Pokemon x COTE: Advanced Nurturing Trainer School

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Class A: 1025

Class B: 732

Class C: 249

Class D: 70

That was the class points ranking at the start of June. Apparently, there were three dropouts from the class C.

Tuesday, two people were missing from the classroom. It was the same classroom but nonetheless, it felt distinctively different. The atmosphere was heavy and most students felt disheartened.

Something like a red mark would be enough for the school to expel a student. Knowing that, the students were fearing for their future, not knowing what else could cause they to get dropped out.

Well, it would be better for them to feel it at the beginning of the school year since it would make them more conscious of this school's nature and would encourage them to work harder.

Two seats were removed from the class. They were Sudou's and Horikita's which were at the back of the room and Horikita had to move to Yamauchi's seat.

Hirata was sitting motionless in his seat as if he was in daze. He has been like this ever since Yamauchi and Sudou left the classroom last Friday. Also, I heard he never left his room during the weekend and he was like that yesterday.

At the end of school, Hirata immediately stood up and prepared to leave the school.

"Hirata-kun… uhm…"

One of our maids, Wang Mei Yu, also nicknamed Mii-chan, tried to talk with him but he just ignored her and left the classroom but she went after him without giving up trying to talk to him.

When I was preparing to leave, Karuizawa approached me.

"Himekawa-kun, could you try talking to Hirata-kun? My friends and me can't bear seeing him in that state, especially Mii-chan."

"*Sigh* well, I'll try it for you but I won't guarantee anything."

"Thank you! I hope you'll get some results even if it's not much."

Then she walked back to her friends before going out of the classroom.

"Look like I still have something to do for the day so I'll go first."

"Okay, you can go ahead, darling. Shiho and I will go shopping for some ingredients for now."

I went out of the school building before expanding my aura sense trying to locate Hirata. When I found him, I teleported near his location. When I got there, Wang-chan was running toward my direction without looking so she collided with me but I got good on her so that she wouldn't fall.

"A-ah, sorry. I wasn't looking at where I was going… ah Himekawa-san!"

She actually had some tears falling from her eyes and wiped them.

"Wang-chan, go back to the mansion for now. The girls are a little worried about you. Also, I'll try to talk to Hirata, Karuizawa asked me to."

"Ah, really? Then thank you. I don't know what to say to him so I'd really appreciate it if you did that."

"Well, I don't really guarantee anything so don't thank me too early."

"Even so, I really appreciate you trying to help him that's why I'm thanking you."

After she left, I went toward Hirata to knock cool sensed onto him.

"Hey Hirata!"

"Ah, Himekawa-kun… Are you also here to tell me to cheer up?"

"Nah. I'm here to ask you why are you this pathetic? You were already pathetic before but now, it's even worse."

"… Yeah, I'm really pathetic. I couldn't even help Sudou and Yamauchi when they needed help."

"Seriously… If you keep rejecting everything like this, you'll lose everything you know?"

"… Hah… I have nothing left to lose."

"So that was it huh. You never really cared about anyone but yourself."

"H-huh? Take that back!"

"I won't. You just said you have "nothing" left to lose. Meaning the friends you have now are nothing and it wouldn't mean anything for you to lose them, am I right?"

"Shut up! You know nothing about me so shut up!"

"Well, at least I know you're hurting the people close to you and that right now, you only care about yourself."

"T-that's not true!"

"Then why did you make Wang-chan cry earlier? If you just wanted to be left alone, you could have spoken to her right? You didn't have to hurt her like that."

"T-that…"

"Also, did you really care about Sudou and Yamauchi?"

"O-of course I do!"

"Then why didn't you say anything when they were causing trouble or when they said they would stop studying? Did you really do anything to help them?"

"That's… ugh…"

"Also, did you really try to understand anyone? From what I saw, you never really care about their feeling and only pushed your own ideology of let's all get along onto them. In my eyes, you felt more like a politician than a companion."

"… Then, what should I do?"

"Let's see, what do you want to do? What's your goal?"

"I… I don't really know anymore…"

"Then, what do you not want? Don't lie or it would be more complicated."

It took him a dozen of second before answering.

"I think… I don't want to feel any regret anymore."

"That's impossible. Any living person would have many regrets through his life no matter what. Sometime, it would be over silly things but sometime it would be a heavy one. What you should do is to think on how to not repeat the same mistakes and how to improve yourself instead of lingering on them."

"But… I did something irreparable in the past… Hey Himekawa-kun, can you listen to my story?"

"*Sigh* okay, I'm listening."

"I had a friend with will have been close since childhood. One day, some students started to bully him. I wanted to help him but I was afraid of getting targeted by the bullies so I did nothing but watching from the sidelines.

"This situation continued until he couldn't bear it anymore so he tried to commit suicide by jumping from a building. Thankfully it failed but he has been in a coma ever since.

"The worst part was that after that, the bullies started to bully again and this time, their target was an innocent bystander. There was also the class who joined them to bully that person.

"I couldn't allow the history to repeat itself so I had to do something. Then I decided to take action and ruled the class through force. That way, no one would be able to bully anyone anymore. But then, I noticed that everyone had lost their smile."

"Wow, that was one of the most stupid story I heard."

"Huh?"

"I mean, did you abandoned your friend just because you were afraid of getting bullied even though you could rule your class through force? Also, why did no one report it to the school? Did the school really know nothing about it? Also, there was a student who nearly killed himself due to bullying so why didn't the school do anything to prevent more bullying? *Sigh* everything about it is just so stupid."

"…Now that you said it, everything seemed really stupid. There were many ways to resolve it but I never though about that. Himekawa-kun, what should I do?"

"About what? If it's about that friend of your then there's nothing you can do for the moment. You should just improve yourself and make sure to never repeat your past mistakes."

"But I don't know where to beging."

"Know yourself, know your enemies, and you shall not fear hundreds of battles. Well in your case, I should say know yourself, know your friends and you shall not fear hundreds of regrets."

"Haha, where's that coming from? …Anyway, I think what you said it's right. Lingering on my regrets would do nothing. Anyway thank you for opening my eyes."

"You're welcome. Well, I think you would take tomorrow off and calm yourself down. Also, you should try to trust your friends more. Anyway, I hope you'll feel rid of that pathetic self of your."

"I don't know if I'll be up to your standards but I'll try."

Afterwards, we parted ways. He went towards the dormitory while I went toward the girl who was spying on us.

"So? Are you relieved now, Wang-chan?"

"Ah, Himekawa-san. You knew I was there?"

"Of course I did. I could feel you with my power."

"Uuuu…" she was embarrassed hearing that I knew she was spying.

"A-anyway, weren't you a little too harsh toward Hirata-kun?"

"Wang-chan, when you really care for someone, there are time where you have to be harsh towards them, or at least that's what my mom taught me and I also agree to that. Well, it's not like I cared for him but he just needed some reality check. Wait, that sounded like what a Tsundere would say."

"Pfff hahahaha! Anyway thank you Himekawa-san for helping Hirata-kun. I don't think I would have been able to do it myself."

"Wang-chan, you're really a good girl huh?" I said while patting her head.

"H-hueh? Wh-where did that come from?" She was blushing and stuttering while saying that.

"I mean, you didn't stop caring about your friends even though Hirata acted like that. I think you shouldn't change and stay like this forever."

"B-but hearing what you said to Hirata, I also want to improve myself."

"Wow, you're really a good girl. Well that's also a good idea. Anyway let's go home together."

"Go home together… it somehow feels like…" she whispered while blushing a little before we went back together to the mansion.

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Don't forget the power stones.