I was reading Chess King to kill the time as I waited for everyone else to come into class. Tokihara, one of the student librarians, recommended this series to me as she thought it would be to my tastes. She was absolutely right, as this book had all the aspects of a story I enjoyed, from strong characters to psychological thrills... I can't wait to talk to Tokihara about it.

My peaceful reading time came to an end as more people entered class and started being rowdy. Mitsuba and Tanaka came over to Nora's table, which was in front of mine, to greet him good morning. Ever since Yukimura's suspension, Mitsuba has been spending more time with Tanaka due to their shared otaku interests.

"Morning, Nora-chan!"

Even though Mitsuba wasn't very energetic these past two weeks due to Yukimura's suspension and the midterms, he managed to bounce back and return to his usual cheery self. This was because the midterms were over, and Yukimura's suspension had ended last weekend. He was going to return to class today.

"O-oh... morning, Mitsuba-san."

Nora, who had undergone a drastic makeover during the start of May thanks to the girls like Sakigamiya, greeted him shyly. Everyone was shocked at how cute he really was, and caught the attention of E Class's infamous gyaru, Fujimura. She wasn't here yet, but would probably come seconds before Chabashira-sensei in order to avoid getting a late mark.

"De gozaru, Nora-dono."

Tanaka also greeted Nora. The two of them had an awkward relationship, as Tanaka had accidentally called Nora "erotic" in a comment regarding a post on the school forum about Nora's unexpected transformation. Though, in that moment, nobody knew it was Nora in that image, so Nora didn't hold a grudge.

"Ah, um... d-de gozaru to you too, Tanaka-san..."

Nora, who was still not used to Tanaka's bizarre speech pattern, replied awkwardly. These two only ever interacted because they shared mutual friends.

Without a common topic to carry the conversation, which Yukimura was good at initiating, the two boys got bored and left to their seats. This small interaction between them made me realise is just how essential Yukimura is to their friendship. Taking him out of the equation collapses their entire balance.

Of course, while I could be considered friends with them as well, I was definitely on the lower-end of the friend spectrum. They didn't even bother to greet me, even though I was just a metre away. It hurt a little that I was ignored.

"Good morning, Yuu-kun! What's with the gloomy face so early today?"

While I was lamenting over being ignored, Yukina sat down at her desk, which was beside mine, and greeted me. I guess I don't need those guys to say good morning to me if I have her.

"Good morning, Nora-chan!"

Being the kind person she is, she also noticed Nora and gave him a greeting.

"Morning, Kazuraba-san..."

Nora sounded more comfortable around Yukina than he did with Mitsuba and Tanaka. Maybe the time he spent with Sakigamiya's group let him be more open towards the girls. After all, he's a soft person who's not vulgar, unlike Yukimura and Mitsuba. At the very least, he's gotten fairly popular within E Class.

"Oh... morning."

I realised that I had been zoning out and gave a delayed response to Yukina. Since summer was around the corner, some students began wearing their summer uniform, like Yukina. For both the boys and girls, the summer uniform meant you could ditch the blazer and wear short-sleeved shirts.

Admittedly, Yukina looked good in her summer uniform. Her skin was glowing, and she rocked the short-sleeved look incredibly well. I noticed that the cuffs of the sleeves had a red trimming in order to show she's from E Class. Not even the summer uniform could let us escape from discrimination.

"You're acting strange this morning."

"I... am?"

It was such a stilted response... what was I even doing? I haven't even answered her question yet.

"First the gloomy face, and now this... is something bothering you?"

Did my attitude really change that much? There's no way that Mitsuba and Tanaka ignoring my existence could bug me that much. Besides, this morning, I got to walk to school with the most popular boy in class, Matsushita, and played a part in humiliating a weird upperclassman. If anything, I should be ecstatic.

"Not... really."

It was the truth. Nothing of importance was currently preoccupying my mind.

"The month is about to end soon, and we conquered the midterms. You can relax a little."

Yukina said some encouraging words, which I appreciated. However, it was hard to relax while attending a school like this one.

"I'm like... totally relaxed."

With each word I spoke, the more cringe I felt in my veins. What the hell was I even saying?

"I don't think so... you had a face of agony only moments ago."

"I take offence to that... I try my hardest to keep my face as neutral as possible."

"Most of the time, it's more gloomy than neutral."

"I'm not Kouji-san or Ikesugi-san."

I felt bad throwing my classmates under the bus, but it was true. Both of them had more gloomy faces than me. Neither of them tried to cover that up. In comparison, I actively kept my face as straight as possible in order to fit my role as a background character.

"Either way, it's still concerning to see you acting like this."

"I'm over it. Your greeting made me happy."

