Light Novel Volume 9/Summary

Below is the long summary of volume 9 of the You-Zitsu light novel series.

Prologue
Ichinose talks about how she wanted to become an honest girl who tried her best at everything. She even became the student council president, but she made one mistake that ruined every aspect of her life and family. She thought that coming to the school would change it for the better, but someone wrote her a letter saying ‘Ichinose Honami is a criminal’.

She has a meeting about the student council with Nagumo (before he was president, and he got her in. He was also class B). Nagumo deceives her into telling him her mistake by saying stuff like Manabu only accepts class A and such. Ichinose also reveals that her mistake caused her to be class B, and Nagumo had a similar thing, and that he chooses people (girls) primarily by looks.

Chapter 1
February, after the training camp, Arisu is in the student council room and points out that it looks more like a room for Nagumo's sake. Arisu has come to talk about her upcoming strike on Ichinose.

Arisu threatens to expel Ichinose but realises that it would make an enemy out of Nagumo, so she resorts to striking her ‘weak point’. Nagumo reveals that he won't be as harsh on violent cases as Manabu was but adds that if the school doesn't tolerate it, it won't be accepted.

Nagumo gives her the advice of gaining the trust of people and using it against them. They then talk about Nagumo's situation with trust. As she leaves the room, she's asked about Ayanokōji but plays dumb. She sees Kushida enter, who's trying to apply for the student council. Arisu ponders on what Kushida's intentions are and comes to the conclusion she's the most likely to have an insane side.

Chapter 2
In the morning, there's quite a commotion in class C, as Kei has dumped Hirata. Despite just being dumped, Hirata showed no signs of despair, which even Sudou and Ike have picked up on. But not Yamauchi, who is teasing Hirata. He's dragged away, by an apologising Sudou and Ike.

While people are gossiping about Kei and Hirata, Suzune brings up the rumours around Ichinose to Ayanokōji. She writes on a note that she may have: (most likely spread by Arisu)
 * A history of violence
 * Engagement in compensated dating (paid to go out with someone, like having a sugar daddy)
 * Engagement in theft and robbery
 * A noted history of drug usage.

They discuss the rumours further, and Suzune concludes that there is most likely some truth to the rumours. After class, Arisu comes into class C and calls for Yamauchi. The whole class starts gossiping if they're dating. Suzune warns him not to leak info.

The Ayanokōji group goes to a cafe. They first started talking about Arisu and Yamauchi but moved on the class C's love stories, which changes to the end of year exam topic. Hasebe spots Ichinose, which causes them to talk about her situation a bit (Ayanokōji noting that her right-hand man isn't present), before she gets a call from Miyake, saying I might run late, due to a fight between class A and B. They decide to go to the fight (Sakura, Ayanokōji and Hasebe)

After some searching, they enter the gymnasium. They're surprised to see Hashimoto and Kanzaki quarrelling. Kanzaki ignores the Ayanokōji group and confronts Hashimoto about just wanting to spread the rumours of Ichinose. Hashimoto asks Kanzaki if he's really certain that Ichinose doesn't have a dark past.

Hashimoto finally admits to spreading the rumours but denies being the source. Kanzaki says that he already knew he wasn't the source, but someone in class A is (as he even asked the 2nd and 3rd years where they heard the rumours). While Hashimoto leaves, Ayanokōji notes that he was acting a tiny bit off.

Before the Ayanokōji group leaves, Ayanokōji brings up the rumours, from Hasebe, that Miyake was a delinquent. He responds that he was in a delinquent school, but wasn't the big boss. He also reveals that he went to the school next to Ryuuen's school, so they used to interact. He then asks them to keep quiet.

Chapter 3
On the way home on a Thursday, Ayanokōji spots Ichinose alone. He suspects Hashimoto was tailing him. The other person there, who turns out to be, Wang Mei-Yu calls out to him and asks for a consultation. They go to a cafe for a consultation. Due to -Mii-chan (her nickname) being as shy as Sakura, Ayanokōji decides to grab some more sugar to see if Hashimoto was at the cafe too, which he was. He concludes, Hashimoto followed him for himself.

