Six days had passed since Reona and Riona’s sleepover, and finals week was looming. Final exams kick off Monday and the classroom was tenser than usual.
After our Saturday at Tokyo Inclusion Square, Riona had been tutoring me steadily, and this coming weekend was already scheduled to be more or less full-time tutoring.
Thanks to her, I’d recovered a lot of what I’d missed during the hospital stay. At this rate, I could plausibly dodge the failing grade.
“If you hadn’t been around, Riona, my summer would’ve been gone. Genuinely — thanks.”
“Ryouya-kun praised you, good job.”
“Glad to be useful.”
Riona reacted with a faint, pleased softening of her face. People assume she’s expressionless, but she does in fact have expressions — she’s just less demonstrative than average.
I’d recently started picking up the subtleties. Needless to say, Reona, being her identical twin, could read Riona’s face perfectly.
“Oh — once finals are over, let’s have a celebration.”
“Seconded.”
“Isn’t that jumping the gun a little?”
I tossed it in — Reona and Riona were already in post-exams mode and we hadn’t even started. Reona’s face brightened.
“If something fun is waiting on the other side, doesn’t motivation go up?”
“Okay, fair, that does check out.”
A celebration to look forward to is genuine motivation. Of course, getting a failing grade would torpedo it.
“Settled, then. We’ll talk details later.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
“Fine by me.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Reona nodded happily. We got off our spot on the step and started back toward the classroom.
“I’ll swing by the bathroom and come back.”
“Got it, I’ll head in first.”
“Ryouya, see you in there.”
Truthfully I didn’t need the bathroom, but walking back into the classroom with Reona meant another round of whispered commentary from my classmates.
Well — I’d get whispered about either way. I’d been too visible the past few days regardless.
The more time I spent with Reona and Riona, the more hate I drew. They weren’t doing anything malicious though, so I couldn’t shut them down for it.
If this kept up something was going to give, and I needed to figure out a way to ease it — except no good plan was coming to mind. I returned to class on a delayed timing, and then problem number two appeared.
“My English textbook is… missing.”
Back in my seat, prepping for fifth-period English, I could not find the textbook anywhere.
”…Did I — leave it at home?”
Right. I’d taken it out of my backpack last night to do prep. Apparently I’d forgotten to put it back. Things just got significantly worse.
A loner does not have a friend who’ll lend them a textbook. I’d been extra careful precisely because of that — and apparently I’d finally slipped up. Without a textbook, English class becomes a forty-five-minute exercise in pretending.
“This is bad. What do I…”
I considered fessing up to the teacher, but that hurts your conduct grade. My grade was already taking damage from the hospital stay; I’d rather not pile on. While I was spiraling, Reona came over.
“Hey, Ryouya-kun. You look stressed. What’s up?”
”…I think I left my English textbook at home.”
“Anyone you can borrow from?”
“You think a loner has a friend who’d lend him a textbook?”
It was depressing to say out loud, but it was true.
“Then how about I borrow one from Riona for you? Her class had English this morning too, so she should have hers on her.”
“Wait, really?! I’d really, really appreciate it.”
“Sure, hang tight. I’ll grab it from her class.”
Reona left at a quick pace. In that moment, Reona was a goddess.
Classmates were watching the exchange, of course, and a fraction of them were wearing distinctly displeased expressions. The usual suspects, the ones who hated seeing me and Reona on friendly terms.
At least it was just English. If I’d left my P.E. uniform in fourth, that would’ve been a disaster. Even though Riona and I are roughly the same height, borrowing her gym uniform was a hard no.
The P.E. teacher is the sort who would crucify you publicly for forgetting your uniform. As I was thinking about that, Reona came back with the textbook.
“Sorry to make you wait. Borrowed it from Riona. Just give it back after school.”
“Thank you. Genuinely a lifesaver.”
“It’s fine. Thank Riona later too.”
Reona handed me the textbook with a soft smile and went to her seat. The bell rang for fifth period right after. Riona’s textbook turned out to be color-coded with multiple highlighter pens and was incredibly easy to follow.
If that’s the trick to being number one in the year — well, me doing the same thing wouldn’t get me there, so most of it is just Riona’s actual ability.
———
Thanks to your support, this work hit #9 on the weekly rom-com rankings — but if we’re going for it, I’d love to aim for #1. So as a celebratory push, today’s the third update of the day!
The old version peaked at #2 on the weekly rom-com rankings, so this is a chance to settle a personal score.
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