Chapter 68 Movements In The Background - Part 1

***

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I checked my phone after receiving the notification.

-

To: 2-C

From: Kaoru Hiroto

We will be having a welcome party for the new members of 2-C. I have booked meeting room 06 in the library, come in as soon as you arrive.

We hope to see everyone here.

-

Class 2-C were certainly a step above 2-E in terms of organisation. I remember Kimura talking about 2-A having some sort of group meeting during the first day of school. I guess this is the difference between the upper and lower classes.

Well, there was no reason not to go. I decided to put my clothes into the dryer and then make my way towards the library. Kaoru seemed to be the person who organised the meeting, and she was also second-ranked in the class on points during the special exam. I decided to have a look at her aptitudes on Preseqta.

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Kaoru Hiroto - First-Year Student

Overall Intelligence: **Unreleased**

Athletic Ability: **Unreleased**

Interpersonal Skills: **Unreleased**

Spatial Awareness: **Unreleased**

Appearance: **Unreleased**

Cooperative Reliability: A+ (18 out of 383 in school)

Creative Ability: **Unreleased**

~~~

Overall Score: B+

Consistency: **Unreleased**

-

Her scores were nothing to be scoffed at.

I noticed that the new 30 students had already been included in the Preseqta System, considering 58 students were expelled, yet there were still 152 in the year (instead of 122).

At first, I believed that the class you were placed in was correlated to your overall score. However, Kaoru-san had an overall score of B+, yet she was in class 2-C.

Anyhow, it didn't take too long to place all my clothes in the dryer, so I began making my way to the library. I'll come to collect them when I get back.

*

I saw someone standing in front of the meeting room.

"Hey, I'm Kaoru. Are you one of the new members of class 2-C?"

"Yeah."

"Nice! What's your name?"

"Mizuhara."

She had a look at her phone.

"Okay, come in and take a seat. I'll join everyone shortly."

There were already quite a few people in the room. It looked like most of the 2-C students were here. I took a seat and looked around.

Not long after, the rest of the 2-C transfer students arrived. Takeuchi, Hamasaki, Itsuki, Furukawa and Honoka all came into the meeting room. In total, there were 36 people.

"Now that everyone's here, I will explain how we do things in 2-C."

Kaoru pulled a large whiteboard behind her and began explaining.

"In 2-C, we focus on the good of the class as a whole—our most important factor is fairness. Whenever we disagree on something or we must make a decision for the class, we will decide it with a simple vote. We honour the results of the vote no matter what. If anyone goes against the class vote and breaks the plan that we all make, they will be banished from the class."

I see what this was.

Democracy.

It was a pretty simple concept in nature—honouring the majority.

"What if there is a tie?" asked Itsuki.

"We have decided that in the case of a tie, I will make the final decision. Although that will be after we have a discussion."

A simple weighted vote. It made enough sense for most people.

"Anyways, do you guys have any questions?"

"So how does the vote exactly work? Like for what things do we vote for?"

"Okay, so basically, whenever we need to make any choice as a class, we will first have a vote on whether or not it should be thoroughly discussed. We've decided that if at least 40% of people think it's important enough to be discussed, we will come to a meeting room in the library and discuss it. Otherwise, we vote with a simple raise of hands in the classroom."

It was quite complicated, like a real parliamentary system. I was surprised they were able to come up with something so thorough and convince the entire class to go with it.

Well, it sounded like I wouldn't need to interfere. It made things easier, and it reduced the number of arguments and problems later down the line.

"Any other questions?" Kaoru continued.

This time nobody spoke up.

"Well, that's it for the day then."

**

I left the group as soon as we were dismissed.

Some of the students were hanging together in a big group. However, I wanted to go back and pick up my clothes from the dryer. No one really noticed my presence as I left the library. I slowly made my way back to the dormitory. The schoolyard was quite boisterous as lots of students were just wandering around after being informed of classes being cancelled for the day.

I finally arrived back in the communal laundry room and opened the sleek, modern dryer machine to retrieve my uniform. It was a little humid but dry enough for me.

Beside me, I noticed a girl pulling out an extremely large pile of clothes. She had brought a little wooden basket with her, but it was obvious that she wasn't going to be able to fit all her clothes in there.

Maybe I should help her.

I only had a very small number of clothes to carry anyways.

"Hey, do you need he-"

She suddenly turned and glared at me with the most disgusted look I had ever seen. It took a few seconds to process, but I was sure I had never met this person before.

Why was she looking at me like that?

I wasn't sure exactly how I was meant to continue speaking to her. After a moment of introspection, I decided that I'd just give up on trying to help her. She didn't exactly look like she wanted my help very much anyways.

I took my clothes and began walking out of the laundry room. I looked back and saw her continuing to struggle, trying to fit her laundry into the clearly undersized basket she had brought. She would put a few pieces of clothing on the top, and then they'd slide off—this loop continued for a decent amount of time.

What an awkward situation.