When returned, Mii-chan asks him about Hirata (as she is crushing big time). She asks if Hirata is interested in anyone, to which he replies ‘not really’. Mii-chan reveals that she fell in love with Hirata the first day and that both her parent are Chinese, but she came to Japan as her father had business here. He notes that she mastered Japanese in 3 years and that she's very good at English.

Hiyori appears and asks if they're on a date. Mii-chan hurriedly denies. Hiyori joins and asks what they've been talking about. Ayanokōji says he's interested in China as an excuse. Ayanokōji then excuses himself and goes back.

He states that most students only check for mails from the school every two weeks, but he has regularly checked for letters from his father.

On his way to the elevator, he meets Hiyori again, who asks to talk about Ichinose. She says that she doesn't like the targeting of Ichinose, and offers a class C-D cooperating to help Ichinose. Ayanokōji declines referring her to Suzune and Hirata, at which point she decides not to take it further.

When he got back to his room, he got an invite from Suzune asking him to join her meeting with Ichinose in her room at 7 to hear the Ichinose's side. He accepts.

At the meeting, Suzune asks if Ichinose knows who the source is. Ichinose suspects Arisu (Ayanokōji being surprised at this, as she would have given a name if she wasn't sure). However, she refuses to confirm or deny the rumours. Ayanokōji chimes in and asks if she knows about Kanzaki vs Hashimoto, which she didn't.

Ayanokōji discourages Suzune from trying to help Ichinose, arguing it'd be better if the big boys took each other out. When he leaves, Ichinose is standing by the elevator calling out to him. The two go outside, and Ichinose apologises for the trouble and asks him just to forget the thing.

At 1:00 AM, someone calls Ayanokōji from an unknown ID. After 30 sec of silence, Ayanokōji threatens to hang up, at which point his name is spoken, and the caller hangs up. Ayanokōji deduces that ‘he’ has begun to make moves.

Chapter 4
Five days after Kanzaki vs Hashimoto, Friday. The rumours of Ichinose have gotten so bad the whole school knows, but they've died down, and people have even started defending her. But the rumours reappeared.

When Ayanokōji was returning to the dorm, he again stumbled upon Katsuragi with a commotion around the mailboxes (like in vol 6, but this time Yahiko was with Katsuragi). He's asked to check his mail. In his mailbox, there is a piece of paper exactly like the one Ayanokōji put there, but this time it says 『Ichinose Honami is a criminal』. The three then ponder on who the sender is (Katsuragi says he has a good idea who, so Ayanokōji is strongly suspecting Arisu). Ichinose comes down telling the angry people to just let it go. As Ayanokōji goes to the elevator Kamuro, who was observing the letter situation smugly, joined him and followed him to his room. Kamuro asks to talk to Ayanokōji in his room and he accepts.

She asks for his opinion on the letter about Ichinose. Ayanokōji responds that he doesn't really care. She then goes on to reveal it's Arisu's doing, and that she ‘betrayed’ Arisu by going to talk with Ayanokōji without Arisu's knowledge. She plans on telling him about Ichinose's secret but first explains why Arisu can manipulate her.

A week after enrollment at a convenience store was when Arisu first made contact with Kamuro. Arisu points out that Kamuro just shoplifted, and not only just randomly shoplifted, but made it seem almost like a routine. She deducts that Kamuro isn't shoplifting to get stuff, but for the thrill of it. Arisu offers Kamuro to be her pawn as it'd be more thrilling than shoplifting (in return for not reporting it to the school).

Ayanokōji thinks back to the training camp, where Arisu had revealed that Kamuro's and Ichinose's secret were the same (so Ichinose also had a history of shoplifting). She tasks Ayanokōji with helping Ichinose as she predicts her heart will be broken from this.

