May 23rd, early morning.
The temperature in Tokyo was still cool and comfortable.
Aoki Kei didn't wake up naturally.
Around 6 AM, he was startled awake by a call—Hiratsuka Shizuka's voice came through his phone like an alarm clock.
On the other end of the line, Hiratsuka-sensei was letting him know to get ready for his entrance exam at Shuchiin Academy today.
Kei hadn't expected her to work this fast.
Barely thirty hours had passed since he made the request, and he was already scheduled to take the test?
He responded with a quick "Got it," asked for the exact time of the exam, thanked her sincerely, and hung up.
There was no point trying to get back to sleep.
After getting up and washing his face, Kei feeling pretty good about life—sent a message to his homeroom teacher at Shirose High to request a day off.
He grabbed a bag of trash on the way out.
As he walked, he couldn't help but smile at the thought of attending Shuchiin—a school with a lineup of elite teachers.
It was a step closer to his dream of getting into the University of Tokyo.
(As a side note: due to all the unexpected chaos over the past two days, his goal of becoming a corrupt politician had been temporarily shelved. He decided he'd revisit that ambition once his life stabilized.)
After tossing out the trash and grabbing a quick rice ball from the convenience store, Kei returned to his apartment to relax until it was time to head out.
Around 8 AM, he finally left for the train station.
The commute to Shuchiin from his current apartment took about 20 minutes by train.
Since he'd agreed to meet Hiratsuka at 8:30, he planned to arrive ten minutes early.
After a bumpy ride, he exited the station and took a few steps along the street until a gently sloping hill came into view.
At the top was the school gate of Shuchiin Academy, flanked by rows of cherry blossom trees.
It was late spring—the last stretch of cherry blossom season.
The breeze carried delicate petals down the hill, blanketing the path in soft pink.
"With a slope this long… the girls studying here must have legs like bodybuilders," Kei thought, admittedly a little maliciously, despite the beautiful scenery.
Reaching the school gate, he checked the time on his phone but didn't proceed any further.
The guard wouldn't allow him in.
No visitors were permitted on campus without a teacher to escort them.
So Kei waited.
Eventually, Hiratsuka appeared from inside the school grounds.
Today, she wasn't wearing the same beige coat from the other day.
Instead, she had on a white coat that reached her knees, a pair of jeans, and a slim-fit blazer underneath.
Her fashion sense… was catastrophic.
Kei twitched slightly but decided it wasn't worth the energy to comment.
Instead, he greeted her.
"Good morning, Hiratsuka-sensei."
"Morning, Aoki-kun," she replied, waving casually. "So? Confident about the test?"
"As long as it doesn't include stuff I've never studied, I should be fine," Kei said.
"Oho, that confident, huh? I like it." As she spoke, Hiratsuka turned toward the guardhouse and signaled to let him through.
Moments later, the electric gate creaked open.
As they walked inside, Hiratsuka added, "The test starts at 10 AM. It'll cover material from the first and second years of high school. That okay?"
"No problem."
"Good. Then until the exam starts, I'll give you a tour. I've got no classes this morning."
Kei blinked, surprised.
He already knew she was the responsible type, but the idea of her personally showing him around still made him feel a bit guilty.
"It's really okay, Hiratsuka-sensei. You don't need to go out of your way. I'm sure you have things to do…"
"I told you, I don't have anything to do. Come on, if I show you around, you'll be less lost later."
Without giving him a chance to argue, she grabbed Kei and started dragging him toward the school building.
To be honest, for a high school teacher, Hiratsuka's physical strength was absurdly high.
The average person couldn't drag another human being by the collar for several hundred meters like that.
When Kei finally managed to wrest himself free from her iron grip barely avoiding strangulation—he bent over, gasping for breath.
Looking up at Hiratsuka's sheepish, "Oops, my bad" expression, he felt a wave of frustration.
Forget Tokyo University, if he ended up in her class, he wasn't sure he'd survive to his third year.
Resigned to the fact that he couldn't beat her in physical strength, he decided the only revenge he could take was through words.
Still panting, he looked up and muttered with narrow eyes, "Hiratsuka-sensei… with that kind of grip… I'm guessing you're still single?"
Thirty years old, never had a boyfriend not hard to guess that this was a sore spot.
But unfortunately, Kei forgot a fundamental rule of life:
Word might be is mighty… but a fist is mightier.
Hiratsuka's brow twitched.
She gave him what she clearly thought was a sweet smile.
"Aoki-kun, what was that you just said?"
…
After being properly "disciplined" by Hiratsuka-sensei, Kei obediently followed her around on a full tour of the school.
At exactly 10 o'clock, she brought him to a classroom that wasn't currently in use.
Two unfamiliar teachers were waiting to supervise, and the entrance exam began.
Just as Kei had expected despite Shirose High School having a questionable reputation being the top student there had more than prepared him for this.
In less than two hours, he had completed the entire exam.
With a simple "We'll contact you later," Hiratsuka sent him off.
On the train ride back to his apartment, Kei held onto the railing as the train bumped along… until a strange melody reached his ears.
He froze.
He'd almost forgotten about the video he had pinned so many hopes on.
Scooting to the side for better signal, he unlocked his phone, opened the Youtube app, and checked his creator dashboard.
The first video on the list was his cover of "Lemon."
Narrowing his eyes to focus on the screen, Kei counted the digits on the view count.
"Ten… hundred… thousand… ten thousand…"
And then—his eyes widened.
"Three hundred twenty thousand?!?!"