Chapter 285 – Her Tears (2)

"Um… Amami-san, sorry, I…"

It felt like I've seen something that I shouldn't have seen. I quickly averted my gaze from Amami-san.

Yes, I was the one who called her out, but still, I didn't think it was a good idea for me to keep staring at her crying face.

Seeing me acting like that, Amami-san calmly wiped her tears before letting out a smile.

"No, it's fine, don't worry about it. I'm just a little upset because of my mom… Anyway, were you looking for me?"

"Yeah. Eri-san looked troubled, so I offered to help. Nitta-san is also looking for you."

"I see. I thought I'd cool off here for ten minutes first before going back, but it seems like I made everyone worry about me instead… Hehe, I'm really useless at this kind of thing, aren't I? Always selfishly prioritizing my own emotions without thinking about the consequences of my actions…"

She let out a bitter laugh before crouching down again.

It seemed like she didn't want to go back to Eri-san's side for now. Well, at least she wasn't rejecting my presence here.

Since that was the case, I guess I could stay here for a while and listen to what she had to say.

I informed Umi and Nitta-san that I've found her before sitting down on the bench by her side.

"Maki-kun, how did your midterms go?"

"Huh?"

As I was racking my brain, trying to come up with something to open up a conversation, Amami-san beat me to it. From her tone, it seemed like she had something to say, so I guess I should just lend my ears to her for the most part.

"It went smoothly. Sensei also didn't have much to say about me. She's just telling me to get along better with the other classmates…"

"Is that so? Well, if you ask me, you're doing well on that front too, Maki-kun. You've been talking to Nagisa-chan lately, right?"

"Well, yes, but that isn't what she was trying to say… Anyway, forget about me. What about you? What did Sensei say to you?"

"Ugh, I'm the one asking the questions here, Maki-kun…"

"As one of your tutors, I feel like I have the right to know, Amami-san. I mean, I need to know if my efforts have been helpful to you or not for future reference."

Although her exam result was the result of her own hard work, as someone who had told her to focus on only specific parts of the exam, I also bore part of the responsibilities to that result.

If her grade was lower than before, then it would be my fault for teaching her the wrong thing, and I'd have to at least apologize.

"If you really want to know… Here's the exam result that Sensei gave me…"

"Ah, thank you."

She handed me a crumpled paper from her pocket. I carefully looked through its content, making sure that I wouldn't miss anything.

"Huh?"

Seeing the results of each subject surprised me.

In short, her grades improved considerably; There were no red marks and in some of the subjects, her grades even reached the class' average.

…The latter subjects were the humanities subjects, the things that I taught her in our study sessions.

"Um, isn't this an amazing result, Amami-san? You're breaking your own personal record."

"It's nothing much… No, actually, I was surprised that my grades could go that high. This is all thanks to Maki-kun and my dad who taught me… Are you surprised too?"

"Yes. Honestly, I expected you to have full red marks on every subject."

"How awful! I know I've been acting weirdly lately, but I've been doing my best to study, okay? …I even reached my personal goal this time, you see?"

The fact that she managed to do that was a good thing on its own. One might call it a fluke or coincidence, but she had shown what she was capable of. With this good result, chances were she'd be more motivated to study from now on.

Besides, this was Amami-san we were talking about. Once she gained the momentum needed, she'd go all the way in without fail.

"Huh? If that's the case, then why did you run here? Generally speaking, your grades aren't good, Amami-san, but it is good enough for you."

If it was Eri-san and Yagisawa-sensei, they knew exactly how bad her previous grades were. When they saw her improvements, they'd be ecstatic rather than angry.

…That meant the root of the problem wasn't with her grades.

The parent-teacher interview's aim was to discuss a student's behavior in school, their grades and their career path. In Amami-san's case, grades weren't a problem, her behavior also wasn't the problem. That left…

"…Does it have something to do with your career path?"

In response to my question, she nodded her head.

Then, she took out another piece of paper from her pocket.

I knew that she wished to go to a university and continue her study.

There was a column in the paper. In it, there were traces that whatever it was written in there had been erased a few times.

"…You also put down K University as your first choice?"

"Yes. After thinking about it a little, I really want to spend more time with you— I mean, with you two."

"…What was that stutter?"

"N-Nothing. I bit my tongue, that's all!"

"…Fine, if you say so."

Although it was completely up to her to decide where she wanted to go, the moment I saw what she wrote… I could only say that she made a rather bold decision.

Since this was Amami-san we were talking about, she should have given it a lot of thought before writing it down. She wasn't the kind of person who'd write something like this as a joke, after all.

If I were this surprised, I could imagine Eri-san and Yagisawa-sensei's reaction after seeing this.

After that, they probably tried to persuade her to reconsider her decision.

"Both Sensei and my mom told me to keep it realistic. That's normal, even I can see that… I mean, just because my grades went up a little, I suddenly started to aim to go to the best university around? Yeah, if I were in my mom's shoes, I'd definitely say the same thing."

