Chapter 280 has been deleted from the raw source, unfortunately we'll have to skip this chapter.
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Steam swirled between them, the heat thick enough to fog the mind.
Tsushima Kagami's hand was still frozen mid-reach toward the towel.
He could feel Hiratsuka Shizuka's arms wrapped tight around him — so tight his breath came short — but he didn't pull away. The hot water kept running, splashing against the tile floor in a fine spray.
It soaked the skin pressed together between them.
"Do you think I'm weird?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka asked suddenly.
"I always act like I don't care, and then at a time like this…"
She paused, as if trying to find the right words — or maybe not knowing how to go on.
"Never mind. Forget I said anything."
She let go and stepped back.
The instant her warmth left his back, Tsushima Kagami felt an inexplicable chill.
Almost on instinct, he turned and caught her wrist through the mist.
Hiratsuka Shizuka froze for a moment.
Water sprayed between them; her soaked hair clung to her cheeks and shoulders, a few loose strands stuck to the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes were a little red — whether from the steam or something else, he couldn't tell.
"You're the one who seduced me first."
"And now that you've done it, you want to run?"
"What an irresponsible woman!"
Tsushima Kagami said, his tone teasing.
"You…"
"What are you planning to do?"
"Yukinoshita Shizuku did tell me to keep watch and make sure you don't do anything bad."
Hiratsuka Shizuka shrank back a little.
Whatever courage she'd had a moment ago vanished instantly.
"Weren't you the one doing something bad, barging in here and claiming you're Yukinoshita's person?"
A short shriek escaped her.
Tsushima Kagami pulled Hiratsuka Shizuka fully into the bathroom.
Then he shut the bathroom door.
And pulled her tightly into his arms.
Hiratsuka Shizuka looked up at him, her breathing growing quicker. Slowly, Tsushima Kagami lowered his head.
And she slowly closed her eyes.
Their lips met.
The water kept running, steam rising thick.
Nothing was left in the bathroom but the sound of water and their tangled breathing.
Eyes closed, Hiratsuka Shizuka slowly raised her hands and traced them, inch by inch, over his body.
Tsushima Kagami, on pure instinct, began kneading at her gently, like a cat working its paws.
Only when they were both nearly breathless did they finally pull apart.
Hiratsuka Shizuka leaned into his chest, her breath warm against his collarbone.
"This… this means we're not just brothers-in-arms anymore!"
"Then what are we?"
Tsushima Kagami said, smiling at her.
"How could you make a girl say something like that."
Her voice suddenly turned soft and sweet.
"Then how about being my girlfriend?"
"Hmm… seems like you already have quite a few girlfriends."
She said it while making a show of struggling — but the struggle was feeble, halfhearted.
Tsushima Kagami just held her tighter, pinning her in his arms.
He pretended to think it over, then looked at her.
"Guess that's true."
"So, do you mind?"
She didn't answer, just wrapped her arms tightly around him.
She pressed her ear against his chest. After a long while, she finally spoke.
"More than whether I mind, what I care about is…"
"If someone other than Yukinoshita Shizuku got to have you, and I didn't—"
"Why should I be the one holding back, only for some third person to slip in anyway."
"Then all my restraint would've been for nothing."
"I'd go mad with jealousy!"
"So what about you?"
Tsushima Kagami shook his head and laughed. "Me?"
"Just thinking about you marrying some stranger someday because of a political marriage—"
"makes me want to claim you as mine."
"Then… then I won't marry, I won't do any political marriage…"
"If my parents get angry, will you stand in front of me and protect me?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka asked softly.
"I will." "If Shizuka's parents only care about profit and not their daughter's happiness—"
"then I'll become the richest man in all of Japan."
"And make them beg me to let you date me."
"Who… who said I'd date you." Hiratsuka Shizuka gently pushed him away.
He let go too, and looked at her. "So, was this just a one-night thing?"
"Then how about we do it every night instead?"
He reached to pull her back again.
She dodged, laughing, then tilted her head back to look him over. "What a scumbag."
"Same thing Yukinoshita Shizuku said." he replied.
"That's because you spoiled him into it."
"So why didn't you come and claim me sooner?"
"Because I wasn't a thorough enough scumbag yet." "Ahahaha." She laughed, looking at him.
"So this is what they mean by lustful thoughts but no nerve to act on them."
The moment she said it, her face went pale. "?" She suddenly felt something pressing against her lower belly.
"Um… this…" Tsushima Kagami said, laughing.
"Then I guess I'll just have to show you exactly how much nerve I've got."
