Early November.
With the turn of the season, a real cold snap has arrived. Students are gradually switching over, and winter uniforms are starting to replace the old ones.
On top of that, you can now spot a few students wearing gloves on their way to school.
"It's chilly~"
"For real I'm wearing tights starting tomorrow"
Classes are over for the day, and after-school hours have begun.
I overhear that kind of light chatter from the girls in the class.
This school's uniform regulations are pretty relaxed, so personal style shows through in what people wear.
Some will opt for tights; others will prioritize looking cute and bare their legs.
"Hey, the study group starts today, right?"
Ibuki, finished packing up to leave, calls out to me.
I try guessing which camp she'll fall into. Somehow, I feel like she'll refuse to cover her skin—not for fashion, but because wearing tights is "too much hassle," the kind of blunt reason a tomboy like her would give.
"…You're thinking something weird, aren't you?"
"Just your imagination."
I brush off the unusually perceptive Ibuki and answer her question.
"The study group begins today. It's scheduled to start at 4:00 p.m. in the classroom. Are you planning to study in your dorm instead?"
"Nah, I'll join since it's right here. If you're the one teaching, I can get answers instantly when I'm stuck. Though if the vibe doesn't suit me, I'm out immediately."
Very much like her.
Ryūen also set up this study environment with a "those who leave won't be chased, those who come won't be turned away" policy, so as long as she delivers results, leaving early won't be a problem.
"With your grades, you'd be fine studying alone. Find whatever environment works best for you and prioritize that."
I say only that and step away from her.
I walk to the front of the teacher's desk and prepare to address the classmates still lingering in the room.
I didn't make any deliberate gesture to draw attention, yet everyone's eyes naturally turn toward me.
"As previously announced in the class chat, starting today we will hold daily study sessions in preparation for final exams. I strongly recommend participation for anyone worried about their academic performance, anyone wanting consistent or higher scores, or anyone who can't focus in their own room.
Sessions are split into two blocks—4:00 to 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.—so please join whichever fits your schedule."
I keep it brief and immediately move to the next step.
I call Ishizaki and Albert over and direct them to rearrange the scattered chairs so pairs can sit side by side.
This is to allow easy conversation between partners.
Communication with one's pair is crucial for this special exam.
Each pair will teach the parts the other doesn't understand. Since Class C pairs high performers with low performers, instruction should flow smoothly.
"Begin as soon as you're ready."
The classmates settle into the moved chairs, making sure their final-exam partners are beside them.
A quick scan reveals a fair number of students I've spoken with before—Ibuki, Ishizaki, Albert, Nishino, Manabe, and others.
For the record, Ryūen has already gone back to the dorms. Participation isn't mandatory, so I won't stop him, though keeping an eye on him would be extra trouble anyway.
"I will serve as both instructor and supervisor. I'll take appropriate measures against anyone slacking off, but I'll properly support those who are serious.
Also, a few ground rules.
First: since the premise is mutual teaching within pairs, a moderate amount of talking is permitted. Please keep it within reason.
Second: eating and drinking are allowed, but please avoid anything with strong odors."
Both are common sense, but clearly stating rules avoids complications later.
After laying out the essentials, I glance at the clock.
"It's 4:00 now, so let's begin. Today, focus primarily on reviewing past material.
You and your partner may freely choose which subject to tackle. If there's a problem neither of you understands at all, call me over."
At my words, the classmates start glancing around nervously.
They're unsure how to study—or perhaps they're checking others to figure out the "correct" attitude to take.
Unlike Ryūen's orders that demanded absolute obedience, my instructions lack rigid detail.
Following them doesn't guarantee success; rather, they're meant to encourage practice in discovering what works.
My goal this time is for each person to develop their own effective study method. Therefore, I can only provide signposts and nothing more.
"…Kamukura-kun."
As pairs gradually settle into studying, one girl approaches me with a timid voice.
She has twintails and slightly upturned eyes, but fear makes her narrow them warily.
"Is there something you don't understand?"