"But you aren't joking around."

"Yes…"

She nodded her head firmly.

And it was because she was serious that she rebelled against her mother.

"I know that my chance of getting there is almost impossible. My mom told me, 'As long as I can get into a university that fits my ability, it's enough.' But, I lashed out at her. 'Why can't you understand me, Mom? Why can't you understand how serious I am?' I didn't mean to get angry at her, she wasn't in the wrong, but… I couldn't help it…"

"And because of that you ran all the way here by yourself…"

"Yes… I wonder how many times I will do this until I can get a grip of myself. Sometimes, I wish I could be as strong as Umi and Ninacchi. If they were in my shoes, they definitely wouldn't run away like I did…"

As it could be seen from her quarrel with Umi back when we were still in our first years, her fight with Arae-san, the incident that happened in the sports festival and her ongoing quarrel with Nitta-san, Amami-san had the tendencies to speak out her unfiltered thoughts.

While in some cases it might be better for her, since she wouldn't need to keep anything to herself and mope about it like what Umi and I did, in other cases, it would only bring nothing but troubles.

So far, she had been lucky and everyone had been there for her, so nothing bad really happened to her, but who knows what would happen in the future? Once we graduated, our group of five would go on our ways. We couldn't always be there for her even if she needed us.

"Maki-kun, if I don't change, I won't ever make it, right? If I keep on acting like this, my dream of going to the same university as both of you will only stay as a dream…"

"Yes. Looking at your current grades, Amami-san, you have to work really really hard from today until the day of the entrance exam. Only after you've outdone yourself, clinging to your desk, studying while sacrificing your sleep, would you be able to think of competing."

Although the time you spent on studying couldn't really be used as an indicator whether you'd pass the exam or not, if you were to see what we all had accomplished up to this point, there was a huge gap between, say, Umi and Amami-san.

That was why Amami-san's words were correct. If she didn't change herself, her dream would stay as a dream.

But…

"…Whether you decide to change or not, Amami-san, I don't really care."

"Eh?"

Amami-san looked at me with a blank look. She probably wanted me to scold her, to motivate her so that she could do better, but unfortunately, I couldn't meet that expectation of hers…

Guess my bad habit of being meddlesome and spouting nonsense still persisted, huh?

"Honestly, I don't think there's any point for you to try with a normal method. You don't have enough time to make up for all the times you've spent slacking off. In the first place, you don't have the capabilities to compete with everyone who is aiming to pass the K University entrance exam. Before that, there's also the National Entrance Exam for you to go through."

"Uh? M-Maki-kun?"

"…Sorry, I had so many things to say… I blurted out a bunch of things by accident…"

If she just wanted to improve her overall academic capabilities, sure, studying hard could do it. But, she was aiming for the entrance exam, that was a whole different thing entirely. She only had one chance to even try something and there were a lot of factors that contributed whether you'd pass the exam or not, including but not limited to your physical and mental health.

But, Amami-san was someone who could definitely take that one chance. She had already done so with our school's entrance exam, which was notorious for being one of the hardest in the whole prefecture.

Of course, cases like that, where people tried to take their chance and succeed were few and far between, but they existed.

"I can understand where Eri-san and Yagisawa-sensei came from. You're essentially fighting a losing battle here, after all. But, if you're firm on your decision to go to the university to follow Umi and I, that's completely okay."

"Is that really okay? I have no goals or anything. I just want to go there to be together with you two. Isn't it rude towards other people who have proper goals?"

"I don't know about that and I don't care. The reason why I decided to go there is also because I want to go to the same university as Umi. If those people who have proper goals actually lose out to me, someone with such a superficial reason, then, that's completely on them for not trying hard enough."

In the real world, no matter how hard you tried, if you couldn't get the result you wanted, they'd just treat it as you hadn't tried hard enough.

Honestly, it felt sad that people always disregarded someone's efforts for results, but that was how it was.

And that was also the reason why Amami-san had the chance.

"…Honestly, I don't care if you'll pass and enter the university together with us or not. As long as Umi is with me, your presence really doesn't matter… Sorry, that was rude of me, wasn't it?"

"Wow, that's pretty cold. It's fine, Maki-kun, I understand. You're that kind of person, after all. You telling me the truth like this without beating around the bush is your way of showing your kindness, I understand that."

"No, I went too far just now—"

"As I said, don't mind it. I know that you meant well, Maki-kun. More than anyone, you're the kindest person I've known… And also…"

'The biggest dummy I ever knew.'

"Huh?"

After letting out that mutter, Amami-san did an unexpected thing.

"A-Amami-san?"

"Dummy… Maki-kun, you're an idiot!"

Due to her sudden movements, my reaction was delayed, so I could only receive her.

She was so close to me that I could touch her golden hair, smell her scent and feel the warmth of her body.

Why would she do this?

For what reason did she embrace me?