2
Two days later. Wednesday, December 14. Sakuta had class through fourth period, turned down Takumi’s invite to a mixer, and went straight to Fujisawa Station.
But once there, he headed not to his apartment, but the other way—toward the cram school.
He reached it just after five thirty. He put his things away and changed, then moved to the teacher’s room and prepped for class.
He prepared some problems so Kento and Juri could review what they’d learned last time.
For Sara, he found a few problems that were more college-entrance-exam level. He tried to match the difficulty of what could be expected on the Common Test. He was adding a few geared more toward top universities when he felt someone staring at him.
He looked up and found Juri watching him over the counter between the teachers’ area and the free space.
“Um, Azusagawa-sensei,” she said when their eyes met. She’d been reluctant to interrupt his work.
“What’s up, Yoshiwa?”
It wasn’t often she came to him. He got up and came over to the counter.
“Is it possible to shift the date of next Saturday’s class?”
“Sure, but…?”
Did she have other plans?
“I’ve got a beach volleyball tournament. Forgot to mention it earlier, sorry.”
“You play this time of year?”
To Sakuta, the sport was synonymous with midsummer sun. White sand. Tanned skin and colorful swimsuits.
“It was supposed to be in September but got postponed because of a typhoon.”
“All the way to December?”
“It’s in Okinawa.”
“I guess it’s still warm enough down there.”
The photo Shouko had included in a recent letter had suggested everyone was still dressed for summer.
“This late in the year, most of us will be wearing something warmer.”
“You’ve got options there?”
Lots of new info here. He’d assumed you could only play in summer.
“Either way, fine by me. Good luck in the tournament.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“When do you want the lesson?” he asked, looking at the calendar.
“Are you open on the twenty-third?”
“Sure. That’ll work.”
“Good.”
They’d said what needed to be said, and the conversation petered out.
“……”
Juri wasn’t saying anything, but she was decidedly also not going away.
“Anything else?” he prompted. Her shoulders twitched.
“……Um, this is about a friend,” Juri said, her voice very soft, her eyes studying the pattern on the countertop. She didn’t intend to do that and possibly didn’t even realize she was. Her mind was entirely on things unconnected to her vision.
“Uh-huh, a friend.”
“I had a dream where they asked someone out and got rejected.”
“That #dreaming thing’s really going around.”
“Yeah. And…what do you think I should do?”
“We talking about Yamada and Himeji?”
“?!”
She neither confirmed nor denied. It was simply complete and utter surprise. Too shocked to say a word. Her face silently screamed “How?!”
“I mean, Yamada’s pretty obvious.”
“……”
Again, Juri hadn’t said yes or no. She just seemed perplexed, maybe a bit mad. Or perhaps she was just trying to calm herself down.
“But doesn’t that work in your favor?”
“……Absolutely not. I don’t want that awful girl toying with the boy I like.”
Her eyes shook more than her voice did. Both were filled with frustration and anger.
“If it’s getting under your skin that bad, you better make him yours.”
“I can’t,” Juri snapped.
Instant refusal, not even enough of a gap for light to seep in.
“How can I compete with Himeji?” she croaked, so quiet he barely caught it. Her gaze was on the counter again. No, even lower than that. Now it was all the way down at her feet.
He knew Sara was a hit with the boys.
But he didn’t think Juri was lagging as far behind as she thought. At the very least, there was no reason for her to be this pessimistic.
“Don’t be mad at me for suggesting this…”
“……What?”
Her eyes rose a bit, but she already sounded grumpy. It probably wasn’t that she was mad at Sakuta. Just that this unpleasant subject was putting her in a bad mood.
But when Juri’s eyes met his, he caught a hint of expectation. She had wound up latching onto the countertop, eagerly waiting for his next words.
“With Yamada, flash him your tan lines, and you’ll kill him dead.”
“……”
She didn’t respond right away.
Perhaps she hadn’t quite processed what he’d said. Her face never moved. She blinked several times.
At long last, realization dawned, and her gaze shifted right and left.
“……Really?”
He’d half expected her to lash out, but instead he got a very faint request for confirmation. She wasn’t quite looking at him. But the light of hope was definitely brighter.
Maybe this was the wrong advice to give.
“I certainly think so.”
But he couldn’t back off now. He’d meant it, so it was best to stick to his guns.
“……”
Juri went real quiet again. Thinking. Sakuta would have loved to know what she made of his suggestion, but time did not allow for that.
“’Sup!” came the cheery (yet also unmotivated) voice of the subject at hand. Kento. “Oh, Sakuta-sensei, how’s it hanging?”
Juri didn’t turn to look. She kept her back to him, so he couldn’t see her face—which had gone bright red.
“Well, if everyone’s here, let’s start class.”
