chapter02 · 053-ep47
Episode 47: The Study Group
I'd decided: no dungeons on weekdays.
Tuesday at home, Wednesday after school in the library, at a desk. In the library, by coincidence, Kuzumi was there, and we studied facing each other in silence.
Silently, steadily.
Though at night, under the covers, the memory of kicking through the air came back, and I fidgeted a little.
Thursday, lunch break.
"Hey — want to do a study group?!"
Yano turned her whole chair toward me, bento still in hand.
"Study group?"
"Yeah! Today after school, everyone!"
Behind her, Nishino and Horiguchi nodded. Matoba, for some reason, was already looking up venues on his phone.
"The family restaurant by the station has a drink bar, and apparently they don't get mad even if you stay four hours!"
"How do you even know that?"
"My big bro always uses it before his university exams!"
Yano leaned in hard.
"So — you're coming too, right, Ichinose-kun?"
"Eh? Me too?"
"Obviously. You're good at math!"
"Good is a stretch..."
"Tuesday — you were solving the blackboard problems like nothing!"
"That's because I'd reviewed the night before..."
"Which is WHY we're telling you to come!"
From the seat behind, Kuzumi murmured:
"...I'm going too."
"Kuzumi-kun's in too. It's settled!"
"I haven't actually answered yet."
Yano decided on her own.
Well. I was going anyway.
After school, the family restaurant by the station.
All six of us squeezed into a six-seat booth.
From the window: Yano, Nishino, Horiguchi. Across from them: me, Kuzumi, Matoba.
Textbooks, notebooks, and printouts spread across the table all at once. Squeezed into the gaps, six drink-bar glasses. Only in front of Matoba, for some reason, sat a huge platter of fries.
"Matoba, is that necessary for a study group?"
"Necessary. Brain needs sugar and salt!"
"Salt, it does not."
"It DOES!"
Yano clapped her hands.
"Okay! Let's begin! If there's something you don't get, we all teach each other! Ready?"
"Okaaay."
"...Yes."
"Yeah, yeah."
And so, the study group began.
The first thirty minutes, everyone was surprisingly serious.
Yano: math. Nishino: English. Horiguchi: modern lit. Me: the rest of English Lesson 3. Kuzumi: math, in silence. Matoba: flipping through a vocab book between fries.
"...Ichinose-kun."
Yano slid her notebook over.
"Here — graph translation. I mixed up the sign on the x again."
"Ah, that. For x: plus moves it left, minus moves it right. It's backwards."
"Why is it BACKWARDS?!"
"Um..."
I drew a graph in the margin of her notes.
"With y = (x − 2)², the inside becomes zero when x = 2, right? So the vertex sits at x = 2. In other words: two to the right. Minus, but rightward."
"...Oh."
"That's the one the teacher flagged in class: 'everyone gets this wrong, guaranteed.'"
"He said it. He said it, but I was asleep!"
"You were asleep?"
"Just a little!"
Yano checked her notes and murmured a small "I see..."
"Ichinose-kun, you're good at teaching."
"Eh, really? Nice."
"Yeah. Like — super easy to follow."
Beside us, Nishino's face popped up.
"Ichinose-kun, I've got an English thing too!"
"My English is shaky too, but... where?"
"Relative pronoun 'that.' What's the difference from 'who' and 'which'?"
"Ah, that one I asked the teacher about!"
I opened my notebook and showed her the examples the teacher had written on scrap paper Tuesday.
"When the antecedent has 'the only' or a superlative, 'that' is the better pick. After a preposition, or after a comma — 'that' doesn't work."
"...Really?! I didn't know that."
"Neither did I, until Tuesday."
"You went and asked the teacher?!"
"Leaving something unknown bugs me."
"So diligent!"
Nishino applauded me. I blushed a little.
About an hour in, Horiguchi slowly folded onto the desk.
"Oi, Horiguchi?"
"...Not sleeping."
