Extra chapter: How did you forget that?

Fran’s Point of View

“What the…”

Classes ended a few minutes ago. I usually go immediately to the room I share with Kazu, but today I wanted to eat something before.

On my way, I was able to hear Cloe’s voice coming from a bush close to Kazu who was dancing with puppets.

“C’mon…Someone should ask him…”

Her approaches usually are more direct than this, so if she was hiding this must be something serious or something embarrassing.

I was curious, so I entered the bush.

“Hello.”

“Wah!”

“Why are you surprised?”

“What are you doing in my fake bush?!”

“And why are you hiding in a fake bush?”

“It’s not your problem!”

“All right.”

I thought about accepting her proposal and just leaving the bush, but she immediately backed out and grabbed my arm.

“Wait, you could help me!”

“What…?”

Cloe wasn't my friend, so I wasn't interested in her requests... But she's Kazu's friend, so maybe he'd be happy if we spent time together doing... whatever we're doing now.

“Fine…What do you need?”

“How much do you know about Kazu?”

“Well, he likes salty food, we wear the same size of clothes, he loves music…I should add the things we both know?”

“No need, just tell me, do you know when his birthday is?”

“His birthday?”

That caught my attention. Kazu is very open with us about practically everything, but now that I think about it, he never told me his birthday.

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. This is a little embarrassing, but I also don’t know it.”

“I thought you were his childhood friend.”
“Yes, but every time his birthday came around, it just happened. I only knew it happened because he got new clothes. And it was always several weeks later.

“And you wanna know it?”

“Exactly! This year I'm going to give him such an incredible gift that he'll be grateful to be my friend.”

“You could just…ask him.”

“I can’t. Imagine if suddenly your best friend asks you your name, you would be disappointed.”

“Basically, you feel too embarrassed to do that.”

“Shut up! The point is that you are a recent friend, it will be totally valid if you ask him.”

“...Yeah, that could work.”

“All right. Once he’s done with his performance you will approach and ask him.”

“It’s really simple.”

“Exactly!”

“Well, let’s do this.”

We waited in the fake bush until the show was over. When the little crowd dispersed, I approached Kazu.

“Hello.”

“Oh, hello Fran.”

“I wanted to ask-.”

“I was just about to look for you. Follow me!”

“...Okay.”

We went together to a classroom on the last floor of the academy, and in there, Kazu created some kind of fishing rod with mana.

“Awesome, when did you learn to do that?”

“I learned this yesterday!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was hooked by the idea.”

“...Pff.”

His bad joke made me laugh, and he was happy about that.

“Let’s catch a leaf from that tree! If the fishing rod works I could use it for a great performance!”

“A-All right!”

Kazu tried to catch a leaf three times, but he couldn't. Apparently, he usually fishes with his hands, so using a fishing rod is something new for him.

“Your turn.”

“All right.”

I tried to pick the fishing rod, but it vanished the instant Kazu stopped touching it.

“...”

“Right, it doesn’t have enough mass…”

“At least you can fish.”

“...Stay quiet.”

“Hmm?”

Suddenly, Kazu stood behind me and grabbed my hands.

“W-Wha?!”

“If I keep touching the fishing rod you should be able to use it.”

“Y-Yeah, b-but…”

“Be careful, you’re gonna catch that leaf.”

Totally resigned, I let Kazu control my moves. With his help I was able to pick the fishing rod and together we tried to get a leaf.

“Almost…”

“Now!”

With our determination and teamwork, we managed to get the leaf we wanted. We were both very happy to have achieved it... But I feel like I'm forgetting something.

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks…”

“Let’s do this again once we go back to our room!”

“O-Okay!”

“Well, I need to go for some things, see ya later.”

We both left the classroom and went our separate ways. As I walked, something tugged at me.

“Wah!”

“What the hell was that?!”

“...Oh, right.”

“It was just one question!”

“...It was necessary to bring the fake bush with you?”

“Ugh, we need another way to do this.”

“Like what?”

“If we can’t get the information, we need someone who already knows it.”

