Classroom of the Elite: Alter - Solace

Vol. 6: Chapter 12.1 - The Last of a Whole

December 6th, Monday... It was the day of the Paper Shuffle Exam-- our final exam for the second semester. The questions we've made were to be answered by Ichinose's Class C and our class will be answering the questions made by Sakayanagi's Class B.

The first day has finally come. There were four subjects for today: Social Studies, English, Japanese, and Mathematics.

I arrived early and put my bag in place. Being the first person in the classroom, I had no one to talk to. But my lonesome state didn't last long. Horikita arrived and elegantly walked to her chair.

"Good morning," I greeted.

"Good morning," she replied.  

Before Horikita could continue, an unlikely group opened the sliding door.

"Oh, it's just Horikita-chan and Ayanokouji."

"We sure got here early!"

"I wanna finish this exam already. I'm so tired..."

"Yeah, I wanna sleep, too."

Ike and his friends made their appearance and sat down.

"Are you guys ready for the exam?" Horikita asked.

"I've never been more ready in my life!" answered Ike.

"I'll get those high scores and finally see my name on top!" followed Yamauchi.

"Don't get too carried away, you two. Dragging down your partners is already embarrassing enough, you know?" Hondou took out his notes with a sigh.

"The hell did you, say Ryoutarou?!"

"Oh, c'mon, just shut up. We've done our last-ditch review together. There's no way we can fail this!" Miyamoto pumped himself up with a cheery voice.

Horikita shook her head in dismay while giving Miyamoto a strange look.

"Well, they got decent results in the mock test, so I guess I'll leave them be..." she said.

"As long as Class B didn't make questions that were harder than the ones we did, I think they'll be fine."

Hirata arrived as I gave my comment. After he greeted us, Matsushita and Satou followed suit. It didn't take long before the classroom was filled with students. Some formed groups while some didn't. But they all have one thing in common. Their review materials were all taken out as they continued studying before the test.

"Hey, Ayanokouji-kun." Karuizawa called out to me.

"Good morning, Karuizawa."

"Good morning..." She looked meek and a bit pouty, and I can guess why. "You're ready for the exam, right?"

"What makes you think otherwise?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?! You were so mean last night! Like, you really scared me, you know?"

"I was just kidding."

"Well, I've probably roasted you about this a thousand times already, but none of your jokes will land with that kind of tone!"

Karuizawa can really hit right where it hurts. She's almost on par with Horikita when it comes to burning people with words.

"You should've been used to me by now, Karuizawa."

"I am, but still!"

Even with how loud our conversation was becoming, none of our classmates really paid attention to us. Hirata was Karuizawa's boyfriend, but everyone also recognized how close we were as friends.