Hikigaya Hachiman POV
For the past 4 weeks, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
They had study sessions twice a week, a small book club meeting twice a week, and lunch with Ichinose every saturday.
It was a wonder how they hadn't been discovered yet.
His classmates still refrained from asking questions, but when there was the occasional question that neither Ichinose and Kanzaki knew how to solve, they asked Hikigaya, and the same thing happened.
They nervously ask for help, he agrees, he explains it, gets complimented by being surprisingly good at teaching, apologize when Ichinose intrudes in the conversation, then leave embarassed.
This Thursday was different. Ichinose, Kanzaki, and Hikigaya worked together to create a mini quiz in order to gauge their current improvements according to the scope of the exam.
Then from the results of the exam, they can make more specialized groups from their weaknesses, and they would teach the concepts that the small groups.
This was because Hikigaya had offhandedly commented that his classmates weren't focusing as hard as they did the first week.
Hikigaya had groaned inwardly when Ichinose had proposed this new method, saying that they needed to switch things up to prevent them from losing motivation, and before he could say anything, Kanzaki had also agreed.
Then on the last study session before the midterms, they would do a group review session. That part he agreed with.
During his time daydreaming, there were some eventful things that had happened.
—+—
"You are truly incompetent,"
"The fuck did you say to me?! Say that again!"
"Has your hearing deteriorated along with your braincells? You are more incompetent than I had imagined."
There seemed to be an argument a few tables away. It caught the attention of everyone in the Library, which was just Class B and a few smaller groups.
Looking at the person who had just yelled, Hikigaya recalled a name.
'Sudo Ken?'
It was the person he provoted to get some free points the first week of school.
He didn't really want to interact with him.
It was both due to his previous altercations with Sudo and his volitile personality in general made him someone to be avoided.
'Proof:'
Hikigaya thought, mentally presenting an example.
When Sudo had grabbed a black haired girl by her collar, that was when Ichinose had risen from her seat to intercept and pacify the situation.
'Ichinose Maji Tenshi,'
Hikigaya could respect how even Ichinose would try to calm Sudo down. He was anger issues personified.
"Let's all calm down. This is a library,"
Ichinose calmly said, and it looked like Sudo was about to get mad at her as well, a few seconds of tense silence, before he let go of the black haired girl's collar before huffing and stomping away in delinquent fashion.
Sudo was lucky.
If Sudo had touched Ichinose, Hikigaya would personally try to do anything that would get him expelled himself.
No one should touch his proxy.
There was an awkward silence following his abrupt exit, and 2 more male students followed sudo's example.
He observed the situation with a keen eye, trying to understand the context.
At the table that Sudo had originally sat at, were two girls, the black haired one and someone that he had heard around the school, Kushida Kikyo.
Accompanying them was a male student that while visually attractive, gave off an unremarkable vibe.
But Hikigaya's keen insight saw through the artificalness of both the guy and Kushida.
He had already seen Kushida talk to some of the Class B students, and he could automatically see that she was a fake person in an instant. This was because sometimes, her expressions didn't reach her eyes when it looked like no one was paying attention to her.
The guy on the other hand, was a threat. Someone who gave of an artifical loner energy rang alarm bells in Hikigaya's head.
He was someone who was equal to, or possibly even more frightening than the lilac haired girl he had seen in Class A before he started avoiding it entirely.
Even so he could occasionally feel a piercing gaze when he would walk around, and it frightened him.
—+—
Another eventful thing that was less important, was that he went to go bet more money at the Chess Club, Go Club, and the Shogi Club.
He had decided to go after school on Wednesday and spent the entirety of his afternoon earning more money.
This time instead of only betting against 4 people, he agreed to play a game with anyone who had the money, and only once.
He had lost only one game in the Chess Club to the formidable Club President, who was a certified International Master.
In the Shogi and Go Clubs, he was undefeated, and he went home tired and a richer man.
Looking at his point count, he couldn't help but feel proud.
7,029,182 Points.
He gained a total of 3,200,000 Points, and he was exhausted.
If he remembered correctly, he played 7 Chess games, 5 Go matches, and 6 Shogi matches.
He had been completely mentally drained when he made his way home.
Thankfully, such events would probably only happen every month.
It wouldn't be good for his developing brain do burnout everyday or even every week.
—+—
At the library, Hikigaya, Kanzaki, and Ichinose waited for the rest of the class to finish.
They gave them 2 hours, and the three would spend the weekend grading the exams and placing them into groups.
It was much shorter than the actual exam, but they created a total of 20 questions for each subject, 100 questions in total, and was created with the exam scope in mind.
The actual exam would last the entire school day and would be 2 weeks later on friday, before the new month. Because there was 5 subjects, it would probably be 1 hour 20 minutes for each subject, and 15 minute breaks in between. Hikigaya assumed that it would be 60 questions for each subject, but 50 was also a possibility.