“Mm? Is Himeji already here?” Kento asked, obliviously putting that name out there.
No wonder Juri’s hands tightened on the strap of her bag.
“Himeji’s getting a different lesson, so I told her come in later.”
“H-huh…,” Kento said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Feigning indifference.
“I’ll be right there, so wait inside.”
“Sakuta-sensei, what’s on the curriculum?”
“Review of last time.”
“I never wanna see another sine or cosine!”
“We’ve got tangents, too.”
“You’re killing me!” Kento wailed, and he trailed off into the cubicle. Juri glared at his back the whole time.
Class began at six and lasted eighty minutes, wrapping up on time at 7:40.
“Good work, Yamada. That’s all for today.”
“Finally! This place’s classes are waaaaay too long.”
They were certainly much longer than high school classes. Likely felt twice as long.
“At college, you’ll get some ninety-minute lectures.”
“I’m definitely not going to college. I’ve made up my mind, right here and now.”
Kento flopped onto the table.
“Oh, right, Yamada.”
“What?”
Kento turned his head so he could see.
“About next Saturday. Mind if we move it to the twenty-third?”
“Mm? Legit? I get next Saturday off?”
“Postponed.”
The actual number of classes was unchanged. But Kento was entirely fixated on the upcoming day off.
“But why?”
“Yoshiwa’s got a match in Okinawa.”
“Oh, the nationals?”
Juri had been putting her pencils away, but Kento swung around to talk to her.
“Yeah.”
“As a first-year? That’s wild!”
“It’s nothing special.”
“It totally is. Good luck!”
“……”
She hadn’t expected that, and she froze for a second, expressionless. Then she let her guard down.
“Thank you,” she said and immediately regretted it, her gaze swimming. Her eyes were practically spinning. Fortunately, Kento was flat out on the desk and couldn’t see this. “Bye,” Juri said, and she left the room alone, not even putting her coat on, just carrying it with her bag. She was literally fleeing.
That left just Sakuta and Kento. He stayed sprawled out on the table, not budging.
“You aren’t leaving, Yamada?”
He was usually the first out the door. Like he couldn’t bear to spend a second longer than he had to here. But not today.
“Uh, Sensei…”
“What?”
“Is Himeji seeing anyone?”
“You’re her classmate. You know more than I do.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem like she is.”
“But?”
“Does she have her heart set on someone?”
“Sounds like a question for her, not me.”
“I’m asking you ’cause I can’t ask her! Will you ask for me?”
“Hell no.”
“Please!”
Head still down, Kento clasped his hands together.
And someone sneaked into the room behind him.
“Oh, was class still in session?”
It was the topic du jour, Sara.
She looked at Kento the petitioner and Sakuta the patron.
“This doesn’t look like class,” she said with a giggle.
“Yamada has a question for you.”
“Hey! Sakuta-sensei!”
Kento bolted upright. He moved so fast he practically flew to his feet.
“What is it, Yamada?”
“N-nothing important.”
“Then just ask. I’m dying to know!”
She turned his own words against him, leaving him nowhere to run.
“Uh, so…I mean, it’s almost Christmas.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Kento had started miles from the field. Did he have a plan to actually reach the goalposts? Didn’t seem likely.
“And there’s tons of new couples at school.”
“Makes you feel left out, huh?”
“Himeji, are you seeing anyone now? Sakuta-sensei and I were wondering.”
A hard left toward the goal line…then he abruptly roped Sakuta in. Sara had been staring fixedly at him the whole time, which explained why he swerved at the last second.
Sakuta wasn’t thrilled that he had been dragged in, but he could tell this had been a solid effort on Kento’s part.
But he’d made one fatal error. Sara had a powerful counter ready.
“Why would you want to know?”
“Huh? Why…?”
Kento had given up on facing her. His feeble gaze was locked on Sakuta now, pleading for a rescue.
Fine, just this once, Sakuta thought.
“If you’re taken, we can’t exactly have classes over Christmas.”
“Pretty sure you’re the one who doesn’t wanna schedule anything then, Teach.”
His plan was simple—make himself the target.
“Yep, vehemently against it.”
“Sensei, which matters more? Us, or your girlfriend?”
“Please. My girlfriend.”
“You don’t have to be so blunt about it! Why are you getting all serious on us?” Sara asked, feigning anger but smiling.
“Exactly, Sensei.”
Making him the bad guy helped Kento make a clean getaway. He was also putting his coat on and getting ready to go. He owed Sakuta big-time for this.
“Then I’m outta here!” he said, and he turned to go.
“Oh, Yamada,” Sara said.
“Mm? What?”
She’d said his name, so he had to turn back. The tension in his body was almost palpable.
“I’m not dating anyone, but I do have my eye on someone.”
“……”
Kento’s jaw dropped. He started to say something, but his mouth just opened and closed, only gurgling noises coming out. No human speech.
