COTE Year 2 Reimagined

Volume 5:Part 13

I left the classroom and tried to walk off. I felt an awful headache for some reason. Could it be that what I did in class took its toll on my body?

Before I could think about it, I felt someone coming after me. I walked a bit through the hallway, but then she grabbed my arm.

"Ayanokoji-kun!"

I stopped and looked back to see Horikita standing behind me.

"What is it?"

She had a look of guilt on her face for some reason.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't answer the last question. Which is why you had to step up and do all that. It's also why you were forced to expel your friend. If I was strong enough, then that choice wouldn't have been forced on you."

She squeezed my arm tighter without even realising it. Horikita was really beating herself up over this.

"It's okay. Just learn from what happened today and make sure it doesn't happen again. If you wanted to save Kushida, then you should've decided that before the exam began and formed a plan. You hesitated and forced yourself to believe that expelling her was the right choice instead of going with your gut. Which led to what happened in class."

Horikita nodded at me and was about to speak up, but then someone else came up to me.

"Kiyotaka-kun."

It was Airi. She looked me straight in the eye and didn't hesitate or stutter. Airi was clearly different. I also noticed she took her glasses off and let her hair down.

Horikita nodded at both of us and left to give us some space.

"Shouldn't you be with your friends?"

"You are my friend. I wanted to say goodbye to you, too."

"That's not true. You're just being naive."

"I'm not. I went along with what you said because I trusted you. I knew there was another reason you chose me."

"Trusted me? What if I told you I simply expelled you because you were useless."

"I wouldn't believe you. If that were true, then you wouldn't have hesitated at the last second."

She paused and took a deep breath, then spoke up.

"Please take care of Haruka-chan. I promise I'll meet all of you on graduation day."

Airi gave me a warm smile and walked off without waiting for a response. She didn't even look back at me. She had changed so much in an instant. I made the right choice.

"Goodbye."

I muttered under my breath and walked off towards the rooftop. I sent Kei a text and decided to stay here for a while to calm down this awful headache. Unfortunately, my plans were interrupted.

"I thought I'd find you here, Ayanokoji."

Chabashira walked up to the roof and started looking towards the sky.

"I thought I told you not to contact me for matters involving your personal feelings."

She chuckled at my response.

"You're right. I just wanted to thank you."

I sighed and spoke up.

"I didn't do it for you. I thought you'd know that by now."

I only made sure we didn't lose the 300 class points for my own goals.

"I know. I still wanted to say it."

"I see."

She sighed and then looked back at me.

"I have a question, Ayanokoji."

I nodded and ushered her to speak.

"I want you to hear my story. I want to ask you if I made the right choice."

Hear her story? I decided to accept out of curiosity.

"Sure. I'll try."

"During my third year at ANHS, my class took this exact same special exam. We hesitated on what to do because we were so close to class A and only had a few weeks left before graduation. If class A expelled someone, then they'd be in the lead. If they didn't and instead we expelled someone, then we would reach Class A immediately. Nobody knew what to do, but in the end, we decided to expel someone. However, when the time came, our class leader decided that he should be the one who was expelled. Everyone agreed and voted against him. Everyone except me. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't expel him."

I see. It's likely that the class leader was more than just a friend to Chabashira. She couldn't let her lover get expelled after three years of hard work.

"Then what did you do?"

"I nominated myself instead. I hoped that they would expel me and that he would be saved. But he couldn't do it either. He protected me, and I protected him. Until the very end. Until we ran out of time. Because of us, the class lost 300 class points, and our hopes of ever reaching Class A were crushed."

So they both loved each other and couldn't let go of their personal feelings. They chose to save the person they love even if it meant not making it to class A. That was probably what Hoshinomiya sensei meant by what she said today.

She grabbed onto the railing and closed her eyes like she was remembering a nightmare.

"What should we have done?"

"That's easy. You should've targeted the weak link in the class. Someone who didn't have any friends who would stand up for them and who was also not very useful. If you truly wanted to graduate from class A, you couldn't possibly risk not expelling someone. You also couldn't expel the class leader. If he's gone, you would've lost the year-end exam, and it would've been all for nothing. Target someone who's easy to expel and manipulate them into bringing about their own expulsion like I did today. That was the only choice."

Chabashira looked at me in pity.

"That's cruel. What did you have to go through to develop such a sick mindset? I don't understand you, Ayanokoji."

That was the only mindset that could allow you a chance of survival in the white room.

"It's cruel but necessary. If you want to survive, then you don't have time to worry about anyone but yourself."

"And yet you hesitated today. Why was that?"

That was true. I changed a lot more than I thought after coming to this school. But even then, it was still nothing substantial. I may have hesitated for a second, but I still pulled the trigger.

"Who knows."

"Thank you for your answer, Ayanokoji. You're probably right. Even if I expelled him, we would've lost the year-end exam. I was a fool to hold on to such regrets for so long."

Seeing what happened today helped her move on.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can move forward now. Move forward and support this class to help them achieve their dreams."

So Chabashira decided to help her students from now on. It seems she's also slowly changing.

"I see. Good luck doing that."

I got up to leave, but then...

"Ayanokoji. I'm sorry for everything I did last year. That was another one of my regrets."

I nodded at her and walked away. Everyone must have left the school by now. I decided to walk back to my dorm and rest to hopefully get rid of this headache.

I also had to wait for Kei to get the information I needed.