COTE - The Devilish Conqueror

Laying the Trap

“Ayanokouji-kun, can we have a talk?”

Stood in front of me, Horikita requested for my presence. For others, this is most likely not a strange sight since they thought we're close.

But for me personally, this is quite peculiar. Mainly because one, Horikita rarely tried to start a conversation with me (that is unless you count her rude remark as a proper conversation), and two, Horikita has never ever tried to be polite, not even in the slightest bit.

“Well go on.”

“I mean not in here.” Now isn't that interesting? “I want to eat together.”

“Won't you be afraid if rumours about us started to appear?”

“Are you the type to care about that?” She shot me a deadpan stare, “Just follow me, I promise I'll let you choose anything you want.”

“Fine.” With a sigh, I reluctantly stood up from my desk and began to follow her to cafeteria. I also caught Karuizawa's irritated glance briefly before walking out of the class.
She must be still angry about that...

Upon arriving at cafeteria, I choose the most expensive set of meal and the special parfait cup. I could already feels Horikita's eyebrow twitched in annoyance, but I must gave it to her for the impressive poker face.

“Well then, shall we eat?” she asked. Horikita started at me intently, as if she were waiting for me to begin.
I honestly knew where will this lead to, and just decided to went along with her. Horikita would be become more stubborn and pushy if I refused her request so I better took her when her mood was still good. I mean I got a free meal out of this, so I would say this was pretty worth it.

Without further interruption, I began to dig into my meal while gesturing her to start to talk.

“I know this is rather sudden, but I want to talk to you about something.”

“Go on.”

“Well, you surely notice that ever since Chabashira-sensei chastised the whole class that day, there has been a less number of general school's rules violation. Half of the reasons our class got into this situation has been eliminated quickly as everyone was improving themselves.”

“Well, to begin with, it wasn't really a difficult issue to deal.”

Of course there was no guarantee things would continue like this, but at least our classmates has learned what the consequences of their action and tried to become better.

“The next step is to improve our chances of scoring well on the midterm. Hirata-kun started taking action toward that end earlier.”

“The study groups, huh...”

Without question, I has ordered Karuizawa to join the group to not only look over them but also to study too. Obviously, she whined about how all this studying will drive her mad. Surprisingly, when I tried to explain why she should join it, she quickly caught to what my intention is, which is maintaining her social position.

She still grumbled about that though...

“And so...? I suppose it was quite shocking that you cared for others wellbeing and actively tried to help them, but I don't see why my presence is needed here...”

“I’m relieved that Hirata-kun set up a study group. However, Sudou-kun, Ike-kun, and Yamauchi-kun didn’t join, did they? That worries me,” Horikita said.

“Oh, those guys. I wouldn’t say they’re Hirata’s enemies, but they aren’t on good terms with him. They wouldn’t join.”

“So, in other words, there remains a high probability that those three will fail. In order to reach Class A, we need to avoid demerits and build toward a positive evaluation, correct? I think it highly likely that good test scores will help with that.”