Chapter 107: Yamauchi Haruki, a Grand Expulsion!
All he had memorized were the answers Sakayanagi Arisu had given him. And not a single one of those answers appeared on the test.
"Pack your things and prepare to come with me to handle the withdrawal procedures."
Chabashira Sae's face bore no expression, as if the Yamauchi Haruki standing before her already had no connection to the class whatsoever.
"What kind of joke is this? How can you be expelled just because you did poorly on one exam?!" Yamauchi said agitatedly.
However, hearing his words, Chabashira Sae only let out a cold snort.
"What do you mean by 'joke'? When you enter society in the future, will you say such a thing to your company superiors as well?"
"..."
"As a student, your only job is to study. You can't even do your own job properly. Furthermore, I reminded you a month in advance; in the end, you were the only one in the entire class who failed, Yamauchi."
Chabashira Sae's tone was already full of contempt.
"!"
He suddenly raised his head, a frenzied light flickering in his eyes. "It's Sakayanagi Arisu! She's the one who sabotaged me!"
The classroom broke into an uproar. Sakayanagi Arisu? The one from Class A?
"She sent me the answers! She gave me the answers for the last monthly exam, too! This time she said she'd give me the answers, but they were all wrong! She did it on purpose! She wanted to destroy me!" He became more agitated as he spoke, his voice getting louder.
"And Katsuragi Keima! He's no good either! He knew Sakayanagi was going to screw me over, but he didn't say anything! He just watched me jump into the pit!" He pointed at Katsuragi Keima.
"You clearly knew! Why didn't you warn me?!"
Katsuragi Keima lifted his eyelids from his handheld and glanced at him. Then he lowered his head and continued playing his game. It was the look one gives to an utterly inconsequential person.
Yamauchi Haruki completely lost his mind. He rushed to the podium and grabbed Chabashira Sae's sleeve.
"Sensei! You have to believe me! I really have evidence! The messages Sakayanagi Arisu sent me are still on my phone!"
Chabashira Sae looked down at him and shook off Yamauchi's hand with some displeasure. Yamauchi hurriedly pulled out his phone, tremblingly opened the chat box with Sakayanagi, and displayed all the chat records in front of Chabashira Sae.
"It's him! He and Sakayanagi conspired together! They're in league! They wanted to screw me over!"
Katsuragi Keima finally looked up. He looked at Yamauchi, his gaze as calm as a windless lake.
"You're overthinking it."
"I'm overthinking it?!" Yamauchi's voice was piercingly sharp. "Do you dare say you have nothing to do with her? Why else would she stand up for you?!"
Katsuragi Keima pushed up his glasses. "I don't know."
"You don't know?!"
"Mm." Keima's tone was as flat as if he were saying the weather was nice today. "What she thinks is her business and has nothing to do with me. Besides, I already warned you before that this kind of opportunistic method is useless."
Yamauchi froze. "..."
He pointed at Katsuragi Keima, speechless. Because in Keima's eyes, he saw the very thing that made him truly despair. It wasn't mockery. It wasn't contempt. It was absolute indifference.
It was like looking at someone who had zero relation to himself. Someone who didn't even qualify to be an enemy.
But this made Yamauchi even more frantic. Since he was destined to be expelled, he wanted to drag these people down with him.
"Look, these people cheated with me! It's Sakayanagi; she sent me the questions, she helped me cheat—"
"Cheating? I've never heard of someone cheating and still coming in dead last."
"It was the monthly exam! The monthly exam! Because of the answers Sakayanagi gave, I ranked 11th—"
"That doesn't prove anything either."
"What?"
Chabashira Sae's words left Yamauchi completely stunned. Why? Why was the teacher's reaction so ordinary when he was reporting others for cheating?
"Wait, wait, wait, Chabashira-sensei, these people did cheat! Sakayanagi must have used some method to steal the test papers in advance—"
"Are you losing your mind because you're being expelled? Though, speaking of which, you weren't much to begin with." Chabashira Sae said with a cold smile. "If you had put even a little effort into investigating, you would have found that the exam questions are actually the same every year."
