A Quiz Before Midterms

I was bent over, drawing on the scrap paper they'd handed out.

I wonder if you've ever heard of a painting called "Gathering Clouds, Painted Phoenixes."

If you don't know much about art, you probably won't understand what this painting means.

Teacher Hoshinomiya, standing beside me, had been there for quite some time.

Though she was called a teacher, it seemed that even she could only look on in awe when it came to unfamiliar subjects.

"Hajima..."

Even in the exam room, her insatiable curiosity was impossible to miss. Had she already been unable to resist asking me what it meant?

"It's only a quiz, but you still need to take it seriously."

"And..."

After a moment's consideration, she decided not to say the rest.

When she noticed me looking at her, she guiltily averted her eyes.

Hoshinomiya bit her lip, then finally just told me to focus on the questions and walked away.

What a dull, pointless exam.

We'd only been in school for a month. Why were we already having a mock exam?

We'd barely learned anything. Had we covered enough material to fill an entire test?

Chewing on my pen, I eventually pulled the exam paper out from under my scrap paper.

I gave the questions on the first page a quick scan.

They were even more boring than I'd expected.

That was my verdict.

Ichinose had already put down her pen and was checking her answers carefully.

An exam at this level should have been no trouble for her.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, I caught sight of the scrap paper she'd set aside.

After working through a complicated calculation, Ichinose had circled the answer and drawn what looked like a question mark beside it.

It seemed she wasn't entirely certain of her answer. I supposed that was what it meant.

She'd ranked near the top of the class in the entrance exam, and this was only a quiz...

It might have been enough to stump someone like Tetsuya, though.

He'd been working seriously from the start, but he'd only just turned the test over.

"Hamaguchi, please be quiet."

Even Hoshinomiya, invigilating at the front of the room, had been slightly distracted by the sound of him clutching his hair and groaning.

I hastily filled in the multiple-choice answers on the front, then turned the test over.

The questions weren't exactly difficult, but getting a perfect score would take a lot more than just paying attention in class.

Still, for a student who'd been making an effort, scoring around ninety should be perfectly normal.

By the time I put down my pen, the exam was nearly over.

Ryota, sitting in front of me, was hunched over his paper, writing and sketching away. It looked like he was trying to crack a question seemingly designed specifically for top students.

After pondering it for a long while, he finally began to move.

As if he'd had a sudden insight, he started writing on his scrap paper in one smooth flow.

The more he wrote, the faster he went, until even the test paper beneath the scrap paper was starting to slide askew.

Tetsuya first looked up at Hoshinomiya, who was invigilating, and saw that her attention was elsewhere.

He stretched his neck, trying to get a look at the answers on Ryota's test.

I weighed the eraser in my hand, then tossed it at Tetsuya's head.

Tetsuya, who'd been engrossed in trying to peek, was suddenly struck. He sat upright in a panic, staring straight ahead.

But his gaze seemed to meet Hoshinomiya's against his will, and he lowered his head guiltily.

Then, as if remembering that he'd been hit, he rubbed the back of his head where the eraser had landed.

He searched around his seat for a while before finding the culprit.

A little brown eraser.

"Damn, I'm telling you guys..."

"During the quiz just now, I was this close to seeing Ryota's test, but then I got attacked by this thing."

Tetsuya had just turned in his test and was already complaining.

Then he held the eraser up for us to see.

"Serves you right. That's what you get for sneaking a look."

"I paid attention in class, so why do I only have a vague impression of the questions?"

Tetsuya irritably raked his fingers through his hair.

"Ryota, you're so good at studying. Is it because you understand everything as soon as you hear it in class?"

"...I usually don't listen in class."

"Huh?"

Tetsuya repeated the words under his breath, trying to make sense of them.

"I don't get it."

"What don't you get?"

"You don't pay attention in class, but you can still answer all the questions."

Ryota frowned, apparently trying to work out how to explain it to him.

"Perhaps you're placing too much importance on solving problems."

"Solving problems only tests whether you've understood the material. Answering the questions isn't the goal. The real goal is to truly master what you've learned."

"Seisuke..."

"I thought everyone else didn't listen in class because they didn't like studying..."

"I'm sorry. I really deserve to die for thinking that."

"I'll atone with my life right now."

Tetsuya looked ready to die to prove his sincerity, and Ryota couldn't help trying to comfort him.

"Everyone has different strengths..."

Before he could finish, Tetsuya said in a hollow voice,

"My own uselessness is certainly regrettable, but my friend's excellence is even more painful."

"..."

Ryota and I exchanged glances. I responded with silence.

"The greatest sin I committed today was feeling sorry for you..."

"Don't copy my homework anymore."

"Godfather, you can't!"

"Get lost..."

The front of the room descended into another noisy squabble.

Poke...

Suddenly, I felt a fingertip against my back.

"Um... I... Where's my eraser?"

A soft, halting voice spoke up.

Poke, poke...

I turned around, and a slender arm immediately darted back under its owner's desk.

Her gaze, which had been fixed straight ahead, grew evasive when I turned.

"The eraser I lent you during the exam... Have you finished using it? Since school's almost over... so... Of course! If you still need it, you can give it back to me tomorrow..."

At the time, I'd only been thinking of stopping Tetsuya from cheating, so I'd casually used the eraser I had on hand.

I'd completely forgotten that I'd borrowed it after asking around for ages.

I glanced at the two still squabbling, then quietly picked up the eraser they'd left on my desk.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Shiranami Chihiro nodded and put the eraser in her pencil case.

"Well... I'll get going. See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."