Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection. - Chapter 11: Eccentric.

Eccentric.

“So, midterms are coming up soon, right? I’m seriously in trouble this time.”

Shingo spoke with obvious worry in his voice.

“That’s why I keep telling you to study regularly,” Ryuusenji shot back, her tone sharp and unsparing.

“Hina’s in danger too～. I just want to avoid a failing mark this time, somehow…”

Yamano said it so casually. Was that really her level?

“Um… Ooyama-kun… how are you… with studies, exactly?”

Sakuraba asked hesitantly, her gaze flickering toward him.

“Oh, Kousuke? He’s actually top of the year. Wait—no, he was always top of the year in middle school too, and on top of that, he got the highest score on this school’s entrance exam. Don’t you guys remember? He was the one who gave the freshman representative speech.”

“Hey, Shingo.” Your mouth is way too loose.

“Huh?”

“No way.”

“For real?”

…Well, it’s true.

This school doesn’t post exam rankings publicly, so it’s hard to tell who’s actually at the top. Of course, each student receives their own results privately.

Since middle school, I’ve never once dropped out of first place in my year.

“So that means… Ooyama-kun is on the scholarship program?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s amazing!”

Ryuusenji’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.

The only reason I came to this school was because of that very scholarship system.

When I was in middle school, my father was laid off. Our household income dropped sharply; we were far from well-off. For high school entrance exams, I applied to both the top public school in the prefecture and the highest-ranked private one—both by deviation value—and passed them both.

The private one was St. Clark Academy.

Naturally, I had planned to attend the cheaper public high school.

But St. Clark had a special scholarship: the top few scorers on the entrance exam received full exemption from enrollment fees and first-year tuition.

From the second year onward, as long as you maintained top-tier grades—rumor had it that single-digit rank in the year was the threshold—the tuition waiver continued. In other words, while facility and other miscellaneous fees still applied, exceptional performance meant you could graduate high school for practically nothing.

On top of that, our school consistently sent thirty or so students to Todai—the nation’s most prestigious university—every year. It was one of the country’s premier college-preparatory institutions.

If possible, I wanted to ride that wave and enter Todai myself in two years’ time.

Of course, university would cost real money.

That’s why I intended to use the profits from trading to cover four years of tuition and living expenses.

I didn’t want to burden my father any more than necessary.

That one-thousand-man goal existed for exactly this reason.

“You were called a genius all through middle school, huh～”

At Shingo’s nostalgic remark, I shook my head.

“Shingo. There was another nickname, wasn’t there? That one fits me much better.”

“Huh? What? What’s the other nickname?”

Yamano leaned forward, eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Eccentric.”

I answered instantly, half in self-deprecation.

Even now, a few people still call me that.

Ever since middle school, my head had always been good—really good. The more effort I put in, the better the results, so studying never felt like suffering.

But when it came to anything outside of academics… aside from programming and stock trading, I simply felt no interest at all.

The rest is easy to imagine.

My extremely narrow range of passions had zero overlap with those of my classmates.

They loved talking about favorite TV shows and YouTube videos, favorite songs and idol groups, favorite games, which girls they had crushes on.

Not a single person wanted to discuss programming commands, complex logic structures, stock market movements, forex trends, or macroeconomic shifts.

Even so, I refused to force myself to fit in.

That kind of thing was a waste of time.

It didn’t take long for me to become isolated.

Except for one single exception, no one spoke to me anymore.

“But Kousuke… look at us right now. We’re all eating lunch together like this. Isn’t that huge progress?”

Shingo had a point.

Right now, during lunch break, I had pushed our desks together. Five of us—three boys, two girls—were eating together.

My brain still couldn’t quite process the strangeness of it.

…Was this really progress?