"What?!"
"Knowing the exam content in advance is no difficult feat. On the contrary, you didn't even know something like that? It's truly pathetic, Yamauchi."
Yamauchi's legs gave out completely. He knelt on the floor, his face smeared with tears and snot. "Why... why..." he muttered to himself.
The classroom was deathly silent. No one spoke. No one sympathized with him. Because everyone knew that the step he took today was his own choice.
Chabashira Sae sighed. "Get up. Kneeling won't help." Her tone was cold. "Pack your things and follow me to the Academic Affairs Office."
Yamauchi didn't move. He just knelt there, staring hollowly at the floor. "Why... why..." he muttered, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.
"I just wanted to do a bit better... I just wanted everyone to respect me... What did I do wrong..."
Chabashira Sae sighed. "The things you did wrong are many." She scanned the others in the classroom. "You cheated, you lied, you pushed responsibility onto others. You never truly worked hard, yet you fantasized about unearned gains. You failed, and instead of reflecting on yourself, you hated those who were better than you."
She paused intentionally. "Yamauchi, you aren't being expelled just because you failed this one exam. From the moment you chose to cheat, you were already digging your own grave."
Yamauchi's body shook. He looked up at Chabashira Sae. The light in those eyes was gone. Only despair remained.
"Sensei... is there really no other way... a makeup exam... anything..." His voice carried a sob.
Chabashira Sae shook her head. "No. These are the school rules; I told you all long ago." She turned toward the door. "Let's go. Don't waste everyone's class time."
Chabashira Sae reached the door, stopped, and looked back at him. "Yamauchi, one last piece of advice." She paused. "After leaving this place, think carefully about why you ended up like this. If you can truly understand it, there's still hope for your future life."
Then she pushed open the door and walked out.
Yamauchi knelt in place, staring at where she had disappeared. After a long time, he slowly stood up. His legs were weak, and he almost fell again. He leaned on the desk, walking toward his seat one step at a time.
The classroom was very quiet. No one spoke. No one looked at him. There was only the occasional sound of pages turning.
Yamauchi reached his seat and began packing. His movements were slow and mechanical. He put the textbooks into his bag one by one. He put away the pens one by one. He dumped all the clutter from his drawer into a trash bag.
Suddenly, his hand stopped. He pulled a piece of paper from the drawer. It was a report card. The report card from the last monthly exam. 11th place.
He stared at that piece of paper for a long time. Then he laughed. The laughter was hoarse and distorted, sounding exceptionally piercing in the quiet classroom.
"11th place... 11th place..." he muttered. "What's the use... what's the use..."
He crumpled the report card into a ball and hurled it violently onto the floor. His face was smeared with tears and snot, looking utterly miserable.
The person who once boastfully showed off his grades, the person who once mocked others, the person who once thought he was a genius—at this moment, he looked like a stray dog.
But no one pitied him.
Karuizawa Kei looked at him with an expressionless face. She remembered how he had boastfully showed off his grades before, how he had mocked her saying "You've got the nerve to talk at 14th place," and how he had spoken ill of Keima behind his back.
Serves him right.
Sato Maya curled her lip and whispered to Kei, "He deserves it." Kei nodded.
Sakura Airi kept her head down and didn't speak. But she didn't feel any sadness in her heart. This person had once made sexual jokes about her; Airi had heard them. She was no saint; she couldn't bring herself to sympathize with someone who had bullied her.
Kushida Kikyo maintained her smile, but there was no warmth in it. She had seen too many people like this—arrogant and overbearing when successful, blaming everyone else when they fail. She hated people like that. And Yamauchi Haruki was among the most disgusting she had seen.
Horikita Suzune flipped through her textbook expressionlessly, not even glancing at Yamauchi. In her view, this person had been a mistake from the beginning. Cheating, lying, shirking responsibility—leaving someone like this in the class would only drag everyone down.
As for Katsuragi Keima—he still had his head down playing his game. From start to finish, he hadn't looked up at Yamauchi once. Not as a deliberate snub. He genuinely had zero interest.
