The train was crowded again. Black and red again. The day before exams, it seemed everyone had the same idea. Cram, cram, cram. All the teachers advised against it. They were probably right, but that wasn't going to stop anybody from trying. Makoto wasn't sure what exactly he was doing on his way to Shibuya Central.

Well, he was going to meet Kasumi, but other than that he didn't really know.

The train ground to a stop, and the hiss of pneumatics opened the doors. Makoto braced himself and clutched the railing as all his classmates stormed out of the train. He, at least, wasn't going anywhere fast, and as the doors closed behind him on the platform, he wandered over to a rack of brochures and a clump of fliers for part time jobs in the area.

"Senpai! Over here!" an energetic girl shouted from up a set of stairs. Kasumi was waving at him and hopping in place. Makoto looked over and ran after her.

He was out of breath by the time he chased her above ground. "Huff, huff," he breathed heavily.

Kasumi cupped her ear toward him. "What was that, Senpai? You'll get me next time?" She closed in and took him by the hand, lifting one arm over her shoulder. "That's the spirit."

The bookstore was as packed as the train, with a Shujin uniform occupying every square centimeter. Browsing the shelves was impossible, and even just seeing a shelf was hard enough. But Makoto wasn't here for that. As far as he was concerned, he already had everything he needed with him, as Kasumi led him to a table with a spot saved just for him.

A melancholy girl with striking red hair looked up through her glasses. Makoto was still short of breath from his run up the stairs. "Kasumi, what did you do to him?"

Kasumi helped Makoto to his seat in the booth next to the red haired girl, and sat herself across from them. "Be gentle with him, Sumire. Makoto's many things, but he's not an athlete."

"Right," Sumire said. She avoided looking Makoto in the eyes, but slowly smiled at him all the same. "How's it been?"

"A lot busier than I thought," Makoto said. "And doing very different things than I thought. Are you holding up okay, Sumire?"

She nodded. "One day at a time."

"That's good." Makoto glanced down at the book Sumire had open and touched the edge of it. "Mind if I take a look?"

Sumire nudged the textbook a little closer to him, a history book, making more space for her notepad on the other side. The book was open to a practice section, and Makoto could see most of her work was scratched out. Kasumi flipped through her own book to the same spot, tapping the eraser of a pencil on the answers in rapid fire.

She looked up every now and then, bobbing her head towards Sumire whenever she and Makoto made eye contact. She turned back and forth through the book, constant rustling sounds beneath sporadic noises from the rest of the store.

Sumire got stuck on one of the questions. The point of her pencil hovered over the page, wavering over the answers, and Makoto took a look and tried to remember which one it was. As he thought, he noticed Kasumi looking, and she flashed a smile when he guided Sumire to the right answer.

"What's that word?" Sumire pointed to a line in the book. They went on for a while like that. Every time Sumire had a question was a moment to concentrate, and every time she made a breakthrough was a moment to celebrate.

When she took a moment to stretch her arms, Makoto looked back at the evening twilight outside. "Makoto…" Sumire said. "Thank you. I can't even tell you how much this means to me."

"I'll always be there for you," Makoto said. "Feeling better about exams now?"

She gave him a sidelong look. "Yeah." It was progress.

"I still have a bit left to cover," Kasumi said. She had her notes for a different subject out. "Why don't you two take a look around?"

The crowd of students subsided as it got dark out. Makoto could see into the aisles from their table, and saw bare shelves and wondered whether to even be surprised. He guessed it was all the study guides that were gone, and at this point they wouldn't make a difference. So he looked to Sumire, if she wanted to take a walk around, and they got up together. Couldn't hurt to circle the place once.

Sure enough, they ended up looking at manga. There was another person next to them, a girl with an intense aura about her that Makoto felt even facing away. He noticed a book with a black and white dotted spine and took it out. "What about this one?"

The cover had a cartoon panda bear on it. "That looks like it's for actual children," Sumire said.

Makoto shrugged and put it back on the shelf. He picked out the book next to it. "Oh, it's the same." Another cartoon panda. On this one, he could make out a logo, "Buchimaru-kun. Huh." For some reason, he felt at ease as he read it.

"Urgk."

Makoto turned around, kid comic still in his hand. "Hey there," he said. He held up the Buchimaru comic. "Were you looking for this?"

"N-no," the girl said. The ends of a white shirt poked out from the sleeves of her light brown blazer. She stood still, intent on facing away from them like they were interrogators.

"Was it something I said?" Sumire's shoulders slumped.

The other girl relaxed, spoke with a steady tone. "I'm sorry, I just tensed up. You didn't do anything wrong." She looked between Sumire and Makoto, catching on to his black and red uniform. "You're a Shujin student, aren't you? It's nice to meet you, both of you."

"Nice to meet you too," Makoto said. "My name's Makoto Naegi."

"Sumire Yoshizawa." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't actually go to Shujin."

"You don't have to say that like it's a bad thing," the other girl said. "I'm Makoto Niijima." She shook Makoto's hand, and brushed hands with Sumire. She glanced at the book Makoto was holding, maybe for a second too long.

He held it up again with purpose. "Are you a fan?" he said. Without a word, he could tell she was. Niijima looked embarrassed to think about it. He knew the feeling, and there were worse things to enjoy reading. Not that Makoto would know anything about that, of course.

