339 A Little Bit of Hojou Kyousuke Shock

For a moment, Yukinoshita felt like time had warped—like she'd been flung back to the days when she spoke with Miyamizu Mitsuha.

She'd never been one to shy away from a challenge, but wasn't this dorm taking it a little too far?

She was seriously starting to wonder if she'd need to duel someone just to earn the right to sit down for dinner.

Still, in a way, this place was like a dream come true.

After all, outside this dorm, how often did people even dare challenge her?

"Just what I wanted," she said calmly.

Yukinoshita turned to look at Megumi.

Her expression remained composed, but the fire in her eyes was impossible to miss.

Megumi blinked.

'Wait... wasn't this supposed to be a casual study session? Why does it suddenly feel like the start of an epic showdown?'

She glanced at both sides.

On her right was Yukinoshita, her battle-ready aura on full display.

On her left was Hojou—smiling, calmly but his eyes revealed a quiet intensity.

He clearly wasn't going to pass up this rare chance to go head-to-head with Yukinoshita.

"Would this work? I got these questions from a prep school—Kawaijuku," Megumi said, pulling out her phone and placing it on the table.

"Why math?" Yukinoshita frowned slightly—not because she was intimidated by Kyousuke's math skills, but because when you're showing off what you can do, you want to lead with your strongest subject.

And for her, that was the humanities.

Her relentless "experiments" and debate skills made that obvious.

"Well~ out of all my subjects, I'm bad the most at math," Megumi replied matter-of-factly. "If I can improve it, my grades overall will shoot up next time."

Yukinoshita's frown softened, and her voice took on a hint of warmth.

"Very good, Katou-san. You're already showing admirable self-awareness."

Even though she had confidence that she could polish even a rotten piece of wood into an exhibition-worthy sculpture, it was moving to see a client who was so willing to try.

Unlike Sakura, Megumi was putting in effort on her own.

"Math might be a bit much though. Do you have any Japanese language exams?

That's something everyone's familiar with—it makes it easier to show real ability," Kyousuke cut in, feeling a tinge of guilt for bullying a poor girl with a math test.

"Hm?" Yukinoshita raised an eyebrow, voice slightly cold.

She knew Hojou's best subject was math—was he holding back on purpose?

"If you're sparing me out of pity, there's no need," she said firmly. "You're my club member. Your strength only makes it easier for us to fulfill our club requests."

There was a crystalline clarity in her cool tone—and in her flawless features—that made Kyousuke momentarily hesitate.

Because for him, a team leader had to be the strongest.

The moment they got weak, someone would rise up and overthrow them. That's how he saw the world.

"You sure about this?"

Kyousuke gave a crooked smile, then picked up Katou's phone.

His fingers flew across the screen, and within a minute, he had finished scanning the entire test and handed the phone back.

The test followed a standard national center exam format—five questions total in sixty minutes.

The first two were mandatory, the next three were multiple choice.

All answers were marked on a bubble sheet, with options including (-), 0–9, a–d.

For example, if the answer was -9a, you'd bubble in "-" on the first row, "9" on the second, and "a" on the third.

Sakura often bragged she could get into a decent university just by luck, and this exam format was why.

While there was a secondary school-specific test afterward, people with sky-high luck stats had a clear advantage in the first round.

Kyousuke had moved so fast, the other two were left blinking in confusion.

Yukinoshita eyed the phone in Katou's hand, and an absurd thought crossed her mind: Don't tell me he…

"The first question's on definite integrals. Use a simple trigonometric substitution and you get: I = I1 + I2 + I3 = (π/8) + …"

Kyousuke gave them a moment to react.

Megumi, startled by the sudden start, blinked in confusion for two seconds.

Under Yukinoshita's urging, she quickly pulled up the answer sheet from another file.

After Megumi confirmed his first answer, Kyousuke immediately moved on to the second—plane geometry.

This one was the kind where, if you just drew the right auxiliary line, you didn't even need calculations.

He rattled off the answer without even pausing.

Then came question three: a solid geometry problem involving a complex octahedron.

Find the cross-section, calculate the value of P, and determine the area.

Unlike the warm-up questions before it, this was the kind of beast that made regular students give up on sight.

But for someone like Kyousuke—who could build a perfect 3D mental model of Utaha-senpai's shapely, black-stockinged legs from just a single photo—this was nothing.

