Classroom of the Elite: Free Will

SS12: Ichinose Honami - Shame

The sports festival had finally come to a close.

My classmates began standing up to leave the classroom and I quickly stood up as well and walked towards the door to leave. Before doing so, I looked towards Eiichiro-kun and nodded at him trusting he would do what I had told him to.

It bothered me to inflict such a thing upon him, but I wanted to take care of a few things before the day ended. The sports festival was over, but I couldn't just leave things like this.

Instead of leaving the school building, I went upstairs towards the roof where I was to meet with the person I had texted.

It was deserted as always; people only came here to make deals or eat their occasional lunch, and it wasn't that easy for students to access it since the door was only open at certain hours. For instance, the door should be closed right now, but thanks to Chie-sensei who had 'accidentally' forgotten to close it, I could enter the roof without any problem. Of course, she would also make sure that we wouldn't be penalised because of the camera that was just under the door. I did think about covering it with spray or something along those lines, but it was far easier to reach an agreement with Chie-sensei.

I stayed somewhat in the middle of the rooftop as to not risk being seeing by anyone.

Not even a minute after I arrived, the door opened and Shinobu-san entered the rooftop.

"May I know why you called me here, Honami-san? I'd like to go back to my room to rest."

"Don't worry, Shionbu-san. It won't take long. I just want to ask you something."

She stayed there, a good meter in front of me, her smile on her face.

I breathed in and out before speaking.

"Did you betray the class by leaking our participation table? Yes or no?"

"... I suppose it's normal to consider me the prime suspect. I gave the table to Chie-sensei, after all."

"I'd like you to answer the question Shinobu-san."

"And I fear is not that simple, Honami-san."

"Can you try to explain it then? I'd like to understand what happened."

Shinobu-san sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Secrets can become quite heavy, wouldn't you agree, Honami-san?"

"Huh?"

"Some of them can even make blood flow easier than ink," she said smiling at me, not shifting her gaze off from mine.

"W-what are you saying, Shinobu-san?"

"I admire you a lot, Honami-san. You have a soft heart and truly care for others. I believe that requires a great amount of courage in such a cruel world."

I didn't expect the conversation to take such a turn. I just wanted to find out the truth about Class B's traitor. But...

"Shinobu-san... Is someone in another class blackmailing you—?"

I had never thought Shinobu-san might have something she didn't want anyone to know. She had always been a figure of kindness all our classmates could turn to. She said she admires me, but it was the other way around. Only Karma-kun had contributed more to the class than her. Even today when Class B students lost time and time again, Shinobu-san had even managed to win against Nao-san. If someone was blackmailing her then I had to do everything I could to help her. Although we weren't particularly close, not as close as I was with Mako-chan or Yume-chan, at least. Shinobu-san was my friend and my classmate. I had to help her in any way I could.