“Hey Kou, wanna walk home together?” I was awakened by Kaito, who tapped me on the shoulder. “Nodded off, huh? Guess you’re still recovering after all.”
“Nah,” I replied. “I’m fine, just spacing out for a bit.” The school day was over before I knew it, and more than half of my classmates had already vanished from the room. Kaito was ready to follow in their footsteps, with his bag all packed up and slung over his shoulder. His ever-present follower Kotou, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Does Kotou have club activities today?”
“No, but she said that she’d be doing something with Kiryu after school.”
“Oh? Hmm.” I was all for the two of them getting along, but I wasn’t exactly impressed with them for going off on their own and leaving Kaito behind. It brought Kazuki to mind, though I was clinging to the hope that there was still a lingering bud of affection in her just waiting to blossom. Anyway, whatever! I’ll just take the chance to keep the protagonist all to myself today! “Wait just a sec, I’ll pack my stuff up.”
“I’m not in a hurry, so you don’t have to... Oh. Well, never mind.” I shoved my pencil case into my bag and was done before he could finish his sentence. Kaito cracked a sort of strained smile at my characteristically sloppy routine. He was probably impressed (in a certain sense of the word) with my decision to leave my textbooks behind, even though tests were coming up the very next week.
“You been studying enough lately, Kaito? You’re already a second-year, y’know? Screw up here, and your summer vacation might end up being a miserable hell of supplemental lessons!”
“Can’t believe you’re worried about me, Kou.”
“Say what?!”
“You’ve missed how many days of school lately? And even when you do show up, you don’t really pay attention. Heck, you were late for fifth period just this afternoon.” Welp. Can’t argue with that. “We’re worried about you, seriously. What if you get held back a year?”
“Oh, c’mon, they wouldn’t really hold me back, would they...?”
“I sure hope not.” He gave me a look that told me he wasn’t convinced, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Characters cut class all the time in manga and don’t face any real consequences, but if you actually try it at a college-prep school like mine, you end up standing out in a bad way. The school’s grade average is high, which makes it all the easier to accidentally sink to the bottom of the pack.
“A-Anyway, I’ll be okay as long as I do well enough on the tests! You know me, Kaito—I’m the sort of student who does just fine when he’s actually motivated.”
“Yeah, I know. But that also means that you won’t do just fine if you aren’t motivated.”
“Ugh...” Once again: can’t argue with that. His logic was just too sound.
I decided not to press the issue, pulled my textbooks out from the compartment beneath my desk, and dropped them into my bag. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually use them to study when I got home or not, but I figured I should at least put on a pretense of motivation. Kaito, of course, saw through me immediately and heaved a heavy, pained sigh.
“I don’t want to end up a grade above you, y’know? I can’t promise I won’t smack you on reflex if you ever call me ‘Senpai.’ Actually, I can promise that I will.”
“You’re gonna get suspended if you go around punching your kouhais for no reason.”
“I wouldn’t actually punch you. I’d just never talk to you again.”
“Cruel!” The protagonist handed down a surprisingly harsh judgment call. I mean, I guess it has been a trend in recent years to have secretly sadistic protagonists who’re only nice to girls and treat other guys as stepping stools, or worse. I’d never considered the possibility that Kaito might go down that path, and I also didn’t want to...
“Anyway, that’s how it is, Kou. I have an idea, though!”
“An idea?”
“I’m planning a study party at my house tomorrow, and you should come! That way you’ll be able to get nice and ready for the tests.”
“A study party...” I was starting to put the pieces together. Kaito had brought up the possibility of me getting held back, becoming his kouhai, etc. for the sake of bringing the conversation to this point. Crafty of him. In short: he really was worried about me. Man, Kaito’s such a great dude... I’d fall for him in a heartbeat if he were a girl.
“Tsumugi, Kyouka, and Renge-san will all be there, by the way.”
“Hmm, I see, I see...” Yup, nothing but beautiful girls. Saw that coming a mile away. With a lineup like that, he could’ve sold tickets for five-figure prices and still would’ve sold out in a day. “The president’s coming, though? Man, she must be really bored. No way a third-year’s getting much out of a study party full of underclassmen.”
“She’s going out of her way to make time for us, man. Don’t be rude about it. Plus, she was actually pretty enthusiastic. I guess she thinks it’ll be good practice for her entrance exams.”
“’Zat so?” I was already well aware that trying to curb Renge’s whims would be a waste of effort.
Kaito was totally unaware that Renge and I were related, of course, at least as far as I knew. The only people at Oumei High who did know were a few teachers and Kiryu, thanks to Renge herself outing us the other day. If anything, Kaito was probably under the impression that Renge and I hated each other’s guts. He wouldn’t be totally wrong either, in a certain sense.
“Just checking though, Kaito—you realize that you’ve got a full collection of hotties coming to this study group, right? Wouldn’t I just get in the way if I showed up?”
“How could you get in the way? This is all for you—you’d be the leading man!”
“I’m not the leading man type.”
“That’s neither here nor there. Look, the point’s that right now, you’re the one person in my social circle who’s most likely to fail—actually, make that in the whole school!”
“If you could end up with a leading part by being a problem student, the entire student body would cut class every day.”
“If that logic held true, we’d have a lot more people running around committing crimes just for the sake of ending up on the front page of the newspaper.”
I paused. “When’d you get so good at fast-talking?”
“I’ve been hanging out with you for a year, Kou. It was inevitable. Oh, and there’s also this,” he said as he pulled out his smartphone. He grinned as he flashed its screen at me, which displayed an eleven-digit number with “Daimon-sensei” written right above it.
“Dang, you managed to get that stone-cold sorceress’s phone number? Nice going, Kaito! Never thought you’d go for our fair teacher in the end!”
“You’re definitely misinterpreting this in the weirdest way possible.”
“No, it’s fine, dude. I won’t judge! Kasumi-chan’s got a lotta points in her favor! She’s an adult in name, but she’s still in her twenties and a real looker. Plus, adults’re more broad-minded and better at taking care of people! She’s smart, she’s got money... I could go on for days about everything she’s got going for her.”
“Seriously, it’s not like that. I got her phone number for your sake, Kou.”
“For me?” What would I gain from Kaito having our homeroom teacher’s personal phone number? The only thing I could come up with on the spot was ordering pizza in her name to get back at her for all the times she chewed me out.
“I talked with her in advance, and if you try to bail on us tomorrow, I’ll be giving her a call about it.”
“Huh?”
“Then she’ll find you and drag you to my place.”
“She...actually agreed to that? Is that really appropriate teacher behavior?”
“Who knows about the second part, but as far as the first goes, she said she was free this weekend, so sure.” Hearing that she’d be free over the weekend struck me as hopelessly tragic. I’ll have to jot down some info about one of those dating apps that’re all the rage on a worksheet and throw it in her face one of these days.
“All right, fine,” I sighed. “I can’t go stealing one of a twenty-something-year-old’s precious remaining days off, so I give in. I’ll come along willingly.”
“That’s a relief.”
And so, my plans for the next day were established (by way of coercion). Really, though, a student’s job is to study. Plus, having the tests to set my sights on and use as a goal could actually be good for me. The more I focus on that, the less time I’ll have to worry about other stuff.