She is Shiho Manabe—a girl who sits near the top of Class C's social hierarchy.
Trend-conscious and knowledgeable about clothing, accessories, and beauty, she invests considerable effort in her appearance.
Yet that effort stops at hobbies. She rarely studies seriously, and her test results usually sit just below average.
"Y-yes… My partner is at club activities, so… um, I don't know how I'm supposed to study…"
The fear makes her words hard to catch, but her distress is genuine.
Indeed, the seat she first chose had no partner. For her to come to me instead of relying on her usual friends shows she's truly cornered.
Expulsion is a wall she cannot afford to hit.
Since this study setup was created with students like her in mind, there is no reason to refuse.
"Understood. Then please take the seat next to Ishizaki."
She nods and moves at once.
I follow and join them.
"Huh? Manabe? Why're you sitting next to me?"
"My instructions. I decided to teach the two of you together."
"Oh, got it."
Teaching one by one would take too much time, so grouping them is more efficient.
With limited hours, we press forward.
"I'll cover all subjects for you, Ishizaki. Manabe, which subjects are your weakest?"
"Um… math and the sciences. And… I don't even know where to start."
Her hesitant manner hasn't changed; she still seems intimidated by me.
"Am I frightening?"
"Eh!? N-no, you're not frightening at all."
Clear agitation. I'd anticipated some fear, but not quite this visibly.
"You can speak normally. I truly don't mind. Wasting energy on needless nervousness is more inefficient."
"I'll… try to think positively."
She stumbles over the words. My attempt at reassurance doesn't seem to have landed.
"We'll review mathematics today. I prepared explanations with Ishizaki in mind, so Manabe, please follow along and review at the same time."
Time is finite; we begin immediately.
The explanations are tailored for someone like Ishizaki who struggles with studying—starting from the absolute fundamentals.
As expected, Ishizaki isn't quick to grasp things.
He can't memorize formulas easily—not because he refuses to try, but because the method is inefficient; even repeated exposure fails to fix them in memory.
Yet his concentration and persistence are admirable. He won't master something on the first explanation, but he highlights the parts I emphasize as important and takes notes for later review. His note-taking technique was poor, so I corrected that as well.
Even when faced with a difficult problem, he groans and clutches his head but never gives up.
If he maintains this attitude, failing grades should not be a concern.
"…Is math really something you can just solve this easily?"
Manabe, having listened to the explanation and moved on to practice problems, sets her pen down with a stunned expression.
All her solved exercises are marked correct in red.
She shows no difficulty whatsoever.
Despite grades low enough to count from the bottom, her raw ability is clearly not lacking.
Judging from her focus while listening and her approach to problems, the issue is simply that she poured too much time into hobbies and secured almost none for studying.
On top of that, her comprehension and logical thinking are respectable.
Unlike Ishizaki, who memorizes formulas by rote, she independently arrives at questions about how a formula was derived or why it solves the problem.
And she voices those questions to me—high-quality ones. When I answer in a way that enables proper application, she shows clear understanding. Surprisingly, with polishing she could shine brightly.
If she gains a teacher she trusts and a real sense of crisis about studying, she is fully capable of producing strong results.
"Kamukura-san, could you explain a problem I don't understand?"
Once I finish with the pair, another classmate calls out.
It's someone I've never spoken to before, but as the instructor I have no reason to refuse.
Building varied connections now may prove useful later.
And it lets me experience something close to "ordinary."
With those calculated thoughts in mind, I approach the conversation.
After that, several more students ask questions in the same manner. I answer each one, moving from seat to seat around the classroom.
Before I know it, two hours have passed, and I announce the end of the session.
...
I was genuinely impressed by how much Class D had grown.
The class was no longer the disorganized mess it had been at the start of the school year, filled with students who had no interest in studying or working together.
They could now face the words "special exam" with serious expressions and a real sense of urgency.
Through two special exams and the sports festival, they had come to understand the true value of points and the importance of grades.
That realization was now clearly reflected in the overall atmosphere.
