Itemized receipt:
Errors were discovered in the summer curriculum breakdown. This missive is intended to correct them.
Total tuition fee
Summer curriculum: 156,500 yen
Breakdown
Educational materials: 12,500 yen
Lecture stipend: 86,640 yen
Insult fee: 50,160 yen1
Self-study charge: 7,200 yen2
1 Based on an estimated average of twenty-two minutes per class spent on insults, scolding, and dehumanization.
2 Based on a weekly average of one to two lecture boycotts carried out by instructors.
The school advertises summer lessons as half the price of cram school, but is that the whole story?
The average cram school summer lesson fee is 1,933 yen per hour. Discounting the time spent on insults, Saigou High’s summer curriculum costs 1,894 yen per hour.
By that math, the difference in tuition fees is a mere 39 yen. Wouldn’t we all be better off attending cram school lessons taught by talented teachers, free from the stress of insults and scolding?
✦ ✦ ✦
Between the insult broadcast and the Heads on Pikes incident, the school was on the lookout for our meddling.
The faculty was conducting random inspections of students’ belongings, and teachers were patrolling the halls in shifts during self-study periods and breaks. They were doing what they could to ensure no students did anything out of the ordinary.
Unfortunately, those efforts were not enough to stop us. Or rather, they weren’t enough to scare us into backing off. We figured out an attack we could handle in secret and put it into action. We called this operation “Insult Receipt.”
We were taking aim at Saigou High’s claim that their lessons were cheaper than attending a cram school. We did the math on how much of our classes were spent on insults and scoldings and obtained a working average. Then we ran that data against the total cost of the program, calculating how much of our money went to verbal abuse. Then we itemized that and distributed copies throughout the school. We were using the magic of math to make it clear just how lousy this program was.
We got clever with how we posted the receipts. This time, we put them in hard-to-find places—one a day, in toilet stalls or in cleaning closets.
That meant it took a while for the teachers to catch on. It also ensured they had no clue when it had started. By the time they found out about the receipts, it was too late. Quite a lot of students had seen them. That was our intent.
Our attacks went on for a week. We took turns, posting the receipts little by little. And the results were mostly as we’d hoped.
During a break, I asked Tanaka about it.
“Tanaka, you heard anything about this receipt thing?”
“Oh… Um, I think I saw one. People are talking.”
“Any idea when they started showing up?”
“Good question. My friend mentioned it a couple of days ago…”
She clearly didn’t know any more; it seemed our scheme was a success.
I kept my head down and heard people saying things like, “50,000 for insults is bullshit” and “What do you say we go to a real cram school next year?”
It was music to my ears. I hoped more students would work out how messed up this place was. I hoped those suspicions and frustrations would spread like poison until the summer curriculum died off completely.
✦ ✦ ✦
We’d finished carrying out our crime before the faculty even caught on.
After school on Saturday, I posted the last receipt in a self-study room, and we were done. I fled the scene, making sure nobody saw me.
It was time to go home. Kurumi and I planned to celebrate our success.
I deliberately took a well-populated route past the faculty office toward the entrance, figuring it would be less suspicious.
“…Hmm?”
But something on the way caught my eye.
Nanaougi was walking with a short female instructor. They weren’t saying anything, but their expressions were grim. That made me keep watching, and what happened next surprised me.
They went into the student guidance office.
Had Nanaougi gotten herself in trouble? Students with bad grades were often summoned there, but Nanaougi had the best scores in class. That couldn’t be why.
Had she gotten caught trying to pull off a bigger attack than us? That would be a shame…but she hadn’t earned my pity. She’d talked big about impressing us, but maybe this was all she was capable of.
“…Whatever,” I muttered under my breath.
I saw them head into the office, then turned on my heel to leave.
But just as I looked away, something made me turn back. As the door closed behind them, I’d seen something I couldn’t ignore: Nanaougi was holding one of our insult receipts.