Exam

The hectic days of revision slipped by amid the faint scrape of pen tips against pages.

Even though the study group had moved to Hoshino Kanade's dorm room, the tension and desperation that seemed to fill the air until they were almost tangible remained unmistakable when Hoshino found a spare moment one afternoon to borrow a few psychology books from the library.

There were noticeably more students hurrying through the corridors with heavy books in their arms. The reading room was packed, and even the murmurs of quiet discussion were steeped in an almost tragic seriousness.

Through the glass doors of the reading room, Hoshino's gaze happened to land on the famous "Idiot Trio" from Class D.

Ken Sudō was irritably tugging at his conspicuous red hair as he grimaced at his open English Exercise Book, as if trying to glare the tadpole-like letters right off the page. Beside him, Yamauchi Haruki and Kanji Ike looked like a pair of defeated roosters, slumped over their desk and scowling at their math papers. Yet their pens kept moving, occasionally scratching a few lines onto their scrap paper, silently declaring that they were still struggling with all their might.

Still, Hoshino knew that they seemed to have been struggling in the wrong direction from the very beginning.

A few days before the exams, a disheartening piece of news finally came to light like a belated verdict, under almost absurd circumstances: a Class C student had let it slip by accident while taunting students from Class D during an argument in the library.

The Class D students who heard the rumor finally cornered their homeroom teacher, Chabashira Sae, in the corridor as she was heading back to the staff room.

Their faces held a last trace of hope mixed with deep unease, and their voices trembled faintly. "Teacher... has there... been a change to the exam material?"

Chabashira stopped, folding her arms as she habitually did. Her eyes, always tinged with weariness, swept over the anxious, tense faces before her.

Her tone was as casual as if she were commenting on the unimportant weather outside. "Huh? Oh, that..." She tilted her head slightly, her expression giving no clue whether she had expected this or simply didn't care. "...Oh, right. The Midterm Exam material was changed last Friday. Sorry, I guess I forgot to tell you."

Her voice was utterly calm, as if she were answering the most ordinary question.

Her far-too-casual attitude left the students surrounding her frozen in place, their faces shifting from confusion to pale shock.

Clearly, she had known about this so-called "change" for some time, yet had never once thought to tell her class.

Hoshino Kanade and Kiyona were sitting side by side on a bench in the open-air corridor connecting the two Teaching Buildings.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass canopy, dappling the notebooks spread across their laps.

Kiyona's shoulder rested lightly against Hoshino's arm, the warmth passing through their thin shirts.

The Class D students shuffled past them, looking utterly dejected. Their discussion sounded as wilted as eggplants struck by frost, full of bewilderment and anger at being deceived.

"We only found out now... How are we supposed to catch up...?" "The material changed for all five subjects. What are we going to do...?" No one mentioned—or even thought to look for—past exam papers as a guide to what they should review.

To Hoshino, this was practically common sense when it came to exam preparation. After all, past exam papers often revealed a teacher's preferences and the topics they tended to emphasize.

She knew the school's routine: quizzes, midterms, and finals reused the previous year's exam papers. (They always reused the previous year's papers. She wondered if the exams at this school had stayed the same for ten years.)

Hoshino's fingers absently rubbed the rough edge of the book cover where she held its spine. She felt the faint friction beneath her fingertips, but in the end, she gently pushed the thought aside.

Selling this information? The risk was simply too high. Whether it meant being seen by teachers while approaching upperclassmen or choosing someone in the know to pass the message along, either option was risky.

Worse, no matter how well or poorly Class D did in the end, she would very likely be dragged into the middle of the trouble.

Besides, the Personal Points she could gain from this information were pitifully few compared with the risks she would have to take.

On the invisible scales in her mind, the cost of getting involved and the possible reward were hopelessly out of balance.

It wasn't worth it. Not at all.

Besides, her gaze passed over the shifting crowd and landed once more on the red-haired figure scratching his head in the distance.

Watching Ken Sudō's anxious expression as he nearly went berserk over his English Exercise Book, Hoshino felt a flicker of near-pitying understanding.

She remembered that in another, similar timeline, even when someone practically laid the complete "original exam questions" and answers right in front of Sudō, his appallingly poor English Foundation had been an insurmountable barrier, and he still failed.

Hoshino could hardly understand it. Even if he didn't recognize a single letter, surely he could have memorized the positions of the multiple-choice answers. How could he still have scored that badly...? This level of difficulty was practically inhuman.

Now, even the "original exam questions" that had theoretically been available were out of the picture. In Hoshino's cool assessment, Sudō's chances of passing had dwindled to a guttering candle flame, swaying in the wind and liable to go out at any moment.

She sighed silently to herself, a faint trace of regret passing through her. She hoped that after this inevitable setback, the boy who loved basketball as much as life itself would keep that pure passion burning out in the wide world and eventually achieve his dream.

'Amen.' The silent sigh sent a faint ripple across the lake of her heart, then quickly faded into stillness.

Everything that followed proceeded in orderly fashion, like a meticulously programmed routine.

The day of the Midterm Exam arrived as scheduled.

A solemn silence hung over the Teaching Building, broken only by the proctors' footsteps and the rustle of papers being passed out.

Countless exam papers, laden with anxiety and hope, were handed beneath the fluorescent lights to students whose hands were either tense or steady.

The scratch of pen tips across paper came together to form the most prominent sound in the exam hall: a monotonous yet suspenseful refrain.

Hoshino Kanade sat upright at her desk, her gaze calmly sweeping over the questions on the exam paper.

Her mind worked like a finely calibrated machine. Nothing presented a real challenge, and her broad store of knowledge was more than enough to handle the questions with ease.

Slanting sunlight streamed through the window, casting a neat rectangle across the polished desktop. It quietly bore witness as countless individual lives were traced out in silence over the course of those few brief hours.

The end-of-exam bell rang abruptly, breaking the suspended silence.

A brief burst of commotion swept through the corridors like a tide, then gradually subsided.

With everything settled, life seemed to return to its previous course: desks, books, erasers... Only the yet-to-be-released report cards, carrying judgment and the promise of the future, remained like a weight hanging in the balance, waiting to fall and deliver its verdict.