to understand I paid Ueda Yuji to cast that deplorable vote, and neither do you have to be a sleuth to see that has something to do with Mino’s sudden ‘closeness’ to me. There are reasons why people aren’t going to point any of this out. For the others, it’s probably a mixture of ignorance and apathy. For you, it’s money.”

I’d spent my way down to 20,000 and owed Yukimura 15,000. If I spent the remaining 4,999 on day-to-day expenses until Friday, I would end up transferring Sakura a grand total of 1 point—that is, unless I ranked in the top 10 and received a monetary prize.

It was in her interest to stay hush so that would happen.

“The way you think is despicable,” she spat.

“But it’s logical.”

“Spare me your bullshit.”

“Well, Sakura, you’re not much of a saint yourself. You’re partially responsible for manipulating him into this fate.”

If Sakura never flirted with me, Yamada would never have shown his petty side.

If Yamada had never shown his petty side, I wouldn’t have needed to dispatch him.

Impeccable logic. Not really.

“I hate to say this, Mizuhara-kun, but Watanabe was right.”

If you actually hated saying something, you wouldn’t have said it.

The class representative of 1-F stood up and turned to the direction of the big circle that’d formed—probably to get a few words in to maintain her popularity ranking of number 1.

In the meantime, I slouched back in my seat and took a rest.

Mishima was smiling at me.

I pretended not to notice.

Fact Eight: “Politics” (END).