Chapter 13 Tutoring

Chapter 13: Tutoring

The small talk ended, and the tutoring officially began.

To be honest, when he agreed to let Hoshino join the tutoring group, Tsukishima hadn’t realized how serious things would get.

After all, Hoshino had promised to stay completely silent, and even if she was usually lively, she couldn’t cause any trouble in this situation, he thought.

But things still exceeded his expectations.

—Because there was also Hinata there! Hinata, whose social skills were so strong that he could still have a seamless conversation with Hoshino even when she was muted!

“Wow… this word is pretty tough, but Hoshino-san spelled it right on the first try. Amazing!” Hinata said, looking at Hoshino’s scratch paper full of admiration.

Hoshino cleared her throat (though she didn’t know the point), then held up her freshly written whiteboard.

「Because I spelled it wrong in the quiz and lost five points. It hurt so much I was forced to remember it! (Also, it’s not Hoshino-san, it’s Hoshino!)」

…

Oh! Hinata remembered. A few days ago, after practice, he’d chatted with Hoshino and finally realized that the romantic relationship between Hoshino and Tsukishima was completely his misunderstanding (seriously, who would like a guy like Tsukishima!). Then the two simpletons hit it off and decided to call each other by their last names and become sworn siblings!

“Got it, Hoshino!” Hinata nodded earnestly.

Across from them, Tsukishima’s hand paused in writing.

A while later, Hinata started asking questions again.

“Hey, Hoshino, why did you pick C for this question? I saw most people who got it wrong chose B?”

Hoshino stared at her paper for a moment, quickly wiped the whiteboard clean, and wrote new text.

「Because when in doubt, pick C! And haven’t you noticed? When Ms. Ono sets questions, the probability of A, B, and D being correct is equal, but C appears way more often. So when you’re unsure, go with C—it’s the easiest way to guess right!」

Hinata: !!!

“Oh—that’s amazing! I never thought of looking at it that way!” Hinata exclaimed in awe.

Tsukishima: …

Wouldn’t it be better to use that effort to memorize more vocabulary? And the correct answer to this question is clearly A! And since when did someone who failed both math and English start giving advice here?!

He felt like there were so many things to complain about he couldn’t even list them all.

A little later.

“Huh, weird,” Hinata pointed at a spot on his paper and asked. “This question, I wrote the same thing as Hoshino, but the teacher deducted points from me and not from her. Did they make a mistake?”

Hoshino leaned in to look, also wearing a matching puzzled expression.

「Yeah, that’s strange. Why? (＠_＠)」

She set the whiteboard with the text on the table, resting her chin on the edge of it, looking troubled.

…

Tsukishima Kei, sitting nearby, finally could no longer stand it.

“Because one of you wrote it in the past tense and the other in the past participle. The common word comparison chart was handed out in the first week of school—I bet you haven’t memorized it, in fact, you haven’t even opened it, have you, Hinata? And Hoshino, you got this question right, so why can’t you tell now? You guessed it, didn’t you? Definitely! And why are you writing kaomoji on the whiteboard? We’re all right here—it’s not like we can’t see each other’s expressions. And isn’t this conversation basically the same as talking? Does the whiteboard even have a point anymore?”

Hoshino: …

Hinata: …

Hoshino: “I suddenly feel kinda guilty.”

Hinata: “Me too.”

Hoshino: “I feel like we’re about to drive Tsukishima-san nuts.”

Hinata: “Me too.”

***

The final solution was to put away the whiteboard.

Group admin [Tsukishima Kei] unmuted group member [Hoshino Haruna].

“Since King isn’t here today, I’ll make an exception,” Tsukishima explained.

“…Alright!” Hoshino Haruna nodded happily.

Although she thought Tsukishima was definitely just fed up with her whiteboard. Definitely.

The tutoring session finally got back on track.

—Though it only lasted less than ten minutes.

“Ah, Hoshino!” Hinata suddenly called out to her. “Did you bring your modern literature paper? After we finish correcting English, we can do modern lit tutoring together!”

“Modern lit?” Hoshino blinked. “I don’t need to.”

“Huh?”

“I passed modern lit,” Hoshino explained.

“Huh—?!”

Then, in Hinata’s stunned gaze, Hoshino quietly opened her folder, and her modern lit quiz paper conveniently fell out.

