Classroom of the Elite: Shadow puppeteer

Chapter 9: Lunch with Idiot Trio

Ha ha ha ha! God, you're so dumb. You're hilarious, man!" Ike chatted loudly with Yamauchi during second-period math. It'd been three weeks since the entrance ceremony. In that time, Ike and Yamauchi, along with Sudou, had collectively come to be known as "The Idiot Trio."

"Hey, hey, do you want to go do karaoke?"

"Yeah, let's go!"

A group of girls nearby were making plans for after class.

"I was really worried for a while, but it looks like everyone's opened up to each other quickly."

"Ayanokouji-kun, haven't you made quite a few friends?" asked Horikita, copying what was written on the blackboard into her notebook.

"Somewhat, I suppose."

Although I was anxious at first, I'd gotten to know Sudou from our encounter at the convenience store, and I'd bonded with Ike and Yamauchi through the incident at the pool. Sometimes we ate lunch together. Even though I was far from having a best friend, before I knew it, I could say that I had some friends. Human relationships are rather mysterious, so I couldn't pinpoint the precise moment we became friends.

"Sup?" Halfway through class, Sudou crashed through the door and barged into the classroom. He slumped in his seat with a yawn, clearly not caring how late he was.

"Oh, hey, Sudou. Wanna get lunch later?" Ike called out to Sudou from across the room.

The math teacher continued the lesson without even really paying attention. Normally, the teacher would have flicked a piece of chalk at him, but perhaps out of some feeling of laissez faire, all of the teachers tolerated that kind of behavior. Even when it came to poor language, being late to class, or dozing off, no one cared. While at first our class had acted more reserved, now everyone was far too flippant. Of course, there were a few students like Horikita who studied diligently.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, indicating that I'd received a message. It was from the guys' group chat that I was a part of. It looked like they'd decided to eat lunch in the dining hall.

"Hey, Horikita. Do you want to have lunch with me?" I asked.

"I will have to decline. Your group is rather unrefined, anyway."

"I can't deny that."

When guys were alone, all they talked about were girls and dirty jokes. Who's cute, who's going out with who, how far they've gone, etc. Adding a girl into the group would probably have been a bad idea.

"Alright, I'll invite you sometime else."

"I'll think about it. After what happened the last time you invited me, it'd be better if you don't invite me for sometime."

"Than what about our date?"

"There'll be none until I decide to forgive you."

"I'll wait for you then." I said and the conversation.

"Whoa. Seriously, he has a girlfriend? Awesome."

Based on Ike's conversation, it sounded like Hirata was dating Karuizawa. Watching Karuizawa from afar, I saw that she was gazing lovingly at him from across the room. As for my own impression of Karuizawa, well, she was certainly cute. But she had this atmosphere around her that it made difficult for uncertain people to approach her. In other words, she seemed like one of those intensely "girly"-type girls. In junior high, she'd probably pounced on pretty boys like Hirata. These were my own uncharitable assumptions, but I probably wasn't far off.

Oops. I had pretty mean-spirited opinions about her, although, not really to the extent that it would be considered defamation. I apologized to Karuizawa in my head.