Shirogane Miyuki in COTE

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, it was already May 25th—the date the test had been set from the start.

The subjects being tested were math, physics, chemistry, biology, and English—a total of five. Each subject had 120 minutes.

The good news? Even the English test didn't have any listening questions. It was all multiple-choice.

So that was a bit of a relief.

Even though it felt easier, that in itself was a bit suspicious—after all, what kind of English test doesn't include listening?

In that sense, it was a warning sign. Maybe this test would be a little different from the usual ones.

As students of this school, they had to get used to the school's testing style.

Early in the morning, Shirogane arrived at the elevator and waited. While waiting, he used the time to reflect and plan for the exam.

There's no doubt about it — the plan for dealing with this exam is the right one. If you want to pass, the best move is to buy past test papers from upperclassmen.

Unless the school wants to see a huge wave of dropouts across all three grades.

Compared to the lower grades, the students in higher grades have already been trained for two or even three years. If they suddenly start dropping out now, not only will the students be confused, but the school probably wouldn't be too happy about it either.

After all, they've spent a lot of money and resources on these students.

Last Sunday, news also came from Ichinose's side: the five upperclassmen that Nagumo sent over for tutoring brought test papers with them.

Shirogane passed this info on to Sakayanagi.

Sakayanagi didn't seem too interested — she just replied with "Got it" — but she still sent over Hashimoto's contact information.

That basically meant she was telling him to get in touch with Hashimoto Masayoshi.

Sure, Shirogane could have gotten Hashimoto's number himself through the class contact list Kushida had filled out.

But getting it directly from Sakayanagi was something else. It meant she was giving him permission to give orders to Hashimoto.

That meant there was no need to form some kind of deal with Hashimoto or figure out how to motivate him to act.

About 30 minutes after the message was sent, Hashimoto replied with a photo. It showed a second-year A-class upperclassman holding a test paper titled "1st Year Midterm Exam / Math."

You could say Nagumo is seriously bold.

If he had removed the test title, Hashimoto would have had to do a lot more work, like taking pictures of every question on every page.

But since the test title was there, this one photo already had a lot of value.

Just like that.

"Looks like you're deep in thought, Shirogane."

And just then—

"Ding."

While Shirogane was thinking, the elevator he'd been waiting for finally arrived. Boys and girls lived in the same building, but the line between their floors was strict. You always had to wait for the elevator to come down from the girls' floors, and often had to wait longer if there were too many people inside.

This time, the sound came from a girl in the elevator greeting him.

Shirogane looked over.

It wasn't bad — only four people inside.

He could count them so quickly because he spotted Horikita Suzune. He hadn't interacted with her much, but since he'd been spending time with Kushida lately, he'd come to realize that wherever Horikita was, the number of people usually went down.

Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo were in the same class. But when it came to making friends and being popular like Kushida, Horikita just didn't have those skills.

Horikita was standing near the elevator buttons, and right behind her was Kushida Kikyo.

With her short golden hair and friendly smile, Kushida looked cheerful and full of energy as always.

Shirogane was now face-to-face with Horikita Suzune.

Her expression looked a bit complicated. She pressed her lips together slightly and asked, "Shirogane, are you getting in?"

She was basically pointing out that he'd been standing there too long and the elevator had been stuck on that floor for a while.

Are you not coming in?

Of course I am.

Shirogane didn't want to wait for the next one, so he stepped right into the elevator.

Even though the special exam will end between today and tomorrow, Shirogane still has another job to do.

That job is to dig into Kushida Kikyo's hidden motives toward Horikita's older brother, especially since it involves those 1 million points.

And now—

Just like Horikita said, even though Kushida has lots of friends, including close ones like Wang Meiyu, she still sticks close to Horikita Suzune in the morning.

"Is Kushida with you?"

Shirogane asked Horikita.

Since taking on the task from Horikita's brother, Shirogane had done a bit of digging.

For example—

He found out the room numbers of both Horikita and Kushida and noticed that they live on different floors.

Horikita lives on a lower floor, Kushida on a higher one. And judging from how Horikita treats Kushida, if they weren't short on time, she probably wouldn't get in the elevator if she saw Kushida inside.

But now, they're here together.

"She was already waiting outside my door this morning."

Horikita Suzune said.

After that, Horikita kept a blank expression, while Kushida, who overheard, just gave a silly smile.

"Hehe~"

Clearly, no matter what Horikita says, Kushida's not changing her ways.

Shirogane looked ahead and noticed two other girls chatting in the corner.

He didn't go near the other class's girls. Instead, he walked to the space behind Horikita and in front of Kushida.

From the outside, Horikita and Kushida looked like they were standing one in front of the other. Shirogane figured the reason Horikita stood near the buttons was not just because she wanted to get to class faster and leave the cramped space they shared, but also to keep her distance from Kushida.

And Kushida was good at reading the situation — she kept just the right distance, one Horikita could barely tolerate.

At least Horikita was just annoyed and hadn't started throwing cold words yet.

"Morning, Shirogane. Looked like you were thinking about something just now."

Kushida was the first to greet him after getting in.

"You could tell?"

"Mm-hmm. You usually carry your vocabulary book."

Kushida said.

Which meant she'd already figured out some of his habits.

"I was probably thinking about the exam today."

Shirogane replied.

"But yesterday I ran into Yamauchi and Ike from your class. They didn't seem worried at all and were off playing."

"Oh, that…"

Kushida seemed like she wanted to explain.

"Hmm…"

"Our classmates are doing their best to prepare too."

"After all, it's our first written test."

"Even though they usually don't look like they're trying hard, everyone's actually being pretty careful."

Kushida said this like she was trying to say something nice.

But from the way she said it, it was clear she knew her class might do well in the test.

Still, does she really know what kind of class she's in?

So that means Ayanokouji already got someone from the upper grades to buy D Class's test questions.

But they couldn't just say they got the test papers and then stop worrying. They needed a reason in case they ended up with good scores.

When it came to support roles, Kushida was actually doing a good job.

But it was a shame — she was still in Class D.

And.

That included Horikita, who was in charge of pressing the elevator button.

*Ding*

Just then, the elevator made a sound. They had reached the first floor, and Horikita walked out with two other students.

They were heading to class.

That left just Shirogane and Kushida behind.

"Ah… ha… I wanted to walk to school with her for once."

Kushida looked upset as she watched Horikita leave alone without hesitation.

It's hard to say how much of that comment was real or fake, but she really was trying hard to get along with Horikita.

So why was Kushida so hung up on Horikita?

Even after being ignored for a whole month — no, almost two months — she still hadn't given up.

"Good morning, Kushida!"

But just as she got off the elevator, a girl from the elevator next door walked over.

She had shiny pink hair and the same kind of cheerful energy as Kushida.

It was Ichinose.

She knew Kushida, and they had become friends. Kushida had even made friends with a lot of students from Class C.

Ichinose walked over to them.

"Good morning, Shirogane."

She stopped next to Kushida, but the person she greeted was Shirogane.

...Kushida.

Kushida, who was good at reading the mood, immediately understood that Ichinose had something to say to Shirogane.

So she quickly said goodbye and left, giving them space.

"Are you worried about this exam?"

Shirogane asked Ichinose.

"A little bit,"

Ichinose nodded.

"But I still think your idea is kind of shocking. Some people in our class are nervous about it."

"First of all, I can guarantee that your class will earn the top reward in this test."

Shirogane said, "You'll also get about 400,000 private points a month, which adds up to around 15 million over three years."

"But still, this is just—"

Ichinose still looked uneasy.

To her, what Shirogane was doing didn't really match with the way she thought things should be done.