Classroom of the Elite: Surviving with the Intel System — Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Who Wants Hot Cocoa? I Want Iced Cola!

Shimizu Akira splashed freezing water over his face, letting the chill chase away the lingering fatigue.

Just as he twisted the faucet shut, the sharp, impatient rapping of knuckles against wood echoed through the apartment. The long-awaited knock had finally arrived.

He dried his face with a towel and walked to the entryway. The moment the door clicked open, he was met with the sight of Kamuro Masumi. She stood dead center in the hallway, arms tightly crossed beneath her chest, her displeasure radiating off her in waves.

“Please come in, Kamuro,” Akira said. He stepped aside with practiced calm, deliberately avoiding the aggressive glare she was leveling at his forehead. “You can sit…”

Before the invitation even fully left his mouth, Kamuro brushed past him. She strode into the room without an ounce of hesitation and unceremoniously planted herself right on the edge of his bed.

She straightened her posture, bracing both hands firmly against the mattress at her sides. “So? Don’t you have anything to say to me, Shimizu Akira?”

Akira didn’t take the bait. He walked over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat facing her. His posture was relaxed, but his tone was entirely sincere. “Regarding what happened at the beginning of the school year… it was indeed my fault. I shouldn’t have used you as a wager, and I certainly shouldn’t have concealed the truth from you afterward. I should have taken the initiative to explain everything.”

“…”

Kamuro’s tense shoulders relaxed by a fraction of an inch.

Her entire purpose for storming over here tonight was simply to gauge his attitude. She wanted to see if he would make excuses or try to play dumb. Now, seeing him admit his mistake without a hint of evasion, she had to admit his sincerity was disarming.

Truthfully, she knew it wasn’t entirely his fault. She wasn’t stupid. It only took a little deductive reasoning to guess that the entire wager was likely Arisu Sakayanagi’s twisted idea. If they were to drag this into a courtroom and apportion the blame, Sakayanagi easily deserved sixty lashes, leaving Akira with the remaining forty.

, Akira did buy her that beer. Not only had he stopped her from committing a theft that could have ruined her life, but he had also handed over the very thing she wanted anyway. Factoring that in, it barely offset half of his remaining guilt.

Still, twenty lashes were twenty lashes. He owed her a debt.

What truly bothered her wasn’t the fact that she had been used as a betting chip. It was the feeling of being kept in the dark. Being excluded and treated like a pawn angered her far more than the bet itself.

Yet, sitting here in his noticeably spotless room, looking at the boy who had immediately bowed his head in apology, the tight knot of anger in her chest began to unravel.

“Would you like some hot cocoa?” Akira asked casually, already turning toward the small kitchenette. “The water is already boiled. It’ll just take a moment.”

“Okay!” she answered instinctively.

A split second later, her eyes widened. She stared at his broad back, a sudden realization crashing over her.

‘Wait! How did he know I like hot cocoa?”This guy… he couldn’t have known what I like to drink this entire time, could he?!’

When Kamuro first marched up to his door, she had been absolutely furious. If anger could be quantified on a scale of one to a hundred, her internal meter had easily broken the ninety mark. If Akira had dared to say a single wrong word, she would have delivered a flying kick straight to his chest. The long black stockings she had specifically chosen to wear today weren’t just for show—she had fully intended to leave a few footprints on this scoundrel to vent her frustrations.

But strangely, from the moment she crossed the threshold, her fury felt like a leaking balloon.

That clean, unhesitating apology had instantly cleaved her anger in half, dropping it from ninety down to forty-five. And when the words ‘hot cocoa’ casually slipped from his lips, she practically felt another ten points evaporate into thin air.

Now, she couldn’t even muster the energy to snap at him properly, let alone unleash physical violence. This sensation of being completely, effortlessly controlled by his pacing made her skin crawl with discomfort.

‘Damn it… how did he lead me by the nose without me even realizing it?’

Alarm bells began ringing in her head. She was always the one who dictated the flow of a conversation. When did it become his turn to steer the ship?

“Who wants hot cocoa?!” she suddenly snapped, raising her voice to deliberately contradict him. “I want iced cola! The kind loaded with ice!”

