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ArabicClassroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 55
Chapter 55: The Incident Involving Ibuki Mio
The afternoon wind carried a dry, abrasive edge as it swept across the largely empty campus. Most of the student body had already clustered into small, noisy groups at Keyaki Mall or retreated to the comfort of their dormitories to waste away the leisure hours.
Ibuki Mio walked alone. She charted a solitary path toward the dormitory sector, her strides fast, heavy, and punishing against the pavement. Every step seemed designed to vent a frustration that threatened to boil over. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves overhead, casting fragmented, shifting shadows across her deeply scowling face.
Her mind was a looping reel of the argument that had just torn through the Class 1-C classroom. Ryuen Kakeru. That man and his utterly dictatorial logic had arrogantly decided the entire trajectory of their class without a shred of consultation. He had casually, mockingly dismissed her proposal for their development. In his twisted view, any dissenting opinion that dared to challenge his absolute authority was nothing short of treason. That unquestioning, condescending smirk of his had completely ignited the powder keg of anger in her chest.
She needed space. A quiet place to cool off, far away from Ryuen and the sycophantic lackeys who trailed after him like stray dogs. Veering off the main paved walkway, she took a familiar shortcut through the neglected, rarely traversed rear perimeter of the School Building.
She kept her head down. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets of her uniform skirt, her gaze vacant and locked onto the concrete. She was so completely consumed by her own hostile thoughts that she paid absolutely zero attention to the path ahead.
A dull, heavy thud broke the silence.
Ibuki’s shoulder collided solidly with a firm chest. The sudden recoil sent her stumbling a half-step backward before she caught her balance and snapped her head up.
What came into view was a face completely devoid of surprise, framed by exceptionally handsome features.
Kaedehara Tetsu.
“Tch. Unlucky.”
Two sharp, impatient words slipped past her lips. In her personal dictionary, the concept of a polite apology simply did not exist. As far as she was concerned, both parties were equally at fault for walking blind. Besides, her mood was currently toxic enough that even the slightest friction could serve as the detonator for her temper.
She did not linger. She did not wait for him to open his mouth. She merely shot him a frigid glare, shifted her weight, and prepared to brush past him.
Just as her shoulder cleared his, the corner of her eye caught a cluster of distressingly familiar figures strolling out from the opposite end of the path. Laughter echoed off the brick walls.
Leading the pack was the absolute last person she wanted to see right now. Ryuen Kakeru.
Flanking him, as always, were Ishizaki Daichi and Albert.
Ibuki’s boots ground to an abrupt halt. Her entire body tensed into rigid lines. She absolutely refused to cross paths with him again today. She had zero patience for another pointless, degrading argument. Just the sight of his smug posture made her skin crawl with fresh irritation.
Instinct hijacked her motor functions. Her body executed the most direct, pragmatic solution available.
She reached out and clamped her fingers around the arm of the unlucky guy she had just walked into. Her grip was punishingly tight, displaying a raw physical strength that entirely belied her slender frame.
“Come with me.”
She hissed the command under her breath, violently dragging Tetsu toward a narrow gap between two adjacent utility buildings without offering a single syllable of explanation.
It was a dead-end alley, choked with discarded desks, broken chairs, and shadows. Halfway down the brick wall, the architecture gave way to a shallow, recessed alcove.
Without a second of hesitation, Ibuki shoved Tetsu backward into the alcove and immediately squeezed herself in directly after him.
The space vanished instantly.
Tetsu’s back pressed flat against the cold, unyielding concrete. Ibuki’s body was forced into near-zero distance, her front pressed flush against him. To keep both of them entirely concealed within the heavy shadows of the recess, she had to lean her center of gravity dangerously forward.
The soft heat of the girl’s body bled through the thin layers of their school uniforms without the slightest reservation. The proximity was suffocatingly close. He could clearly catch the faint, crisp scent of her shampoo rising from her dark hair.
“Hey. Don’t move.”
Due to the severely cramped dimensions of their hiding spot, Tetsu’s arm was forced into an awkward angle. As he shifted slightly to accommodate her weight, his knuckles brushed against the curve of her buttocks, currently pulled taut against her uniform skirt.
“Shut up. Don’t touch.”
Ibuki’s voice ghosted right beside his ear. It was dropped to a dangerous, barely audible whisper, dripping with an irritated warning.
Yet, despite the threat, her body did not retreat a single inch. She only ducked her head lower, pressing closer as she strained to listen to the approaching footsteps outside the alleyway. Her entire focus was locked onto the encroaching threat of her classmates.
“If you are hiding from someone, why drag me along?”
