Classroom of the Elite: Free Will

SS11: Sudou Ken - Twenty Seconds

I handed the baton to Hirata after running my two hundred meters.

This closed my participation on the sports festival and damn it had been tiring.

Getting out of the track, I realised that soon after me, Tomori and another girl arrived and passed the baton to the next runner. Just how fast were those two?

Thankfully, the next runners weren't as fast as them and were unable to shorten the gap I had created. It also helped that Hirata was quite speedy himself.

I headed over the stands and joined Miyake and the others there.

"Good job," he told me.

I gave a slight nod.

"Didn't expect Tomori to be that fast, though," I said truthfully.

I thought I would leave the eleven classes completely on the dust.

"Yeah. And Chikujoin-san was also superfast!" Hasebe, who was beside Miyake, exclaimed.

So that was her name... From what I had seen she had taken a lot of first places but considering Class C had mostly faced the least physically capable students, it was hard to determine whether or not they were good. There were some exceptions of course, you could see it from today's records. Horikita had also informed us of which students from Classes C and B we should be wary of. I had only focused on the boys' names and skimmed the list of girls, though. I wouldn't be competing against them, so it really wasn't my concern, right?

A sudden tap on my back startled me. Turning to my right I found Matsushita smiling at me. The heck?

"Thank you for today, Sudou-kun! You did great!"

"Huh? Uhm... Yeah, no problem."

"Matsushita-san's right, Sudou-kun. Surprisingly, you're pretty reliable," Karuizawa told me. "Don't you agree, everyone?"

"Yeah, man. Your training was severe, and you were like super strict, but I even managed to get a fourth place in the 200-meter dash!" Kanji said.

All my classmates began agreeing with them and showering me with compliments.

What?

Oi, oi. Hold up a second. What's happening here?

Am I really being complimented by everyone?

But this isn't right. I mean, I ain't really a capable person. I only got into sports because being the idiot I am, I gave up on studying. If Horikita hadn't helped me with my studies, I would have been kicked out of here a while ago.

I had only tried basketball after trying several individual sports that couldn't keep my attention. I never saw myself as a team player, but I got seriously into basketball. I really enjoyed playing and soon found myself getting better and better. I was even recommended to Shuutoku High which had one of the best teams in the entire country. But I ended up getting in some trouble, and my recommendation got pulled.

At the end, I was just trash, born from trash. How could they complement me as if I had done something impressive?

Horikita, Hirata, Ayanokouji, they were impressive, they deserved the compliments...

Still leading the race, Hirata passed the baton to our third runner which was Horikita. Everyone cheered seeing this.

A chuckle at my right took my attention.

"What's with that face, Sudou-kun?" Karuizawa asked.

"Huh? Well... I guess I'm not used to, being praised like that."