Classroom of the Elite: Free Will

V7.5: Chapter 8 - New Year's Eve

Ichinose Honami POV

"Honami-chan! Welcome," Mako-chan greeted me.

As planned all our class had come to tonight's dinner in New Year's Eve. It was only nine pm, and I was among the last ones to arrive. Since we couldn't leave school grounds, doing the typical things we usually do in this date was impossible. Therefore, we decided to have this dinner for all the class in one of the best restaurants in campus. It wouldn't be cheap, but because of the special occasion, we agreed to make an exception.

I took my seat in between Yume-chan and Chihiro-chan. In front of us, were Mako-chan, who had Sayo-chan at her right and Shibata-kun at her left.

"Sorry, I'm late," I apologised, noticing all of them had a menu on their hands.

I picked the menu in front of me as my friends greeted me.

Sadly, there was a student missing; a student I doubted would come: Akabane Karma.

Our leader and at the same time the only student my classmates couldn't stand – at least most of them.

Despite wracking my brain day and night to find a way for Karma-kun and our classmates to get along, I couldn't find anything. Specially because of Mako-chan's refusal.

Ryuuji-kun had barely paid attention to class affairs since the sports festival, preferring to stick with his friend group.

Eiichiro-kun had basically accepted Karma-kun's methods and had no quarrel in following his plans.

As for myself, I couldn't do much since Karma-kun saw me as little more than his assistant. No matter how many times I advised him on something, those advice would end in deaf ears.

Shinobu-san, once the paper shuffle exam was over, and we put an end to the tutoring sessions, focused on her club activities, she should have participated in the fencing tournament a few days ago since it took place sometime after Christmas.

"Ah, Shinobu-san, how did it go your tournament?" I asked my friend who was talking lively with Hitomi-chan and Yui-chan at the end of the table to my right.

Curiously, my seat was almost at the centre of the table.

"The tournament?" Shinobu-san turned in my direction. "I won the individual one, but we lost the semi-final in the team competition."

"Really? Congratulations, Shinobu-san," I clapped joyfully. "That's an impressive performance. Sayo-chan and Kozue-chan also did great in the volleyball tournament, right?"

"Yeah!" Sayo-chan replied enthusiastically. "We got to the final and fought till the very end. Unfortunately, we lost, but it was still an incredible tournament, right, Kozue-chan?"

These great results on club activities would undoubtedly give Class B some kind of bonus next month. Still, I was just happy because my classmates' efforts were paying off with great results in tournaments. Hopefully, this kind of participations would help the likes of Sayo-chan who wanted to be a professional volleyball player and play for the national team.

Kozue-chan nodded. "It was, Ikari-senpai was impressive, I'm sure she would've been the MVP if we had won."

"It's a shame that we cannot even go support you, though," Yume-chan declared regretfully.

"Yeah, I would've loved to go see the volleyball tournament," Shibata-kun agreed.