However, Ayanokōji doubts if she was actually a shoplifter and if Arisu sent her to do this. Kamuro notices his doubt. She gives him her student ID and comes back 10 minutes later with a beer proving she is a seasoned shoplifter (as there's no other way to get a beer).

After, Ayanokōji decides to leave for the convenience store, but on the way gets a call from Manabu, who wants to talk about Suzune. He says, Kushida has asked Nagumo to help expel Suzune, but she also mentioned Ayanokōji as a troublesome existence. Ayanokōji adds that Nagumo might also be talking to Hashimoto.

Chapter 5
Monday morning. After coming out of the shower, Ayanokōji turned on his phone to see a message asking to come over now from Sakura and a missed call from Kei. Both are postponed to later.

He goes to the elevator and weirdly finds Hirata there, although he usually goes to school early.

When the two get down to the lobby, many girls from different classes give Hirata Valentines Day chocolates. Ayanokōji figures that was why he was late.

In the class, Sudou brings Ayanokōji over to ask if he got chocolates from Suzune. They then talk about various relationship-related things and whatnot (Kushida gave chocolate to every 1st-year male, and Miyake got chocolate from a Class-B girl).

Chabashira announces, that a test tomorrow will be held to see the students' current strengths and it won't have an effect on final grades. The test will have similar questions to the final exam.

After class Sakura hurriedly asks Ayanokōji to attend the Ayanokōji group meeting. He agrees and says after 6:00 PM. He then goes to class B but doesn't find anyone approachable, so he leaves. While leaving, he overhears that Ichinose was absent. He wonders if anyone else knows her secret but doesn't find it likely. He then speculates that Nagumo betrayed Ichinose. Ayanokōji decides to go to her room with Hashimoto trailing him (he notes that's he's experienced in trailing). He sees a group of girls in front of her door, so he decides against it.

He meets up with Kei, who wants him to tutor her for the final exam. He agrees but only late at night. He then asks her to check out the number, which called him some days ago. She then gives him a box of chocolates.

Chapter 6
Someone talks about Hashimoto. Hashimoto is a man who'd do anything to ensure that he'll stay on top. He has made connections with every class to prepare for if class A were to fall. He had even made a connection with Ryuuen.

A girl named Motodoi gave him chocolates for Valentine's, but he doesn't want to date her as he has no gain in it. He doesn't reject her either, in case she becomes useful later.

Hashimoto had no impression of Ayanokōji (other than the relay), before the training camp. Due to what Nagumo had told him, he'd started to doubt if Ayanokōji was just a normal student. He doesn't know if it was a joke from Nagumo or if it was real, so he went to confirm it.

While following Ayanokōji to the entrance, he notes that, unlike the leaders, he was very easy to tail and didn't show any cards in his day-to-day life. He then gets a call from a classmate called Shimizu Naoki, who caused an incident this morning by confessing to a girl named Nishikawa, but he got rejected. He's mad that she caused the spread of his failure. Hashimoto tells him, that's he's busy now, and he'll get to it later.

He follows Ayanokōji back to the dorm and sees him go to Ichinose's floor, but concludes he couldn't get to her. He decides to stay in the lobby on the off chance Ayanokōji would reappear, which he did. He then witnesses Ayanokōji and Kei's meeting, which threw him off quite a bit. He notes that Kei was giving real affection to him whereas she hadn't with Hirata.

He decides to confront the two to shake things up. He asks about the situation, but they shake it off. After ‘convincing’ Hashimoto that Ayanokōji was a middleman for the chocolates. Hashimoto decides to make a move on Kei, stating he liked her to get a reaction out of Ayanokōji, but he just announces he'll be leaving. Kei does the same.

On the way back, Hashimoto gets Ayanokōji's contact info. Ayanokōji then goes to meet Hiyori at the library. He also has another meeting later.

He arrives back at his dorm at 7, so he missed the Ayanokōji group meeting. He comes home to boxes of chocolates from 5 girls: Kei, Hiyori, Hasebe, Sakura, and someone.