“That’s all! Bye!”
Sara gave him a wave, and Kento returned it on pure reflex. He managed a grunt that sort of sounded like it meant something, then drifted away like a dead man walking.
Leaving just Sara and Sakuta behind.
She took a seat as if nothing had happened. Pulled her pen case and notes from her backpack, then looked up to meet his gaze.
“This is your fault for bringing up the subject, Teach.”
“I’m not criticizing.”
“But you are going, ‘She did it again!’”
“I’m impressed. It was undeniably impressive.”
“But you mean that sarcastically.”
“I mean it in all sorts of ways.”
“Then what should I have done? We’re in class. Teach me.”
“Okay, solve these first.”
Sakuta slapped two worksheets on the table.
“First page is at the difficulty of the Common Test. Second is taken from past tests at a notoriously tough school. They’re all quadratic equation.”
“And solving these will help me fall in love like you, Teach?”
“They’ll give me an idea of your current academic level. You’ve got forty minutes.”
He showed Sara the timer and clicked start.
She seemed like she wasn’t done talking, but when she heard the beep, she resigned herself and started working her way through the problems. That was definitely her straight-A student side. The only outward sign of her silent protest was her pursed lips.
While he waited, Sakuta took a look at the same problems. If he couldn’t solve them, he could hardly explain them to her.
First, the Common Test sheet. He managed all three problems without issue.
Next, the old exam questions for the tough college. These were not as easy. When he’d picked them out, he’d seen the model answers and thought he understood, but when he actually tried to come up with a solution on his own, he discovered he didn’t really get it.
That would hardly do, so Sakuta grabbed a study guide. While he was wrestling with the explanations there, time passed—and forty minutes ran out before he’d finished solving it. The timer chirped, and they were done.
Sara let out a little sigh and put her pencil down. Hands on the desk, like she’d just finished a test. She did not look pleased.
“Well?”
“I could only solve the first two.”
There had been five total. Three for the Common Test and two from the tough college.
“That’s plenty good at your stage.”
She was still a first-year. It would be two more years before she’d need to sit the real exam.
He checked her work in the notebook. The two she’d deemed “solved” did indeed show the right answers.
The third problem was one of those trick questions. Sara had fallen for the trap and tried to solve it the wrong way. It looked like she’d figured out something was wrong halfway but didn’t have enough time to figure out the real answer.
“Then let’s start with problem three.”
He wrote the model answer on the whiteboard. As he scrawled the first formula on the board, Sara went, “Oh, you use that one?!”
She’d already realized her mistake.
“Yeah, the function here is unrelated.”
As long as you made the right initial choice, the rest of the calculations were pretty simple. The problem tested your language skills more than your knowledge of math.
The trick was a good one, cleverly disguised as a different type of problem, and Sara’s attempted solution had used the wrong method. Students who’d mastered those strategies were all the more likely to succumb to this quagmire.
“Teach, this problem is just like you.”
“I’m not nearly this devious.”
“I do love that brazen streak.”
“Next problem.”
“Don’t just blow off your student’s confessions!”
“I don’t mind that side of you, Himeji.”
“……”
Sara’s eyes went wide in apparent surprise.
Paying that no heed, he turned around and drew a quadratic function graph on the board.
“But it concerns me if you act that way around anyone else.”
“……What does that mean?”
“Exactly, that’s the whole problem. This simple y = x messes everything up.”
“That’s not what I’m asking about! Explain yourself, Teach!”
Sakuta stopped writing and turned to look at her.
“……”
She was staring up at him.
How should he phrase this?
As she watched him search for the right words, a smile played across her lips.
And behind her—Rio walked past the entrance to the classroom.
“Oh, Futaba! Wait up!”
Rio stopped and came back.
“What?”
“C’mere a sec.”
He beckoned, and she frowned but stepped in.
“Aren’t you teaching?” she asked, glancing at Sara.
“I don’t really get this problem. Bail me out!”
“Some cram school teacher you are.”
“Please!”
He handed the problem over, and Rio ran her eyes over it. She considered it for maybe thirty seconds, then erased everything he’d written on the whiteboard.
Then she redrew the entire graph, explaining what the graph meant and how it represented the function. She didn’t neglect any of the necessary calculations, either.
This was a problem so hard Sakuta had been baffled by it for a solid twenty minutes, and Rio had it handled inside five.
When she was done, the whiteboard was completely covered.
“Did you get that?” Rio asked, popping the cap on the marker.
“Completely,” Sakuta said before Sara could answer.
He’d taken a seat next to her and was listening with rapt attention.
“I wasn’t asking you, Azusagawa.” Her voice curt.
Rio’s eyes were on Sara, who nodded.
“I followed you just fine,” she admitted. “It was very clear.”
