Starting in class C: not completely defective.

Arc 9 chapter 3: New Director

Saturday mornings had come. Finally, it was the day of the exam.

We had come to a consensus: don't try and fix the vote, vote for whoever you want.

Of course, people would still try to fix the vote, I had no doubt about that. But, on paper at least, our vote would be fair.

All that mattered was what happened now, from this moment onward. It wasn't like I was 100% in the clear myself, either. There were absolutely no guarantees in this exam.

We still gathered in the classroom at the usual time, but the exam didn't start until nine. It was now around eight-thirty. I wondered if the school had scheduled the test slightly later out of consideration—or if it was for a much worse reason. A trick to keep the students mired in doubt, jumping at shadows until the very end.

"We will now begin the class poll. Students will head over to the voting room in the order that their names are called."

Apparently, we weren't all going to be voting at the same time in the classroom. I supposed it wasn't necessarily impossible to sneak a peek at people's votes if we did it that way. It sounded like this meant the school was doing what it could to keep the votes anonymous.

The sound of Yamauchi restlessly fidgeting and rattling was extremely annoying to listen to. I couldn't blame him, though.

Over the course of the first year, Yamauchi had done absolutely nothing to contribute to the class. His friend, Ike Kanji, had at least been useful on the island exam. But Yamauchi had the lowest grades in the class, and he was physically inept. It was almost a given that he would get a lot of criticism votes, and he knew it.

"Hey...quiet down a little, Haruki," whispered Ike in warning.

"Sh-shut it. I know."

Chabashira then entered the room.

"Sorry to have kept you all waiting. I will now announce the results for class C. Everyone, please take your seats."

Finally, judgement time had come. Soon, one student would be expelled from our class. It could be Yamauchi. Or it could be Sudou or Ike. Or Kouenji, who was acting the same as he always was. Or would it be someone else?

"First, I will announce the names of the three students with the highest number of praise votes. In third place is...Chiaki Matsushita," said Chabashira.

I let out a sigh of relief at hearing myself named as one of the students at the top. It was surprising to be sure, but not completely unthinkable.

"Next...in second place..." said Chabashira, reading the results a little slower. Even I couldn't predict what she was going to say. "Hirata Yousuke."

Another expected result. Hirata wasn't the leader of our class anymore, but he was still popular. He was still the social leader, but our leader during special exams wasn't him...

"In first place is...Horikita Suzune."

This wasn't expected, but it made sense. For the past few exams, Horikita had been the one to devise the strategies. Although she hadn't been able to beat class C yet, she was still the classes best hope to move up through the ranks.

Yamauchi Haruki was expelled. What a shame :/.

Class A student POV

"In third place...Satoru Kaneda," said Sakagami.

I never expected Kaneda to be that popular. He was quite clever, but he wasn't very popular.

"In second place...Ayanokouji Kiyotaka."