Motivated to be lazy

Chapter 8

I met with Manabu after leaving Kushida. It seemed that Nagumo had no issues whatsoever with my appointment as soon as he found out that I 'used my position as Director Sakayanagi's son to expedite the roll out of OAA'. The rest of the council, while begrudging my appointment purely on supposed partisanship, seemed to be on board soon after.

In fact, according to Manabu, they all seemed far more excited about BUDDY than they were about OAA. Nagumo was jealous, looking at Manabu's supposed vision of BUDDY as a direct challenge to his own OAA. None of them knew that they were my creations or that BUDDY was my idea, in fact, Manabu passing it off as his own idea worked heavily in my favor. Nagumo's sole attention was on Manabu and his supposed challenge of commissioning an app and releasing it at the exact same time that OAA was to go live.

It never ceased to amaze me that Manabu was going to such great lengths for me. Willing to appear as a scapegoat, openly laughing in good nature when I informed him that I scored zero on the quiz or even when I told him Class D started with zero class points. He had such unwavering faith in me that I couldn't understand. I hadn't shown him enough for him to have this much belief in me.

"So you're planning to distribute two million points between your classmates? That's incredibly generous of you, that would mean each student will have more private points this month than Class C." Manabu observed, taking a sip of his tea.

"It would take far more effort to watch them panic about not having any points this month and trying desperately to get more points for next. Could you imagine? They'd be holding everyone accountable to give their best efforts,"

"Perish the thought, heaven forbid you'd have to do anything," Manabu chuckled in amusement.

"I'm glad you see things my way," I said back with a grin.

"Well before we talk about council matters, in regards to my sister, it's troubling that she would be willing to resort to physical violence against you. No matter the verbal altercation, it is rather unsettling. I know you have quite the silver tongue but I would have thought she'd have more control of her emotions." He said with annoyed disappointment.

"Especially when I'm so polite and helpful to everyone,"

"Ignoring your sarcasm, I will ask you to do me a favor. In the event that she is going to be expelled, I do not want you to intervene. If she gets expelled, she gets expelled."

This was interesting. Manabu has always told me that he cared about Horikita so why was he willing to let her get expelled? I would have thought that he would be asking me to do the opposite.

"Isn't that a little extreme?" I asked.

"Not at all, she hasn't learned anything. She still confuses isolation for independence. If she keeps this attitude and continues to antagonize her classmates, it won't be long until she is targeted. It's better if she gets expelled earlier rather than later, she'll be able to recover easier. Some lessons require extreme measures." He paused for a moment.

"Like public humiliation, for example, isn't that right Ayanokouji-kun?" Manabu said pointedly.

How did he know?

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I lied.

"Do not take me for a fool Ayanokouji, as I said, you and I are far more alike than you would like to admit. There's a reason why I recruited you specifically."

"While both situations are not of the same scale, you should know that in your shoes I would have done exactly the same. In fact, it actually helped during the council meeting as it reinforced what I was saying about you being aloof. A new potential recruit, Katsuragi, happened to hear of the situation and brought it up when I informed the others of your appointment. I suppose I'm bringing it up to thank you, your laziness helped immensely in this situation." Manabu finished with a smirk.