Chapter 80: The Idle Girl

  "Everyone, please listen carefully, I have something very important to tell you."

  The next day, during D-css's css meeting, the popur handsome guy Hirata hurriedly made his way to the podium, appearing to be in a great rush.

  "It's about the content and scope of this midterm exam..."

  Below, Hachiman showed an unexpected look. Originally, he was thinking about how to remind Hirata about the "incorrect exam scope" that the teacher Chabashira had given, but he hadn’t expected that Hirata had already noticed it.

  However, Hachiman also noticed that Hirata's gaze seemed to always fall on Horikita. Did she discover it?

  Indeed, when the D-css students heard that the exam scope they had been tirelessly preparing for over the past month was wrong, chaos broke out. Especially the "foolish three" group, causing quite a scene.

  But soon, Hirata and the css angel, Kushida, quickly came forward to calm everyone down. It seemed like they had already prepared for this situation, perhaps they had held a "small meeting" beforehand to quickly resolve the confusion. The main priority now wasn’t to assign bme but to race against time and fix things, as there were less than 10 days before the midterm exams.

  "Hm?"

  Hachiman instinctively gnced at the side, noticing that Sakura's face was pale and trembling. "Hey... Sakura, are you okay?"

  Soon, he awkwardly looked away. He felt that staring for too long was impolite and uncomfortable.

  Hachiman guessed the reason behind Sakura's pale face. It was simple—her grades were already on the edge of passing for the midterm exam, and one mistake could cause her to drop below the passing line and be expelled.

  The error in the exam scope impacted the students who were at the borderline of passing, including Sakura.

  The most agitated students were from this group—the ones who were barely passing but had now been pushed back to the edge of a cliff. It was understandable that anyone would struggle with this sudden shift in reality.

  Though there were study groups organized to help students in Sakura's position, she found little benefit from them. Due to her social anxiety, she couldn’t communicate actively, and being in the same study group as people like Karuizawa and Shinohara didn’t help either. It felt like a sheep was pced in front of a wolf's den, and the situation wasn't very different from being in an environment where she couldn't rex.

  Thus, despite attending the study group, it didn’t make much difference, and Sakura spent most of her time studying alone in her room.

  After Sakura had left Hachiman troubled yesterday, he had spent the night recuperating, and gradually, he had recovered. Afterwards, Sakura realized that her escape had hurt Hachiman and, not knowing how, managed to find his email address and sent him an apology, attaching the information of a digital camera.

  Hachiman found that communicating with Sakura through email was surprisingly smooth. The typical awkward and weak social anxiety in person was completely absent in her emails. It was a very different side of Sakura than the one he was used to seeing.

  In school, neither Hachiman nor Sakura initiated conversations with each other, and Sakura continued to show her usual shy and anxious behavior in real life. But when it came to chatting on messaging apps, Sakura was far more expressive, even to the point of using emojis and starting conversations herself.

  Could this be a case of "shy in real life, but confident online"?

  This resulted in a strange scene: they were both cssmates, sitting less than a meter apart, but they chose to communicate through messages rather than face-to-face conversations.

  It was absurd, no wonder the news kept criticizing how smartphones were ruining modern social interactions!

  After thinking for a moment, Hachiman sent a message on his phone.

  【Energy Saver: Are you okay with the exam?】

  In less than a second, he received a reply.

  【MAO: No... no problem.】

  Hachiman instinctively gnced over at Sakura and noticed that she was still shaking. Is this "no problem"? It seemed that Sakura noticed his gaze and buried her head further into her desk, trembling even more.

  Hachiman shook his head.

  【Energy Saver: If you don't mind, I can help tutor you for the exam.】

  The message showed "read," but after nearly five minutes, it still hadn’t been replied to.

  Who came up with the "read receipt" function? What a pain! Didn’t they know it made the sender feel awkward? Hachiman compined internally.

  Suddenly, his phone vibrated.

  【Can... can you?】

  【Energy Saver: It's settled then.】

  Thinking of Sakura's "ostrich-like" behavior, Hachiman sent her a follow-up message with the time and pce, to avoid her second-guessing and potentially backing out at the st moment.

  The message was read immediately, but still no reply. Hachiman didn’t mind. He had done his part, and if she didn’t appreciate it, there wasn’t much more he could do.

  However, what Hachiman didn’t notice was that after he sent the message, Sakura's shaking had stopped.

  ...

  Later, just before the afternoon bell rang, Hachiman finally received a definitive reply from Sakura, indicating how conflicted she had been internally. In the end, she accepted his offer, realizing that the midterm exams had pushed her to the edge of a cliff.

  However, Hachiman didn’t immediately start tutoring her; he first sent Sakura to the library to study on her own while he headed to the student council office.

  Upon arriving at the student council office, he found Horikita already handling some tasks, with his ever-present companion, Tachibana, by his side.

  "Huh? I thought today wasn’t your duty day?" Tachibana asked curiously. Although Hachiman was always serious about his work, he usually avoided "overtime." Moreover, because it was his first time experiencing the "fail and be expelled" midterm exams, Tachibana had specially reduced his shift duties to take care of him.

  Contrary to Tachibana's confusion, Horikita had already put down his pen, seemingly aware of Hachiman’s purpose.

  "Is there something you need?" Horikita asked when Hachiman greeted him but didn’t immediately leave.

  "Yes, I need to ask the president something."

  Hachiman had a question that only Horikita, other than the teachers, could answer.

  "Go ahead."

  Horikita’s tone was serious, yet there was a hint of expectation.

  "President, are there only one set of midterm exam papers for the first-year students?"

  Tachibana was stunned, and a sharp glint fshed in Horikita’s eyes.