Night.
Inside the Keyaki Mall tavern at ANHS—since it was a place only faculty and Keyaki Mall staff could afford to frequent—the atmosphere was closer to a quiet bar. No live singer, no band, no flashing lights, no DJ, no sweaty dancing.
Just soft piano music from the speakers, and a bartender mixing drinks or simply pouring alcohol for teachers and staff.
At the counter, three homeroom teachers were drinking together. Hoshinomiya was the loudest one, as always—head tipped back, she downed her glass in one go, then thunk—slammed the empty cup onto the counter.
Thank God the glass had a thick base, or it might've cracked.
"I'm dead. Why do we only get two days off? Didn't I hear that over in Europe some places are already doing a four-day workweek?!"
"Isn't it already pretty decent?" Chabashira held her drink with a cool expression, taking only small sips. In the time Hoshinomiya had already downed three cups, Chabashira still hadn't finished one. "At least we can properly rest on Saturdays and Sundays. That's already good."
"If you go outside and look, you'll see how many companies make their people work seven days a week with no breaks. Compared to them, our job is practically light."
"Light my ass!" Hoshinomiya complained like the alcohol was giving her courage. "Worry about this, worry about that, every single day… if this keeps up, I'm gonna end up with rough skin~"
Sitting with the two beautiful homeroom teachers was Sakayanagi's class teacher, Mashima. Like Hoshinomiya and Chabashira, he'd been a student at ANHS back in the same cohort eleven years ago, so they were closer than normal colleagues.
Mashima's cheek twitched. "So compared to a stable two-day weekend, you'd rather live the '007' corporate-slave life?"
Hoshinomiya's face instantly turned disgusted. Just imagining it made her want to collapse.
"God no."
And she refused to let her glass sit empty for even a second.
"Boss—another drink~!"
The female bartender was already used to Hoshinomiya as a regular. Hearing her get called "boss," she didn't even know if Hoshinomiya was genuinely drunk or just acting.
Either way, it was sales.
So she poured another.
Watching that, Chabashira couldn't help sighing. "Seriously… you really haven't changed at all."
"Hehe~" Hoshinomiya pretended she didn't understand. She even did a girly V-sign beside her cheek. "Of course~ I'm an eternally seventeen-year-old maiden. My youth and beauty will never change."
"..." Chabashira raised her cup to sip again, but after that answer, she suddenly felt like she couldn't swallow. "Haa… forget it. There's no point."
Giving up on arguing with Hoshinomiya, Chabashira calmly set her drink down, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and exhaled slowly. Smoke drifted around her amber eyes, her gaze distant, like she was thinking about something she didn't want to name.
"Ugh, you're doing that broody thing again?" Hoshinomiya leaned in and poked Chabashira's cheek. "Sae-chan, you've gotta smile. Smile more~"
Chabashira frowned, glanced at Hoshinomiya's flushed face, then quietly shifted a little farther away—without saying anything.
Hoshinomiya turned on Mashima next. Seeing his still-heavy expression, she clicked her tongue.
"And you, Mashima. We've known each other forever."
"You're always making that grim face. What, do we owe you money and refuse to pay it back or something?"
Mashima's cheek twitched again, but his tone stayed serious. "See? That part will never change either."
"But I really can't laugh right now."
The moment he said that, both Hoshinomiya and Chabashira sharpened.
Hoshinomiya's previously hazy, drunken eyes suddenly showed a thin flash of clarity.
Behind the smoke, Chabashira's gaze turned razor-sharp.
They both knew Mashima's relationship with Sakagami was also close. And Sakagami, as the homeroom teacher of Second-Year Class A, often got certain information earlier—especially anything tied to special exams.
If Sakagami knew what the next special exam looked like, Mashima would likely know at least some of it too.
Hoshinomiya accepted her new drink with a "thanks," but she didn't gulp it down this time. She just swirled the glass lazily in her hand.
"What is it? Another special exam coming? Old one or new one?"
Any teacher working at ANHS knew the school had all kinds of special exams.
Some were brand-new designs—like the class vote exam earlier this year. Those were "new-format exams."
Others ran on a four-year rotation, specifically to prevent upperclassmen from leaking details to lowerclassmen. Those were "legacy exams."
And then there were the recurring staples—like the sports festival or the summer uninhabited island—annual traditions where the core concept stayed, but the content changed every year. Old and new at the same time.
Mashima's expression wasn't merely serious now.
It was ugly.
He studied Hoshinomiya and Chabashira for a few seconds, then spoke in a low voice.
"Legacy exam."
Hoshinomiya and Chabashira both relaxed immediately.
Their cohort had been stacked with geniuses. If it was a legacy exam, they weren't worried. They trusted their current classes could handle it.
"Then it's fine~" Hoshinomiya finally drank again, carefree. "I trust Ichinose and the others. They'll be totally fine!"
"Agreed." Chabashira tapped ash into the tray, calm and approving. "As long as it isn't a brand-new exam like the class vote—something designed to force expulsions—these kids won't have problems."
"Hah…" Mashima turned fully toward them, his face dark enough to feel like a storm front. "But this time… it's the exam we had eleven years ago."
"Huh?" Hoshinomiya didn't process it at first. There were so many exams every year—who remembered exactly what happened eleven years back?
But Chabashira jolted like she'd been struck.
Her slim cigarette slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
Her voice turned hoarse.
"I-It's… that one?"
Mashima nodded with a bitter look. "Yeah. That one. The one that—"
He took a breath.
"—Unanimous."
BAM!
Hoshinomiya's glass wasn't even empty, and she still smashed it down on the counter. Liquor splashed up, wetting her wrist, her reaction violently sharp.
Mashima, Hoshinomiya, Chabashira—all three of them fell into a bizarre, suffocating silence.
The bartender quietly took a step back.
…What the hell? They just brought up an old special exam and all three homeroom teachers turned like this?
For the first time tonight, the bartender started thinking about whether she should swap shifts early.
Chabashira's face had already gone completely grim. "Unanimous… wasn't that sealed away? How can it appear again?"
She would never forget that exam.
That exam was what carved her obsession with reaching Class A into her bones for eleven straight years. It was what warped her, what made her fail the two previous Class D cohorts she'd taught.
Hoshinomiya's expression wasn't any better.
She'd forgotten most exams from eleven years ago—blurred by time and routine.
But Unanimous?
She remembered it with terrifying clarity.
No matter how many years passed, that memory never faded by even a millimeter.
And with that same ugly clarity—Hoshinomiya shot Chabashira a vicious side-eye.
How could she forget?
If it hadn't been Unanimous—if it hadn't been Chabashira's mistake eleven years ago—then they would've graduated from Class A back then. They would've won. Clean and shining.
But there was no "if."
No "what could've been."
Only what happened.
And what it did to them.