Junko Kamizawa had gone to Miss Hiratsuka's office to fish for information. When she returned, she was met with Yumiko's eager, expectant gaze.
She silently shook her head.
Miss Hiratsuka had been tight-lipped, smiling all the while as she chattered about irrelevant things.
Although Miura was so anxious that every second felt like a year, the school bell still rang on time to announce the end of the day.
At times like this, her usual group of friends would push their desks together to eat lunch, but today, the moment the teacher dismissed them, a wave of students rushed downstairs in a clamor.
Yukino was about to head down as well, but Miura immediately called out to stop her.
"Hey, um, the bulletin board's probably too crowded right now. We won't be able to squeeze in anyway. Why don't we wait a bit? Haha…"
Yukino frowned slightly. "We don't need to squeeze in. We can just ask a classmate who made it to the front."
Huh?
"Yukino, do you even have any classmates you talk to like that?"
How rude. That was a personal attack!
Yukino shot Miura a glare. "Didn't you see Ono and Yuigahama rush down the stairs the second class ended?"
Yuigahama Yui, why did you run so fast?!
You usually look like you're in pain just dragging yourself to look at the test rankings!
Damn it, I miscalculated.
Miura had nothing to say in return.
Yukino, watching her friend's conflicted and hesitant expression, suddenly recalled how Miura had given her all the candies that morning and something clicked.
Was Miura... worried about me?
She sighed in quiet exasperation, then took Miura by the hand and headed downstairs. "At least have a little more faith in me."
Being pulled along like that, Miura felt like she was floating on clouds.
Faith? What faith?
Her whole body was heating up, light and weightless, as if her soul were squeezing into her head and about to overflow.
Something inside her chest was swelling, pulsing, surging on the verge of spilling out through her eyes, her ears, her mouth, her nose.
She couldn't think about anything else at all. So scary.
So scary, so scary, so scary, so scary!
This feeling was so intense, it was terrifying.
Yukino, with an unusually obedient Miura in tow, made her way to the bulletin board. As expected, a large crowd had gathered around it.
She couldn't see a thing. From the center of the crowd, she could occasionally hear shouts of surprise "Whoa!" and groans of despair "Ugh…"
At the same time, she noticed that as she walked over, some people were giving her strange looks almost... reverent?
Was it because she was holding Miura's hand?
Yukino quickly let go, belatedly realizing how awkward that might have seemed.
In Japan, even between girls, holding hands was a fairly intimate gesture. Yukino hadn't thought much of it, but Miura might have been startled by the sudden contact.
Thinking that, she glanced sideways only to find Miura still looking dazed.
Just then, the petite and cheerful Onozawa Kei finally pushed her way out of the crowd.
"Yukinoshita-san!"
She shoved past the students and ran straight to Yukino, her face glowing with excitement, eyes practically sparkling.
"Yukinoshita-san, you got second place!!!"
Many of the students who had already been watching their way turned to stare.
Ono was so excited she grabbed Yukino's hand. "You're second in the whole school! That's amazing! How did you do it?!"
Second place?
Even Yukino was a little surprised.
She had thought she wouldn't make it into the top three this time maybe not even the top five if she were being pessimistic.
Ono was babbling like a machine gun. "First place is still Hasegawa, but that guy's a genius who got into Sobu High on a special scholarship. He's on the same level as Shijo Tei and Miyuki Shirogane basically a monster, totally not human. So he doesn't count!"
At Sobu High, academic performance was a very big deal.
She shook Yukino's hand even harder. "So if you round up, that basically makes you the top of the school! That's incredible! Let me soak up some of that genius energy!"
Rounding up the greatest invention in human history.
Yukino remembered: wasn't there a side quest where she had to get first in the whole school?
[System, does rounding up to first place count?]
No response from the system.
Tch.
Rounding up was the most useless invention in the world. No exceptions. Go to hell.
Kamizawa, who had just squeezed her way through the crowd, dragged Ono back with a look of exasperation. Then she noticed Miura standing next to Yukino, still looking totally bewildered.
Useless teammates, all of them.
In moments like this, you could only count on Kamizawa Junko.
She cleared her throat and casually said, "In math, Yukinoshita actually scored two points higher than Hasegawa. So impressive."
She said that mostly as a preemptive strike just in case someone tried to spread rumors that Yukino had cheated.
But it turned out she didn't need to say anything. The students in the crowd were already looking at Yukino with awe in their eyes, like Ono's excitement was contagious.
All those whispers and mockeries from before Yukinoshita is doing practice problems, Yukinoshita is memorizing vocabulary, Yukinoshita is doing mock exams had become undeniable proof that she'd truly been trying.
"She's amazing…"
"I heard she only studied seriously for about a month… Is Yukinoshita a genius?"
"Come to think of it, she hasn't been flirting with that boy lately, has she?"
"She really was serious about this. I remember Kyouko even bet me that Yukinoshita was just pretending. That's so mean."
"Ehh, forgive her. She's just bitter because the guy she likes confessed to Yukinoshita and got rejected~"
"Well duh, Yukinoshita's smart, gorgeous, and super good at volleyball. If I were that guy, I'd choose her too."
…
…
…
Meanwhile, current college student Yukinoshita Haruno had just finished class and checked her phone. When she saw the message, she burst out laughing.
On the chat screen, there was only one newly sent image: a screenshot of the school ranking. Not a single word of text, but Yukino's smugness practically oozed from the picture.
Haruno: You're showing off over this? Your big sister's never dropped from first place since high school, thank you very much~
Yukino: Bold words for someone who couldn't even recognize her own sister (smile.jpg)
Still not letting that go, huh?
Haruno thought for a moment, then typed another message.
[That night, after the party when we were in the car did I say anything weird while I was drunk?]
It took a while for the reply to come, probably because the other side was busy.
[Yep. You said your brain was broken and told me to cut you some slack.]
[Screw off.]
Haruno tucked her phone back into her bag, settled into the back seat of her car, and smiled at the driver.
"Let's go to the office today."
She leaned her head against the car seat, closed her eyes, rubbed her temples, and let out a long breath.
So it really was just a dream that night.
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