“I want Kushida-san to act according to my instructions when I need you to.
Of course, the tasks will mainly relate to Class D,” Shiraishi said.
“For certain reasons, I need to keep applying pressure to Class D.
This opportunity just happened to come up—I was hoping I could recruit an inside agent.” “Quite bold of you to say that.
Aren’t you afraid I was recording this just now?” Kikyo Kushida’s expression remained unchanged, but her tone was still vicious.
“This school encourages inter-class competition.
Everything I’m doing does not violate any rules.
The location where that video was filmed is the school’s rooftop, which is a public area.
Capturing it was purely coincidental.” Shiraishi had no psychological burden about it.
“Besides, I’ve observed that Kushida-san doesn’t actually have much desire to move up to a higher class, does she?” Kushida wasn’t surprised that this had been seen through—after all, this was someone who could see through the school’s rules in just one day.
In that case, hadn’t he already seen through her true nature a long time ago?
At that thought, Kushida’s eyes grew even more somber.
What chance encounter?
Shiraishi had clearly timed his visit specifically to record that video.
That’s right—on Friday afternoon, Shiraishi had been in the library during the study session, and he’d even stepped in to stop Sudo, who had been provoked by Horikita.
He must have noticed her abnormal emotional state at that time, then followed and filmed her in secret…
“Since that’s the case, I don’t have any other choice.
If you dare to leak this, I swear I’ll make you pay,” Kushida reluctantly agreed to Shiraishi’s terms.
“Don’t worry.
As long as our cooperation goes smoothly, I won’t do anything that hurts both of us without benefit,” Shiraishi assured her.
His cooperation with Kushida was very similar to his arrangement with Arisu Sakayanagi—since it involved betraying one’s class, it couldn’t be notarized by the school.
All he could rely on was the leverage he held over Kushida, and the degree to which she cared about that leverage.
If someone else ever exposed Kushida’s dark history, then the leverage Shiraishi held would no longer be able to control her.
For that reason, Shiraishi would not only refrain from leaking it himself—he would even help Kushida maintain her facade.
In the end, Shiraishi had no real issue with Kushida as a person.
Her desire to be friends with everyone was genuine, and she genuinely worked toward that goal.
But because her target was literally everyone, she was bound to run into some real idiots along the way.
Just like complaining about teachers during school, or complaining about bosses at work—these were things everyone went through.
Kushida’s anonymous online complaints weren’t really a major flaw.
The problem was that after someone exposed her, she chose to take everyone down with her, making public all the dark secrets she knew about her classmates.
The result was widespread absences and transfers in her class—the impact was enormous.
So, in Shiraishi’s view, Kushida was a perfect “classmate from the next class over.” As long as he didn’t expose her secret or dig up her past, she was very easy to get along with.
“Then let’s start with the immediate matters.” Shiraishi took a light sip of his coffee before getting to the point.
“Your class has been planning to tutor those underachievers, hasn’t it?” “They were planning to, but you saw what happened in the library that day—those idiots and how they acted.” Now that her true nature had been exposed, Kushida didn’t hold back her opinions in front of Shiraishi.
“But Horikita seems to have a strong desire to reach Class A.
To avoid losing points, she’ll probably organize another study session later.
And from what I know, the first study session was one that Horikita asked you to initiate.” “So you want me to refuse Horikita’s request?” Kushida asked.
“No—I need you to agree to it, and cooperate with her plans as much as possible.
But in private, you should quietly tell those students you’re tutoring that you’ve heard about a trick to pass easily, but it’s not confirmed yet—so tell them not to spread it around.” That way, Sudo and the others probably wouldn’t follow Horikita’s plan and study properly, would they?
This plan seemed likely to hurt Horikita, which suited Kushida perfectly.
But she noticed another issue: “Wouldn’t this kind of lie be easily exposed?” “No, it’s not a lie.
This school really does have a trick to pass easily.” Shiraishi shook his head.
“This school doesn’t actively change the midterm or final exam questions.
Every year’s students take the exact same test, which means upperclassmen have access to the answers for the upcoming exam.” “Is that really true?” Kushida was genuinely shocked.
“This school always evaluates students on their abilities from multiple angles.
If a student with insufficient academic ability notices this point, the school naturally turns a blind eye,” Shiraishi explained with a smile.
“And what do you need me to do?
You’re not doing this out of kindness, are you?” Recalling Shiraishi’s earlier mention of “needing to pressure Class D,” Kushida pressed further.
“With your extensive social network, you should be able to contact upperclassmen and arrange a transaction on your own.
But before the deal happens, tell me the time and place you’ve chosen—I’ll go capture evidence.” “You’re going to report it to the school?” Kushida understood Shiraishi’s intention.
“Exactly.
If no one reports it, the school won’t interfere with private transactions between students.
But if I report it to the school, for the sake of fairness and impartiality on the surface, the school will have to change the test questions.” “So—those students who didn’t study and also didn’t get the original questions—they’ll fail and get expelled?” At this thought, Kushida actually grew excited.
Only she knew how sickening and painful it was to have to act like a little angel when dealing with those people.
Especially the ones like Kanji Ike and Haruki Yamauchi, who were constantly thinking about perverted things—just sensing their lecherous gazes on her made her feel nauseous.
If Shiraishi’s goal was to get those people kicked out of school, she was all for it.
“Of course, to support your efforts, I’ll transfer some funds to you first.” Shiraishi operated his phone and transferred 50,000 Private Points to Kushida.
“The exam questions should cost around 40,000 Private Points.
If you can negotiate a better price on your own, the money you save is yours to keep.” Shiraishi gave Kushida some pointers on the details of the operation.
“You’ll cover the transaction cost upfront, and don’t pull out this money directly—pretend you don’t have enough and need to borrow from students in other classes.
That way, they won’t have any reason to blame you.”