The Odd One Out

Chapter 8.1 - Starting Over

After Christmas break, classes resumed.

It wasn't long before Chabashira-sensei announced a new special exam. One that hadn't been done in a long time.

The Class Poll.

Even though I was President, I couldn't decide the special exams for the last semester of the first year, since first-year special exams are decided in advance. This exam was therefore decided in advance and I couldn't change it.

The rules for this one were quite simple.

The exam consisted of a class vote, where each student in each class was allotted 3 praise votes and 3 criticism votes.

Each student will have to give a praise vote to three different students in their class, and a criticism vote to three other different students in their class. You obvious couldn't vote for yourself.

Praise votes and criticism votes invalidated each other, meaning the results for each student will be number of praise votes they received subtracted by the number of criticism votes they received.

Prohibited actions included nominating the same person more than once, entering a blank, abstention or similar actions.

Each student had to give a praise vote to a student of another class.

In each class, the student with the lowest vote result will be expelled, but they can still be saving by paying 20 million private points.

The student with the highest vote result in each class will receive a non-transferable Protection Point that can overturn expulsion.

In the case where the student with the lowest vote result has a result of 0 criticism votes, then that student won't be expelled. Similarly, in the case where the student with the highest vote result has a result of 0 praise votes, then that student won't receive a Protection Point.

The vote results will be announced with only the rankings and number of votes, but the voters' names will be kept anonymous.

Once Chabashira-sensei finished her explanation, homeroom ended and she left the room.

"I know who I'm giving my criticism vote to," Ike said when looking at me.

"Bye bye, you bastard!" Yamauchi screamed.

"We have to expel the traitor!"

"I saw him with Sakayanagi-san! He's definitely betraying our class!"

Sigh.

I must say, if it wasn't for one rule, I would've no doubt been the one with the lowest vote result.

Each student has to give a praise vote to a student of another class.

With that, my safety is all but assured.

I suppose I can play along for now.

"Let's vote for Ayanokouji!" Shinohara said.

"Let's get that traitor out our class, this is our chance!"

"Guys, he's the student council president."

"Who cares? We'll just get a new one!"

It was safe to say I would receive the most criticism votes in our class. Even though I was student council president, some students in the class didn't hesitate to let their thoughts known.

Hirata tried to calm everyone down, telling everyone he didn't want anyone to be expelled, but the majority of the class refused to listen. They deemed this too good of an opportunity to turn down.