"It's a riddle about the Fibonacci Sequence, right?" Amasawa Yuto glanced at it and immediately knew the answer.
The Fibonacci Sequence was the key to the first puzzle in The Da Vinci Code.
"That's right. Since Amasawa-kun is here, I couldn't help wanting to chat with you a little longer." Shiina Hiyori looked happy.
Amasawa Yuto glanced at what she'd written. Her handwriting was very elegant.
The numbers above matched the letters below in pairs. All you had to do was arrange the numbers above into the Fibonacci Sequence:
"11·23·58·13·21·34"
Then the letters below would line up to form:
"Sh Hi"
In other words, Shiina Hiyori, written in Roman letters.
"If the bookmark with my handwriting on it bothers you, you can throw it away. I brought you a blank one, too," Shiina Hiyori said.
"No need. I'll take this one." Amasawa Yuto shook his head and handed back the blank bookmark. "This one is more than enough for me."
"Really?" Shiina Hiyori looked surprised.
"It was a gift from a friend who loves reading as much as I do, and the writing on it makes it a special keepsake," Amasawa Yuto replied.
"I see. That's a little embarrassing. I should've written more slowly and made my handwriting prettier." Shiina Hiyori's gaze wandered. She picked up a book and held it open to cover the lower half of her face, leaving only her lively eyes visible.
"But... I didn't know Amasawa-kun liked reading, too... That makes me... a little happy."
"I'll be coming to the library often. I look forward to seeing you, Shiina."
"I look forward to it, Amasawa-kun."
With just one week left before midterms, there were more students in the library.
Not only Class D, but Class B had also organized a study group.
There were quite a few familiar faces in the library today.
All four classes, A, B, C, and D, were there.
Amasawa Yuto and Sakayanagi Arisu were playing chess by the second-floor window, as usual.
Classes B and D were holding separate study groups.
Class B's study group was organized by Ichinose Honami and Kanzaki Ryuji.
Since joining the Student Council, Ichinose had become much more popular in her class and throughout the year. Whenever she walked down the hall, she ran into someone she knew every few steps, and they would greet her.
Class D's study group was organized by Yosuke Hirata and Kushida Kikyo.
Horikita Suzune and Sudo Ken weren't there, but Kanji Ike and Haruki Yamauchi seemed to have been brought along by Kushida.
Tsubaki Yuki had joined the Dance Club, so she wasn't at the study group either.
Come to think of it, ever since Tsubaki confessed to him, she seemed to be deliberately putting more time into club activities and spending less time alone with Amasawa Yuto.
She had a surprisingly girlish side.
Shiina Hiyori from Class C was quietly reading by herself.
But the library was about to get noisy.
"Well, well, if it isn't the idiots from Class D!" A boy and a girl from Class C barged into Class D's study group. "The super idiots who managed to blow through all one thousand points on the very first day of school and had nine people fail the first exam?"
Like catfish barging into a refrigerated sardine truck, they stirred up the entire study group.
After that, Class D's students found it hard to focus on their studies.
Yosuke Hirata seemed to want to defuse the situation, but his girlfriend, Kei Karuizawa, had already stood up and shot back without holding anything back. "Mind your own business, you muscle-brained idiots!"
Before the situation could spiral further, Shiina Hiyori stepped in front of the two Class C students. "That's enough. Stop it, Komiya and Kinoshita!"
"Shiina?! Tch, what are you doing here?" They clicked their tongues when they saw Shiina there.
It was obvious they'd never been to the library before; they didn't know that was where Shiina Hiyori could usually be found.
Still, they showed no sign of leaving. "Stay out of this. It's Ryuen's order!"
"Ryuen-kun's order?" Hearing Ryuen's name, Shiina wasn't sure what to do.
Her position in the class was unusual. Ryuen let her do as she pleased, but she never got in his way or said anything about his violent methods.
"That's enough, you two. This ends here!" Ichinose Honami finally put an end to the commotion. "You're disturbing the other students. I doubt Ryuen wants to get disciplined by the Student Council, either."
As expected, the moment she brought up the Student Council, the two fell silent. It seemed Ryuen had warned them about that.
But Ichinose knew Ryuen wasn't actually afraid of the Student Council. He simply didn't know what information the Student Council had or what advantages Classes A and B might gain from having members on it, so he hadn't made a move yet.
Once he figured out the limits of the Student Council's power, he'd definitely take action.
Komiya and Kinoshita finally left, grumbling curses as they went. Before leaving, they tossed out one last remark: "You Class D idiots are studying the wrong material, and you don't even realize it."
The Class D students all heard them.
Kushida Kikyo tried to stop them. "Wait, what do you mean we're studying the wrong material?"
"We're following the Student Council's orders and leaving right now~" But Komiya and Kinoshita simply took off.
"Let me take a look," Ichinose said, walking over to the Class D students' table to check their study materials.
Ichinose looked a little troubled. "Um, you really did study the wrong history material. None of this will be on the test... Chabashira-sensei is your homeroom teacher, so why didn't she tell you?"
"Huh? But this is the exam material Chabashira-sensei gave us."
"She told us in class two weeks ago that the material had changed, then gave us the new exam range." Ichinose looked uneasy. "Did she not tell your class? Could she have forgotten?"
It was a devastating blow to the Class D students.
"What? What is Chabashira-sensei doing? I studied all that for nothing!"
"Give me my money back!"
"We only found out because Class C told us! Otherwise, we wouldn't have known until the exam!"
Yosuke Hirata was busy calming everyone down, looking thoroughly exhausted. "Ichinose, could you please tell us what the correct exam range is? And Kushida, we need to let Horikita know, too. She'll probably have to redo her practice test."
That was right. They'd asked Tsubaki Yuki to write the questions, and she had done so, but she hadn't considered the exam range at all. She'd written an incredibly comprehensive test covering everything from the third year of junior high through the third year of high school.
There were so many topics they hadn't even covered that the test was impossible to complete.
Horikita had no choice but to volunteer to take responsibility for writing a new one.
Now that the exam range had changed, she'd have to redo her questions, too.
The next day, everyone went to ask Chabashira-sensei for an explanation, but Chabashira Sae merely replied coldly:
"Oh, right, that did happen. The exam range changed. I forgot. Why didn't you come ask me?"
At that point, there was less than a week left before midterms.
Before you continue