At 10:00 PM, he goes to Ichinose's room and sees that she's actually sick. He suspects its indirectly caused by the rumours.

On the day of the provisional exam, new rumours have popped up. Horikita showed them to Ayanokōji: The rumours had spread from the rarely used school forum's app (checking private points). Yamauchi unwelcomely asks Shinohara about the rumours, which causes Ike and him to get into a quarrel.
 * Ayanokōji Kiyotaka has a crush on Karuizawa Kei
 * Ryōtarō Hondō is into obese girls
 * Satsuki Shinohara was a prostitute in middle school
 * Maya Satō hates Kayano Onodera

Ayanokōji, Hondo, and Shinohara have denied their rumours. Maezono then whispers that Satou doesn't really like Onodera, but she defends herself.

Suzune gets a message from Kanzaki, which said that Ichinose was absent again, and that class B also had four rumours spread about them. She then checks and finds out rumours had been spread from every class apart from class A. She invites Ayanokōji to come to her meeting with Kanzaki to her about Ichinose.

The provisional exam is very hard, but the average student could clear it. However, the ones who've been scraping by would have a hard time.

He meets Kanzaki to let the trailing Hashimoto know he was in contact with class A, to get them to be suspicious.

While talking, Arisu and her gang show up (Hashimoto, Kamuro, and a boy name Kitou), who asks about the Ichinose and the exam. Kanzaki confronts her about the rumours, but she plays ignorant.

After school, Ayanokōji gets a call from Kei about the rumours. He tells her they'd actually help as they act as an excuse for being seen together, but Kei doesn't agree.

Three days after the provisionary exams, people class A, C and D have met up (Hashimoto & Kitou from class A, the Ayanokōji group from class C, and Ishizaki, Albert, Hiyori & Ibuki from class D). Class D has come to confront Hashimoto about the rumours, and the Ayanokōji stumbled across them but smelt trouble.

After arguing for a bit, Ishizaki initiates a fight but is stopped by Miyake. Hashimoto gladly continues and kicks at Ishizaki, but is blocked by Miyake again. Hashimoto reveals that Nagumo is very lenient towards violence and would overlook this incident. They then argue a bit more, before a 2v2 between Ibuki & Ishizaki vs Hashimoto & Kitou breaks out. As Ibuki kicks at Hashimoto, her student ID and phone drops. Miyake takes her phone and goes to break the fight up, while Ayanokōji grabs her student ID and notices something odd.

Albert comes from behind and tackles Miyake to the floor. Ayanokōji suspects Hashimoto for spreading his rumours mentioning their run-in 4 days ago. Hashimoto laughs it off, while Hasebe and Sakura are surprised about it. Ayanokōji's intended to let Hashimoto know about others' knowledge of the two, so he'd write it off as nothing unusual.

Hiyori stops Ishizaki from continuing to fight. She then ‘resolves’ the incident.

That night, Ayanokōji called Manabu. He tells him about the oddities in 2 student IDs, which Manabu marks as a first. Manabu reveals that the first years should only have one more special exam left, where the 3rd years should have 2 left. He then asks about Kushida, but Ayanokōji states it's been solved. Manabu suspects Kushida to have something to do with the rumours regarding Ichinose.

Ichinose didn't show up to school, until one day before the final exam (Feb 24th). Yukimura gives the Ayanokōji group his mock exam results. From the results, Yukimura deducts they'll make it through the exam with no problems.

As they talked about the upcoming exam, Ike flung the door open, announcing that class A had marched into class B. Suzune, Sudou, Hirata, Ayanokōji, Yukimura and Miyake go immediately.

Arisu announces that she's come to save class B, who's currently all protecting Ichinose. Kanzaki confronts her about the rumours but she denies. She has deduced that Ichinose is the bank of class B. She then warns them about it.

