Warmth Of A Genius | Classroom Of The Elite

Move 18 - Class C's Contract

"Yamamura-san, here." Sanada grabbed Yamamura's wrist, helping her up the rocks we were currently climbing on.

"T- Thank you, Sanada-kun." She timidly bowed, and for the tenth time on our walk, aimed her eyes down to the floor to avoid eye contact.

"The path to the cave is a lot less straightforward than we were expecting, isn't it?" I said.

"I think that's just our luck. There's likely an easier path, but we just so happened to take the hard path at that fork in the road we passed earlier." Sanada said, chuckling at the entire situation.

Shortly after we stepped foot on the island, our first special exam was finally explained to us. For the next seven days, we'd be camping on this deserted island with, to be honest, not enough supplies to last us the week comfortably. But since it's an 'exam' as the school calls it, they probably wanted to make it more challenging on us.

After we were given all the rules to the exam, including the involvement of a class leader and something called spots that are scattered across the island, Katsuragi immediately made a plan for this morning. The class split into groups of four people each to investigate any spots of interest me, Katsuragi and any other classmates of ours saw when the boat circled the island.

I was assigned to the cave we saw not far away from where we docked alongside Yamamura, Sanada and sadly Totsuka as well. At first I assumed it was just a random placement, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that Katsuragi put me on babysitting duty. I'll have to talk to him about that later today.

"T- Totsuka-kun, are you... doing alright? You've been quiet the whole walk." Yamamura asked. To which, Totsuka responded with silence. Being quiet is one thing, but ignoring someone when they ask you something out of concern is another. Even I know at this point that it's a rude gesture.

"Totsuka, answer Yamamura's question." I told him firmly.

"O-Oh?" He looked back at us with his eyes widened, as if he didn't hear us. Maybe he actually didn't, but I find that hard to believe. Yamamura is nowhere near loud, but she's not dead quiet either.

"I'm doing alright, Yamamura-san. Thank you. We're almost there, right? Let's keep going." He said and immediately turned back around, ignoring us once more.

"I- Is he okay?" Yamamura asked both me and Sanada.

"Do you think Ayanokouji-kun scared him that much back at the pool in May?" Sanada asked Yamamura, unable to hide the slight grin on his face.

Totsuka had obviously become class A's laughing stock. His stunt during the PE class in May with class D was one thing, but after placing last in the midterms of the semester, he cemented himself as deadweight. Ever since then he's been dead silent, only talking to Katsuragi, and even those interactions have become few and far between.

"As long as he doesn't cause us any trouble, we should be alright. Though..."

All three of us looked at Totsuka, who moved his right hand to the front pocket of his pants to check for a specific item.

"Is... is it mean to ask why Katsuragi-kun chose him to be our class leader?" Yamamura hesitantly asked me. Before all of us departed, we made sure to decide on a class leader. This ended up being Totsuka Yahiko, against all odds.

"I don't actually think it's a horrible choice if you think about the way our class is seen by outsiders. Right, Ayanokouji-kun?" Sanada said.

"Right. Everyone knows that Totsuka is the class clown so to speak. However, that makes him the perfect candidate for this exam to be the class leader."