Niijima let out a defeated sigh. "Yes." There was another black and white dotted spine inside her bag, creased from opening a lot.

"Well, sorry to start off on that note," Makoto said as he put the book back on the Buchimaru shelf. "You actually used to go to Shujin too, didn't you?" The interrogation ended up happening after all.

"I did," Niijima said. "I saw a lot of people I recognized here, earlier. I take it exams are coming up soon, probably tomorrow if there's such a frenzy for study materials tonight. I wish I could have helped them prepare, or even just talk about, well, anything, but it's too late now."

"It's not too late," Sumire said. "In fact, if you're going to talk about Shujin, I'd like to hear it. Kasumi barely ever talks about school."

It couldn't hurt, right? "Something pretty big happened last week," Makoto said to kick things off. "Right before break, Kamoshida, the volleyball coach, confessed to sexual assault and turned himself in to the police."

"And everyone was thinking about that all week and forgot exams were just around the corner?" Niijima said. She was completely unfazed. Makoto wasn't trying much to embellish it, but he thought the fact itself would be at least a little shocking. "It's sad to say, but I can see that happening."

Sumire took longer to digest it. "That's… Why didn't Kasumi say anything about that?"

"Your sister, right?" Niijima said. Off Sumire's nod, "She probably didn't want you to worry if anything happened to her."

"I don't think anything did, either," Makoto said. "We talked about it just the day after the confession, and aside from a look here or there, she apparently never noticed anything strange."

"She really dodged a bullet, then," Sumire said with relief.

Niijima grumbled under her breath. "I should have done something. I should have stopped him when I had the chance."

"What chance was that?" Makoto said.

"Last year with the track team," Niijima said. "Kamoshida pushed for another coach to be fired, broke a student's leg, and dissolved the whole track team. Somewhere there, I should have had enough to do something to stop him. But instead," her voice quivered, "instead, I protected him."

"You protected Kamoshida," Makoto said. "What did that mean?"

Niijima sighed and leaned against the bookshelf. "I should probably start from the beginning. Last year, Shujin admitted a great track runner. His name was Ryuji Sakamoto, he wasn't a stellar student by any means, but he did well enough. He became the track team captain as a first year, with a team good enough for nationals, or even the world stage."

Sumire looked down at her feet. Makoto couldn't believe his ears. What happened to Ryuji since then?

"Later that year, the school hired Kamoshida, an Olympic gold medalist, as a PE teacher and volleyball coach. Things quickly got heated between him and Ryuji. I didn't see any of it unfold myself, and there was so much conflicting hearsay about it that I couldn't possibly reconstruct it now. But something happened between the two of them and Ryuji ended up with a broken leg."

"At the time, I was vice president of the student council," Niijima continued. "And Principal Kobayakawa gave me something to do. He wanted me to find out what Ryuji did that got his leg broken, and to ensure his grades didn't slip. I tried to do what I was told. I was only just hearing about all of it for the first time, and I thought all I could do was take the Principal's word for what happened."

"Sakamoto and I didn't get along. I guess he saw right through what I was doing. At some point, I realized what I was doing too. I don't know if Kobayakawa tricked me, or manipulated me, but I ended up being his lapdog. I really only wanted to help. Even if justice for Kamoshida wasn't coming, at least I hoped Sakamoto wouldn't drop his studies like a hot rock, but he did."

"I swore I would make it up this year. This year, I'd protect my classmates, whether it's from Kamoshida, or Principal Kobayakawa, or whoever. But then, just a week before the school year started, I got a letter, and I had second thoughts." Makoto knew it well, a letter that could change someone's entire world. "I had a chance to put all of Shujin behind me."

"And the worst part is, I made that choice. Over and over again, I chose to look away. A student's leg is broken, and I didn't even ask what happened. I hear all around me, that Kamoshida did it, and I judged Sakamoto instead. I just wanted to help, and then the whole thing solved itself on its own! In the end, I didn't make a single bit of difference. Nothing but a useless pawn."

Niijima sank down against the shelf, the hem of her skirt brushing on the floor. Makoto reached out to her, and Sumire too. She knew what the depths of despair felt like.

"You tried, though," Makoto said. "This decision or that decision, it's not your fault if you don't know the right thing to do every single time. As long as you try to do the right thing, sooner or later you'll find it."

Niijima took a deep breath before letting Makoto and Sumire pull her up. "I'm sorry if that was a lot to drop on you," she said.

"It's fine," Makoto said. "Besides, what you told me, it might be more useful than you think."

"Sumire!" Kasumi called from the end of the aisle. "It's time to go home."

"I'll be right there," Sumire said. She left a last thought to Niijima before going, "Thank you again, Niijima. It couldn't have been easy to open up like that."

Makoto and Makoto watched Sumire leave the bookstore, and step out into the darkness. "I should get going too," Niijima said. "Until we meet again, Naegi."

Niijima and Kasumi traded places. "Who was that?" Kasumi said in her Senpai mode. "Thanks for coming, Makoto. I think Sumire really got a lot out of this. I hope you did too. Good luck in the exams tomorrow!"

"You too, Kasumi." He walked with her to the exit, and from there to the subway, alone into the night.