← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 2
Chapter 16: The Secret Relationship - Part 1
Chapter 16: The Secret Relationship – Part 1
“Here, thanks.”
Lately, Tsutomu went once a day, during some break, alone to a spot out of sight.
Then, feigning ignorance, Matsurika would come, and a single notebook would be handed over.
A scene not unlike a black-market deal, but once you got used to it, it was hardly worth minding.
“Ah, sorry about that.”
“‘Sorry about that’… I’m the one borrowing the notebook.”
Muttering along with a half-lidded Matsurika, he flipped through the returned notebook.
The page, divided into three by two vertical lines, preserved the state he’d written it in.
On the left, headings; in the center, the main text; on the right, the points to note, listed up.
A notebook he’d made after scouring the internet for exam information, browsing reference books in bookstores, and producing trial after trial.
That this form suited him best—he’d gained that conviction only after entering high school.
On various parts of such a Tsutomu-original notebook, pink sticky notes were stuck. Written on them, rounded letters.
—Matsurika-like handwriting… or so it’d seem, I guess.
He’d never say it before her, but he’d expected her to write with something more crisp and tidy.
Well, there was no point in nitpicking that. What the sticky notes said was Matsurika’s impression of using the notebook.
Up to now he’d gathered impressions from other classmates via Shiro, but hers were detailed and easy to understand.
“Somehow, it feels like I’m doing something wrong.”
The voice that slipped from her glossed lips trembled faintly.
Turning his gaze, the owner of the voice wore an apologetic expression.
“…What do you mean?”
“Because, anyone can tell when they look at the notebook. Just how hard Kariya-kun has worked.”
“…”
“I’ve always thought of Kariya-kun as a genius, but… that’s not it, is it.”
Matsurika smiled, somewhat self-deprecatingly, and Tsutomu silently nodded.
No need for anyone to point it out; he already recognized he wasn’t a genius.
The self-assessment of the man ‘Kariya Tsutomu’ was——
“Yeah. I’m an ordinary man.”
For an ordinary, run-of-the-mill boy to aim higher, he’d packed in more effort than most.
Grade-topper, regular at the top of national mock exams, the ‘Gariben Notebook’—those were nothing but the results.
The heart he’d never let slip to anyone began to spill from his mouth, easily.
“No, I didn’t say that far.”
He was pressed with a straight face and a real voice, but he brushed it off.
“If I had some talent too, maybe I could’ve lived a smarter life.”
Gazing at the distant sky, he made a lament. It was the sort of complaint he’d absolutely never voice in public.
Only before Matsurika, only toward Matsurika, did his mouth grow loose.
The complex feeling—the sense of superiority at holding her secret mixed with guilt—must have brought that about.
“Talent, like sports?”
“…Anything would have done, really.”
Sports would have been fine. Shogi, or Go, too. Art or music, or even games.
Even limiting it to within Japan, there were people his age already mixing with adults and making a living as professionals.
Those born with a special talent, who ground themselves to dust to polish it, who scraped by.
Tsutomu was different. A mere ordinary man. Born with no talent, and not blessed by his circumstances either.
The simplest, most reliable path such an ordinary man chose to cut open his own life—that was the path of study.
“I always thought you loved studying, Kariya-kun.”
His answer, to Matsurika’s hesitant voice, was a bitter smile. It was only natural she’d think so.
Ignoring the classes and pressing forward, faster and faster, was by now a daily routine.
He’d never once left the top spot in regular exams since enrolling, and always ranked high on national mock exams.
His arrogant figure, dismissing the teachers of the prefecture’s best advanced school as ‘incompetent’, must have looked to Matsurika exactly like the sort of person she described.
It was wrong, actually. He didn’t particularly like studying. He was an ordinary high-schooler who, if he could play every day, would rather do so.
He’d wished, more than once or twice, that he could pick up two thousand trillion yen.
“Not at all. I told you, I’m an ordinary man. As if there’d be an ordinary man who loves studying.”
He used his classmates, via Shiro, to update his own notebook.
It was what Matsurika called ‘guinea pig treatment’, hardly a praiseworthy way of doing things.
Even knowing that, there was no choice but to do it. To make maximum use of his limited time, he could think of no other way.
Because—he was ordinary. Because he had no talent. Because, ordinary as he was, he’d set a goal beyond his station.
Tsutomu’s target was a top-tier national university.
If he continued on smoothly as things stood, he was almost certain to fall within the passing range.
However, in almost everything in this world, there was no such thing as ‘absolute.’
If he could raise his odds of passing by even a little, if he could shave off even a bit of the risk of missing by a hair.
