Review Session

Afterwards, Toba, who had been taken to the nurse’s office under Aki’s lead, returned to the classroom toward the end of lunch break.

His face was visibly swollen and red from getting struck, with traces of a nosebleed. His classmates fell into an uproar at his appearance, which clearly showed that something extraordinary had taken place.

What was more, Toba had been spotted going to return reference materials together with Kotori right at the start of lunch break. It was not hard to imagine that some kind of trouble had occurred back then.

However, Toba himself wore a goofy, sloppy grin the entire time, looking somewhat lost in a dream.

When his suspicious friends asked him what had happened, Toba only replied, entranced, “Ikoma-senpai is so easy to stan…” and “She’s so cute, yet so cool…”

As for Kotori, she spent the entire time gazing out the window with a somewhat melancholic air.

On top of her usual “don’t talk to me” aura, she looked so picture-perfect that even the top-tier popular girls hesitated to approach her.

With the two of them behaving completely differently from the morning, those around them could only tilt their heads in confusion.

Takumi, who knew the full series of events, watched the scene with an indescribable dry smile.

It seemed Toba had fallen head over heels for Aki, who had brilliantly thrown him despite being a head shorter than him. It was a sensibility Takumi simply couldn’t comprehend.

After waking up in the nurse’s office, Toba had pressed Aki on how she threw him and begged her to throw him again, leaving her thoroughly flustered. Incidentally, his nosebleed hadn’t come from being thrown down in the reference room, but rather from getting way too excited while begging Aki.

The reason Kotori was so dazed was surely because the incident with Toba had dredged up her trauma from the fake confession.

It might be best to leave her alone for a while.

Though in times like this, he couldn’t even come up with a single witty thing to say, Takumi muttered self-deprecatingly to himself.

He had been a bit anxious about how the afternoon day duty would turn out, but it seemed to have been a pointless concern.

Although only simple demonstrative words like “this” or “that way” came out of Kotori’s mouth, Toba still responded with “Yup” or “Got it,” sensing her intent to carry out the day duty tasks. Kotori also seemed more relaxed than in the morning, making their interactions look quite natural.

After school, Kotori quickly wrote up the day duty logbook and brought it over to Toba so he could check the contents. Skimming through what he received, Toba said, “I’ll return it to the staff room,” and left the classroom carrying his bag. Unintentionally, they ended up cooperating as a pair.

Locking the classroom door was left to whoever stayed last for club activities or other reasons.

With that, all the day duty tasks were taken care of.

Though an unexpected incident had occurred during the day, once it ended smoothly, it felt strangely anticlimactic.

Even so, Kotori remained somewhat absentminded. Her attention was scattered.

Worried she might get caught up in an accident or something, Takumi walked home behind her, keeping a slight distance while keeping an eye on her.

Along the way, she stumbled over nothing and almost got off at the wrong train station, but she managed to make it back to within a stone’s throw of her house. They were approaching the fork in the path leading to Kotori’s home.

‘—Will she be okay now?’

No, she really seemed in a precarious state today; should he walk her all the way to her house?

Stopping by Kotori’s house wouldn’t be much of a detour anyway.

Just as he was turning such thoughts over in his mind, Kotori suddenly stopped in her tracks.

What was wrong?

As Takumi also came to a stop, his thoughts racing, Kotori spoke to him over her shoulder.

“Hey, let’s have a review session for today. Wanna drop by my place?”

Her emotions couldn’t be read from her stiff tone.

However, a lot had indeed happened regarding day duty today.

Having no reason to refuse, Takumi nodded with a serious face.

“Yeah.”