Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16818622172789075625/episodes/16818622176055930803
That day, Nagisa was her usual self.
At the after-school study session, I was taken aback to see Nagisa smiling as usual.
Next to her, Reisa, on the other hand, looked dissatisfied.
Still, seeing Reisa and Nagisa sitting at their desks, eager to learn, made me feel like I was their teacher.
It had been over a month since this environment had started, and I had gotten used to it to some extent, but even so, it was a little intimidating.
“Huh, 67 points shouldn’t be a bad score, but I can’t get as excited about it as I used to.”
“Well, that’s just how studying goes.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s about how the bar gets higher as your grades improve. The higher your standards, the narrower the range of scores that will satisfy you. If you keep going to study sessions after school every day, the standards will get even stricter in the future.”
“Tsukushi is like, ‘If I don’t get a perfect score, I’m doomed !’…That’s how it feels. I was thinking, doesn’t studying make you less happy the more you do it?”
“It’s not just about studying. It’s the same with club activities, work, and income. As the things we achieve through effort become routine, we’re always chasing after something even better.”
“Don’t say such scary things. Ugh, I’m really not happy about this.”
When you get used to high standards, you become insensitive to happiness.
It’s ironic that the more you strive for happiness, the further you get from it.
This world is quite interesting.
And humans are sinful creatures.
But I’m not trying to get all philosophical here.
What is this?
I cautiously asked Nagisa, who was smiling cheerfully.
“Um, well…what was your score on the quiz?”
“Huh? It was 84 points. It’s not great, but compared to before, it’s stabilized at around 80%, so I’m a little relieved, but it’s a bit of a complicated feeling.”
“Oh, okay.”
Hey, Takagi. What’s going on?
It’s not a score that’s bad enough to be pessimistic about.
Was he lying after all?
However, Nagasa smiled wryly at me for casting unfounded suspicion on Takagi.
“I went to ask the teacher questions right after class ended. At that time, I happened to run into Takagi kun, and he gave me a really mean smile, which was a bit upsetting. To him, who got a perfect score, I must have looked ridiculous rushing out of the classroom with a flushed face.”
“…You could punch him, you know?”
“No way. Fighting is about points, right?”
“Haha, that’s true.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Nagasa’s surprisingly straightforward thinking.
It’s okay. There’s no need to worry about her mental state.
She’s much stronger than me and an adult.
Still, it’s probably better to keep Takagi and my exchange a secret.
Gossip behind your back is worse.
I’m not good with words, I’m not very expressive, and I’m not very smart, but I’ll keep this to myself.
“What score did Tsukushi kun get?”
“…91 points.”
“Fufu, don’t look so sad. There’s someone below you, so it’s not that bad, right?”
“I-I’m sorry. But I’m still pretty upset that I lost to Takagi.”
Regardless, I was also conscious of him.
I didn’t have such strong feelings as him, but it’s true that I didn’t want to lose.
Well, that’s not good.
As Nagisa said, it’s not good to show this kind of attitude to someone who scored lower than me.
Up to this point, Reisa had unusually not interjected.
In fact, she hadn’t even asked about the scores or spoken at all until now.
Seeing her just listening with a gentle smile, it seemed she was really considerate.
“Alright, then let’s start with that review today.”
Since we were going to do it anyway, we decided to spend the whole day studying English.
Even though we were in different classes, we had solved the same problems, so the three of us compared our answers and identified the issues.
Then we noticed something.
Nagisa and I looked at each other and turned to Reisa.
“Hey, Reisa, why is this problem correct?”
“How did you solve it?”
We both asked the same question at the same time.
Reisa, who was asked the question, looked puzzled.
“Well, it was a phrase I knew.”
“…Did we learn this?”
“I don’t know. Well, I was overseas until recently, so maybe I saw it there. I also read English texts there.”
Reisa had perfectly answered the long Japanese translation that Nagisa and I had gotten wrong.
Judging by her reaction, it didn’t seem like she had struggled much to come up with the answer.
“Let me borrow it for a moment.”
“Eh, sure, go ahead.”
Nagisa came over to my side, and we both stared at Reisa’s answer sheet.
And then we realized.
This girl had perfectly answered the long reading comprehension question that we couldn’t interpret.
Moreover, it was almost a model answer with no eraser marks.
This was…I had underestimated her.
“Reisa, you…you really are a returnee, aren’t you?”
“I feel like I’m being treated very rudely !”
“I’m sorry for saying such cruel things to you, Reisa san.”
“That reaction hurts the most! Anyway, did I write something weird?”
Leaving aside Reisa, who was shouting in disbelief, I was moved.
She was a prodigy.
What Nagisa and I stumbled on this time was not an idiom that appears in textbooks, but a translation of a phrase that natives would use more casually.
Because we weren’t used to them, we literally translated them, causing discrepancies and losing partial points.
Reisa, however, translated them accurately without any mistakes.
While her wording was slightly more colloquial than what would be expected in an answer, it actually convinced us that she truly understood the meaning of the text.
In short, thanks to her overseas experience, Reisa’s English skills were superior to ours.
Reisa blushed at our astonishment.
“See? I told you before that I could handle everyday conversation.”
“I thought you were just showing off.”
“Nagisa, you…”
“I’m sorry. But what can I do? Even Reisa, who never studied and always got failing grades, has her limits.”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
I had honestly underestimated Reisa’s English skills.
She barely understood the vocabulary and grammar we learned in class, so who would think that such a person could read and translate Japanese perfectly?
Besides, she lived in Paris, which is a French-speaking area.
“It’s okay. I was also bad at communicating in English when I was there. I had a family member who was good at English, so I had them translate for me and sometimes taught me.”
“Wow, you’re really something. You had a good tutor.”
“More like a sister than a tutor?”
Reisa spoke with a hint of ambiguity.
When I visited the mansion last time, I didn’t meet anyone like that, so maybe she was just out that day.
Well, it doesn’t matter.
Either way, Reisa’s language skills were honestly unexpected, and to be honest, they’re quite helpful.
This is a ray of hope.
“Hey, Reisa, would you teach us English?”
“Huh !?”
Reisa’s score was 67, which is lower than ours.
However, the breakdown of her score is the opposite of ours.
While Nagisa and I rely on memorization and accumulation to compensate, Reisa has learned English intuitively in an environment close to that of a native speaker.
While the former can handle low-level mock exams, Reisa’s knowledge will be essential for the university entrance exams we aim for and the regular exams at our school.
Reisa shook her head vigorously, and I smiled at her.
“I won’t let you say no. You said it before, didn’t you? From now on, Reisa will teach me too.”
‘Ah, that was a joke. I never thought it would actually happen…”
That was the message she sent me after the mock exam.
She did say she would teach me, after all.
Reisa’s expression tightened slightly, and Nagisa closed the distance between them.
“Please, I beg you.”
“Hehe, are you sure? I’m strict, you know?”
I teach them math, Nagisa teaches us Japanese, and Reisa teaches us English.
It feels like a perfect cycle has been born here.
“Hahaha…Takagi, the next test is going to be interesting.”
“You’re mumbling something scary.”
“Tsukushi kun is always like this.”
“Nagisa, what do you think Tsukushi is? A pervert?”
“No way.”
Ignoring the two arguing in front of me, I was grinning to myself, confident of victory.
I found a breakthrough in an unexpected place, and I couldn’t stop feeling excited and grateful.
Takagi, you misjudged a few things this time too.
I’ll show you what I’m capable of on the actual test.
I’m already looking forward to the midterm exam.
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