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Chapter 1 : She’s Starting to Study – Part 3
It was not okay.
“What the h**l is this…?”
Shoichi looked at the piece of paper that had been torn off and couldn’t stop shaking.
On the whiteboard, there was a list of questions of varying subjects and difficulty levels. It was a list of questions from the competency test that Shoichi had written down from memory. The first thing he did was to test Amiru’s ability and asked her to write her answers on a piece of paper.
“This is even worse than I imagined…”
“Boo.”
“No, you’re not in a position to protest with your cheeks puffed out. What’s with this percentage of correct answers? Even if it’s sudden, it’s not good to get only three correct answers out of thirty.”
“Ahaha, I guess that’s true…”
“Also, the mistakes you made are terrible. It’s not so bad if you misspell a kanji or don’t remember the formula for the area of a figure, but what’s with the answer of “The year of Oda Nobunaga’s death” being “9382?!” You’re living too far into the future, Demon King of the Sixth Heaven” (T/N: The demon king who dwells in the highest or the sixth heaven of the world of desire. Kinda weird, eh? :p)
“Well, I thought something was wrong with that too. But you see, there’s a certain word play.”
“Ah… The one where you memorize the numbers by matching the words. Tell me, what did you memorize?”
“‘When Nobunaga-san died, he wore boxer-pantsu(9382).’” (T/N: Only my guess, but the pronunciation for boxer is close to 9(kyu) and 3(san) and the writing for pantsu looks like 8 and 2.)
“Going by that, it should be “strawberry-pantsu(1582)!” The year of Oda Nobunaga’s death is 1582!” (T/N: Strawberry is ichigo, ichi is 1 and go is 5.)
When he yelled at her, Amiru pouted and then eventually looked at Shoichi mischievously and smiled.
“Ahh, you’re so n*****y, Sho-chan!”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think it’s a good to yell strawberry-pantsu out loud~”
“Wh-What are you talking about, this is, as mentioned, a wordplay…”
“Do you like that kind of thing? Do you like girls who wear that kind of thing?”
“No! Listen to what I’m saying!”
Shoichi held his head in his hands at Amiru’s obviously joking attitude. He wondered if she understood the gravity of the situation. However, Amiru laughed, muttering, “I’m just kidding,” when suddenly, her eyes narrowed.
“But it’s nostalgic to have Sho-chan teach me how to study like this.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yeah, except for studying for the test. Remember when I was in the third grade? You taught me how to do my summer homework when I couldn’t seem to finish it in time.”
“Ah… You looked like you were about to cry.” Shoichi nodded reminiscently.
At that time, Amiru was never as careless as she was now, and did her summer homework diligently, but there was one time when she accidentally forgot a lesson and discovered it on the last day of summer vacation.
When Amiru came to him in tears for help, Shoichi had no choice but to let her copy the whole thing–which was outrageous, so he watched her work on it, sometimes even giving her some guidance, until she finished.
“However, this time it’s on a different level. After all, you might repeat a year.”
“Yeah, I know.” Amiru said leisurely in a voice that sounded like she didn’t fully understand, while looking at Shoichi. “So, Sho-chan, what should I do? How should I study from now on so that I can get a good score on the test?”
“…Hmm…”
Shoichi compared his own test with Amiru’s–unbearable to look at–answers. Fortunately, the three questions that she answered correctly were all in the same subject area. They were all related to plants in science. Then, he would have to put off science and teach her one subject at a time.
If I rush and cram her too much, it will have the opposite effect. I guess I’ll just have to take my time.
Since it would be easy to teach her the formula for finding the area of a figure, he decided to start with math. With this in mind, Shoichi instructed Amiru to open her notebook.
–After tens of minutes.
“…What? How come you can’t solve a single question?” As if taking over for Amiru, Shoichi groaned as he laid face down on the desk.
Amiru felt like crying a little and “Eh…?” could be heard when she looked at her notes. There were corrections in red. They were done by Shoichi.