Never mind the given coordinates—he could probably point to any random spot inside the octahedron and tell you the exact coordinates off the top of his head.

He proceeded to rattle off four different solution paths, each more intricate than the last.

He didn't just solve the question—he practically danced with it.

Yukinoshita tried to follow along, multitasking as she listened and checked the answer sheet.

Her brain felt like it was overheating.

The official answer key only listed two methods—one of which had a note: "Not recommended for general students."

But as she read them over, Yukinoshita felt a strange thrill.

'Given enough time,' she told herself, 'I could have figured out the second method too. I know I could have.'

But before she could finish that thought, Kyousuke was already explaining the third method.

Each step felt disconnected, pointless—even baffling.

'What could possibly be the use of this?!' she thought, overwhelmed.

Then, all at once, everything snapped into place.

The sudden realization hit her like a jolt of lightning.

A rush of intellectual satisfaction surged through her chest—followed almost immediately by a sense of shame for feeling that way.

Just as she was about to comment, Kyousuke, without skipping a beat, started explaining the fourth solution.

'Wait a second…'

'Didn't he only glance at the test once? For less than a minute?'

'In that time, he not only solved every question—he memorized every step?!'

The first two questions she could almost understand—they were fundamentals, and if she really tried, she could probably get them within ten minutes.

But that third one…

She turned her head, expecting to see the same stunned look on Megumi's face.

Instead, Megumi was calmly pointing at the screen, double-checking Kyousuke's answers with an unusually serious expression.

This kind of attitude was certainly commendable—but even so, Yukino couldn't help but feel confused.

'Weren't the things Hojou just said… not actually part of the answer?'

Unaware of Yukino's internal conflict, Katou kept her wide eyes glued to her phone screen, trying to mask her shock by pretending to zone out in class.

Inside, however, she was screaming: Amazing. Amazing!

'These kinds of problems aren't meant for second-years!'

They were dealing with calculus—something usually taught in the third year of high school. When she first got the practice test, she never even considered attempting it.

It was more like something she kept stored on her phone to boost her academic aura.

'Hojou…'

She always knew he was brilliant. But she hadn't expected his brilliance to be this overwhelming.

He looked at a problem once—just once—and immediately rattled off the answer.

'What kind of monster is that?'

Even that famed child prodigy, Professor Togo from the Kawaijuku seminar—who supposedly had been hailed as a genius since birth—only showed off his speed during a presentation.

But even his pace couldn't hold a candle to Hojou's.

And unlike Togo, Hojou wasn't just fast—he was solving each question after a single glance and offering multiple solutions.

It was as if he had a supercomputer in his brain.

Kyousuke looked relaxed, lazily observing Yukino and Megumi's flushed expressions—each touched with awe.

That subtle reaction, born from his sheer competence, filled him with a deep sense of satisfaction.

And combined with the pleasure of solving difficult problems, the joy was practically doubled.

With that in mind, he decided to take it a step further—to overwhelm them even more.

Though his posture was loose, his voice became sharper—like the edge of a reef slicing through waves—delivering blow after blow with what he liked to call his "mathematical sacred sword."

Question Four tested number theory and—judging by the difficulty—completely crushed the level of Japan's actual national entrance exams.

Kyousuke could immediately tell Kawaijuku's true intention behind releasing this free practice set: to destroy the students' self-confidence so they'd feel hopeless, then rush to sign up for expensive tutoring.

But for Kyousuke, the reigning gold medalist of the Japan Mathematical Olympiad, this kind of problem was child's play.

If he couldn't solve something like this, he might as well retire.

This time, he didn't skip any steps.

He walked through every number, every calculation, and even began explaining the underlying concepts—the reason behind each formula, why it was written that way, and what it was supposed to achieve.

Then came Question Five…

After he finished, he let out a long breath.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask the girls for their thoughts, he felt the presence of another person.

Yukino Yukari.

The woman in the household who gave off the most "wifely" vibe appeared, holding a tray.

She gracefully bent her knees and knelt beside Kyousuke, offering him a slightly cool glass of barley tea.

He didn't say thank you.

He simply gave her a soft smile and gently squeezed her hand.

Just like that time when the two of them had sat silently under the hallway eaves, listening to the rain—no words needed, just a look was enough to convey everything.

Rain might muffle voices and obscure vision, but it couldn't block two hearts so closely aligned.