“Oh, it fell out~”

Hoshino picked up the paper with exaggerated nonchalance, casually turning the scored side outward—

“88 points?!” Hinata stared in disbelief.

“Madamada dane (Not even close)!” Hoshino grinned proudly, adjusting an imaginary hat brim.

“Amazing! That’s really amazing!” Hinata seemed even more excited than if he’d scored it himself.

More importantly, he noticed a blind spot.

“That means your modern lit grade and math grade add up to 100 points (88+12=100)!” he chirped.

…

Hoshino’s smile froze instantly.

Um, Hinata.

Could you not announce so loudly that she scored only 12 points on her math quiz? She wasn’t planning to move to another planet yet, you know!

"So that's what I don't get," Tsukishima finally chimed in. "Japanese and English are both languages, aren't they? How can the scores be so different?"

"...Who says? They're totally different, okay!" Hoshino retorted.

Well, you know what Kageyama says—how could a Japanese person ever learn English?!

"Then what about math?" Tsukishima twirled his pen half a turn, then tapped the cap end on the desk. "You calculated skill damage pretty fast when you were playing games earlier. Why are you so bad at exams?"

"...Math and games are completely different! It's not like a boss suddenly stops mid-battle and asks me to solve an equation!" Hoshino shot back with a valid point.

"Even so, 12 points is a little extreme, don't you think? You'd get more than that just by stomping on the answer sheet."

"...*Thanks a lot.* Next time I step on the answer sheet, I'll step on you first!"

...

"Um..."

Seeing that the two of them showed no signs of stopping their bickering, Hinata debated whether to butt in.

But...

After calming down, Hinata decided to give up on that idea.

It wasn't that he didn't want to mediate—the problem was, neither of them was someone he could actually reason with!

***

The tutoring session finally got back on track—sort of.

—Though this time, it only lasted less than ten minutes before falling apart again.

"Ah, Hoshino, I found something!"

Hinata, who was poring over the English passage word by word, suddenly called out.

"The protagonist never wanted to go to Paris from the start—look, it says so right here!" He pointed to a spot on the exam paper.

"Oh, for real?!" Hoshino excitedly took the paper from him. "It's right here, and I totally missed it! Thanks, Hinata!"

Tsukishima stayed silent.

"What's wrong, Tsukishima-san?" Hoshino noticed a gaze fixed on her.

"...Nothing," Tsukishima replied flatly. "Just wanted to remind you that time's running out. If you want to finish correcting the English papers today, you'd better speed things up."

"...Got it!" The other two chorused.

A bit later.

"Oh, right!" Hoshino suddenly said. "After the tutoring session, let's go buy snacks at the Sakashita store! My treat!"

Then she looked at Hinata. "Hinata, anything you want to eat?"

"I want a meat bun!" Hinata piped up enthusiastically.

Hoshino nodded and turned to Tsukishima. "And you, Tsukishima-san?"

...

"Tsukishima-san?" She repeated.

"...I don't really want anything in particular." Tsukishima replied.

Then he silently resumed flipping through the papers.

Hoshino was puzzled.

Huh, that's weird.

She felt like Tsukishima-san was in a sour mood today. What could be the reason?

Having found a puzzle way more interesting than the exam questions, Hoshino pushed her papers aside and focused on observing Tsukishima.

Hmm... Was it because she and Hinata were too hard to teach?

No, no—though that was true (as much as she hated to admit it), Tsukishima wasn't the type to get bothered by such things.

He'd just trigger his passive and unleash a volley of sarcastic comments, then calmly smile, say "Shitsurei shimasu," and walk off like it's nothing, leaving them fuming.

...

Wait, why was she so familiar with this? It was definitely not because he had pissed her off many times. Definitely not!

...

So what was the reason?

Hoshino ran through all the possibilities in her head.

His favorite dessert shop just came out with a bunch of new treats; the city museum has a dinosaur special exhibition this weekend. And school? No need to even go there—he basically had no weak subjects and always aced his exams.

...

Wait, why was she so familiar with this again? It was definitely not because she paid a lot of attention to Tsukishima. Definitely not!

...

Forget it.

Unable to figure it out, Hoshino decided to pull out her superpower.

While Tsukishima was still reading the papers, she leaned forward, coming face-to-face with him.

