The Beautiful Girl Who Asked Me to Pretend to Be Her Boyfriend Didn’t Want to Break up With Me for Some Reason - Chapter 23

“—Stop! I will now collect the answer sheets!”

On the final day of the three-day-long final exams, the teacher’s words echoed through the classroom as I let out a breath, feeling relieved, and put down my mechanical pencil.

As for how I did… it’s a bit hard to say, but I wouldn’t say it was terrible either.

I’m not sure if I’ll make it into the top 50, which was my goal, but I do feel that I did everything I could.

Although I’m not aiming for rewards, I still want to get good grades for my own sake.

Once the teacher began collecting the answer sheets and left the room, the tense atmosphere finally relaxed.

Voices started to rise, and Shirafuji, who had been sitting in front of me, turned around.

“Good job, Hakuto. How do you think you did?”

“Pretty decent, I guess. How about you, Shirafuji… I don’t think you need to worry.”

“I double-checked, but I can’t guarantee I didn’t make any careless mistakes.”

Shirafuji said this casually, with no sign of nervousness or even expectation.

She must have finished the test with a completely neutral mindset.

As expected from the top student of the year.

“Luna~!! Do you think I’ll be okay…?”

And at that moment, Hanaba Kaha started clinging to Luna.

She must be anxious because she doesn’t have any concrete results to back up her efforts.

“You’ll be fine, I’m sure. I know how hard you’ve worked, Kiko-san. If you solved it like that, there shouldn’t be any problems. You’ve left your answers on the question sheet, right? How about we check and grade it ourselves?”

“Thank you so much…!!”

Hanaba, gripping Shirafuji’s hand, bowed her head. Rin and I exchanged a glance and smiled wryly.

We could only hope that she’d gotten good scores.

“How about you, Rin?”

“I think I did better than usual. That prediction you made really helped a lot.”

“Yeah… How do you always guess so accurately?”

For this test, the predicted problems Shirafuji made were spot on.

Some questions were only slightly altered, and others were practically the same, so it was easy to rack up points.

“Should we get together and review, then?”

“Sounds good. We can do it at my place.”

“Only if you two are okay with that.”

“I’m fine with it!”

“I’m good for today, too.”

“Alright, then it’s settled. Let’s buy some snacks or something on the way and maybe I’ll even cook dinner.”

“Hakuto’s cooking is amazing. You two should definitely try it.”

For four people, something like curry would probably be best.

There’s not much in the way of picky eaters, I imagine.

“…Why are you two looking like that?”

“Well… it just feels a bit like a married couple talking.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“Well, we are still… a couple, you know.”

“Don’t emphasize that part.”

But yeah, when someone points it out like that, it does feel real.

The classmates who hear this would probably just think Shirafuji has eaten my cooking before, and that’s it.

But they wouldn’t think that it’s a regular thing.

And so, the four of us set off home, buying snacks and drinks at a nearby supermarket before heading to my place.

We set up the table and poured the drinks into the paper cups we bought, sitting down in the same arrangement as before.

“Hakuto, would you do the toast?”

“…Me?”

“Who else but the host?”

“Wouldn’t it be Shirafuji, who brought it up?”

“You know I’m bad at this.”

“I’m not good at it either, though.”

I really don’t like standing in front of others.

That’s probably because I never had the chance, being someone who always avoided it.

“Well, um… here’s to the fact that the exam period ended safely. Cheers!”

I raised my paper cup, and even though it was awkward, I managed to say the toast, and the others immediately followed with “Cheers!”

“Now that we’ve toasted, what do we do about reviewing?”

“How about we get it over with first, so we can enjoy ourselves?”

So, we all started by grading our own papers.

Each of us compared our answers with Shirafuji’s and started calculating our scores.

My goal is to be in the top 50.

If I get an average of around 80, that should be enough to make it.

By the way, Shirafuji’s average is over 95.

It’s surprising whether we should be amazed that she’s almost perfect or relieved that even she makes mistakes.

It took about an hour for everyone to finish grading all five subjects.

The results were as follows:

“—I did it…!! I avoided failing all subjects!!”

“There might be a chance you made a recording mistake, but if not, you should be fine. You did well, Kiko-san.”

“This is all thanks to Luna! I’m so happy…!”

Kaha, who raised both hands with a genuinely happy expression, and Shirafuji, who complimented her.

Kaha’s self-grading results were around 50 points for all five subjects, and her goal of avoiding failing was successfully achieved.

“I did better than usual, too. Around 60 points, and my strong subjects, like modern Japanese and world history, were almost 80. This is also thanks to Shirafuji-san.”

“It wasn’t anything major. You already had the basics down.”

“That makes me happy to hear. What about you, Hakuto?”

“I barely passed 80 on average.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! Kuwazome, you’re so smart!”

“Even so, I’m still not sure about making the top 50.”

“You don’t seem too satisfied, but I think that’s still really impressive.”

“I agree. Even if you don’t make it, the effort you put in will definitely help next time.”

They all praised me, but I couldn’t really bring myself to feel too happy.

Based on past trends, this would be tough if others didn’t perform poorly.

“Why do you care so much about it? Is your family strict?”

“They do expect a certain level of grades, but it’s frustrating that I might not meet my goal.”

“Ah… I think I get it. But as Shirafuji-san said, the effort you put in this time wasn’t wasted. The results of your effort aren’t as important as the strength it gives you by simply trying.”

“Anyway, we won’t know for sure until the actual results come out. Let’s keep our hopes up and wait.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Inadvertently, I was comforted by all of them, but it wasn’t like I was feeling that down.

It was just frustrating that I couldn’t meet my goal.

…No, maybe that’s not quite it.

The real reason was that I didn’t want to look bad in front of Shirafuji, with whom I’d made a promise.

“I also think the test was a bit harder than usual. The ratio of applied questions felt a bit higher than normal. So, I predict the average score might be lower,” Shirafuji said.

“…That doesn’t sound convincing coming from someone who nearly got a perfect score.”

“My goal is to be the top in the year, after all. A few harder questions won’t shake my position.”

Shirafuji smiled confidently, and once again, she proved just how amazing she is.

“Anyway, now that the self-grading is over, let’s have some fun!”

Hanaba raised her cup to change the subject, and we all followed her lead, deciding to relax and enjoy the well-earned break from studying.