He pressed her against the bathroom's clear glass door. "Wait… I'm not ready yet…"
"Can we wait a bit…"
Even as she said she wasn't ready, her face had already flushed deep red, and her back arched on its own.
"A little late for that, don't you think!" With that, he gave her a light slap on the backside.
The next morning, Tsushima Kagami woke to his phone alarm.
Seven thirty.
He reached for the phone on the nightstand and silenced the alarm, only then noticing something missing beneath the blanket.
He sat up and looked around the room.
Hiratsuka Shizuka stood by the window, already changed back into yesterday's deep indigo kimono.
The clothes had been dried in the dryer overnight.
She'd put her hair back up, pinned with a plain hairpin.
From the side, the line of her neck looked clean and elegant.
"You're awake?" She turned around, a cup of tea in hand, her expression as calm as if nothing had happened the night before.
Her face gave nothing away.
He didn't say much, just went to wash up and get dressed.
By the time he came out, she was already waiting in the hallway.
Helmet in hand. "Let's go."
They went downstairs to check out.
The old woman at the front desk was the same one from last night; she glanced at them once.
Her gaze flicked between the two of them and the two helmets before she said, flatly, "Do come again."
Outside the inn, the rain had stopped.
The ground was still wet, carrying that crisp chill unique to winter.
Hiratsuka Shizuka swung onto the motorcycle and started the engine; the roar was unusually loud in the quiet morning.
Kagami put on his helmet and climbed onto the back seat.
The bike pulled out of the lot and retraced the road they'd come from.
After about half an hour, they rode into a familiar residential area.
Hiratsuka Shizuka killed the engine outside the Yukinoshita estate. They both pulled off their helmets and looked at the closed black wooden door.
"We're here," she said. "Yeah."
They exchanged a glance, both instantly realizing the same thing.
However they walked in today had to look every bit as natural as how they'd left last night.
Kagami rang the doorbell.
Before long, the door opened from inside.
It was Yukinoshita Shizuku who opened it.
She wore a grayish-blue sweater today, layered under a cream-colored cardigan.
Her hair was down, falling softly over her shoulders.
She looked far more relaxed than yesterday, as though she'd only just gotten up.
Her gaze swept over Kagami first, then to Hiratsuka Shizuka, then back again. "You're back." "Ah, yeah," Kagami answered at once.
"Alright. Have you eaten breakfast?" "Ah, not yet."
Kagami went on.
"I wasn't asking you." Yukinoshita Shizuku shot him a look.
Then she turned to Hiratsuka Shizuka.
"Want to come in and eat with us?" Hiratsuka Shizuka, who'd thought she could keep acting natural, suddenly felt a stab of guilt.
"Ahaha." "I… I think I'll pass."
"I didn't bring my phone last night, my parents must be worried sick." "I should hurry back."
"I already called your parents yesterday and told them you were staying over at my place."
Yukinoshita Shizuku said flatly. "?" Both of them froze.
Finally, Hiratsuka Shizuka swallowed hard.
"Ahaha, I think I'll still pass."
With that, she quickly put her helmet back on and mounted the bike. She glanced back at Kagami with a look that said good luck, it's all on you now, then made her escape in a roar of engine and a puff of exhaust.
By now, Kagami's heart was already pounding with unease. "What are you standing around for? Come in and eat."
"Uh, right." Yukinoshita Shizuku turned and walked toward the inner courtyard.
He hurried after her. "Um…" "Yukinoshita Shizuku."
"That's enough. Don't say anything this early that'll ruin my mood."
She said without turning back.
He shut his mouth. By the time they reached the front of the house—
she finally turned to look at him.
"Once I'm in a better mood, you'd better work hard to win me over." "Yes, ma'am!" Kagami immediately took her arm, fawning.
"Careful now." "Watch the steps." "There's a threshold here, don't trip." Only a fool would just wait for a woman's mood to improve on its own. If you don't work to win her over, how's her mood ever supposed to get better?
"Enough, I'm not blind."
Though she still refused to look at him, her voice had noticeably warmed.
"Yukinoshita Shizuku, next time I'll file a request for approval in advance." "I don't want to hear any such request!"
But her tone had softened just a bit more.
… Mid-February, Tokyo. At Hayase Kinue's home.
Kagami sat on the arm of the sofa, holding five white envelopes he'd just received from the mail carrier.
Printed in red across the front: "National Center for University Entrance Examinations."
"What, scared to look?"
Douraku Utage leaned over from behind him, her tone teasing.
