The Worm Turns

Instead of opening with throwing recent material back at me, Kisaki tried to plan out how to approach our session today. It was already apparent she was trying to amend her behavior from last time right from the beginning. Both of us were trying to see yesterday’s mishap as a step forward in understanding each other- for the time being.

“Once again, considering your grades, I think it’s best if we allocate most of our time today covering math. You seemingly do fine in your language and history courses, but in terms of sciences and mathematics, you are far behind the majority of your peers. Don’t take it personally, but your scores in math are especially abysmal- which is why we should tackle that above all else.”

“It’s fine, I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready for some form of criticism or lecturing. Regardless, I have no complaints with your plan. I presume we’ll do a refresher on chemistry afterwards?”

“Ideally. I hope we’ll have time for it. Actually, I think we can completely leave language and history alone. In the end it would be more productive to use that time for math and science, in my opinion.”

“I don’t have much else to say, I’m good to go.”

Kisaki didn’t reply verbally, opting to simply begin our tutelary lesson. I heard a lot less annoyance in her voice compared to her usual tone with me, likely a result of us being on the same page for once. It was pleasant to listen to for a change.

Doing more math work was just as grueling as I expected it to be. I have a very bad memory when it comes to memorizing math formulas- when they don’t pertain to role-playing games or similar; but even then I still have difficulty. Kisaki’s explanations and walkthroughs were much more effective this time around, but I still found myself hitting walls over and over again. I managed to overcome them, but the progress was slow.

Kisaki somehow hadn’t gotten frustrated this entire time, which amazed me. I expected her to lash out at me out of frustration. The fact she didn’t get distracted resulted in us making a surprising amount of improvement over the short time we had together. In an hour we managed to review almost all the material from this semester, and filled in gaps from past years I needed currently. We only had a month of material to review, but this one-hour session proved more efficient compared to the dozens of hours sitting in class.

“It’s already been an hour, Takamiya. I’m actually shocked how much better I understand the current unit we’re on... You’re a great teacher, honestly. Thanks for everything today.”

I forgot about the original reason that brought me here, being lost in study. She somehow managed to get me motivated to understand what the system was teaching us... I really had nothing to say but honest praise. She really showed immense dedication despite her initial reservations towards me.

I think I was smiling. I felt genuine accomplishment. I was about to thank Kisaki again- but when I saw her flushed expression, I couldn’t help but play with her a bit.

“You surprised me with how well you can work with others when you let go of that uptight act, Takamiya. If you loosen up more, I might even fall for you, you know.”

“You-”

“Sorry. Kidding. I’m messing with you. I’m seriously thankful for the patience you showed with me today. I don’t know if you were just holding it in the entire time, but I don’t want to make you deal with me and my idiocy, now that I’ve seen this side of you. I don’t exactly want to suck up all your time, and all.”

“...We didn’t cover chemistry, though. I need to keep watching over you to make sure you don’t lose the momentum we just built up. This is just the beginning- there’s a lot more I have to elucidate for you. Let’s spend thirty more minutes reevaluating your scientific knowledge, shall we?”

“You and your fancy words... Alright, alright. I already set aside my afternoon for this, so it wouldn’t hurt to stay a bit longer.”

~

Our review of the chemistry work from the semester went much faster. We didn’t cover the same ground in the time we had, despite the smoother process. After the time finished up, she managed to convince me to meet with her again on Friday. She smiled, from what I assumed was the same sense of accomplishment in overcoming a recurring hurdle. We both said our last pieces and left in good spirits, in contrast to every other meeting we’ve had over the last two years.

It felt weird not having something to rant about regarding her, for once.

I was changing my shoes by the entrance when I was approached by some blonde-haired kid.

“You’re from Takamiya Kisaki’s class, right? Have you heard from her at all? She was supposed to meet with me and I couldn't find her anywhere... she’s always prompt with these things or contacts me if something pops up, so I’m worried something happened.”

“Oh, uh... I was just with her.”

“Wait a second... Glasses, green eyes, purple highlight... You’re that boy she’s always ranting about, aren’t you? Why were you two together? Were you trying to corrupt her? What are you planning? She would never-”

He continued to assail me with questions, until I began to zone out. After he asked two or three questions, his words started to blur together with how redundant they were. What was clear was the fact this guy totally idolized Kisaki. What a weirdo.

I just ignored him. He was so absorbed in his own world that he didn’t even realize I wasn’t listening to him until I had already finished getting my stuff together and began walking to the door.

“Hey! Where are you going! Get back here and explain what you did to Takamiya! I’m part of the student council too- I can repo-”

“Cool. Go do that, man. I don’t care.”

I didn’t bother turning back to see his expression or response. I just wanted to get away from this guy. He likely shouted more at me, but I once again began to tune out as I picked up my pace. He didn’t follow me for what it was worth.

By the time I was a fair distance from the school grounds, I found a vending machine and bought another drink. I sat down under the evening sun and glanced over my phone as I opened my bottle of juice. ...It’d been a few hours since I could check my messages with my attention being focused on Kisaki.

I had more notifications than usual, but nothing alarming. I first noticed a message from Mayu inquiring about the study session today, as expected. I decided to put that on the backburner until later, and that I’d call her instead. Figured it would be best to have a more vocal discussion.

Everything else ended up being the usual things I got during the day, but I also got a handful of messages from Fuyu that I missed.

[Yuuto, do you wanna go out and eat today..? I have today off and we haven’t spoken in a bit, let’s catch up!]

[Please answer soon, I get nervous with these things…]

[Yuuto are you ignoring me]

[Did I do something]