Of course, not everyone had become an outstanding student.
With the uncontrollable Kōenji leading the pack, there were still plenty of unpredictable elements lurking.
Even so, I concluded that we had finally taken a genuine step toward the once-distant dream of graduating in Class A.
When it was announced that the end-of-December final exams would serve as the next special exam, Class D surprisingly showed no signs of panic.
This special exam—commonly known as the Paper Shuffle—was a difficult one: students formed pairs, and both members could pass only if their combined score cleared a certain threshold.
The preliminary stage, a short test used to determine pairings, had also been cleared without any issues.
Class D had prepared thoroughly under Horikita and Hirata's leadership and had figured out the pairing pattern on their own.
As planned, high scorers were paired with low scorers, and everything proceeded smoothly without any need for my intervention.
There had been some contact with Arisu Sakayanagi from Class A along the way, but Horikita and Hirata handled it, leaving me with nothing to do.
They had truly grown.
And now, we were holding study sessions in preparation for the final exams.
"Sorry to keep you waiting~"
Threatened by Horikita into rounding up the class's troublemakers and studying with them, I had gathered the group at Palette.
The members were Keisei Yukimura, Haruka Hasebe, and Akito Miyake.
All three were classmates with their own distinctive quirks.
It had started because Miyake and Hasebe shared the same weak subjects.
The two of them were paired together for this final exam and would need to cooperate to get through it.
The problem was that their strengths and weaknesses overlapped almost perfectly.
The rules of this exam were harsh: for each subject, if a pair's combined score fell below 60 points, one of them would be expelled.
With the same weak subjects, overcoming those weaknesses wasn't just advisable—it was absolutely necessary if they wanted to avoid a disastrous outcome.
That was why Keisei, who was strong academically, had volunteered to act as their tutor.
I was there as the mediator, dispatched by Horikita to bridge the gap between Keisei and the other two.
"Anyway, let's get started. I put together a short test focusing on the liberal arts questions you both struggle with.
Give it a try."
Keisei handed them his homemade worksheets.
Despite the problems being thrown at them on the spot, Miyake and Hasebe solved them without complaint.
Even if they were eccentric, both clearly understood they were the ones being taught and quietly went along with it.
After about twenty minutes, they finished, and Keisei began grading.
"You two really…"
Keisei let out a half-exasperated sigh as he finished marking and returned the sheets.
Both had the same results: three correct answers, six wrong, and one partial.
Their scores were identical—and astonishingly, every correct and incorrect answer was in exactly the same place.
"It's not just that your strong subjects line up. Even the way you remember things and your tendencies are the same."
"Wow, it's almost like fate, right? Miyacchi~"
In stark contrast to Keisei's exasperation, Hasebe flashed a happy smile at Miyacchi—Miyake.
"I don't feel fate. I feel a crisis."
Miyake shot back lightly, and Hasebe teased him for being no fun.
But inside, he seemed to snap back to reality, realizing just how bad the situation was, and a hint of panic crept in.
"Don't worry. If anything, it's convenient for me—the teaching effort is basically cut in half."
With nearly identical academic ability and tendencies, Keisei was right: the burden would be much lighter.
Effectively, he only had to teach one person instead of two, making the process far smoother.
"I get it~ Oh, can I ask something? I totally understand you're teaching us like this, but… is that really going to be enough?"
"Are you saying there's a problem with my teaching method?"
"Ah, sorry, that came out wrong. Actually, your teaching style is efficient—I like it. But the final exam questions are being made by Class C, right?
Unlike questions from the school's teachers, I'm pretty sure they could throw in some really weird stuff. So how do we prepare for that?"
This final exam was unusual: the questions weren't created by the school but by the students themselves.
Naturally, standard preparation left lingering unease. If they came up with bizarre, out-of-left-field problems, it would be a nightmare.
"I see. That's what you mean.
You're right—since the school isn't making them, we can't know exactly what kind of questions will appear. It's hard to predict tendencies. But it's not completely impossible to get a sense of them."