“...There’s someone.”

That way, we went with the one who must have information about every single student in this academy.

“So you both want me to use my status and influence to obtain information that both of you could perfectly obtain, and one of you doesn’t obtain it just because you’re embarrassed by it?””

“Yeah.”

“We’re glad that you understand it.”

We were in Leonard’s classroom. Since our fight he stopped coming here frequently, but we knew that he probably would come at some point just to get something he forgot in here. And luckily we were right.

“This is so stupid…”

“C’mon, we need this.”

“We know it’s something easy for you.”

“Look, in normal circumstances I would totally deny this. I can’t just use my influence for this.”

We thought that we lost our only chance to discover Kazu’s birthday…but I paid attention to his words.

“...In normal circumstances?”

“...I’m actually curious about that. I want to know if the date has any relation with his massive mana.”

“So…”

“I will make an exception, just this time.”

That's what we wanted, we'll finally be able to find out!

“Let me see…”

Leonard pulled a large book from under the desk containing information on every student. He flipped through the pages until he found Kazu's.

“Thomas Creiter…Low magic theory grades…Normal class…Huh?”

“What happened?”

“This is weird, I don’t have information about when he was born.”

“Huh?”

“I have everything else…”

“How is that possible?”

We tried to guess what happened and Cloe had an idea.

“Maybe his parents filled that. They didn’t care about him.”

“I see…”

“And that was allowed?”

“Yes, he did the exam.”

“Then we must use our last resort, Leonard will ask him directly.”

“I didn’t ask to join this…”

Our last try to get the date started.

“Thomas!”

“Hmm?”

We were hidden in Cloe's fake bush while Leonard approached Kazu with his usual expression. He needed to act like he was about to make a normal question, that way he would answer.

“C’mon…”

“Shut up, I want to hear.”

“Sorry.”

Now we just needed to wait.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“You see, when is your birthday?”

“You want to give me a gift?”

“I don’t even know what would be something you would like.”

“Maybe new gloves, I pierced the last ones by accident.”

“Well, answer the question.”

“Well…”

He was about to answer, but his expression suddenly changed.

“Wait, if you weren’t planning to do that in the first place, why did you ask that?”

“Huh? Just curiosity.”

“Maybe that it’s true, but you wouldn’t approach me just for that, if you did it was because you already tried to know with other methods but it failed, and if you tried with other methods then it means that you had a reason even before. There’s a possibility that you needed to know the date because you wanted to investigate my amount of mana, but a theory like that isn’t worthy to corroborate like this, so you must be taking advantage by the fact that someone else wanted the information to actually see if your theory was right, and based on that fake bush, that person who asked that is hearing and waiting for the information right now.”

“ARE YOU A DETECTIVE?!”

“Cloe!”

“...Ah.”

It was impossible to hide anymore, so we approached Kazu.

“You both could just ask me that.”

“Cloe was too embarrassed to do it…And I didn’t know how…”

“I was not embarrassed!”

“Haha.”

Kazu found this situation really funny, but for us was more like a torture. Still, we can’t just not get the answer now.

“So…”

“Tell us.”

“I’m also curious.”

“All right all right. My birthday is…”

He paused like he was trying to remember something, and when it ended, we were perplexed.

“When was it?”

“You don’t know it?!”

“I'm not the kind of person who remembers that kind of thing.”

“It's the day you were born! How could you forget that?!”

“I don’t know, I don’t see it as something important.”

“Damn…”

We thought everything was lost, we thought that we were defeated…But Kazu talked again.

“We can send a letter to my parents.”

“...Huh?”

“Yeah, they should know it.”

“But, your birthday was not registered.”

“Hmm? Oh, I was the one who filled that.”

“Why?!”

“I paid for the matriculation so I thought it was logical that I was the one who filled the paperwork.”

“...”

That’s how our unnecessary difficult search was over.

The next day we sent a letter to Kazu’s parents, and we received a response two days after…Now that I think of it, if they gifted clothes to Kazu during his birthday, it was obvious that they knew when it was.