The day after spring break began.
“That’s it…”
Yuzuru packed the last of his belongings into cardboard boxes and breathed a sigh of relief.
He looked around at his fiancée and friends who had helped him move.
“Thank you, you’ve been a big help.”
“Yup. You owe me one for this.”
Nagiri Tenka said with a smile.
When Yuzuru nodded as if to say he knew this, Tenka looked slightly bewildered.
…apparently, it was meant to be a joke.
“Well~, I thought there would be a thin book or two in there.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“…I don’t have any of that stuff”
Tachibana Ayaka and Uenishi Chiharu, who seemed to have been helping out with impure motives, said so respectively.
Yuzuru, on the other hand, looked at Arisa and said as if to defend himself.
“Naturally.”
To that, Arisa nodded back with a big smile on her face.
“But it was a convenient place to get together with a bunch of guys.”
“It was.”
Satake Soichiro and Ryozenji Hijiri commented to each other.
They were the second most frequent visitors to Yuzuru’s house after Arisa.
Yuzuru chuckled at his male friend’s honest words.
“My bad… Let’s find another place.”
Yuzuru remarked to them and then checked his watch.
It was past fourteen o’clock.
Yuzuru had been organizing his luggage since breakfast and was feeling hungry.
And he knew that his friends were probably hungry as well.
Thinking of this, Yuzuru suggested,
“Why don’t we order something? My treat”
“Wow, pizza! It’s been so long!”
Arisa’s eyes lit up with joy as she looked at the delivered pizza.
It was past fifteen o’clock.
It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner.
“Okay, then, Yuzurun. As the organizer, you will lead the party.”
“You’re overreacting… Well, okay. Ahhh, let’s see… Thanks for helping me out today… Cheers!”
” “Cheers.” “
With a simple greeting from Yuzuru, the six raised their paper cups.
After drinking the juice, they cut up the pizza and began to eat.
“By the way, …when will you start studying for exams and stuff like that? …perhaps you’ve already started?”
Arisa broached such a topic.
Then some of them – especially Chiharu and Hijiri – blatantly frowned.
“Y-you’re asking unpleasant questions… at a time like this.”
“Exactly…”
“I-I’m sorry.”
Arisa looked apologetic, thinking that it was not the right thing to talk about in a pleasant place.
Yuzuru, however, shook his head as if to protect his fiancée.
“No, it’s important… Especially for people like you. If you don’t start now, you won’t make it, will you?”
Yuzuru knew that their grades were not in balance with the schools they wanted to apply to.
However, not only did they not listen to Yuzuru’s words, but they showed that they did not want to listen by blatantly covering their ears.
…this was the reason why ‘the school of choice and the grades’ were not in proportion to each other.
“And how about you, Arisa-san?”
“I’m thinking of attending a spring semester class at a prep school…Yugen-san is joining me.”
Arisa answered Tenka’s question.
Yuzuru nodded in agreement.
“Oh, really? What a coincidence…Me too. I’m not going to get serious about it, though.”
“Me too… I am already planning to join a school, though. I feel like schoolwork alone isn’t enough.”
Tenka and Soichiro each answered in this way.
The stance of the two seemed to be slightly different, but it was still reassuring to have a friend to go to school with.
When Yuzuru and Arisa were happy to be able to attend with their friends, Ayaka interrupted them as if to add water to their conversation.
“Heh~, you’re so serious. It’s only spring, right? I’m going to start in the summer.”
Yuzuru chuckled at Ayaka’s words.
He couldn’t say, If you let your guard down, you’re going to fail…
She was a genius.
She could usually do reasonably well without doing anything, and with just a little bit of work, she could greatly increase her deviation.
That’s the type of person she was.
“Right?”
“That’s right! It shouldn’t be until it’s much warmer!”
“You guys will likely say it should be cooler around summer,”
Yuzuru said as if advising them.
It was often said… it’s idiotic to procrastinate.
“Now-now, in the worst-case scenario, you could be a ronin, …right?”
Tenka said this in a half-joking tone.
In fact, there were many students in Yuzuru’s high school who chose to be Ronin, so her words could not be a joke.
The chances of all of them ‘passing’ the entrance exam were much lower.
“…I absolutely hate the idea of studying for two years.”
“I don’t want to either.”
“So you are willing to compromise and go on to higher education even if it’s not where you want to go?”
Arisa asked them both.
The value of ‘academic background’ differed from person to person.
Whether or not it was worth devoting one precious year (or two or more, depending on the person) of one’s teenage years to it was also up to each person.
If one absolutely does not want to be a ronin, then there was always that option.
However, Chiharu and Hijiri both looked away.
It seemed that there was a line that they could not compromise on.
“Shouldn’t people like you guys start now, even if just a little bit? It would be fine to start in earnest after the summer… but I think it’s better to have a warm-up period.”
“…Maybe so. Can you email me information …about the spring semester?”
“… to me too please.”
Chiharu and Hijiri said this with a look of displeasure on their faces.
Apparently, it would be the six of them, excluding Ayaka, who would be attending the spring semester classes.
“Eh? You are all going to attend? …then I’m going too! I don’t want to be left out!!”
Correction.
There would be seven of them.
TN: meh~
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Impatient MTL Reader 
Thank You for the TL
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