Tetsu kept his voice perfectly level, a dry murmur in the dark. Because of the forced, compressed posture, his arm remained trapped in subtle, continuous contact with her lower half. The astonishing, firm elasticity transmitted clearly through the skin of his knuckles, sending distinct signals straight to his nerve endings. He could feel the minute tremors of her muscles, the way she was coiled tight with nervous anticipation.
Deliberately, or perhaps just to test the waters, his fingers gave a slow, measured squeeze.
“Sigh…”
Ibuki’s spine locked up entirely. A very soft, sharp intake of breath hitched in her throat.
She could feel that detestable hand with infuriating clarity. Not only was he failing to keep his hands to himself, but he was actively escalating his invasion of her personal territory. A blinding surge of heat and fury shot straight from the soles of her boots to the crown of her head.
‘This bastard.’
She whipped her face up, her fierce eyes glaring daggers into the man trapped behind her in the gloom. The sound of her teeth grinding together was distinctly audible over their shared breathing. If raw killing intent had physical mass, Kaedehara Tetsu would have been cleanly vivisected on the spot.
But the explosion never came.
From just beyond the mouth of the alley, Ryuen’s arrogant, mocking laughter drifted through the afternoon air.
“…That woman has been getting far too disobedient lately. Looks like I need to teach her a proper lesson sometime soon.”
“You’re totally right, Ryuen-san! That Ibuki really needs to be put in her place!”
The voices swelled in volume as they passed the gap, then slowly began to fade down the paved path.
Only when the crunch of their footsteps completely dissolved into the ambient noise of the campus did the tension drain from Ibuki’s shoulders. She took a long, deep breath, as if trying to physically exhale the toxic buildup of her anger.
Then, without uttering a single word, she pushed off his chest, stepping out of the suffocatingly tight recess and back into the slightly wider alley.
She turned her back to him, aggressively rubbing the spot on her skirt that had just been so casually violated.
Tetsu stepped out of the shadows at a much more leisurely pace, calmly brushing a speck of dust from his blazer.
“Can we go now?”
His tone was mild, infuriatingly composed. He seemed completely, blissfully oblivious to the sheer violence currently boiling behind her eyes.
Ibuki did not answer him.
Her answer was purely kinetic.
Without a single wasted syllable, without the slightest telegraph of her intent, her center of gravity suddenly dropped. Her right leg whipped off the ground, sweeping toward Tetsu’s lower body with a vicious, air-tearing whoosh.
The kick was angled with brutal cunning. It was the signature opening strike of her personal martial arts style, designed to cripple. She was going to make this reckless, arrogant bastard pay in blood for what he had just done in the dark.
However, the highly anticipated image of him collapsing to the concrete never materialized.
A fraction of a second before her shin made contact, a hand shot downward. Tetsu caught her leg from below, his grip like a steel vise, and effortlessly lifted her momentum upward.
Ibuki’s center of balance was instantly shattered.
She froze in place, trapped standing on one leg in a highly undignified, precarious posture, her attacking leg hoisted high into the air.
What made the situation infinitely more humiliating was gravity. The angle of her raised leg caused her uniform skirt to pool backward, exposing exactly what she was wearing underneath to his unobstructed view.
“Black, huh…”
Tetsu’s voice drifted through the alley, smooth and entirely unbothered.
Then, the hand locked around her ankle began to move. His thumb pressed into the skin, kneading slowly and deliberately from the slender bone of her ankle, trailing upward along the firm muscle of her calf.
A violently strange, intensely shameful sensation spiked through Ibuki’s nervous system.
“Bastard! Let me go!”
Ibuki’s face flushed a brilliant, burning red. It was impossible to tell if it was driven by pure rage or sheer humiliation.
She dug her planted foot into the concrete, twisting her hips in a desperate bid to break his iron grip. Simultaneously, she coiled her free hand into a tight fist, fully intending to smash it directly into his handsome, infuriating face.
But Tetsu’s next words caused her entire counterattack to crash into an invisible wall.
“You had better think this through very carefully. This place is remote, yes. But take a look at that corner.”
His dark eyes shifted casually, glancing past her shoulder toward the entrance of the alleyway. High up on the brick wall, mounted just beneath the eaves, sat a small, inconspicuous black hemisphere.
“See that?”
Ibuki subconsciously followed his line of sight. Her breath hitched.
“You really do not want to lose a massive chunk of your Private Points, do you? Or perhaps face a much more severe punishment for the unprovoked bullying and assault of an innocent classmate.”
Tetsu smiled, a faint, chilling curve of his lips.
“After all, from the camera’s perspective, you were the one who dragged me into an alley and attacked me first.”