"How so?"
"The most basic requirement is that whoever makes the questions must be capable of solving them correctly themselves.
In other words, they need a solid academic foundation. Keeping that in mind, people like Ryūen or Ishizaki simply don't have the intellectual baseline to create twisted trick questions.
If someone told you two to make a difficult Japanese language trick question, you couldn't do it, could you?"
When Keisei put it that way, Hasebe and Miyake both nodded in understanding.
For two people who already struggled with Japanese, creating harder questions than they could solve was impossible.
"That means the question creators are inevitably limited to the students who are actually good at studying.
You might not be able to picture it, but in Class C, the ones who fit that description are probably Kamukura and Kaneda. If we can narrow it down to specific individuals like that, we can get a rough idea of the difficulty level we'll face."
"Kaneda-kun… that kinda creepy guy with the glasses?"
"…I'm not sure that's the best way to describe him, but yeah, probably. The top student in Class C is… Kamukura, without question, but Kaneda will definitely be helping. There are eight subjects, after all."
Keisei sounded slightly displeased as he laid out his reasoning.
Given his pride, he probably didn't like acknowledging anyone who might be better at studying than he was.
"I see By the way, I heard Kamukura-kun got perfect scores on every test so far"
With the main topic seemingly wrapped up, Hasebe's focus drifted, and she changed the subject.
"No way that's true."
"Right? But in this school, after every test, they announce everyone's exact scores by subject within their own class, don't they?"
"…And since Class C does the same announcements, the rumor has some credibility?"
"Bingo, Miyacchi! You really get me~"
Miyake let out a heavy sigh, unable to match Hasebe's energy.
Still, he could tell the rumor wasn't entirely baseless.
With scores made public, no one could lie about them.
A perfect score would draw even more attention. If it were fake, someone would have called it out by now.
Realizing that, Miyake muttered bitterly.
"We avoided Classes A and B because of the academic gap, and yet the person making Class C's questions turns out to be the best student in the entire year. Talk about backfiring."
"Not necessarily. Sure, Kamukura probably has the highest academic ability in the grade, but that has nothing to do with Class C's overall low academic level."
"Doesn't it? If the school's top student is teaching them, Class C's scores will go up. That's the most likely and realistic scenario, so of course they'll go that route."
"That's probably true… But being good at studying doesn't automatically mean someone is good at teaching others."
Keisei countered with a grim expression.
As someone who consistently ranked near the top of the year, his competitive streak made it hard for him to accept Kamukura so easily.
But Miyake was right—Class C was almost certainly holding study sessions centered around Kamukura and Kaneda.
And there was no way that monster would fail at something as simple as teaching others.
Even though I wasn't the type to rely on gut feelings, I was certain of it.
"Come on, Keisei-kun, don't get worked up. You're both good at studying—there must be things you can respect about each other, right?"
Hasebe tried to smooth things over, but Keisei didn't bother hiding his irritation as he replied.
"I do respect the fact that he gets perfect scores. But that's it. I've never spoken to him directly, so I don't want to badmouth him, but the rumors about him are awful. And above all, I have no desire to respect someone who's teamed up with Ryūen."
"You're letting your personal feelings show too much But yeah, I kinda agree. Having Ryūen as a close friend doesn't exactly give off good vibes"
"Well, being able to team up with Ryūen is impressive in its own way, but that probably means there's something off about him somewhere."
The three of them exchanged their impressions of Kamukura.
It seemed they all shared the same wariness.
"You feel the same way, right, Ayanokōji?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I haven't exactly heard many good rumors about him."
The question came out of nowhere, so I just went along with it casually.
Personally, I found Kamukura Izuru to be an extremely intriguing individual, but saying that would invite misunderstandings, so I decided to lie.
"That was a pretty vague answer, Ayanokōji-kun. Do you maybe… know Kamukura-kun personally?"
I must have brushed it off too carelessly.
Hasebe watched my reaction with obvious curiosity, waiting for my reply.
