The school day after the sports festival.
Early that morning, the results of the (second) nationwide mock exam held during the summer holidays were returned.
The students’ reactions after receiving their results… could best be described as utter chaos.
Very few looked happy.
Yuzuru’s school was, at least nominally, considered a “university-prep” school.
As such, most of the students gathered there had been fairly capable, model students back in middle school…
But the difficulty of studies in high school was on another level entirely.
On top of that, the school rules were extremely lax, and they were given hardly any assignments.
The summer holiday homework, for instance, felt like less than a tenth of what he’d had in middle school.
In short—
Those who slacked off, really slacked off.
Combined with the larger pool of examinees in the mock exam, it seemed most students ended up with worse results than they had expected.
As for Yuzuru himself—
(…Not bad, I suppose.)
He wasn’t particularly diligent, but he did put a reasonable amount of effort into his studies.
At the very least, he made sure he could keep up with lessons.
It wasn’t the best result, but it was solid enough.
Then again… how had Arisa done?
Yuzuru glanced back slightly to check her expression.
She had already finished looking over her results, folded the sheet, and tucked it into her file.
Her face was as composed as ever—cool and expressionless.
Around her, people were whispering things like, “Yukishiro-san looks unfazed,” and “She must have done well.”
But—
(She’s probably disappointed.)
Tomorrow was Saturday.
He decided he’d try to cheer her up a bit.
After school that day.
Just as Yuzuru was about to head home, someone suddenly slammed into him from behind.
When he turned around—
There stood a childhood friend, looking incredibly pleased.
“Hey, Yuzurun. How’d the mock exam go?”
A beautiful girl with semi-long black hair beamed at him.
It was Tachibana Ayaka.
Her slightly reddish amber eyes sparkled brightly.
“Is there any reason I have to tell you?”
“Don’t be so cold. We’re childhood friends, right? Besides, is there any reason you can’t tell me?”
“Well, no.”
It wasn’t something worth hiding.
Yuzuru took the file out of his bag.
Ayaka’s eyes widened.
“Yuzurun actually filed his exam results!? It’s going to rain tomorrow.”
“That’s rather rude.”
That said, he had been pretty careless with things back in middle school, so her surprise wasn’t entirely unjustified.
In the first place, the reason he started organising his mock exam results into a file was because he’d heard that Arisa did the same.
It might be a bit of effort now, but it’ll make things easier later, you know?
She’d told him that, so he decided to give it a try.
“Wow, as expected of you, Yuzurun. You really shine in these external mock exams.”
She let out a small impressed remark.
“Oh, second place. School ranking.”
“Seems so.”
“You don’t sound very happy.”
“School rankings don’t really mean much, do they?”
University entrance exams were fought on a national level.
Of course, it was better to rank highly within the school—but there was no point getting too excited over it.
Besides—
He was still losing to the girl in front of him.
“As for me…”
“First place, right?”
When Yuzuru said that, Ayaka narrowed her eyes.
“You figured that out quickly.”
“You’re strong in external exams. More to the point, there’s no way you’d score lower than me.”
Yuzuru had a certain level of trust in the sheer quality of Tachibana Ayaka’s brain.
She was exceptionally intelligent.
In his entire life, he had never once beaten her in anything related to academics.
“Aha, well… I’m just good with this kind of ‘paper’, you know?”
Despite downplaying it like that, she proudly showed him her results.
“…As expected.”
He couldn’t help but mutter.
Out of the three subjects, there was only one where Yuzuru had beaten her.
“But still, it’s frustrating. I lost to you in English.”
“If I lost to ‘Tachibana’ in every subject, I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up as a ‘Takasegawa’. …You could stand to go easy on me a bit, you know?”
He wished she’d consider how it felt having to report back home, I lost to Tachibana again.
While there wasn’t any open hostility, the Takasegawa family did have a subtle sense of rivalry with the Tachibana family.
“I can’t go easy. I want to tell my uncle I beat ‘Takasegawa’ again.”
Ayaka had lost her parents.
Her guardian was her paternal uncle.
In that sense, her situation was a bit similar to Arisa’s.
Though unlike Arisa, she had a very good relationship with her guardian.
“Well, still, Yuzurun. It’s just ‘paper’, after all.”
Ayaka lightly patted his shoulder.
The composure of a victor.
“Someday, I’d like to be the one saying that to you, Ayaka-chan.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to seriously try and beat her for once.
Yuzuru found himself thinking that.
That evening.
A package arrived from his family home—something unusual.
It was marked keep refrigerated.
Apparently, it was food.
When he opened the cardboard box, there was a styrofoam container inside, along with a letter.
The letter contained a short message—
We got this from an acquaintance, so here’s some to share. Have Arisa-chan cook it for you.
It seemed to be from his mother.
When he opened the styrofoam container—
“Mm…”
A powerful smell hit his nose.
The source of the smell was—
“I see. When there’s this many, it really does stink.”
A large quantity of matsutake mushrooms.