Tsukishima's eyes widened in shock.

"You—"

Before a stunned Tsukishima could react, Hoshino had already thrown out her guess—a ridiculous guess that had popped into her head and somehow slipped out of her mouth—

"Tsukishima-san," she said, looking into his eyes, "Do you not want me to use honorifics when I talk to you?"

...

...

After what felt like an eternity of silence, Tsukishima's calm voice finally rang out again.

"I didn't say that," he replied.

Hoshino blinked. "Eh—?"

She immediately lost her steam and went back to her seat.

It was rare for him to be quiet this long. She thought she had guessed right, but it turned out not to be the reason? Her powers were getting really unreliable, she thought.

But then again—

"We've known each other for so long now, so it's okay to just call you Tsukishima, right?" Hoshino suggested.

Tsukishima: ...

"Suit yourself," he said.

His tone was still casual.

Hoshino nodded thoughtfully, then tried calling him tentatively—

"Tsukishima!"

His hand, reaching for the paper, froze.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing, just getting used to it!" Hoshino laughed. "Also, you grabbed the wrong one—that's my paper, not yours."

"...Oh."

...

Meanwhile, Hinata, who had dozed off while reading an English passage, lost his balance and hit his chin on the desk.

"Ow... that hurts!"

Jolted awake, he sat up rubbing his cheek.

...

Wait—how come he just took a nap but felt like he’d missed some major plot point?!

***

The rest of the tutoring session went pretty smoothly. At least, no one used their superpowers, no one grabbed the wrong paper, and no one dozed off, hit their chin, and woke up with a start.

But near the end, a small issue came up.

"This question is a total trick question, right? They went over this in class, right? The tense here is obviously..."

...

"What now?"

While explaining the problem, Tsukishima, sensing someone staring at him from across the table, finally couldn't help asking.

What’s she up to now? Does she seriously have some kind of superpower?

"Ah, sorry!"

Realizing her behavior was a bit odd, Hoshino explained seriously: "I'm not trying to stare at you. It's just that I've been looking at the problems for too long and I'm starting to feel dizzy from the words. I need something else to look at, or I can't focus on what you're saying."

...

"It's been less than forty minutes since we started tutoring," Tsukishima said, glancing at his watch. "That’s not even a full class period."

"So normally in class I just stare at the back of the head of the person in front of me," Hoshino said plainly.

...

"But it's fine! If it bothers you, I can look at someone else!"

So Hoshino turned to Hinata and asked: "Hinata, do you mind?"

"Huh? Me? I don't mind." Hinata said generously.

"Perfect!"

With that, Hoshino immediately turned around to face Hinata.

"Go ahead, Tsukishima!"

She quickly turned to say it, then turned back to stare at Hinata.

Tsukishima: ...

This is such a weird scene!

Too drained to even complain, Tsukishima gritted his teeth and pushed through.

"So the tense here should be..."

...

No way, he just couldn't go on!

Every time he looked up, Hoshino was staring at Hinata like a statue. How was anyone supposed to keep going with that bizarre scene right in front of him?!

"...I mean," Tsukishima said, unable to hold back, pointing out to Hoshino, "This guy Hinata gets distracted easily as it is. Are you gonna drag this tutoring session into next year by staring at him like that?"

Hinata: ?

Huh? Him?

Actually, after that nap he was much more awake and probably wouldn't be distracted for a while, but he felt like saying that would get him chewed out by Tsukishima.

"...So?" Hoshino could tell he had more to say.

"So if you absolutely have to stare at someone..."

Tsukishima subtly looked away.

"...maybe switch to another person," he suggested.

"...Oh."

Hoshino nodded, not really understanding.

Then she looked around the room and immediately saw the problem—

At this hour, they were the only three in the club activity room! If she couldn't stare at Hinata, it wasn't like she could stare at herself!

Frustrated, Hoshino turned her gaze back to Tsukishima.

Honestly, did he mind or not? She had no idea.

And...

Tsukishima resumed explaining problems in the cramped club room, his voice no different from before. But...

Was it her imagination? Hoshino thought. Something about Tsukishima seemed off today.

-TBC-

*

Author's note:

Characters appearing in this chapter: Sun, Moon, and Star.

Since they are all celestial bodies, let's call you the Celestial Trio (hey!)