She expected him to frown, or sigh, or at least point out the absurdity of demanding an iced drink when he had just offered a hot one.

Instead, Akira didn’t even blink. He simply reached over, grabbed his jacket from the hook, and nodded. “Iced cola, right? I’ll go buy it from the vending machines down the hall. Is there anything else you want to eat while I’m out? I can bring it back.”

This absolute, impenetrable composure hit Kamuro like a brick wall. It made her feel an infuriating sense of powerlessness, like she was throwing punches into a pile of cotton.

She opened her mouth, completely at a loss for how to respond to such an agreeable attitude.

Just as Akira’s left foot was about to cross the threshold, the silence stretched too thin. Kamuro finally cracked.

“…Forget it!” She turned her face away, glaring at the wall, a heavy dose of reluctance bleeding into her voice. “I’m dying of thirst right now, so I’ll just make do with the cocoa.”

Akira paused in the doorway, his back turned to her, and couldn’t help but shake his head in silent amusement.

‘She clearly likes hot cocoa the most.’His Daily Intel system had casually revealed that little trivia fact to him on a random Tuesday last month. What actually surprised him, however, was her restraint. He had fully expected this prickly tsundere to force him into running two or three pointless errands just to punish him. He hadn’t expected her to cave before he even made it out the door.’Underneath all those thorns, Kamuro is actually a very gentle person.’

He walked back to the counter, skillfully mixing the rich cocoa powder with the steaming water, and carried the mug over. He dragged a small coffee table between the bed and his chair, setting the drink down. As he handed it over, he watched her with a faint, knowing smile.

Kamuro shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. She grabbed the mug, took a quick, scalding sip, and then slammed the ceramic down against the table with a sharp bang. Her eyes narrowed into a fierce glare.

“Shimizu Akira, what the hell are you staring at?” She thrust her hand across the table. “Give me your arm!”

“Alright.” Akira cooperatively extended his right forearm, resting it on the table.

Kamuro seized his wrist with her left hand, pinched a section of flesh near his forearm with her right thumb and forefinger, and twisted with all her might.

Nothing happened.

It felt exactly like trying to pinch a solid block of hardwood. The skin barely moved, and the muscle beneath was completely unyielding.

‘Is this guy’s arm made of solid iron?!’She stared at his forearm in shock. Even through the thick fabric of his school uniform, she could feel the dense, terrifyingly firm muscle packed beneath.’A total muscle idiot! No wonder the school threw him into Class D!’

Even though her physical punishment had ended in complete failure, she refused to lose her momentum. She kept her fingers locked in a useless pinch and glared at him. “This is what happens when you offend me, understand?!”

“Understood, perfectly understood,” Akira nodded, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress a laugh.

What kind of punishment was this? With her soft fingers uselessly pressing into his arm, it felt less like an attack and more like she was just pouting.

Kamuro rolled her eyes, finally releasing his arm. She picked up her mug again, but her expression shifted into something far more serious. “Regarding you being placed in Class D… don’t you have anything to say about it? Your homeroom teacher must have explained the reality of the situation to your class today.”

She remembered the text message Akira had sent her last month. Just like Arisu Sakayanagi, Akira had already figured out the hidden rules of the S-System long before the School Administration officially revealed them.

‘With his level of ability… how did he end up in the defective class? Wait, he told me last time that he bombed the entrance exams. Did he actually get food poisoning that day?’

Having observed him closely over the past few days, she knew for a fact that Akira’s intelligence and emotional awareness were both exceptionally high. He was a completely different breed from the rest of the rabble rotting away in Class D.

“I don’t have any particular thoughts on it,” Akira replied, his expression returning to its usual placid state.

“Hey!” Kamuro slammed her cup down again, the ceramic clinking sharply against the glass table. “Don’t you dare just fall in line with those good-for-nothings! You should actually make an effort when it counts.”

But the moment the harsh words left her mouth, a sudden, chilling thought paralyzed her.

If her act of shoplifting at the convenience store had actually been discovered by the School Administration… wouldn’t she have been thrown straight into Class D as well?