I started working through the mini-test Riona had prepared. Reona, apparently, was getting tutored alongside me, and was working through the same problems at my elbow. After an hour the two of us finished and handed our papers back to Riona.
“Ryouya-kun — how do you feel about it?”
“I knew it’d be bad, but yeah, it was bad. How about you, Reona?”
“Anything but English I’m shaky on.”
From the tone of it, Reona — unlike Riona — wasn’t really a strong student, but she was undoubtedly miles ahead of me. A bit later, Riona finished grading and handed our papers back.
“Yeesh — I knew it was gonna be ugly, but it’s ugly ugly…”
The grade was over seventy percent wrong. Frankly, a disaster. As predicted, math and physics were the deepest holes — under ten percent correct.
“I didn’t do as well as I thought I would either.”
”…That is not in the same universe as my paper, you know.”
“Personally, I thought I’d get more of these right.”
A glance at Reona’s paper said she’d nailed roughly eighty percent. I’d been assuming she was much worse, but a score like that puts her firmly in the “decent student” category.
“Out of curiosity — what’d you rank in the midterm a few weeks back?”
“Hmm… I think it was around thirtieth?”
“That’s not ‘shaky’ — that’s good.”
“Compared to Riona, it’s shaky.”
“Compared to the number one in the year everyone is shaky.”
Our year is about three hundred students, so thirtieth is solidly upper-tier. I’d felt like I was being scammed, but applying Riona-standard, “shaky” did technically apply.
“Ryouya’s weak on STEM subjects, so let’s focus there today.”
“Got it. Go easy on me.”
“Same here, please.”
After hearing me and Reona out, Riona pulled the math and physics textbooks out of her bag and started explaining problems. She was patient and meticulous, and her explanations clicked surprisingly well.
◇
“Getting late — let’s call it for today.”
“Already this late?”
“Time flew once we got going.”
At Riona’s word, Reona and I finally registered how much time had passed. Probably because we’d actually been concentrating.
“It’s getting dark out — let me walk you home.”
“That’s not something I’d have pegged Ryouya as doing, but, oh — proper manners.”
“Wait — are you planning to take me and Riona somewhere and do something dirty?”
“Hey. Don’t unilaterally cast me as the villain in this scenario.”
I shot the smirking Reona a flat look. Needless to say, a coward like me cannot lay a finger on a girl. As we were walking out of the room and toward the entryway like that, Mio called out to us, apron on.
“Reona-senpai, Riona-senpai — if you’re not opposed, would you like to have dinner with us?”
“Oh — are you sure?”
“Yes. We always make extra.”
“Then we’ll gratefully take you up on it.”
We moved into the dining room as a four-person party, and a really good smell of curry hit us. For the record, in our household both my parents work, so Mio handles all cooking-related duties and I handle most of the rest of the housework. Hence why neither of us is in any club.
“Curry rice tonight, huh?”
“Mm-hmm. I was going to make cream stew, but we were out of roux, so it became curry.”
“Smells fantastic.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Mio and I worked together to plate the curry and prep a small side salad. Reona and Riona tried to pitch in, but they were guests, so we made them sit.
“Mom isn’t home yet?”
“No, probably soon. Let’s start anyway.”
“When Ryouya-kun’s mom gets in, we should introduce ourselves properly.”
“Last time we couldn’t really talk. I’d like to chat with Ryouya’s mom properly today.”
Right — they’d said they’d asked my family which hospital I was at. They probably talked to my mom then. We finished plating, sat down, and started.
“They were in your room alone with you, Onii-chan. Did you do anything weird to Reona-senpai or Riona-senpai?”
“Sadly, Ryouya-kun did absolutely nothing.”
“Didn’t lay a finger.”
“Well, Onii-chan’s always been a wet blanket.”
”…I do not understand on what grounds I am being criticized for this.”
If anything, I felt I deserved praise for not laying hands on two beautiful girls. The four of us went on chattering happily — and then there was a sound from the entryway. Mom, getting home from work, by the sound of it.
“I’m home — oh? You two are—”
“I’m Tsurugi Reona, the one whose life Ryouya-kun saved, and this is Riona. Thank you again for everything that day.”
“We came today to thank Ryouya for what he did.”
“Oh my, I see.”
Reona and Riona started chatting with my mom. After a few minutes of conversation, the two of them had completely won her over.
As befits girls who sit on top of the school caste, they were very good at endearing themselves. As a loner, I had to admit I had a thing or two to learn from this.
“It’d be wonderful if Reona-chan or Riona-chan ended up as Ryouya’s wife.”
“Mom, sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. Onii-chan is on a totally different level from Reona-senpai and Riona-senpai. There is no universe in which he’s in their league.”
“Hey. Could you stop forcing me to look reality in the eye. It’s very sad.”
“But it’s the truth.”
After about an hour of family chaos, Reona and Riona finally went to leave for real. Letting them walk home alone at night was out of the question, of course, so I went with them.
“Today was fun.”
“I’m exhausted because of everything that happened, but yeah, weirdly, it was fun.”
“Study session tomorrow too, Ryouya, Nee-chan.”
“Got it.”
“Mm. Let’s keep at it.”
And with that, day one of being out of the hospital came to its end.