By this point, I'd unraveled Rosa's potential identity and the allotted 12 minutes were up. She didn't look as tired as I expected her to be. She returned to my side and sat down on the bench directly beside me. The bare skin of her leg was directly in contact with my hair and I could feel her body heat much more intensely than usual thanks to this workout.
"You really showed no mercy and killed off the little confidence I had in my score, didn't you?"
"I wasn't counting. How many laps did I run?"
"35. How scary. I don't think I would have beaten you even if those guys didn't interfere. You don't even look tired either.
"I didn't want you to make any excuses so I made sure to beat it by a good enough margin."
"Well, it's my loss, what did you want me to help you with exactly?"
"Well, I'll just get straight to the point without beating around the bush. I'd like for you to help me study for the midterms coming up in a month."
"Haaaaah. So it was a request like that."
"Hmmm, were you hoping for a more exciting request?"
"Not at all."
"I'd like to help… but… don't you think there are much better candidates who can help you study? It's not like my grades are particularly impressive. If you ask the smartest guy in our grade or something I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help out if it's you asking."
"I'm not interested in asking the smartest guy in our grade though, I'm asking you~" She poked my cheek playfully with her index finger.
"It's quite a troublesome thing you're asking of me."
"It's troublesome? How come?"
"I work a part-time job from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM every day except Sunday. If I'm going to help you study, it would have to be after 9:00 PM on weekdays, before 4:00 PM on Saturdays, or just all day on Sunday alone. I doubt your parents would be fine with an arrangement like that. And you wouldn't want to spend your entire Sunday studying with someone like me, right? I also like to recuperate and rest on Sundays as well."
"This is a bit of a surprise. I really didn't expect that someone like you would be working a part-time job."
"Well, there are reasons for that."
"Like?"
"Just reasons."
"You don't want to tell me?"
"Rather than not wanting to tell you, I just don't feel like explaining."
"I see."
"So it seems like I probably won't be able to fulfill your request for help to your satisfaction."
"I never said I couldn't work with those hours. I'm perfectly fine with after 9:00 PM during the week so you can keep your rest day for yourself."
"Hold up. You might be fine with that, but what about your parents?"
"They wouldn't even notice I'm gone or care."
"How do you know that for sure?"
"I live alone."
She lives alone as well? That's honestly unexpected.
"You're not lying, are you?"
"I'm not lying~" she made circles on my cheek with her index finger.
"It sounds like you're lying."
"If you don't believe me, then drop by my place to verify it with your own eyes any time you want."
"Do you live in an apartment?"
"Yeah."
"How do you take care of rent?"
"My parents wire it from overseas. They're always busy with something, moving about from country to country. We live separately so I don't have to keep transferring schools and I can live a normal school life that way."
"Moving about from country to country…"
"Yeah."
"Sounds like it'd get lonely not seeing them all the time."
"Maybe. But I don't particularly feel that lonely since I'm actually quite enjoying the life I'm living as a normal high school girl right now."
"Right." A normal high school girl… right now… Implying there may be or was a time where she wasn't.
"Did you move around with your parents a lot in middle school and elementary?"
"Yeah, I actually did. But when high school came I put my foot down as I'd had enough. I showed my parents I had the ability to survive on my own. Thus, I became independent."
"You know, someone who's truly independent doesn't rely on their parents to wire them money from overseas."
"Actually… I completely agree. It's just… I've been having a hard time finding a job as a student. It was quite a surprise for me to learn you actually got one. I kind of feel a bit defeated and slightly jealous."
"There's really nothing to feel jealous about. Rather… I feel a bit envious of you since you have the option to work or not work. I just got whatever random job I could get my hands on because I absolutely needed it."
"A normal low-pressure job like yours is great if you ask me. If I can get a normal job soon, it would be a major relief."
Somehow the two of us had ended up on a rather unusual topic for kids who were only in their first year of high school. It was a conversation I'd think would be reserved more for second and third years closer to graduating who had to seriously worry about these things.
Though through this conversation, her preference for older mature guys suddenly made a bit more sense to me now.
"Everyone, we're moving onto the last two tests. They won't take as long as the first two we just did. It's just to see how many push-ups and sit-ups you can do within a minute."
When everyone heard the teacher make that announcement the entire class groaned.
"Time for you to get up~"
"What's the point? I'm just going to lie back down on the ground anyway." I lazily rolled off the bench like a sloth exhausted of all his strength.
I repositioned myself in the plank position and readied myself to attempt doing push-ups.
When the teacher started the timer I attempted to push my body up. Unfortunately, I had not an ounce of strength to muster let alone the slightest motivation to perform such a task.
"What are you doing?"
"I've already reached my limit. Zero push-ups. I worked hard. It's time to take a nap. The ground is quite comfortable. It's nice and cool. Good night."
A shadow was cast over me. Red hair drew closer toward me until it fully obstructed my peripheral vision. Rosa had bent over my body on her knees and lowered her head until her lips were directly beside my ear.
It was then that a soft mischievous whisper so sweet and quiet only I could hear entered my ear. "If you don't at least do 30 push-ups here I'll give you a kiss on the lips in front of all our classmates."
It was my second wind as energy sprouted up in my body from nowhere. Yeah, I had to admit, that was definitely the type of motivation that worked on me. She knew exactly what I would hate the most and that was definitely up there.
My body pushed up off the ground like a rejuvenated fish out of water before it descended back down. In 30 seconds, including the time I'd lost out on, I'd completed 31 pushups. Relieved that I'd made it, my body lost all power again and I landed face flat on the ground.
I turned my head to the side only to find Rosa seated on the bench looking at me with a mischievous smile.
"You know, you still have time to do more."
"If the requirement was 30, why should I expend extra energy to do more?"
Seeing how I refused to do anymore she got down onto the ground ready to start doing push-ups.
When the instructor gave the signal for the second group to start she began. She was going at quite the leisurely pace, she was by no means struggling and it was obvious she could do more if she wanted, she simply refrained from doing so.
"You sure are taking your time."
"Do you have any complaints? Or perhaps you'd like to give me some sort of motivation like I gave you just now?"
"Motivation? That's not something I'm good with."
"You could promise me a kiss or something if I hit a certain goal, maybe I'd feel more motivated if you did that."
"Hell no."
"What an unhelpful guy."
"I'll be helping you with the midterms won't I?"
"True."
"Why does it specifically have to be me anyway? Why not anyone else?"
"Well, it has to do with my greatest weakness I suppose."
"Your greatest weakness? What do you mean by that?"
"If I'm not interested in something I can't be bothered to care about it."
"And you're saying… you'll be interested in studying if I'm the one teaching you?"
"Who knows? We won't know until we try, right?"
"You mean you yourself don't even know for certain whether it will work?"
"No, I haven't the slightest idea. It's been like this all my life. It came up just now, didn't it? I used to move about from country to country with my parents, right? Because of that, I could never really pay proper attention in class. I'd go from one school to the next, missing out on all sorts of information in between during the transfer process. Some classes I'd end up in might be far ahead or behind where the last class I was in left off at. Eventually, I started to wonder what the point of it all was and I could no longer care for anything I was being taught. The core of the problem is that I don't care to pay attention to the person who's teaching."
"So you think if it's a teacher that can hold your attention you'll be able to study. I guess I get it. So what you're really trying to say is…"
"I'm most interested in you." She completed my sentence like it was nothing. The moment she said that time was up. She stood upright as she'd completed exactly 31 push-ups.
"Coincidentally, I've been staring at you for 31 consecutive days now you know."
"Haha… that's... quite the coincidence."