3

The bell that chimed in the exam building for the Center Test was a few pitches lower than the one at Kashiogawa High.

“Pencils down. We’ll be collecting your answer sheets now.”

The middle-aged woman serving as the exam supervisor looked quickly from side to side behind the teacher’s desk, making sure nobody was cheating.

Mio went the extra mile, putting her pencil down and placing her hands in her lap. The other test-takers around her were sitting up straight, waiting for their multiple-choice answer sheets to be collected.

The classroom they were in was simple and tidy, a complete contrast to the high school rooms Mio was used to. Back in her classroom 3-1, there was a timetable, a list of cleaning duties, a lost-and-found box, and other articles that gave the place a sense of everyday life. Not so in the current classroom. College students could be in any given classroom at any given time, so there was no lingering presence of anybody in the room.

An attendant picked up Mio’s answer sheet as such thoughts were rolling around her head.

“That finishes today’s exam period. Please make sure not to leave anything behind in the room as you go.”

The boy in front of Mio packed his bag and left the room at lightning speed. The test was over, but there was still a palpable tension in the air due to the reality of more exams coming in the next few days.

As everyone filed out of the building, there was no chatter or noise. Nobody was there to meet with other people they knew, after all.

Mio put the cap back on her multiple-choice pencil, sticking it into her pencil case with her eraser. The pencil case went into her school bag next to the question sheets marked with notes.

She powered her phone back on in the hallway, but found no new notifications, likely due to the consideration of her friends and family.

As she stuck her phone back in her pocket, she felt something else graze along her fingers. She grabbed it by the string, pulling it out.

It was the amulet Eita had gifted her.

Mio’s face softened as she looked at it. He had said, “It should be effective,” and he was right. The exam covered all the parts she was best at, and she felt confident in her chances for a high score. Some of the questions were exact replicas of the ones Eita had asked her on the train.

He deserved her thanks.

Plus, there was that question she wanted to ask.

But Mio didn’t want to cause any trouble by standing still in the hallway on her phone while other students were trying to get around, so she headed outside.

The snow had stopped coming down, and the sun was peeking through the clouds. But the midwinter sun wasn’t quite strong enough to melt any of the snow, and the ground under Mio’s feet was still plenty chilly.

The army of students heading back to the train station had stomped down most of the snow, making the trip back much nicer than it had been that morning.

Mio’s breath turned white every time she exhaled. All the brain power she’d used during the exam had her feeling a bit heated, so the cold was rather pleasant.

She arrived at the station, boarding a train that went the other way than she had come in. Train schedules were still a little off-kilter, but as long as she was on a train, she’d get back home eventually.

Several people filed out of every stop on the way, and Mio sat down in a single, empty seat. It was only then that she realized how tired she truly was. Her calves were sore from all the intense hiking through snow, and thinking about her muscle pain brought Eita to mind.

“…”

His face remained in her head as she pulled out her phone.

She still had to thank him.

And then there was her question she wanted to ask.

She opened LINE, tapping on Eita’s profile. But when push came to shove, she had no idea what to say. Before she could finalize a message, the train came to a halt at another stop.

“At least let me carry one.”

“It’s fine.”

Mio looked up at the sound of conversation, finding a boy and a girl in school uniforms getting on the train. They looked young enough to be around middle school age.

The boy was carrying a large, cylindrical bag around 3 feet long, which seemed like a folding case for carrying basketballs or volleyballs. He also had a cooler box slung over his shoulder.

“Then I’ll take a turn when we get off the train,” the girl insisted.

“I said it’s fine. This is nothing.”

The boy looked away grumpily. At first glance, he seemed in a pretty bad mood, but Mio could tell from her perspective that he was just embarrassed.

That face reminded her a lot of someone else, actually.

Of Izumi Eita during their middle school years.

There was this one time in particular after she had joined the student council. Everyone else on the council had club duties as well, and Mio was the only one free, so she would typically take on several smaller tasks. It was never that big of a deal to her.

But Eita didn’t seem to think so. He told her, ”You always get the short end of the stick, Natsume,” while putting on a grumpy expression and looking away.

Mio figured he was saying that since she had to carry boxes stuffed full of student council documents all by himself. But Eita helped her out, and they were done in practically no time at all.

She could hardly see that as drawing the short end of the stick. If anything, that was only true of Eita. He never got any recognition for all the times he helped Mio, and he had nothing to gain by it. He was always there to help. It happened so many more times than just that once.

And he had done it again.

The trains had stopped, and Mio was drowning in anxiety, and there he was. She was terrified that she would fail, and he gave her questions. She couldn’t bring herself to move, and he pulled her by the arm and led her to the exam hall.

That was just how he’d always acted towards her.

She had never paid so much attention to it before, but now she was too old to pretend that she didn’t know what it meant.

Suddenly, her body began prickling and bubbling with warmth. Even her face flared.

Her phone was shut off, and the expression reflected in its screen was one she had never seen on herself before.

She was happy, embarrassed, tickled, and excited. Both elated and perplexed at the same time. But at the very core, she was happy.

But as soon as the realization struck her, the expression in her phone clouded over and became sullen.

If that was all true, then what had she seen?

That moment when she got off the bus the night before… What was happening with Ena hugging Eita’s back?

Mio had told Eita before the exam that there was a question she wanted to ask him. She still wanted to ask him, but part of her didn’t, but part of her wanted to more than ever. Somehow both of those things were true at the same time.

So no matter how much she wanted to operate her phone, her fingers just wouldn’t move the way she wanted them to. She finally managed to type out Thank you for today, but deleted it instead of sending it.

She did that over and over and over again, when suddenly she received her own LINE message.

When she saw who sent it, she had to hold back a shocked gasp. It was from someone very related to her current predicament.

Could I have a moment of your time today?

It was from Komiya Ena.

Mio tilted her head, confused by the overly polite tone. Typically, Ena would just send something like Got a minute, Prez?

It was all too possible that Mio did not want to hear what Ena had to say. But she didn’t want to act like she had to run away from Ena, so she responded, Sure. She mentioned she was taking the train back to Fujisawa, and they both agreed to meet at the ticket gates.

In the 10 minutes it took Mio to travel back to Fujisawa Station, her mind swirled with ideas of what Ena wanted to talk about. She’d find out when she got there, but that didn’t stop her brain from going in circles.

Could it be about the photography club?

Maybe one of those pictures of Eita she had shown earlier?

Maybe she wanted Mio to work with her to convince Eita into entering his photo into the contest?

Or maybe it was this, or perhaps that…

But she ultimately arrived at Fujisawa Station without having come to a satisfying conclusion.

Mio stepped onto the platform, quickly exhaled to gather her courage, and rode the escalator to the second floor where the ticket gates were.

She swiped her card to exit the gates.

It didn’t take long to find Ena waiting outside.

“What did you need all of a sudden?” Mio walked towards Ena, doing all she could to push down her nerves.

Ena was staring straight at Mio.

“…”

“…”

Ena’s expression was very different from usual. It gave Mio something of a premonition of what she was going to say.

“It’s about Izumi-senpai.”

Even when she said his name, all Mio could think was, I knew it.

“Can I ask him out on a date?”

Ena never took her eyes away from Mio’s.

Mio didn’t even have time to think.

The answer was already out of her mouth before she could process the question.

“You can’t.”

End of Chapter 5