She may have the formula memorized, however, when he brought her to the problem, she couldn’t keep up with his comprehension. She couldn’t determine where the base of a triangle was, or where to draw an auxiliary line to consider a compound figure. In short, she couldn’t apply the formula.
Shoichi rubbed his temples and then looked at Amiru with a sincere smile. “How did you get into this school?”
“I did my best to study all night with the help of my friends. But after the exam, I forgot all about it.”
“What’s the point of studying then?”
When Amiru stuck her tongue out at him, Shoichi let out a big sigh.
Honestly, he didn’t think it would be this bad. No amount of time would suffice for this.
At that moment, Amiru looked at Shoichi with a slightly mysterious face, which he thought was quite awkward.
“Um, Sho-chan.”
“What?”
“I’ll study hard, so don’t abandon me?”
After saying that, she closed her eyes and hugged his arms tightly. The round and soft feeling was so direct that Shoichi was almost dismayed.
This girl, she’s been too defenseless for a while now!
Her body was so close to his that he could see her b*****s more clearly than before through the gap in her collar. The way they jiggled in sync with Amiru’s movements was strangely graphic.
Frantically gathering his wits, Shoichi answered with a cough. “To be honest, I feel like giving up at this point… But I did promise the teacher. In addition, it seems that I can raise my internal score… It can’t be helped, I’ll look after you.”
“Really? Until the end?”
“Yeah, until the end.”
“Thanks!”
Perhaps finally feeling relieved, Amiru pulled herself away and smiled. It was impressive to see her lips, coated with lip balm, moved as they glistened in the light.
Shoichi felt a rush of exhaustion as he tried to regain his wobbly head.
–But just now, the desperate Amiru seemed a little cute. She smelled good, and her touch was soft and warm.
He realized that such thoughts were stuck in his brain and hurriedly shook his head to get rid of them. He didn’t expect this kind of trouble. Certainly, gals really are terrifying.
I know I said I’d be responsible until the end rather casually, but… Is this really okay? How can I teach every subject to a person who has trouble with applied problems in geometry?
Once again, he was worried.
“Ah…” Amiru mumbled and looked up at the loudspeakers in the classroom.
The music announcing the dismissal from the school began to play. Before they knew it, they had been studying until very late.
“…I can’t believe it’s so late. I have to lock up and give the key back to the teacher.”
“Then are we done for the day? No way…” Amiru made a frustrated face. As expected, it must be frustrating to not be able to solve a single question. “Can’t we do something more? I’ll do my best!”
“No, it’s fine to work hard, and I’d love to respond to that, but… We can’t use the classroom, and the library is about to close. There’s no place to study, you know.”
“Um… Then, what about Sho-chan’s house?”
“What? My house?”
“Yeah. I used to go there all the time. My house is close by, so I think it’s okay if I return home late. It’s a good idea, right?”
“No, you can’t just make decisions like that… There’s the matter of appearance and all that.”
Even though they were former childhood friends, he was still uncomfortable about letting a girl of his age into his house. If any of his classmates saw it, it might cause unwanted misunderstandings.
However, Amiru put her hands on his shoulders and shook them in an affectionate way, saying, “It’s fine, it’s fine, come on.”
In this situation, Shoichi couldn’t strongly refuse. For some reason, he just felt that way.
She wants to study, at least. And that’s what the teacher asked me to help anyway.
He let out a breath in his chest and looked at Amiru, making the strongest face possible.
“Okay. But I’ll send you home as soon as you solve a problem. I don’t think it’s appropriate for a man and a woman to stay so late together.”
“Okay. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Sho-chan’s house, I’ve missed it and I’m looking forward to it! Nee~, do you still have games and stuff?”
“As I said, go home as soon as we finish studying! Don’t check to see if I have any kind of entertaining equipment!”
This girl might stay If I’m not careful. Shoichi murmured in his mind and secretly vowed to get rid of her as soon as they finished their business.