Ichinose gets up to the teacher's podium and apologises then admits to being a shoplifter in the past. She opens up about her single mother, who raised her and her younger sister. In Ichinose's 3rd year of middle school, her mother collapsed from overworking. Her mother had been overworking to get Ichinose's selfless sister, who never asked for anything, the hairclip she really wanted. Ichinose decided to steal it for her sister, but she was overwhelmed with guilt, though she wasn't caught her sister was very happy (the hair clip was worth around $100).

Her mother noticed the stolen hair clip and dragged Ichinose to the store to hand it back. This caused Ichinose to get depressed for the rest of the school year. She chose the school to start anew.

The class starts sympathising with her, but Arisu claims that a crime is a crime regardless of circumstance. She then questions, if Ichinose would steal the class’ points like she stole the hair clip.

Ichinose asks the class whether or not they'll follow her lead, which they agree to. Chabashira, Hoshinomiya and Nagumo abruptly enter and announce the spreading of rumours is now punishable.

10 minutes left of lunch break, Ayanokōji gets a call from Arisu asking to meet up. Arisu confronts him about helping Ichinose stand on her feet by listening to her story beforehand. He then confronts her about sending Kamuro to him to get him to move. He points out the beer can she presented to him was 4 months old.

She then challenges him to a battle in the next special exam. If she wins, she'd reveal his past. If he wins she'll drop out. She'll use her father as the guarantor. He agrees to the battle and goes to call the central figure of the incident.

Chapter 7
Feb 11th, after Ichinose, saw the mailbox letters and Kamuro came to Ayanokōji. Around midnight, Ayanokōji made moves against Arisu by inviting Kushida over. She comes in and gives him a box of chocolates.

He says, that he has a plan that involves Kushida revealing secrets of the classes to him. She's doubtful of the plan as he's allied with her enemy. He then points out her overly nice tone and the fact that she's been recording the whole time. She stops recording and immediately switches faces.

He explains that his plan involves revealing small but annoying secrets to get the school notified about it. The school would take action in fear of the rumours leading to cases of bullying.

She would agree to the plan on a condition, either his or Suzune's expulsion, which he obviously declined. He then offers the condition that he'll give half his private points each month to her, with the intention of making himself a valuable person to her so she wouldn't want to dispense him.

She agrees to his condition and shows him a second recorder. She then starts spewing the secrets left-right. Ayanokōji's true intentions being to see how large of a bomb she wields.

She uses an example, that there are 2 group chats for Kei's group. One with Nene and one without. The one without is just used to badmouth her (pretty much). She said that there are dozens of groups like this.

Valentine's Day, Ayanokōji had intentionally turned off his phone the night before to avoid having Kei ask to meet up in the morning. He had predicted her to give him chocolates, so he'd picked the time right before Hashimoto would stop tailing him.

He'd predicted that Hashimoto was getting bored of tailing him, so he chose to give him a Lil treat. This incident in turn caused Hashimoto to stop tailing him. After that, he went to idle talk with Hiyori, before making his way to meet up with Kiriyama. He asks him to spread the rumours for him, to deepen their connections. At first, he declines, but after Ayanokōji explaining how he could just brush it off as Kushida's doings, and threatening to tell Manabu that Kiriyama has given in to Nagumo, he accepts.

Some days after the mail letters incident, Ayanokōji had gone to Ichinose's dorm during lunch break. He asked her about the rumours and such before leaving again. Monday, 5 days before the final exam, he went to her room, said a few words, sat down ’til the end of break and left. He did the same on Tuesday.

Wednesday, he goes again and starts rambling about the year. She speaks up for the first time. She asks why he’s coming to her room every day, but not trying to convince her to come back. He reveals that he knows her secret and that he’s come to save her instead of her always saving others.

He then listens to her sob for some time.

Epilogue
The morning of the exam, Ichinose and Ayanokōji talk about the whole incident. He then says she can rely on him when she needs to. She then walks up to Nagumo, who gives a quick unsatisfied glance at him. Nagumo had planned to break her and build her up himself, but Ayanokōji got in the way of that.

She then comes back and gives him some Valentine's chocolates.

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