Chapter Eight
One week later, and the exam results would be out. This morning, the top 100 list would be posted for all to see. It was the moment of truth.
The list was the first place I went when I got to Tonan. I normally never checked because I had no reason to. I already knew my score. It wasn't to my score that I went, but to the end of the list. If Aihara had made this list at all, she would have to have been at the bottom somewhere.
And at the very bottom, in the one hundredth place, was Aihara. She'd scored surprisingly well. A half-smiled graced my lips. I was impressed. I could imagine that if she only tried harder, she could bump up a class or two.
I watched as Aihara bumbled her way through the crowd. She checked the very top of the list and a look of relief crossed her. Concerned about my score, was she? Well, she should have been, considering how many nights I stayed up late to help her.
She found me in the crowd, "Congratulations on being in first place again. You got a perfect score." She beamed, genuinely happy for me.
"Congrats to you, too." I said.
"What?" A mix of confusion and disbelief set over her.
"You didn't see?"
Aihara slipped back into the crowd and checked the list again. Some of the students of higher classes stared at her, dead hating that a Class F had scored higher than them. She gaped at her score, and then when it hit her that she had made the list, the widest smile I'd ever seen spread across her mouth.
"One hundredth?" She squealed, "Seriously?" She jumped up and down jovially. She rushed over to where I stood.
"One hundredth place! I'm so happy!" She said with a laugh. I held out my hand for the picture, assuming she knew she had to return it now. That was the deal.
Instead, she took my hand in hers and shook it, "Great work." I shrugged out of her hand.
"No," I said, "Return that… thing."
"Oh," she reached into her pocket and yanked out the picture, "You mean this?" She said with a tacky smile. I snatched it from her.
"Don't show it for everyone to see," I peered around to check that no one had seen, "I've told you so many times already. Don't talk to me at school." I tucked the picture deep into my pocket to incinerate later and turned to leave her and go to class.
"Hey, Irie-kun," She said. I turned to face her, annoyed for the millionth time in two weeks, "It's important to know what you can and can't do. But if you have strength of mind and persi…" She struggled with the word.
"You mean 'persistence'?" I said, "'If you have strength of mind and persistence, you will succeed at the end'." Aihara nodded and giggled.
"So, you already knew the rest of it… that so-and-so Chesterfield's quote." She grinned a dazzling smile at me. One thing I could say about her was that she had the brightest smile, and she used it all the time. She had to have been the happiest person I'd met in my life. It was somewhat contagious, and it was hard not to let a smile play at the corners of my mouth.
"Of course." I started off towards class.
"Thank you so much, Irie-kun!" She called after me. Right after I'd told her not to talk to me at school, too. But I guessed I hadn't expected her to abide by that rule too well.
I continued on to class, where for hours, the picture in my pocket was a burden. The news of a Class F making it onto the top 100 list circulated the school. Aihara was the center of some good gossip for once, though the students who had sour grapes over it speculated she'd cheated somehow.
"There's no way she made it onto that list without help." Hikari said after everyone had completed their homework. She had made second place again. Yoshida wasn't too happy about that.
"Where would she have gotten it from, then? She'd have needed help from a professional, and I doubt she did." Wada said to her.
"I don't know. It's so suspicious. And who's to say she didn't weasel her way onto that list for Irie to notice her?" I could have told them everything myself, from how she got on the list to why. But that would have blown everything wide open, and it would have been best if they didn't know.
During this class time, normally used for studying independently, Kinnosuke and his friends migrated to the hallways and did nothing useful. I could hear them talking, and Kinnosuke whining. One would have thought he would be happy for Aihara, but he was only suspicious.
"There is something weird going on at that new house of hers!" He complained. Any time I heard him, a comment or two about Aihara's living arrangements slipped in. It must have been eating him inside out that he hadn't been informed of where she was living.
For his sake and my own, it needed to stay that way. But with Kinnosuke becoming increasingly agitated at not knowing, Aihara had better have been extra careful not to lead him there.
Kinnosuke went back to class after a while and I got on mighty fine without hearing his wailing.
At the end of the day, I walked home with only one thing on my mind: the picture. It was burning a mental hole in my pocket.
Without paying much attention to my surroundings and with my mind only on one thing, I took to the house, and then to my bedroom. There, I shredded the picture to bits, sprinkling them into the waste bin. I could relax about this embarrassing secret not being discovered. At least one nightmare was over with.