She'd just set a pot of hot tea on the coffee table; the scent of roasted tea drifted from the cups.
Tsukuyomi Komoe was carrying a plate of sliced apples out from the kitchen.
Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko were squeezed together on another sofa, four eyes fixed on the envelopes in his hand.
On the rug in the middle of the living room sat Shimizu Nayotake, Sayuri, Yukinoshita Shizuku, Seika Ijichi, and Hiratsuka Shizuka, all in a row.
The notes and reference books spread out in front of them hadn't been cleared away yet.
Just a moment ago, they'd all been checking the final answer to a practice question together. "Open them," Yukinoshita Shizuku said quietly.
"Right. Whatever the score, we've all done our best."
Sayuri forced a smile, feigning calm.
Seika Ijichi nodded along, but quietly scooted a little closer to Hiratsuka Shizuka, as if looking for support.
Hiratsuka Shizuka slung an arm around her shoulders without ceremony, grinning.
"Just open them already. Worst case, I'll retake the year with everyone." "Don't jinx it!"
Seika Ijichi swatted her hand away, annoyed.
But everyone laughed, even Kagami's mouth curved up.
He took a deep breath and tore open the five envelopes one by one.
Inside each was an A4 sheet folded twice, thick paper covered in dense rows of numbers.
He glanced first at the name and exam number at the top of each — correct.
Then his eyes moved down to the "raw score," "average score," and "deviation value" columns.
He read through one after another, until he'd gone through all five.
"So, how is it?" Tsukuyomi Komoe couldn't help asking, the apple plate still in her hands, forgotten.
Kagami's brow furrowed for a moment, then slowly relaxed.
He turned the score sheets around to face everyone, his voice carrying an unmistakable note of relief.
"The deviation values… they've all cleared the estimated line."
"Especially you, Sayuri — your math raw score came in twelve points higher than your estimate."
Sayuri froze for two seconds, then sprang up off the rug and threw herself at him.
She grabbed onto his arm. "Kagami! I did it!"
"Hey, don't lean on me, you'll spill the tea!"
He scrambled to steady the teacup he'd just picked up, but still freed a hand to ruffle her hair.
Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko had already leaned in to look at the detailed numbers.
Yukinoshita Shizuku took her sheet and studied it closely, falling silent for a moment before letting out a soft breath.
"Deviation value 73… Seika, what about you?"
Seika Ijichi was looking down at the score sheet Kagami had just handed her.
When she looked up, her eyes were a little red, her voice full of disbelief. "Deviation value 63.7…"
Everyone then turned to look at Hiratsuka Shizuka. "Deviation value 71.3."
Of all of them, she was the calmest, leaning against the arm of the sofa with her legs crossed.
But there was an unmistakable pride on her face. "Oh my god!" "7… 78.7?!"
Everyone turned to Sayuri.
She'd already tossed her own score sheet aside.
It read that her deviation value was 69.8.
What she was holding now was Nayotake's score sheet.
Nayotake sat quietly kneeling to one side.
Tsukuyomi Komoe finally set down the apple plate, pressing her hands together, eyes glistening slightly. "Thank goodness… none of these past days were wasted."
Time rewinds to the evening of January 5th. Kagami, Yukinoshita Shizuku, and Hiratsuka Shizuka had returned to Tokyo.
By the time the three of them reached Hayase Kinue's apartment together, the sky had gone fully dark. "Finally here."
Yukinoshita Shizuku rubbed her ears, red from the cold, as Kagami rang the doorbell.
Almost instantly, Tsukuyomi Komoe's lively voice came from inside.
"Coming, coming!" When the door swung open, Komoe saw Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku standing outside. "You're back!"
"Come on in, Kinue made sukiyaki!"
The apartment was livelier than expected.
The roughly sixty-square-meter living room had been rearranged.
The old coffee table had been pushed into a corner, replaced by a large desk made from three folding tables pushed together.
On top, reference books, past exam collections, and notebooks for every subject sat neatly stacked.
On a whiteboard against the wall, someone had written a countdown in marker: "12 days until the joint exam."
Beside it was a little hand-drawn "good luck" symbol, clearly in Hayase Kinue's handwriting.
Hayase Kinue, apron on, popped her head out from the kitchen. "Welcome home." "Go wash your hands, dinner's almost ready."
Douraku Utage found her slippers without a moment's hesitation, while Kagami set their two suitcases against the wall.
His eyes swept over the assigned seats at the desk.
Each chair had a name tag stuck to its back.
