Kenkyo, Kenjitsu o Motto ni Ikite Orimasu Chapter 80

After the excursion comes the mid-term exams.
Because of all the smart External Students that flooded into my school, I need to study harder than ever.
Actually, I’ve been taking it easy these days so I haven’t enrolled in a new cram school for high school yet. Right now I’ve only got a home tutor.

Before the exams began I decided to increase my lessons with her.

“Reika-san, you just always seem to struggle with maths, don’t you. I think you can improve if you keep up the practice though, so keep trying.”

“Yes.”

But that’s the hard part. I hate doing these questions&h.e.l.lip;
If I don’t though I might get called in for remedials again. I’ll pa.s.s on those days of isolation again. And even though I’m really just some small fry I want everybody to keep saying “As expected of Reika-sama”!
For the sake of this petty pride I continued to battle with these baffling equations.

For the upcoming exams, this time I got my hands on some energy drinks. After all, I normally sleep 7 hours a night. If I get any less I start wobbling with sleepiness.
But when I was in the store seeing them priced at over 1,000 Yen each, they suddenly seemed like a bit much to drink casually. These felt more like something you’d buy for desperate cramming.
Thanks to that I decided to just buy a three-pack of the popular stuff to start off with.
Hm, the taste was pretty nostalgic. I did drink it from time to time in my old life after all.
I’m not sure if it helped at all but I used them to study as hard as I could so I’ feeling pretty satisfied.
Although, when Okaasama saw my empty bottles in the bin she started worrying about me and said,

“You’re a girl so you really needn’t push yourself too far.”

She gave me a lot of scarily expensive beauty drinks so I drank those too.
Well whatever. Come at me whenever, mid-terms!

So, about those mid-terms that I drank a bunch of energy drinks to study for&h.e.l.lip; Well, it was still me doing the tests after all&h.e.l.lip;
Anyway, Okaasama dragged me to beauty and hair salons after the exams ended. She really is fussy about how I look, isn’t she. Totally fixated on making sure I look like her image of an ‘ojousama’. Thank goodness said image wasn’t dressed in goth loli or something.
Oh, and that random white hair seemed to be gone now. I never want to experience that tragedy again. That’s why from now on I’m going to make sure to get full workovers more often at salons.
A few days after those treatments left my skin and hair sparkling, the results of the mid-terms were posted.

At Suiran, only the top 30 are posted. Since we have roughly 300 students it’s absolutely impossible for me.
&h.e.l.lip;But although I say ‘absolutely’, I still can’t help but hope somewhere in my heart. Why is that?
Even though I’m wearing this modest expression that says I can’t imagine being up there, I’m still going to check it out.
I looked up nervously, but yep, wasn’t there.
Still, there sure were a lot of new names up there. They had to be all the Externals. As expected of them.
And at the very top, s.h.i.+ning brilliantly were two names:

1. Kaburagi Masaya
2. Enjou Shuusuke

Just how crazy are these guys. Their c.u.mulative result was pretty much full-marks. Just what do they have there inside their heads. I’m so jealous. Since middle school they’ve always been unshaken in the top two places. Well, the two of them would swap positions though.
Also, although 1st and 2nd place were these two, 3rd place was Wakaba-chan! And her marks were super close to theirs as well. Isn’t it completely possible for her to overtake them next time!?
The girl herself was staring dumbly up at the board with unruly hair as always. I just can’t see her as smart&h.e.l.lip; Wakaba-chan, your mouth is hanging open! You look ridiculous, so please close it already!
The students around me were murmuring about the ident.i.ty of this mysterious ‘Takamichi Wakaba’ but I can’t imagine anybody would connect that name with the s.p.a.ced out girl in front of me. I guess she’s like the perfect example of that saying about a capable eagle hiding its talons.
On another note, Stalking Horse managed to grab 5th place despite all these new Externals. That’s amazing, Stalking Horse! As a fellow stalking horse, I’m proud of you!
Anyway, when Wakaba-chan noticed her name up there, relief flooded her expression. I guess this is pretty much life or death for a scholars.h.i.+p student. Congratulations.

It was around that moment that Kaburagi and Enjou came along. They normally don’t care at all about these but I guess they’re here this time because of all the new students?
As they came sauntering down, the students all parted left and right for them.
After confirming their own names at the top, Kaburagi muttered,

“Who’s this Takamichi Wakaba?”

Some of the students heard him and pointed her out to him.
After taking one look at her, he simply left with Enjou. Although Kaburagi was expressionless as always, Enjou had a faint look of interest on his face.
The moment they left the crowd grew noisy. It felt a little dangerous, actually. One phrase I managed to catch was “&h.e.l.lip;knowing her place” though&h.e.l.lip;

n.o.body was mad enough to publicly attack her, but it seemed like there were a lot of people quietly dissatisfied with her threatening the pair’s dominance on the rankings. The fact that she was poor and stuck out like a sore thumb certainly didn’t help.
But wow, even if they say that, Wakaba-chan is a scholars.h.i.+p student, you know? She has to get good marks. And if you’re worried about people threatening those two, why didn’t you complain when Stalking Horse took 3rd place all of middle school.
When I asked out of curiosity they told me, “Mizusaki-kun is different.”
What the heck. Is it his face? Is it because his face looks good?
Not only that, but according to the others, Stalking Horse had a charm that both the boys and girls were drawn in by. Well, I guess that’s not really surprising since he made it to StuCo President.
That doesn’t mean that you can blame your own shortcomings on some innocent External girl though.

“The External Students entered only after pa.s.sing some very rigorous tests after all. That they have good grades is a given. Instead we should be marvelling out how Kaburagi-sama and Enjou-sama defeated them all despite that,” I commented.

“Truly! As expected of those two!”

It’s almost never a mistake to use the names of those two when dealing with girls. The atmosphere was filled with their delighted squealing now.

When I got my report card handed to me, it listed my rank as 73. Hmmm&h.e.l.lip; Should I be feeling happy about this rank?

Recently I’ve found a new method of stress relief. It’s called needle felting.
You’ve got this ball of wool and you poke at it with needles. It’s actually weirdly fun. I’ve been following the instructions in the textbook, and my latest creation is a snowman. Well, it’s basically just two white b.a.l.l.s and two dots for eyes though.
Also when I get too into it my eyes start to hurt so I have to pay attention to the time. MY EYES-! MY EYEEEES-!

I usually do this in my room, but occasionally I camp out in the living room too.
Today I’m making a Tarow the Taro. I’m using brown felt this time.

-poke poke poke&h.e.l.lip;-

When Oniichan saw me after a late night at work he asked me,

“Who’s the target!?”

It’s not a voodoo doll&h.e.l.lip;

Geez. I wish I had some friends in the arts and crafts to understand my feelings. I wanna join the Handicrafts Club&h.e.l.lip;
Should I pretend to be socially oblivious and just force my way in?
But if I do that I’ll just end up isolated in the room again. Uuu, these tears are just because I’m straining my eyes, okay?

“MY EYES-! MY EYEEEES-!”

is a reference to the typical stereotypical chuunibyou phrase,

“My eye-! My eyeeee-!”

when their left eye goes red and they unleash their power or whatever.

j.a.panese has no plurals, so Reika’s line is exactly the same as the above.