"We've spoken a few times, that's all. And the reason I hesitated is because I was lost in thought about the exam. Sorry."
"Oh, I get it~ It's kinda surprising that you've talked to him a few times. What did you talk about? Was he weird?"
"You're being way too direct, Hasebe. …More importantly, what were you thinking about regarding the exam, Ayanokōji?"
I was a beat slow in handling Hasebe's unique way of closing distances, but Miyake stepped in to stop her.
The two of them had similar personalities, but Miyake seemed better at reading the room.
I felt a little bad for Hasebe, but I answered Miyake's question first.
"Obviously the students are the ones creating the questions, but I remembered that the school still has to review and approve them.
We don't know what difficulty level Class C will aim for, but I think the school's review standards are consistent across the board.
So if they submit some borderline-difficult questions in advance, whether they get rejected or accepted, it could give us a gauge of the school's threshold, right?"
Hasebe only half-listened to my explanation and didn't seem to follow, but Yukimura and Miyake both listened with serious expressions.
"That makes sense. If we can figure out the review criteria, we'll know the target we need to reach. We still won't know exactly what questions will appear, but having a clear line of 'study up to this level' would definitely boost motivation.
I think it's a solid idea."
Yukimura spoke up first, looking impressed as he nodded in agreement.
"If we submit a few questions that push the difficulty edge, we can gather data points whether they're rejected or approved.
But are the school's standards really uniform?"
Miyake seemed convinced but also raised a doubt.
And that doubt was valid. There were probably some loose guidelines, but I suspected there was no strictly defined benchmark.
"No, I don't think there's a clear-cut standard. Since the questions are made by students, the final quality is part of what the school evaluates."
There would certainly be limits—cases where the calculations were excessively complex, the numbers in the problems or answers were unreasonably large, and so on—those would likely be rejected.
Since it's a timed test, the school would probably intervene against problems blatantly designed to eat up time.
But creating advanced application problems within the scope that gradually consume time—that should fall under the creators' evaluation.
If there were a rigid standard, it would invalidate brilliantly conceived questions and treat the students who made them as if they'd contributed nothing.
That wouldn't be fair.
"Yeah. There's probably a general baseline, but nothing strictly defined.
If cleverly crafted questions within the designated scope got rejected outright, it would create unfair disparities in the competition."
Yukimura agreed again.
That surprised me a little. I didn't have particularly high test scores, so I'd assumed Yukimura didn't think much of me, but apparently that wasn't the case.
"Not bad. Helping Horikita all the time really does make a difference."
"Yeah. That kind of creative thinking can't be measured by grades alone."
When Miyake mentioned Horikita's name, Yukimura nodded.
So Horikita's unexpected growth was paying off in moments like this, too.
My cover had grown larger—showing a certain level of ability no longer drew suspicion; it even earned recognition.
Blending in more naturally as just another classmate was a positive development.
And that explained why Yukimura's opinion of me wasn't low.
"Ayanokōji-kun, are you actually kind of amazing?"
"That's a misunderstanding. The amazing one is Horikita. I'm just following her instructions to the letter."
"I still think that's pretty impressive. If I didn't like even one little thing about the orders, I probably wouldn't do it."
I'd thought she was half-joking, but knowing Hasebe's laid-back nature, she might actually mean it.
I was starting to get a feel for how her mind worked.
"So, what kind of relationship do you and Horikita-san have, Ayanokōji-kun?"
And just as I thought that, she dropped this line.
Apparently I still had a long way to go before understanding her.
"…Hasebe, read the room. We're in the middle of a study session."
"It's fine, it's fine. It's not like we're losing anything. Besides, I still haven't heard what Kamukura-kun was like from your perspective, Ayanokōji-kun."
Hasebe flashed a cheerful smile as she spoke.
Her quiet voice somehow carried an air of total freedom that was uniquely her own.
We took a short break before resuming the study session.
***
If you want to read up to 25 chapters ahead, don't hesitate to visit our patron: pat reon . com / XElenea (remove space)