By then, Kosaka Akane, Machida Sonoko, Sayuri, Nayotake, and Seika Ijichi had all already arrived.
The joint entrance exam was fast approaching.
So before Kagami had gone back to Chiba, they'd already made plans.
On the fifth, everyone would gather for a training camp at Hayase Kinue's place.
After that, Kagami, Kosaka Akane, Machida Sonoko, Tsukuyomi Komoe, and Douraku Utage would take turns tutoring Yukinoshita Shizuku and the other four.
A final sprint before the exam.
As for Kagami, he'd already passed the University of Tokyo's AO admissions exam back in November.
He no longer needed to sit the joint exam or the individual school exams.
Not having seen each other in a few days—
everyone started chatting the moment they walked in.
It wasn't until Hayase Kinue reminded them dinner was ready
that they finally snapped out of it.
After all, it was the first time so many of them had stayed together under one roof like this.
Even though it was for exam prep, there was still an undeniable buzz of excitement.
Dinner was a feast. The smell of beef sukiyaki filled the whole living room.
After dinner, Douraku Utage gathered everyone in front of the whiteboard.
She wore a dark gray turtleneck sweater, hair tied back loosely, a marker in hand.
For once, she carried herself with the authority of a proper homeroom teacher.
Hayase Kinue leaned back on the sofa sipping tea, with Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko sitting side by side beside her.
Kagami stood to the left of the whiteboard, Komoe to the right.
"Starting tomorrow, until the joint exam is over, here's the daily schedule."
Douraku Utage wrote out the schedule on the board. 7:30 — wake up.
8:00–12:00: Morning self-study (each tackling their weak subjects).
12:00–13:00: Lunch and rest.
13:00–17:00: Group tutoring.
17:00–18:30: Evening break.
18:30–21:30: Mock exams / practice drills.
21:30–22:30: Review and debrief. 23:00: Lights out.
Kagami took the marker and wrote the subject assignments below the schedule.
Math: Kagami + Komoe (Kinue focusing on probability, statistics, and vectors)
English: Douraku Utage (reading and writing) + Kosaka Akane (listening and speaking)
Japanese (modern/classical texts): Machida Sonoko
Science (physics/chemistry/biology): Komoe + Kagami (cross-tutoring)
Social studies/geography and history: Douraku Utage + Kosaka Akane
Beside them, Komoe pulled a few booklets from her bag — Trends in Average Scores for the Common University Entrance Test and the Deviation Value Conversion Handbook — and tapped their covers. "You won't need these until after the joint exam, but it doesn't hurt to look them over now."
Everyone took the materials and started reading them seriously.
Ten at night: washing-up time.
Kagami was the last to finish, and when he came out he found the living room light still on.
Sayuri sat alone at the desk, a physics practice paper spread in front of her, pencil pinched between her fingers, brow furrowed.
"Not sleeping yet?"
He walked over and asked quietly.
She jumped, startled, then relaxed when she saw it was him.
"I can't sleep. This last mechanics problem — I just can't get the answer to come out."
She handed him her scratch paper, covered edge to edge with formulas and substitutions.
He pulled up a chair, glanced over the problem, then pointed at one step.
"Here. Your force analysis is missing the direction of friction."
She leaned in to look, her forehead nearly touching his shoulder.
A few seconds later, she gasped and slapped the desk.
"Oh right! Let me redo it."
She grabbed the eraser and quickly wiped out the mistake, working through it again.
This time her pencil flew far more smoothly, and in under two minutes she had an answer. "Is this it?" She looked up at him, eyes bright.
"That's it." He nodded, then stood and switched off the main light, leaving only the desk lamp burning.
"There'll be plenty of time to study tomorrow." "Can I sleep now?" She closed her workbook, stood up hugging it to her chest, and said quietly.
"Thank you, Kagami."
He smiled and ruffled her hair.
"All right, no more sneaking in last-minute cramming, understand?"
"Get your sleep first." "Then I'll go to bed right now!"
She snapped to attention and gave him a little salute, then headed off to the bedroom Hayase Kinue had set aside for her.
Then, as if remembering something, she added, "Good night." "Good night."
Over the following twenty-some days, the apartment fell into an almost unbroken quiet.
Every morning, before the seven-thirty alarm even went off, the clatter of Hayase Kinue's spatula preparing breakfast could already be heard from the kitchen.
Douraku Utage and Komoe were always the first ones at the desk, sipping black coffee while marking up practice questions.
Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko occasionally argued over how to parse a classical Japanese sentence, and in the end had to ask Kagami for help.