"That's a sleeping posture."
"...Modern lit. Don't get it."
Face still on the desk, Horiguchi pushed the textbook toward me.
The test-scope novel. The scene where the protagonist starts to say something to a friend, and ends up saying nothing.
"...Why'd he go quiet?"
"Ah, that part."
Kuzumi raised his head from the side.
"...Page before."
"Eh?"
"...On the page before, the protagonist learns his friend's real feelings. So he knew saying it would hurt him — and stayed quiet."
Kuzumi said it in a murmur — but clearly.
Everyone looked at Kuzumi.
"...Kuzumi-kun, you just talked SO much."
"...Did not."
"You did. Most you've talked all day!"
"...Ichinose explained it to me. In the library yesterday."
"Eh, seriously?!"
Yano looked back and forth between me and Kuzumi.
"You two were going to the library together?"
"We just happened to run into each other."
"...Happened to."
One corner of Kuzumi's mouth lifted, slightly.
Still flat on the desk, Horiguchi murmured, "...Got it. Thanks."
And then he slept.
"Don't sleep!"
Past the two-hour mark, everyone's focus started dying.
Matoba's fries were long gone. He'd tried to order a second platter and been stopped by Yano.
"By the wayyy."
Nishino said it, sipping her drink-bar melon soda.
"Ichinose-kun, you were in dungeons all Golden Week, right? So how can you study?"
"Golden Week's last day, I studied the whole day."
"Just one day?"
"Plus a little every weekday. This week — no dungeons at all."
"Wait, none?!"
Yano stared, astonished.
"Ichinose-kun, NOT going to dungeons?!"
"It's pre-midterms."
"...Is that not too virtuous?"
"Weekends, I still go."
"He still goes!"
"Saturday only. Sunday's for studying."
Matoba said it, staring at his empty platter.
"Ichinose — dungeons or tests. Which one matters more?"
"That's easy. Both."
"Both? Come on."
"Doing either one halfway bugs me."
That was honest.
Dungeons are fun. I'd dive all day if I could.
But fail a test and end up in remedials, and that's diving time lost. And wasting the classes I copy so desperately for, by bombing the test, felt — somehow wrong. Wasteful.
Yano, chin on hand, was watching me steadily.
"...Hey, Ichinose-kun."
"Hm?"
"Your face when you're studying — it's a little like when you talk about dungeons."
"Eh? Is it?"
"Mm. Serious. But kind of having fun."
Yano smiled a little.
"...Somehow, that's not fair."
"How is that not fair?"
In the end, the study group ran four hours.
The last hour was mostly chatter. Golden Week, the trends, Tono-senpai and Akane-senpai. Matoba played my "Torrent of Azure Lightning" again, and the whole table laughed at me.
But by the time we left, everyone's notebooks had genuinely gained pages.
We broke up in front of the restaurant.
"Let's do it again! Next week too!"
"Next week too?"
"Midterms start the week after! Of course we're doing it!"
Waving, Yano headed off toward the station.
Beside me, Kuzumi said, small:
"...That was fun."
"Right? So much fun."
A kind of fun completely unlike a dungeon.
Friday too, I studied from the moment I got home.
By nightfall, this week's review was all done. Every "?" in my notes had its red check.
I closed the notebook and lay down on my bed.
Tomorrow: Saturday.
A dungeon, for the first time in a week.
Toda, Floor 126 to Floor 150.
I opened the Guild's monster encyclopedia on my phone. Pages I'd seen a dozen times, one more pass. Past Floor 126, there's almost nothing listed. What lives on Floor 150 — all it says is "unconfirmed."
"'Unconfirmed,' huh."
My mouth softened on its own.
Which weapon, I wonder.
Call Hati again? Or maybe give Skoll a turn — he might be sulking.
The more I thought, the wider awake I got.
No good.
I can't sleep at all.
A dungeon after a whole week — I was too excited.