The Ayanokouji Twins

Chapter 7 (2/2): The Twins, Convincing Koenji Rokusuke

Kiyotaka POV:

"I'll get straight to it." I say, staring at the conglomerate heir across the table. "Koenji, what will it take for you to teach a study group?"

Koenji takes a sip of the Silver Needle tea he brought. We're currently gathered in my room (which is really me and Kiyone's room) to undergo the most daunting task we've done since entering ANHS: convince Koenji to do something cooperative for an extended length of time.

"Oh, you have various options, Kiyotaka." He says, enjoying the aroma of his tea. "You and Kiyone could finally accept my offer to work at the Koenji conglomerate, for one."

"And flood us with mundane deskwork?" Says Kiyone, coming over with my tea and a basket of snacks. "You demean our ability, Koenji. If you want to hire us, at least give us a small country to manage."

I move over so she has enough space to sit beside me, and she lays down the basket of homemade pastires. Lemon blueberry scones with powdered sugar, macaroons half-covered in chocolate, rosemary shortbread, mini egg salad sandwiches and madeleines.

"I assure you, the Koenji Conglomerate will find ample use for your talents. An unfulfilling and unsatisfying worklife will be the least of your problems under me."

"We'll consider it if you give us the conglomerate." I say. "But we've established that to be an impossible request, so let's just move on."

"Koenji, you understand there are benefits to increasing your favourability?" Kiyone adds, reaching for a macaroon. I grab her free hand and communicate to her, Can you get me a scone? She gets the exact scone I want and gently leaves it on my plate without spilling any crumbs.

"Just being our friend won't be able to carry your image in class forever. Before long, you'll grow a reputation as a selfish, uncooperative prick with the people you're linked to for your stay in this school." She says, enunciating clearly despite the macaroon in her mouth.

"Perhaps. But at the same time, that strong connection between a class and student is advantageous to me, no?" Koenji says, taking another sip. "I agree that I am tied to this class by the rules of this school. But by that same logic, even if I become disagreeable it's hard to remove me, is it not? Expulsion requires individual transgression, not disobedience."

He is certainly right. Expulsion is likely the simplest way to remove a classmate, but inducing it is risky. For if the victim figures out what's going on, it's very possible the situation switches around and you get expelled instead. If you can't force it, you can only hope the individual themselves screw up, which is largely outside of your control.

"Additionally, no matter how badly people want me out, me leaving the class will do more damage than the tiny dent my disagreeable acts do, just by private points alone. Not to mention the occasional contributions I may make."

As expected, Koenji isn't as close-minded as Horikita and sees the immense detriment expelling a student brings to its class. As he says, and as I told Horikita, just by the metric of private points expulsion is extremely debilitating. It's not an unbeatable argument, but it, alongside many other factors, certainly make a great case for keeping students around.

"And on the highly unlikely scenario out class position drops, specifically from my lack of contribution... I can simply buy my way into Class A before graduation."

"Knowing you, you're not saying nonsense." I say, despite most people likely arguing the opposite. "Which means you've found a huge source for private points. Enough to feasibly amount to 20 million."

"Speaking of, that was fun, interrogating Sensei about the prices for random things." Kiyone says, harking back to the time we cornered Chabashira-sensei after school and had her answer questions for a full hour. It was also when we learned of the price for switching classes. "We should do that again."