Kagami handled math and science, and every day from two to four in the afternoon was reserved specifically for tutoring Sayuri and Yukinoshita Shizuku.
He noticed Sayuri had good instincts for calculus but tended to get careless in the calculation steps.
Yukinoshita Shizuku was the opposite — meticulous at every step, but she stalled on problems that required a leap of intuition.
So he designed different training plans for each of them.
Seika Ijichi's weakest area was English reading comprehension, especially academic passages packed with long, complex sentences on obscure topics.
As the acting homeroom teacher, Komoe pulled about a dozen "nightmare-tier" passages from past exams and made Seika Ijichi work through one every single day.
Every passage had to be translated sentence by sentence with its structure diagrammed out.
Hiratsuka Shizuka was the classic "lopsided student."
Near-perfect in science, but a disaster in Japanese language and social studies.
After Sonoko took over her classical Japanese tutoring, she nearly worked herself half to death.
The joint exam fell on January 18th and 19th, and Tokyo saw its heaviest snowfall of the winter so far.
The test site was a university in Meguro Ward.
Kagami got up before dawn and found that Hayase Kinue had already warmed up rice balls and miso soup in the kitchen.
Everyone in the living room was bundled in thick coats, clutching clear plastic document folders.
Inside were their exam admission tickets, 2B pencils, erasers…
"Got everything?"
Douraku Utage checked each of them in turn, her voice unusually tense.
Sayuri took a deep breath and pulled her scarf up higher. "All set." "Then let's go."
Normally, the average score for the common test would be released in early February.
Individual scores, however, wouldn't come out until mid-February.
But university applications typically clustered between late January and early February — meaning after the joint exam but before receiving the official score sheet, applicants had to apply using their self-estimated scores.
Once individual results were released in mid-February, the National Center for University Entrance Examinations (DNC) would mail the results directly, with the score sheet showing details like raw score, average score, and deviation value.
After that came the written exams and interviews for each applied school, and only with the results announced in early March would the whole process truly be over.
After the joint exam, Sayuri and the others, with help from Komoe and Douraku Utage, chose their target schools based on their self-estimated scores and deviation values.
As long as the individual school exam dates didn't overlap, they could apply to as many schools as they liked, giving them multiple chances.
Typically, people applied to one dream school plus a few safety schools.
Once everyone had settled on their target schools, they moved on to mock exams tailored to each one.
Kagami and the others had already prepared for this in advance.
In mid-February, the individual score sheets arrived as promised — which brought us to the scene at the beginning.
Next came each of their individual school exams.
The common test had lasted two days.
During those two days, Hayase Kinue's apartment had grown noticeably quieter than usual — quiet enough to feel a bit unsettling.
Without needing to discuss it, none of them asked anything about the exam or brought up how it had gone.
They simply waited by the entrance every day when the exam ended, ready to hand over a cup of hot tea the moment the test-takers came home.
Then they'd chat about trivial, unrelated things as if nothing were on anyone's mind.
Two days later, the joint exam was over.
A few days after that, the major cram schools began releasing their rapid-response answer keys for the exam.
The test-takers started checking their answers against the keys, estimating their scores.
That night, everyone gathered in the living room, each with a stack of scratch paper and a few answer sheets spread out in front of them.
The mood was quieter than anyone had expected before the scoring began.
Yukinoshita Shizuku finished calculating first.
She set down her pen and stared at the number on the page, silent for a few seconds. "How much?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka leaned in to ask. "Deviation value's around 72, I think."
Yukinoshita Shizuku said, her tone uncertain. "I'm not entirely sure, though."
"That's fine, once you've got the estimate don't overthink it," Douraku Utage said, glancing at her.
Deviation value 72. Everyone in the room knew exactly what that number meant.
Yukinoshita Shizuku's target school had always been Keio University's Faculty of Business and Commerce.
That hadn't changed.
In past years, successful applicants to that faculty had deviation values clustered between 67 and 72.
Her estimated score, converted to a deviation value of 72, sat right at the upper end — the safe line.
But her expression gave away neither joy nor disappointment.
She simply recalculated the number once more, confirmed there was no mistake, wrote "72" neatly in her notebook, and closed it.
Next was Shimizu Nayotake.
She worked slowly, checking each answer several times over.
Everyone in the room turned to look at her. "77…" The moment she said the number and set down her pen, the room went instantly silent.
"That's amazing…" Sayuri murmured.
Nayotake tilted her head slightly toward her, the corner of her mouth twitching upward — something like a smile.