After saying those words without thinking, I had to do a double take. I froze in place, realising what I had admitted. It was a line fitting for a total loser... who says they're happy over a good morning? This is pathetic...

I looked at Yukina, who was genuinely surprised at my accidental openness. Instead of laughing at me, like anyone else would, she just smiled and nodded.

"I'm happy too."

Our brief conversation was interrupted by a loud bang. Everyone looked over to the door that had been slammed open.

Making his grand reentrance, Yukimura was standing at the doorway, radiating anger with a face of an oni. Even though Mitsuba was his best friend, even he cowered at the terrifying sight of Yukimura, who looked like he wasn't in the mood... for anything.

"Welcome back, Yuki—"

"Shut up."

Matsushita tried to greet Yukimura, but was shoved aside as Yukimura sat down at his seat, crossing his arms. His return soured the mood, as many people in the class didn't like him and dreaded his return to the class. They thought it was more peaceful when he wasn't around.

Nora looked at Yukimura from a distance, and put his book down. Standing up, he walked over to Yukimura while exerting caution. Mitsuba and Tanaka looked at him with faces that expressed "what are you doing?!". It seemed irrational for Nora to do such a bold thing. He usually stayed out of trouble, but this time he was heading straight for it.

However, I could understand Nora's feelings. Yukimura had been a very good friend to Nora, and it was clear he was worried about Yukimura. Nora probably wanted to help him calm down.

"Yukimura-san... g-good morning."

Yukimura raised his head, baring his fangs for a split second. Then he relaxed his face, realising it was Nora.

"Oh... good morning, I guess."

"Um... how was your suspension...?"

"Horrible."

Yukimura bitterly looked away, trying to tell Nora to go away through his body language and dismissive tone. He probably didn't want to shout at him to go away, as they were friends.

"Yeah... I can imagine... but now, you're back at school at least. Everyone missed you."

Yukimura snorted and rested his head on the table. Nora knelt down beside him.

"Yukimura-san...?"

"I don't believe you."

"Well... um... I missed you... Mitsuba-san and Tanaka-san missed you... Sakigamiya-san also missed you."

Yukimura flipped his head, facing away from Nora.

"Well, you guys are my friends. It's to be expected."

Nora, who wasn't good at talking, froze up at Yukimura's lack of a response. It was interesting watching how each person deals with their internal emotions. For Yukimura, I could tell how hard it was for him to hold back from saying something he would regret.

Under this much stress and pressure, he was ready to burst with anger, but he didn't want to let it out on his own friends. He knew that would be wrong of him, but he didn't have the courage to turn Nora down since he recognised he was just trying to be a good friend to him. He wanted Nora to understand that he didn't want to talk to anyone, including him.

"I'm sorry, Yukimura-san... I don't know... what to say..."

"Then don't say anything."

Yukimura coldly turned Nora away. Nora flinched, and tilted his head.

"Yukimura... san?"

Nora sounded like he was on the verge of crying. Yukimura narrowed his eyes and tightened his fist. He probably didn't want to do this to him.

However, Yukimura's saviour would come in the form of his enemy, Fujimura. She entered class with her best friend, Suzuki, and walked over to Yukimura's seat. Even though he'd usually bark at them to stay away, this time he didn't fight them at all as he knew they would take Nora away from the situation.

"Gosh, Yukimura, what did you do this time? Nora-chan's nearly crying."

"W-wait, Fujimura-san, this is..."

"C'mon, lets go. You don't need friends like him anyways. You can just hang out with me and Mayuri-chan instead."

Fujimura grabbed Nora by the hand and dragged him away. Yukimura looked at the two gyaru from the corner of his eye, and instead of flaring up with anger, a wave of relief washed over him. Even he recognised they were a necessary evil in his current state.

Chabashira-sensei entered class and started to take roll call. As I predicted, Fujimura and Suzuki had barely made it before she did. Eventually, the register landed on me.

"Takanori-san?"

"Here."

Even though it was just roll call, there was still a substantial amount of pressure to not mess up this simple thing. I think my voice cracked, but no one laughed at me or looked my way, so I think I'm safe. Once it was over, Chabashira-sensei declared that today was a free homeroom, so we could do whatever we wanted.

I wanted to continue talking to Yukina, but Matsushita stole the class's attention as he suddenly stood at the front of the classroom, behind the teacher's podium. Following him was Akihiro, who seemed nervous to go up on stage.

"Everyone, can me and Akihiro-san have a moment of your time? We need your help. It's about the football club."

So this is what Matsushita meant earlier when he had a special request for the class. Both Matsushita and Akihiro were on the football club as midfielder and defender respectively. Yukimura is also on the club, and is widely accepted as the best footballer in our year.

