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ArabicClassroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 50
Chapter 50: Horikita Suzune’s Choice
“Everyone! Everyone, please calm down for just a moment!”
Kushida Kikyo stood at the front of the room, her hands clasped together as she desperately tried to quell the brewing storm.
“I know everyone is angry, but… but Sudo-kun and Ike-kun are our classmates too! We can’t just stand by and watch them get expelled, right?”
Her trembling voice caused a few of the softer-hearted students to waver, their angry mutters dying down in their throats.
Yukimura Teruhiko shattered the hesitation without a shred of mercy.
“Classmates? Kushida-san, don’t be so naive.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, his eyes cold. “From the moment they gave up on studying, they forfeited the right to be called our ‘classmates.’ Why should the rest of us empty our wallets to pay for their sheer irresponsibility?”
Kushida’s face drained of color. Her lips parted, but she couldn’t formulate a single word of rebuttal against the harsh logic.
In the midst of the escalating chaos, Hirata Yosuke, who had remained quietly observant until now, stepped into the center of the classroom.
“Everyone, please listen to me for a moment.”
He didn’t shout. His voice remained even and steady, yet it carried a quiet authority that miraculously silenced the shouting matches across the room. Every eye turned toward him.
“I understand Yukimura-kun’s frustration. I also understand the feelings of everyone who opposes this fundraising.” Hirata swept his gaze across the tense faces. “Forcing those who worked hard to pay for the mistakes of those who didn’t—no matter how you look at it, that isn’t fair.”
He started by validating the opposition. By avoiding a self-righteous moral lecture, the deep scowls on the faces of Yukimura and the other top students softened by a fraction.
“However,” Hirata continued, his tone shifting into absolute pragmatism, “what we need to discuss right now isn’t about what is ‘fair’or what’should’ happen. We are facing a purely realistic issue. One that directly dictates the Personal Points every single person in Class D will receive for the next few months.”
He held up two fingers. “The damage is already done. Now, we only have two choices.”
“First, we abandon Sudo-kun and Ike-kun. What happens then? Our class loses two members. The school’s penalty for expulsion will completely wipe out our Class Points for next month. Every late-night study session, every ounce of hard work we put into this midterm exam—it will all be reduced to nothing.”
A heavy silence fell over the room as the reality of his words sank in.
“Think about it,” Hirata urged quietly. “When is our next opportunity to earn Class Points? The final exam. If we abandon them now, our class’s income for the entire upcoming semester drops to zero., the points we pooled together to buy the old exam questions will have been a complete waste of money.”
He didn’t invoke the word ‘friendship.’ He knew empty ideals wouldn’t open their wallets.
“The second choice,” Hirata lowered his hand. “We pool together 300,000 Personal Points to save them. This is a massive expense. It will severely shrink everyone’s balance. But in exchange, we preserve the integrity of the class and prevent our Class Points from being annihilated next month. Our midterm results might not be perfect, but keeping our headcount intact provides us with a crucial safety net.”
The classroom sank into a dead, suffocating silence. Hirata’s cold calculus forced them to swallow their outrage and weigh the actual cost of their spite.
Sensing the shift in the room’s temperature, Kushida instantly seized the opening.
“Hirata-kun is right!” She stepped forward, her voice regaining its earnest warmth. “I know asking everyone to sacrifice their own points is incredibly difficult. But this is a collective decision about our future. We don’t have to split it equally. We can divide the 300,000 based on everyone’s current balance. Those with more points can contribute a little more, and those with less can give what they can. That way, we solve the crisis while minimizing the pain for everyone.”
It was a flawless tag-team maneuver. Hirata dismantled their resistance with rational self-interest, and Kushida smoothed over the jagged edges with an appeal to emotional unity.
Under their combined pressure, Class D finally passed the resolution. The vocal opposition died out, replaced by a grim, reluctant acceptance.
But the atmosphere in the room grew heavier, thicker, and far more toxic than before.
Horikita Suzune sat at her desk, pen in hand, systematically registering the exact amount of points each student transferred.
As the digital currency flowed out of their phones, she could feel the raw, suppressed venom in their eyes. Every single glare was aimed directly at Sudo Ken and Ike Kanji.
The two boys sat with their heads bowed, utterly silent, enduring the crushing weight of thirty pairs of resentful eyes.
The 300,000 points were successfully collected.
Yet, the already fragile, superficial unity of Class D had been torn to absolute shreds by the very act meant to ‘save’ it.
Horikita Suzune snapped back to reality.
A sharp, stinging sensation radiated from her palm. Looking down, she realized her fingers were curled so tightly that her neatly trimmed nails had carved deep, white crescent moons into her flesh.
Slowly, she unclenched her fist and drew in a long, steadying breath of the crisp outdoor air.
Turning her head, she focused her sharp gaze on the boy sitting beside her on the plaza bench.
“You were right. This is indeed futile.”
Her voice had returned to its signature icy calm, stripped of any lingering agitation from the classroom memory.
Kaedehara Tetsu raised an eyebrow, a faint, dryly amused smile touching his lips. He seemed genuinely surprised that she was willing to admit defeat so directly.
“The ‘salvation’ bought through the sacrifice and compromise of others is essentially just a delay,” Horikita continued. She didn’t look away this time. Her eyes locked directly onto Tetsu’s dark, calculating gaze. “The root of the problem hasn’t been solved. It has merely been temporarily covered up.”
Tetsu leaned back against the bench, his posture entirely relaxed. “Then, what do you plan to do next? Continue playing the role of the thankless ‘savior,’ or…”
“I will not give up on reaching Class A.”
Her declaration sliced through the air, sharp and absolute. “To achieve that goal, I am willing to pay any price.”
Somewhere in the distance, there was a solitary back she had to catch up to. A shadow she had chased her entire life.
Tetsu observed her with growing interest, the amusement in his eyes sharpening into something far more predatory. “Then it seems you already have a plan.”
“I will force them to truly grow up,” Horikita said, her tone devoid of any warmth. “I will make them understand the absolute necessity of studying, and I will stop them from holding this class back. But…”
She paused, her eyes narrowing into cold slits.
“If they cannot even provide that last bit of surplus value, then they have no reason to exist. Especially now. Since our Class Points have already hit zero, clearing out unproductive waste early to cut our losses is the most rational choice.”
A sudden gust of wind swept across the open plaza, catching her long black hair and whipping it around her shoulders.
In that fleeting moment, the last lingering traces of naive, girlish stubbornness vanished from her face entirely, replaced by the chilling pragmatism of a true leader.
Tetsu let out a low, appreciative chuckle. “A very rational thought. But forcing dead weight to grow won’t be that easy.”
“I will use my own methods to make them change.”
“Is that so?” Tetsu stood up, stretching his arms casually as if he had just finished watching a mildly entertaining stage play. “Then good luck, Classmate Horikita. I hope that the next time we meet, you can bring me a much more… interesting performance.”
He didn’t wait for her response. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he turned his back on her and strolled away at a leisurely pace, his footsteps fading into the distance.
Horikita Suzune remained on the plaza bench, sitting alone in the wind for a very long time.