For that, he’d even tolerate being pointed at behind his back. He’d dismiss popularity as unnecessary, with a laugh. He had no hesitation, no regret.
“Hmm, so, maybe that’s it.”
“…That’s what?”
“Kariya-kun’s notebook, it’s incredibly easy to understand.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Everyone’s being unfair, using a notebook like this.”
“Even if you tell me that, I’m at a loss… is it really that clear?”
His question, laced with a faint hope, and Matsurika nodded.
Her glossy black hair, neatly combed, swayed faintly.
“I’ll be honest, I underestimated it. Summing it up as a genius’s notebook, I thought it’d be way over my head.”
“If Tachibana can’t follow it, then the others wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The first time Matsurika got her hands on the ‘Gariben Notebook’ was now, more than a year into high school.
Until now, she’d beaten her classmates—who’d bought the notebook from Shiro—on raw ability.
It was the clearest proof that ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ was fundamentally excellent.
If she, that excellent, called it ‘incomprehensible’, then Tsutomu’s notebook would amount to a write-off.
Raising a person on the verge of a failing grade by ten points, and raising a person averaging eighties by ten points—the latter was decidedly harder.
Matsurika was the latter sort. Tsutomu’s average was even higher.
The ‘Gariben Notebook’ had to be finished into a form that ultimately served Tsutomu himself.
To put it badly, if there were sticking points at Matsurika’s level, it wouldn’t do at all.
“Honestly, when you look at it, it comes through. Just how hard Kariya-kun’s worked.”
“I can’t say I dislike being praised.”
“That’s why… me making use of Kariya-kun’s effort—it feels wrong, somehow.”
“Why does it come to that, I don’t understand.”
“Why can’t you understand, ugh.”
It’s you who doesn’t get it, Kariya-kun.
Matsurika puffed her cheeks, adorably.
Seen faced with that expression, bewilderment and something entirely different, wordless emotion, mingled together and stirred his heart.
“…I explained this before, but I have my own reasons for having people use my notebook. No need to hold back.”
“There you go again.”
Aren’t I saying the same thing over and over?
Such thoughts Matsurika voiced—her own heart was the true puzzle.
He was aware of being slow at the ins and outs of the human heart, but this didn’t feel like that kind of problem.
—Different? What’s different from what, then.
He had a mind to press her on it.
But he held an unfounded conviction that asking would sour Matsurika’s mood.
Apparently he’d gotten something wrong somewhere. The cause was unclear, but the conclusion held true either way.
“A-ny-way! I’ve been moved!”
Flashing a full smile and puffing out her chest made for—so many points of interest, it was a problem.
A beauty of a level you’d rarely come across even scouring the whole of Japan, let alone the school.
A chest of great volume, rebelling against her slender figure, was by now an act of sexy violence.
When he instinctively blatantly stared at that bewitching swell, Matsurika glared at him.
Adjusting his glasses, he quietly averted his gaze.
“…I don’t mind, but if you turn that gaze on another girl that obviously, you’ll be hated, you know?”
“If it were any other girl, things wouldn’t come to this.”
“That phrasing is out of bounds too.”
“Your grading is harsh. So, what were we talking about?”
“Right, that I was moved by Kariya-kun’s notebook.”
“Wait, ‘moved’ as in… overcome by your passion or something, that meaning?”
He’d taken it to mean being called on in the next class, or some such thing.
He’d been exasperated, thinking she’d suddenly said something strange, but the one being strange was Tsutomu.
“Maybe I was touched by your earnestness, Kariya-kun. It made me think I’ve got to try harder too.”
“I see.”
“That’s how it is. So…”
“So?”
To Tsutomu, Matsurika was like a kaleidoscope.
Each time he looked, her form changed, her impression changed.
The first time he’d seen her, she was a star glittering in a distant sky.
Seen up close after they shared a class, she was the sun of the classroom.
The limbs posted on the secret account glowed pale and white, like a moon floating in the night sky.
And once she revealed her identity and they came to converse like this, ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ showed him yet another, different form.
What all of her had in common was that she was very, very attractive.
Attractive. That was certain. ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ was a very attractive girl.
“So, lend me all your notebooks, including all the ones up till now! Please!”
“Hah!?”
The glasses he’d just fixed slid down his nose once more.
Matsurika’s words and actions often flew off in a direction far beyond his imagination.
When such stray bullets hit him, with not a moment’s composure, he was sure to be startled.
Even so, the moment he caught sight of the smile blooming beyond his sweat-fogged lenses, the heart that would protest got melted away.
—I’m done for, this is…
Things never went at all as he wished.
He felt a bewilderment at that being so far from unpleasant.
He let out a soft sigh in his heart. The blue of the sky he looked up to stung his eyes, oddly.