Chapter Four

All throughout dinner, Aihara was ecstatic. She kept gazing my way and becoming lost in thought, probably off in some fantastical wonderland because we would be studying together. What she seemed to be forgetting was that she'd forced me into this. It wasn't going to be as pleasant of a night as she might have been imagining up.

The chatting was minimal, though Aihara actually came back to earth once my mother spoke to her.

"Kotoko, would you like for me to make you another snack tonight?" My mother asked.

"Yes, thank you." Aihara said, revealing a wide smile. No matter what, she was always this way, wasn't she? Just happy. Either that or too vacuous to be unhappy.

Well, I thought, may as well make sure my mother doesn't have a heart attack about me studying when she brings a snack.

"Do you think you could make snacks for two?" I said. She gave me a look of complete shock and Yuuki seemed betrayed. My father stared like he'd hallucinated. To be fair, I never had studied at home before. I'd never needed to.

"For two?" She said, "You're going to study?"

"That's right." I said. My mother looked like she was going to have a stroke.

"You're helping her, but not me? That's not fair!" Yuuki complained, "Can you help me, too?"

"You don't need my help. You're already at the top of your class." I pointed out and Yuuki glared at Aihara. I took my last bite of food, "Let's get started." I told Aihara. She hurried up and swallowed down the last morsels of her food and stood.

"Thank you for the dinner. It was delicious." She tripped over pushing the chair in and sloppily came over to me. We climbed the stairs.

At her door, I lingered back for her to enter first. It took her a moment to figure out what I was doing.

"Please, come in." She said, leading me in.

As if I have a choice.

I closed the door behind us and she gestured at the stack of homework and textbooks. There was so much to do. This night was going to be a long one.

"What should we start with? What do you need the most help with?" I said, buckling down for a lot of frustration. I was ready.

"Math, probably." She said.

"Okay. Get the book." She fumbled about with the stack of books, looking for the math textbook, though I could see it right clearly in front of her face. She was such a scatterbrain. I got it for her and took a seat at her homework desk.

"What chapters are going to be on the test?" I said, opening the book to see what we were working with.

"Chapters? It's the same as yours." Aihara said.

"I don't know mine. I just do whatever is on the test." She gaped at me like I was a living, breathing impossibility. And then she flipped open a notebook.

"It goes up to page forty."

"I see." I said. I went over the pages. She took a seat next to me at the desk and sat silently, stiff.

"Do you have a pen?" She reached for a silly-looking, oversized pen and handed it over to me.

Only she would have this ridiculous kind of pen.

"Alright," I said, flipping to certain pages of the book, "Then we're going to have this," I made a mark next to a checkpoint, "This," I made another mark and flipped through.

"How do you know that?" Aihara asked.

"These are the important points." I made another mark.

"May I ask how you usually study?" She said.

"I can remember what I read or hear once. I don't study." Her hopefulness of learning some kind of secret studying pattern dissolved. She wanted to learn to be intelligent. The problem with that was that you were either born with it or you weren't. She wasn't. Not even a little.

"I'll give you some math problems to solve." I took her notebook and used her gaudy pen to scribble down a basic math problem she would need to know to be in the top 100 this mid-year.

"If you can understand this, you can get at least eighty percent of the test correct." I said and handed her the notebook.

She got a pen and glanced over the problem. I could almost hear her resolve snap in half as I studied her reaction. She didn't understand a word of it. We were going to have to start from scratch.

Aihara peered over at me, helplessly confused. I sighed, "What is it that you do in class all day? I want to look inside your brain." I leaned my elbow on the desk, my head propped up in my palm. I was determined not to become frustrated, but she was making it so hard. We'd been learning this for months. How could she not know anything about how to solve it?

"Sorry." She said and focused on the problem, lines forming on her forehead.

"Well, don't make your brain explode. We have to start from basics." I opened the textbook to the chapter we needed… chapter one. Making up the simplest problem I could think of, I handed her the notebook once more. If she could at least get this problem, we could get somewhere meaningful tonight. To be honest, there was so much work to be done, I wasn't sure it was possible to accomplish in a short week.

"Ah," She said, much to my relief, "I think I understand this one." She scratched down an answer. What she handed me back was horrifying.

"How did it turn out like this?" I asked. Not even I could comprehend the method she'd taken to get this answer, "Where did you use the formula?"

"Formula?" Aihara said and tucked her hair behind her ear. I knew it was too good to be true, "What was it again?" When she said that, I almost threw in the towel and left. Instead, I sighed. We began to construct her knowledge on this basic, simple formula.

For hours, she was hardworking, listening intently to what I said and memorizing the steps to the math problems. When she was focused, I noticed that she was like a Spartan. Nothing was going to stop her tonight. What was more, I did my best not to snap at her or become frustrated when she didn't understand. I had to be the best teacher I could be or I wouldn't be getting my picture back from Aihara.

It was around midnight when my mother came in with a snack. The door flew open. My mother hauled in a tray of food, like a second dinner. It was too much, but I could see she was excited about me studying.

Aihara cleared a space for the tray to be set down, "It looks so good! Thanks, Mrs. Irie." She grinned despite having had a pretty big issue with a math problem three seconds ago.

"You're welcome. How's the studying going?" She shot me a funny glance, like she was getting ideas. I paid no attention to the look and started drawing a graph for planning out Aihara's study schedule.

"Perfectly fine." I said.

"Okay, then I'll leave you to it. Bye-bye." She waved as she backed out of the room and closed the door.

"Goodnight." Aihara said and beamed. She ate some as I worked out a schedule. Producing it after a few minutes, I held it up for her to read.

"You must follow this schedule. Keep your vocabulary book with you at all times, even when you're taking a bath." For the millionth time tonight, that determined look crossed her face. It gave me at least a little hope that I would be getting the picture back. Though I doubted it. She may have had the will, but she was in Class F for a reason.

"Yes. Right. You got it." She said and took the schedule from me to tape up on the wall.

"We have no time to be chatting. You have to remember all the math formulas by the end of the night." I said. She looked pained by the thought.

"It's passed midnight." Aihara said.

Don't you dare complain. You wanted this.

"Then you'll just have to work faster." I said. It was almost three in the morning when I was permitted to sleep.