When he got to school, Niijima was there at the door, apparently waiting for him before going in. Her attention seemed to be trained on her phone though, so she didn't notice Ryuji until he was right next to her.

"Mornin' Niijima," said Ryuji, tapping his umbrella against hers to snap her back to reality. "You didn't wait too long did you?" he asked, now suddenly concerned that she'd been waiting for hours for him to get here.

Niijima startled a little when he tapped her umbrella, and stuffed her phone in her backpack quickly. "Oh! Good morning Sakamoto," she rejoined, pulling a key from her pocket. "Don't worry, I haven't been waiting all that long. The rain convinced me to spend a few extra minutes at home this morning," continued Niijima, unlocking the door to the school. The pair folded their umbrellas as they stepped inside. As Niijima shook the water from her umbrella, a thought crossed Ryuji's mind. He'd has a few questions about her ever since he'd seen her on that early morning, but he decided on the most pertinent question at the moment.

"Hey Niijima, how come you have a key to the school?" he probed, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he grabbed an umbrella bag.

"Oh, the principal gave it to me," responded Niijima simply, which only raised more questions for Ryuji like 'So why did he give it to you?' and 'What do at school so early in the morning?' but since she didn't seem to want to elaborate, he let it pass for now. The two of them walked to the library quietly, each lost in their own thoughts. Once inside, Niijima, unzipped her back pack and began laying out her binders, while Ryuji pulled out the notebook he'd written his rough draft in.

"Did you manage to get any of your essay done last night?" she asked, taking hold of his notebook as he slid it across the table to her.

"Yeah actually. Oh, I marked the page it's on with a sticky note. Y'know, so it's easy to find," said Ryuji, his voice rising a little with suppressed optimism. Niijima didn't exactly smile, but the way that she touched the sticky note that protruded from the pages of his battered spiral notebook might as well have been one.

"I see, thank you Sakamoto," replied Niijima, and Ryuji thought he caught a note of satisfaction in her voice. A shy grin tugged at the corner of his lips. Niijima flipped to the page briskly, her red eyes scanning the page momentarily before she pulled out one of the pens from her pen bag shaped like a cartoon mascot.

"I see that you really did decide to write on the topic of 'being a hero of justice'," said Niijima, using her pen to circle a few grammatical errors. In the margins of the notebook, she added tiny suggestions on how to correct his sentence structure and how to choose words that more clearly expressed the points he was trying to make.

"Yeah, when you said that I needed to write about something I actually cared about, I knew I had to pick this," replied Ryuji, watching Niijima's pen flicker across the page. How could she write so small, but so legibly? He wondered what her notebook looked like. It was probably so dense that it intimidated everyone except for maybe a masochist or a lawyer. Or a masochistic lawyer, he thought, and willed himself not to snicker at the mental image.

Niijima didn't seem to notice Ryuji's internal struggle and continued to make tiny notes in the margins of the paper. "Word of advice Sakamoto, I wouldn't use the word 'shitty' in here to talk about the adults you'd like to bring to justice," said Niijima, making a few final notations before passing the notebook back to Ryuji. "Even though I might agree with the spirit of the word, it's not appropriate language for a school paper," she finished, raising her head and meeting Ryuji's open-mouthed stare. Niijima's grip on her pen slackened, and it nearly fell from her fingers.

"Did I say something strange, Sakamoto?" she asked, her brows furrowed in an expression equally surprised and confused. Ryuji's mouth worked in silence for a moment before he managed to choke out what he wanted to say.

"You think adults are shitty too?!" he exclaimed, surprise raising the volume of his voice to a shout. Niijima startled at the loudness of his voice, shushing him quickly.

"Yes I mean...obviously! My sister is a prosecutor, so obviously I wouldn't think all adults are great," said Niijima quickly. That outburst seemed to surprise her as much as it did Ryuji, and she pressed her lips together tightly as though to keep from saying anything more drastic. Ryuji nodded, but he still felt dumbstruck by such an admission from the 'authoritarian slave robot'.

"Uh of course! I mean yeah that totally makes sense," said Ryuji, leaning back in his chair and jamming his hands in his pockets. Niijima looked down at her hands, fiddling with her mascot shaped eraser. As the minutes ticked by and no one said anything, the two students began to feel increasingly more and more uncomfortable.

Finally, Niijima broke the stalemate. "Well, I think you've got a good start on your paper," she began, her normally precise diction halting. "You're kind of crude with your language, but you've got good ideas. I recommend typing up this paper with my corrections before you submit it, and we'll talk about it again when the teacher gives you feedback," she finished, her voice sounding more confident now that she was in her area of expertise.

Both legs of the chair Ryuji was sitting in landed back on the ground with a thud, and Ryuji frowned as he faced Niijima. "I mean, I would but uh...I have to hand write everything. I uh, don't have access to a computer...uh right now," he replied, his frown twisting into a more bitter expression. Niijima's eyes searched his face for a moment, as though she might ask him a question about it before she changed course.

"Well, the easy solution to that is to use the computers here at the library. If you can type it up before class, they should let you print for free here. For a more long term solution though, I'll ask one of the teachers about loaning you one of the school laptops. It'll make editing and submitting a lot easier on the both of us," said Niijima, trying to gauge if Ryuji would be amenable to that arrangement. To her surprise, Ryuji actually seemed quite excited.

"Really?! Thanks Niijima! Man, gone are the days when the professors could just ignore my essays 'cause they couldn't read 'em! Now I'm like, goin' totally high tech!" crowed Ryuji and Niijima had to shush him again when the librarian's assistant glared at them. Even so, Ryuji's excitement couldn't be contained, though he limited himself to silent cheering and fist pumping.

"Hey Prez, thanks for that! Man, I can't wait to write my essay now," he whisper-shouted, and then thrust his hand out. For a moment, Niijima didn't comprehend what he was signaling for her. A second later, recognition sparked in her eyes. With an inward roll of her eyes, she gently slapped his outstretched hand for the proffered high five. It seemed ridiculous to her that he was getting so excited over a loaner laptop, but she tried not to judge.

Ryuji walked off to one of the school desktops after Niijima created a temporary login for him and started to work transcribing his essay digitally. From the way he handled the computer, he showed some familiarity with the machine, but from the way he pounded the keyboard, Niijima guessed he'd never formally learned and had just taught himself everything about it. Oh well, she'd give him a few pointers at their next session when she got the laptop to him.

Despite the fact that tutoring Sakamoto had taken up most of the morning and classes were about to start, Niijima didn't feel nearly as dissatisfied as she thought she would. Actually, she felt a little pleased that Sakamoto had made so much progress. It felt a little strange to take pride in someone else's success, but it was pleasant nonetheless. Though she pushed her feelings to the back burner so she could focus on writing her college essay, they persisted in the background.

Maybe there was hope for this endeavor yet.