"Firstly, I hope that everyone will give Yukimura-san a warm welcome back to our class. What he went through is stressful, so please be mindful and empathetic with his situation. Secondly, during the course of this week, Yukimura-san will be taking the midterms he missed while suspended, which is an issue for the 1st Year football team. Tonight, we have an official match against another school, but since Yukimura-san can't attend, we won't have enough players on our team. This means we'll have to automatically forfeit the match. Of course, we don't want that. That's why, the captain of our team, A Class's Yahagi-san, gave me and Akihiro-san the responsibility of finding a replacement for him last night. That's why... we humbly request one of you to play for our team!"

At the same time, Matsushita and Akihiro bowed deeply. They were really desperate. I wonder if Yahagi threatened them into this situation. It wouldn't be unlikely, considering the basketball club pressured Ikesugi to leave their club as he was in E Class.

However, no one spoke up. It was so quiet, you could hear crickets chirp. I felt bad for these two, especially Akihiro, who looked like he hated every moment of being up on stage. Yukimura didn't seem to have any adverse reaction towards what Matsushita was saying.

Even though he hated Matsushita, it seemed Yukimura couldn't be bothered to refute his request as he knew how important it was for the football team to get a replacement for him.

"Can't you guys use one of your reserves or something?"

Finally, it was Ikesugi who said something. He raised a good point. They could use a reserve to replace Yukimura. Even though he usually kept quiet, in this situation, he wasn't afraid to speak out as he was also an athlete, to an extent.

"That's the thing... from us 1st Years, only eleven of us joined. That's exactly enough for one team. We don't have any reserves."

It was hard to imagine that the popular sport of football, which was consistently played during break and lunch, would gain so little members for the actual club. It really shows the shift in people's interests nowadays.

While I was familiar with football due to my English heritage, I don't think I'd have the stamina to last 90 minutes on the pitch. If they wanted benchwarmers, then anybody would do, but they needed a player specifically - someone who'd be on the pitch and contribute to the team. It was way out of my league.

"I'd love to join, but I'm a girl..."

Katsumi, the second best athlete in our class, was a girl, meaning she couldn't join. It was a men's team after all.

Even though Matsushita had desperately pleaded, no one else spoke up. None of the boys wanted to participate, despite there being two other good choices in the class.

"How about you guys, Yamaguchi-san, Ayano-san?"

As if she could read my mind, Sakigamiya suggested the names I was thinking of.

Ayano was an incredibly fast runner that could rival Yukimura's top speeds, and Yamaguchi had powerful strength that could trade equal blows with Yukimura.

Ikesugi could've been a good choice too, as he used to play a team sport, but due to his loner status, Sakigamiya probably didn't want to bother him. She was acquainted to the other two to an extent, even if Yamaguchi was racist towards her on our first day at school.

"Forget it. I hate football."

Yamaguchi snorted, crossed his arms and looked down at Matsushita and Akihiro who were begging for help. It was unfortunate, but somewhat expected. Yamaguchi's strong point was rugby anyways.

"How about you ask Ikesugi? He plays a sport too. Oh wait, he got kicked off the team."

Being a bully, Yamaguchi shifted his targets to someone easy to pick on. He insulted Ikesugi and laughed at his face.

"I chose to leave that toxic basketball club on my own accord, actually. If wanted to play football for Matsushita-san, I would've said so already. Start paying attention to your surroundings, you stupid gorilla."

Ikesugi was a brash person, meaning he didn't take Yamaguchi's cheap insult well.

"Aren't you being over-defensive about this? This "gorilla" could snap your body in half, you puny string bean."

Yamaguchi laughed tauntingly, which made Ikesugi shut up and click his tongue. Since Ikesugi wasn't very popular, some of our classmates laughed at him.

"Ayano-san, would you help us?"

To take heat off Ikesugi, Matsushita tried to appeal to Ayano with his refreshing smile and charming aura. Unfortunately, Ayano's stand-offish personality silently cut through the niceties, imposing an unpleasant air to the situation.

"Sorry, but I don't have an interest in that kind of stuff."

"I see... thank you for trying to help, Alice-chan."

Matsushita thanked Sakigamiya for her efforts. By eliminating these two, it basically confirmed no one in E Class was interested. Since it came to this, Matsushita changed his approach to things.

"Then... would there be anyone willing to help finding a substitute with us?"

By making his request more accessible, it meant more people could help. Immediately, almost all the girls in our class shot their hands up and stood in approval.

"We'll definitely help you out, Isogai-san!"