To him, Yamauchi Haruki was like a pebble on the road, the sound of wind outside the window, or a background NPC in a game. Present, but meaningless.
Yamauchi knelt on the ground, looking at the expressions of the people around him. It was as if he didn't exist at all. In Yamauchi's heart, the last sliver of hope completely shattered.
No one would help him. No one would sympathize with him. He was just a joke. A joke abandoned by everyone.
His legs were weak; he barely managed to stand by leaning on the desk. After finishing his packing, he slung on his backpack, picked up the trash bag, and walked toward the door.
When passing by Katsuragi Keima, he stopped for a moment. Keima was still playing his game, his fingers dancing nimbly over the buttons. Yamauchi looked at him, his lips moving. He wanted to say something. But that person didn't even lift his head.
It was as if he didn't exist at all.
Yamauchi gritted his teeth and turned to leave. The moment he stepped out of the classroom, he took one last look back. Some were reading, some were chatting in low voices, some were spacing out. Everything was so normal. Everything was so peaceful.
It was as if he had never existed. This included Ike Kanji and Sudou Ken. He hadn't shared the answers with them and had even mocked them after the last monthly exam ended.
Serves me right.
The sound of footsteps gradually faded. Finally, they vanished at the end of the corridor. Following that was a cry of unwilling wailing.
Ten minutes later, the class was noisily discussing the previous events. Just then, Chabashira Sae returned—alone.
"Quiet."
The classroom fell silent. Chabashira Sae stood at the podium, holding a document. "The matter of Yamauchi Haruki's expulsion is settled." She paused. "Because of his expulsion, the class will be docked 100 Class Points."
The classroom was silent for exactly one second. Then—
"What?!" "100 points?!" "How many points does our class have in total?!" "I remember it's... 375?" "Then didn't we just lose nearly a third?!"
The classroom erupted. Karuizawa Kei bolted up. "Why?! He's the one who cheated and failed; why dock our Class Points?!"
Chabashira Sae looked at her, her expression calm. "Because you are a class." She paused. "His actions represent the entire class. By cheating, he disgraced Class D. By failing, he loses Class D's points."
"These are the rules of this school. You can be dissatisfied, but you must accept it."
Kei gritted her teeth and sat back down. But the anger on her face hadn't diminished one bit. Sato Maya also frowned. 100 Class Points. It wasn't a small amount. This meant that for the next period of time, the overall treatment of the class would drop.
Sakura Airi lowered her head and whispered, "How can it be like this..."
Kushida Kikyo's smile vanished completely. She was calculating. Class D originally had 375 points; subtract 100, and 275 remain. This would cause Class D to fall further behind in the grade rankings.
Horikita Suzune closed her textbook, her brow furrowed. She was also calculating. The advantage everyone had worked so hard to accumulate had been destroyed by Yamauchi alone.
She looked at Katsuragi Keima. That person still had his head down playing his game, as if the 100 Class Points had nothing to do with him. Horikita knew the impact on the class was much more than just simple points.
However, she had actually prepared herself mentally. After all, not long ago, Katsuragi Keima had discussed related issues with her. Keima had deduced that if a student were expelled from the class, there would surely be a penalty. So Horikita wasn't surprised.
Moreover, Keima had convinced Horikita as well. She didn't want to feel worried for these people. Everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions. Furthermore, without Yamauchi Haruki dragging down the average, their future progress might even become faster.
Sharpening the axe doesn't delay the woodcutting. Yamauchi Haruki was simply the rust on the blade.
"Alright," Chabashira Sae knocked on the podium. "This matter ends here. For the next month, the class's treatment will drop accordingly, and the Private Points acquired will become lower. Prepare yourselves mentally."
She opened her textbook. "Class begins."
The classroom was filled with gloom. But class still had to go on. The sound of turning pages gradually rose. The murmurs gradually vanished. Only the occasional sigh remained to remind everyone that 100 Class Points were gone just like that.
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