“Math isn’t your only good subject, right?” Sakuta asked.
Sara and Rio both looked at him. Half confusion, but the other half was likely suspicion.
“They’re definitely not bad, but…,” Sara said, clearly not following.
“Average grades in first term?”
“Somewhere between an eight and a nine.”
That was even better than he’d imagined. There was a good chance that was her grade for most classes, with the odd seven or ten mixed in. Hard for him to imagine, personally, but Mai’s report cards had been pretty much exactly the same.
“Himeji, if you get a proper teacher instructing you, you’ll likely pass the toughest college exams on the first try.”
Rio saw where he was going with this and shot him a mildly annoyed look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Even you thought Futaba was better at this than I am.”
The harder the problem, the more that trend was evident.
“Having her teach you…”
Before he could finish, Sara blurted, “I’ve got a teacher.” There was a real urgency in her tone.
“……”
She hadn’t raised her voice. But there was a flat rejection there that cut off all further argument. The air in the room turned to ice. Brittle, like it would shatter at a touch. And as the moment lingered, a chilly tension spread.
Rio looked taken aback. Sakuta hid it but was surprised himself. This was the first time Sara had really let her emotions show.
But Sara herself seemed more shocked than anyone.
That she’d spoken on impulse.
That she’d let her emotions control her.
That she’d spoken louder than she meant to—all of that seemed to come as a surprise to her.
“Something going on in here? Everything okay?”
The principal poked his head in. He’d likely been roaming the classrooms, scoping things out.
He looked at Sara’s back first, then gave Sakuta a concerned look. Probably because he knew Sakuta was Sara’s third teacher. And knew what had happened to the previous two.
“Sorry. I didn’t prep properly for this problem and had to ask Futaba to bail me out,” Sakuta explained.
“Yeah?”
Sara nodded at the principal’s response, and once she did, Rio confirmed it.
Then they fell silent again.
This was broken by the timer signaling the end of class. The tone of it was disconcertingly jaunty. But it was more than enough of an excuse to get up.
“Thanks for today,” Sara said, eyes down. She gathered up her things and grabbed her coat. “See you next time,” she added, bowing her head. With that, she left the class.
The principal almost said something but ultimately decided against it. Instead, he turned to Sakuta.
“Everything okay?” he asked again, not being at all specific. It wasn’t hard to tell that he didn’t want to go into specifics.
So Sakuta kept it vague, just saying, “Yeah.” It meant nothing. Merely a ritual to allow them all to go their separate ways.
“Well, good luck,” he said and left the room.
His footsteps faded away.
That left Sakuta and Rio here with this mood.
Rio took a deep breath, then asked, “What was that for?” Her tone was unmistakably interrogative.
“What do you mean?”
“You intentionally pissed her off, right?”
She phrased it as a question but was clearly harboring no doubts.
Since he’d roped her in, he owed her that much explanation.
“Long story short, I’m protecting Mai.”
That was pretty much the only thing on his mind, these days.
“So it’s all connected to those messages somehow? The ones telling you Sakurajima was in danger and to find Touko Kirishima?” Rio asked.
He nodded.
“Futaba, we talked about whether Touko Kirishima herself means Mai harm or whether someone she gave Adolescence Syndrome to will end up posing a threat.”
“And the former isn’t likely, right?”
“Yeah.”
He’d reached that conclusion after talking to Touko.
“So if we focus on the second idea… Azusagawa, you’ve worked out what her Adolescence Syndrome is?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“……Now I’m confused.”
She rarely scrunched her face up to this much.
“I don’t know what the symptoms are, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch on what caused it.”
That should be enough for Rio to connect the dots.
“……Oh, I get it. That’s just like you, Azusagawa. You’re trying to cure her Adolescence Syndrome by solving the problem she has, figuring you don’t need to know what her symptoms actually are.”
“Good plan, right?”
Every case they’d encountered linked directly to matters of the heart. That was the crux of the issue. If his main goal was to cure her, it didn’t actually matter what supernatural stuff was going on with Sara. He just had to fix the real issue. An alternative solution. There was more than one path to the desired outcome.
“But winding up a high school girl like that isn’t very mature of you.”
“She might hold a grudge.”
“You want her to. But…even if that’s what you were aiming for, her response was a bit extreme, right?”
“Oh, that’s on you.”
“Is it?”
“I told you why Himeji got Adolescence Syndrome, right?”
“Someone broke her heart?”
“And that someone was Kasai.”
“……”
Rio’s jaw literally dropped.
“Azusagawa,” she hissed.
“Mm?”
“When you drag me in, tell me the reason first.”
“If I had, would you have helped?”
“In a case like this, absolutely not.”
That’s why he hadn’t told her. Plus, he didn’t actually have a chance to anyway.
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