Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection. - Chapter 12: The Predicted Problem Set.

The Predicted Problem Set.

“So yeah—I was thinking you’d help me out again for this test. Could you make ‘that’ for me?”

“Again?” I grimaced.

“Wait… does that mean you actually teach people how to study?” Sakuraba’s eyes sparkled with sudden hope.

“No, no, that’s not it at all. Kousuke is terrible at teaching anyone anything.”

Exactly right.

I’m catastrophically bad at explaining things to other people. The reason is simple: I genuinely cannot comprehend what it means to not understand something.

It probably has something to do with how my brain is wired.

Take a geometry problem in math, for example. Often there are several possible auxiliary lines you could draw. My mind instantly generates a complete flowchart of solutions:

• • Auxiliary line A leads to a dead end.

• • Auxiliary line B is a wasteful detour.

• • Auxiliary line C is the shortest path to the answer.

The entire problem-solving map appears in my head fully formed. After that, it’s just a matter of following the route.

Everything works more or less the same way. So when someone asks “Why does it become like this?” all I can say is “Because it does.” I literally cannot grasp what part they’re failing to grasp.

My memory works strangely too. For subjects that require rote memorization, most people use mnemonics—things like “Portuguese firearms arrived in the year of the goat” tied to historical events. Me? I memorize entire textbook pages and timelines as images. It’s exactly like saving screenshots onto a hard drive.

When I need to recall something, I mentally pull up “the bottom-right corner of page 147 in the textbook” and read the image I stored.

Incidentally, I never take notes during class. It’s far more efficient to jot key points in the margins of the textbook, stick Post-its wherever necessary, and memorize the whole annotated page as one unit.

Of course I can’t perfectly retain everything on first exposure, but a few repetitions usually burn it in permanently.

Apparently these traits resemble symptoms of savant syndrome. I don’t know whether I actually have it or not.

“Kousuke makes these ‘predicted problem sets’ for tests. And they hit scarily close to the real thing.”

Ever since middle school, whenever Shingo begged me to tutor him, I refused to teach directly and instead created mock exam problems based on the material covered and each teacher’s telltale habits.

Predicting test questions has always been easy for me.

I’d hand him the set, drill him on the solution patterns, key phrases, and related concepts until he had them cold.

For the record, I even made one for this high school’s entrance exam. It turned out to be unnervingly accurate—mathematics had one question that was practically identical.

Shingo occasionally says things like, “The only reason I’m at St. Clark right now is because of you, Kousuke.”

Even so, the payback feels suspiciously light.

“Wow, that sounds amazing. I want one too.”

“Me too, me too!”

“I’d like one as well, please!”

“Pass.”

A chorus of disappointed “Ehhh—” rose from everyone at once.

“Come on, Kousuke. Why not?”

“Simple. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Ehh, but think about it—your best friend and three beautiful girls would all be saved.”

There’s zero benefit in it for me.

“Of course we’re not asking you to do it for free. Right, Sakuraba-san?”

“Huh?”

“How about we trade for one week of Sakuraba-san’s homemade lunches?”

“Hey!” I couldn’t help cutting in.

“Shingo, don’t you dare use someone else’s loincloth to wrestle in! Sakuraba-san obviously doesn’t want to wake up early every morning for a whole week just to—”

“No, please—by all means, let’s do it that way!”

The reply came instantly, firm and decisive.

“I already said earlier that making lunch boxes is something I don’t mind doing at all,” Sakuraba murmured, offering a soft, gentle smile.

…Damn. That’s unfairly cute.

“Then I’ll provide drinks for a whole week. Durian cider sound good?”

Are you bullying me?

“And Hina will cast the super-secret ‘Become delicious～ become delicious～’ spell on Yukina’s bento every day!”

Right here in the classroom with every boy watching?

That’s straight-up torture.

“I’ll definitely repay you somehow too, Kousuke. Please?”

Shingo pressed his palms together in pleading prayer.

Faced with that display, all I could do was let out a long, defeated sigh.