Komoe hurried over to her side. "So which school are you aiming for?"
Everyone turned to look at her. Barring any unexpected slip-ups, a score like that was practically the ceiling of the entire Japanese exam system.
Even the University of Tokyo's notoriously difficult School of Medicine would be within reach. "University of Tokyo, School of Medicine."
Nayotake looked around at everyone as she named the choice they'd all seen coming.
Ever since her surgery had succeeded, she'd been firm in her resolve to study medicine.
As long as nothing went wrong at the actual school exam, it was practically hers for the taking.
Around then, Hiratsuka Shizuka's estimated score came in too. "Deviation value 70."
She glanced around at everyone, then back at her own number.
Then she looked at Yukinoshita Shizuku's 72, rubbed her chin, and said with a grin, "Not bad, I guess."
Douraku Utage glanced at her. "That's all the reaction you've got?" "What else should there be?"
She stretched. "70 and 72 — that's the difference of one or two multiple-choice questions on the day. Instead of stressing over that, better to think about how to score ten more points on the school exam."
"Oh right, I applied to the same Keio Business and Commerce as Yukinoshita Shizuku."
Douraku Utage gave her problem student a headache-ridden look but didn't say anything more.
But as she lowered her head, the corner of her mouth twitched upward slightly.
A moment ago she'd been envying Komoe for having a future Todai med student on her hands, unrivaled across the ages.
Now it looked like her own class would have two Keio Business and Commerce students to boast about.
A pair of top prospects — not so different from yours after all~
Seika Ijichi finished last, pausing twice in the middle to wipe her eyes.
"6… 63…" She said the number in a voice full of disbelief.
Thinking back, her deviation value had still been under 50 in her second term.
How far she'd come now was almost frightening.
It wasn't as high as the others' scores.
But she knew this score was already enough to get into some quite decent national universities.
Finally, everyone turned to Sayuri.
She stared at the number under her pen for a moment, then looked up, glancing around the room.
Kosaka Akane was watching her. So was Machida Sonoko.
She scratched her head and asked. "Can I get into Keio with a deviation value of 68?" "Of course you can!" Akane and Sonoko answered without hesitation.
"Though you can forget about the Business and Commerce faculty," Akane said, laughing.
"The Law Faculty, where Sonoko is, would actually be a real possibility."
"The Law Faculty's around 67. 68 isn't a high score, but it clears the line."
Sayuri pressed her lips together, then nodded, as if confirming something to herself. "My choice is decided."
"Then starting tomorrow, we level up the special training!" Komoe said, laughing.
In the days that followed, Kagami, Komoe, and the others entered the final stage of targeted training.
Focusing on the exam styles of Keio, the University of Tokyo, and Tokyo Metropolitan University, they went back through every piece of material they'd compiled before.
Keio's short-essay questions leaned heavily toward analyzing and solving real-world social issues.
Beyond past exam papers, Akane and Sonoko gathered case studies of social hot topics from the last five years.
Every day they set one question, having Sayuri, Yukinoshita Shizuku, and Hiratsuka Shizuka take turns practicing.
After writing, the three of them would grade each other's work, discuss it, and rewrite.
Yukinoshita Shizuku's logic was airtight, Hiratsuka Shizuka's viewpoints were sharp, and Sayuri's phrasing flowed smoothly.
The three completely different styles collided and often produced answers far better than any of them could manage alone.
The University of Tokyo's questions leaned more academic and philosophical.
Through Professor Kosaka's connections, Kagami had also gotten hold of a lot of internal Todai materials not normally circulated outside.
Nayotake rarely spoke while working through problems on her own, but every couple of days Komoe would set aside half a day for one-on-one question-and-answer drills with her.
Komoe would pick a concept or theory at random, and Nayotake had to explain its definition, background, related theories, and her own understanding of it within five minutes.
The training was intense, but the results showed clearly.
In just those few short weeks, her ability to articulate ideas and the depth of her thinking climbed another level.
Tokyo Metropolitan University placed more weight on solid fundamentals and flexible application.
Kagami designed a special "random question, timed answer" training system just for Seika Ijichi.
From morning to night, no matter what she was doing, he might suddenly fire off a question at any moment.
She went from flustered and fumbling at the start to answering fluently without missing a beat — progress so great even she found it hard to believe.
Day by day, time passed this way, in focus and constant busyness.
Pot after pot of coffee was brewed, and pot after pot was drained.
And at last, the day of the individual school exams arrived, right on schedule.
____
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