Sakigamiya, who was the ringleader of these girls, turned to the class with a cute smile, using her appeal to persuade the rest of us to help out.

"C'mon, let's do this as a class everybody! We should help our classmates out when possible!"

I didn't feel very obliged to help out at first, but seeing Sakigamiya smile like this made me want to pitch in. This was the overwhelming power of a bijin at work...

"Are you going to help?"

I looked at Yukina, who also raised her hand.

"Of course. These two are my friends, so I'll help them if they're in trouble."

Well, if Yukina's doing it, I guess I have no choice. Some boys like Kawaguchi and Tanaka also raised their hands, so I did as well. There was a good amount of support for these two, which would help speed up the process of finding a substitute for the game.

"Any deadlines we need to know?" Sakigamiya asked.

"Before 5pm tonight. That's when we're leaving the island to go to the stadium in Tokyo." Matsushita said.

5pm was a pretty small timeframe, after school wise. It was only 2 hours after the school day ends. Break and lunch total to about another 2 hours, so in total we had 4 hours to find a substitute.

This homeroom session had smoothly shifted into planning how we were going to approach this. Matsushita and Sakigamiya gathered everyone who was willing to help at the front, and started assigning roles accordingly. About half the class were willing to help out.

"I'll go talk to Natsumi-chan about it."

Demiza was on a good relationship with Ichinose from B Class. Thanks to her, I was able to meet Ichinose for myself during the weekend, and we sang karaoke together.

Since B Class and E Class were now in an alliance, it was very likely we could get a player from that class, so Matsushita decided it was best if we concentrated most people into contacting B Class students about it. We assigned about six people to the group.

"I'll try and talk to C Class. I know Shibata-kun pretty well."

Katsumi offered to go to C Class. It was no surprise that these two were friends, as they both were sporty people. Shibata was another good footballer in our year, but had beef with Yukimura as they constantly clashed heads.

I wanted to go talk to C Class too, since I knew Suzune, my childhood friend, was in that class. I raised my hand.

"Is it alright if I go with Katsumi-san?"

Sakigamiya shook her head no. I sort of expected that.

"Kou-san and Nora-chan are gonna go together. You can go to D Class."

My request was not only shot down, but I was now demoted to the task nobody wanted.

"Then... can Yukina-san come with me?"

I meekly asked that, only to be refuted again by Sakigamiya.

"Sorry, but she's coming to A Class with me and Ria-san. You'll be on your own for D Class, Takanori-san. Unless someone wants to offer assistance?"

I looked around the table, but it seemed like no one wanted to sacrifice themselves as tribute. That was understandable, as D Class was the most troublesome class to approach. They were our current enemy in this caste system the school was built upon.

It probably didn't help that I was regarded as a loner already by everyone else either.

"Alice-san, it's fine. I'll go with Yuu-kun."

Yukina kindly offered herself to help me out. I really did appreciate it, but there was no point fighting Sakigamiya. She was stubborn when it came to things like this.

"That's unnecessary, Yukina-san. D Class is the least of our concerns, so having one person deal with them is more than enough. Besides, A Class is going to be stingy, so we need to put our best foot forward. You would be wasted talking to the brutes in D Class."

Even though she framed it as reasoning, Sakigamiya insulted me plain as day. Being in charge of talking to the low D Class meant I was the least important person within the class. I bet she planned on putting me into this position from the start.

"But, Alice-san... he's my friend."

"What about Isogai-kun or Aki-san? Aren't they your friends too? I get how you feel, but A Class has the best students, so if we can convince one to fulfil Yukimura-san's role, then the team will have a better chance of winning. It's for the benefit of the school."

Sakigamiya really had a way with words. She began pressuring Yukina to help her out, which I couldn't stand for. I was fine being pushed around, but Yukina didn't deserve this treatment, especially if Sakigamiya was her friend.

"Yukina-san, it's fine. You go help out in A Class."

I didn't want Yukina to worry about something mundane like this. I would be fine on my own. It's how I've always worked ever since enrolling at this school.

"Yuu-kun..."

"See, even he said it himself? It's decided then!"

Upon my conceding, Sakigamiya jumped at the chance to shut down the conversation. Yukina reluctantly agreed with her.

D Class's homeroom teacher was Mikazuchi Ryuzaki-sensei, who was also my mentor. At the very least, I had an excuse to visit the class if things don't go according to plan.

"Now that everyone knows what they're doing, let's start asking around during break. If someone agrees to play as a substitute, please contact me or Akihiro-san."

As if commanding an army, Matsushita signed off our discussion like a proper general. We gave a group cheer, before scurrying back to our seats as first period began.

Inside, I felt some regret getting involved in this situation. An outcast like me had no place among the main class.