Yukari glanced at the other two girls, still fixated on their phones, and silently placed the tray beside Kyousuke before rising to her feet.

Yukinoshita Yukino and her sister Haruno were polar opposites in personality, yet both moved with a natural grace.

Whether she was kneeling or standing, Yukino's body flowed like a willow branch—swaying softly in the wind, then straightening with quiet strength once the gust had passed.

She was like every great woman: seemingly fragile, yet unshakably strong inside.

As he watched her hips sway gently while she walked away, Kyousuke took a small sip of the tea.

The taste was sweet—not like wine you savor after a philosophical debate, nor the refined bitterness of ceremonial tea. No, this was barley tea.

After showing off like that, he should be chugging it down like a true man.

"So, I think I've got a pretty solid read on Katou-san's math level, don't you?" he asked.

Of course!

Megumi wanted to shout her agreement, but one glance at the blank-faced Yukino made her hesitate.

Instead, she opted for a cautious nod.

Right now, Yukino looked as docile and quiet as a borrowed cat.

The moment that thought entered Megumi's head, a small smile suddenly broke through her calm expression.

'Yes! I've picked up one of Yukino's signature mannerisms! I can use cat-based sayings now!'

Yukino didn't immediately know how to respond.

She had always been confident.

Even if her entrance exam score had been slightly lower than Kyousuke's, even if her recent math quiz had also lost to him—she'd never imagined the gap between them would be so enormous.

His strength wasn't just impressive—it was downright shocking.

It was absurd.

She was already considered one of the rare geniuses of her generation—and yet, this boy…

He wasn't just extraordinary. He was a monster in human form.

Now it made sense why the principal had risked offending the prestigious Yukinoshita family just to replace her with Kyousuke as the representative speaker at the entrance ceremony.

Did he even look at the test for a full minute?

Probably not. Maybe thirty seconds?

That's barely enough time to even read a question, let alone solve it.

Most people would be scribbling down their name, and Hojou would already have all five answers solved.

His only real limitation wasn't his brain—it was how fast his hand could write.

"So that's why," Yukino said quietly, "you thought there was no need to actually do the math test?"

She had never imagined she'd one day stand in the position of the weaker party, receiving the condescending grace of someone stronger.

And this feeling…

She finally understood why Hiratsuka-sensei had once told her she was too arrogant.

True strength came from confidence—but if all you ever saw was the inside of your well, you'd never comprehend the size of the ocean.

No… "Frog in a well" didn't quite capture it.

The right saying now would be: 'A cat does not know the heart of a tiger.'

They might belong to the same family on the surface, but a housecat could never understand what a tiger was thinking.

When she first heard that proverb, Yukino had briefly wondered if it was insulting to tigers.

After all, she liked both.

But then it dawned on her: just as a cat couldn't fathom a tiger's nature, a tiger would never understand how a tiny cat could rub up against humans and earn affection and food with such ease.

In that sense, they were equals.

'Wait… then that means, I'm the cat…'

Just as Hojou Kyousuke was about to respond with a modest smile, he noticed Yukino's face begin to shift expressions rapidly—from a flushed seriousness to an oddly dazed kind of blush.

She looked like a cat who had just spotted a bonito flake.

"Oi, Yukinoshita. Snap out of it. It's not dinnertime yet,"

"Bonito flakes!" Startled by Hojou's voice, Yukino blurted out her thoughts. She had just realized something:

'Coming to live here at the dorm with him… it's like putting a bowl of bonito flakes right next to a hungry cat.'

'Wasn't she just placing herself in danger?'

"Yukinoshita-san," Kyousuke said with a laugh, "don't tell me you're wondering if I wrote the answers… on a piece of bonito flake?"

"As if!" Yukino immediately shot back. "Don't taint a cat's favorite food with your ridiculous ideas!"

"Well, actually, bonito flakes aren't even a cat's favorite food."

"What nonsense! Even proverbs say cats love bonito flakes!"

Yukino, who ranked cats in the top three most important things in her life—despite never actually owning one—raised her voice in protest.

'This guy… does he think being good at math gives him the right to rewrite the laws of nature?'

'She loved cats. Cats loved fish. That was practically a law of the universe!'

Fueled by this thought, Yukino turned her sharpest glare on Hojou, eyes full of righteous fury.