Hikigaya personally wasn't looking forward to grading the mock exams, but he had no choice. There were 37 people, so each person would grade around 12 people each, with one person grading 13. Thankfully, Kanzaki had willingly volunteered to be the person who would grade 13 people.
While waiting for the class too finish the three continued to study.
Hikigaya could respect the grind.
All he was doing was looking over his notes after he ate dinner and went to bed soon after.
Responding to the occasional question from Ichinose and Kanzaki, the study session went pretty normally.
Hikigaya didn't know whether to cry or complain.
His group was the people who had issues with Math and Science.
Ichinose took some of the Math and Science people and also took English.
Kanzaki took the people who had issue with Literature and Social Sciences.
HIs group consisted of 8 people. That was less than the other sections, so he didn't really mind.
But wasn't the ratio of girls to boys in his group kind of skewed?
Himeno Yuki.
Amikura Mako.
Shiranami Chihiro.
Ando Sayo.
Minamikata Kozue.
Ninomiya Yui.
Shibata So.
Hamaguchi Tetsuya.
6 Girls and 2 Guys, and from what he remembered, they were all relatively popular in their class.
He could already feel a migraine.
Also, why does he doing math?
Looking over their papers, the people in his group got at least half wrong on the Mathematics portion, and only a little less wrong on the Science portion.
Thankfully, there were common areas between his "Students."
At the Library, his group sat in two rows of 4, and he was standing in front of the available large whiteboards that the library provided for free.
He handed the tests back, and watched them grimace at their subpar scores.
For the first day, as there was three days remaining of these small sessions, he decided to go over the questions that they had gotten wrong.
"So who got Question 1 wrong?"
Himeno Yuki, Shibata So, and Ninomiya Yui raised their hands.
It was a question applying the Pythagorian Theorem.
"Raise your hand if you guessed on the problem."
Amikura Mako and Shiranami Chihiro raised their hands.
Hikigaya wanted to sigh.
"Raise your hand if you know why you got it wrong."
No one raised their hands.
"Who knows what the Pythagorian Theorem is?"
Hamaguchi Tetsuya raised his hand.
"Yes,"
"a squared plus b squared equals c squared."
"Correct."
Hikigaya wrote it on the whiteboard.
"Anyone knows how this works?"
Everyone raised their hands.
That was confusing. If they all knew how it worked then why did they get the question wrong?
He looked at the question. It involved simplifying a radical. Hikigaya assumed that it was the issue.
"Okay, so did everyone here get to this point?"
Hikigaya asked, pointing at when he was finding the square root of c.
There were a few murmurs of agreement, and all of them had nodded.
He quickly simplifyed the radical, before looking back at his students.
"Is this where you guys got stuck?"
Nods.
Hikigaya quickly explained how to simplify a radical.
"So does everyone understand how to solve this question?"
Nods.
He had a hard crowd, but he continued on until the Study Session ended.
"We're done going over the questions. Any extra questions?"
Silence.
'Good.'
Hikigaya thought, nodding in acknowledgement.
"While there's still around 20 minutes left, we'll go over some more topics thursday, so nothing to worry about, session complete!"
Hikigaya gave a small clap, before erasing the board.
"U-uh thank you for the guidance,"
A feminine voice.
He turned around in confusion.
"No problem."
He gave a small smile at his students.
He didn't know who said that, but it was nice to be appreciated.
His students barely talked the entire session anyways, so it made sense.
He but a pile of papers in his folder before putting them away in his bag.
He checked in with Ichinose, before making his way out.
—+—
Ichinose Honami POV
While Ichinose knew that Hikigaya wasn't particularly a social person, she had glanced over at Hikigaya's review lesson, and she noted the silence.
'I guess the class isn't that comfortable with Hikigaya-kun yet,'
Ichinose noted.
While she didn't mind that she was one of the few people who knew of Hikigaya's ability and charm, it was disappointing to see her friend so underappreciated.
Even Kanzaki's session had more small talk than Hikigaya's.
'But Hikigaya's really smart,'
Ichinose noted.
He had told her about the Class Competition, warned her about Nagumo, and paid Hoshinomiya-sensei money for the info about the Class Point gain.
Ichinose didn't even consider what Hoshinomiya-sensei had meant when she has said that points could buy anything in the school within reason, but Hikigaya knew and even used it to help the class.
But he even told her to take the credit for his own work, preferring to stay in her shadow.
She was a little afraid that if her classmates saw Hikigaya's ability and charm, she would lose her time together with him, but thankfully it looked like they were too afraid of his gaze and general vibe.
Ichinose could relate a little when she had first saw him, but she even found his dead fish eyes kind of cute now.
If people bothered to see past his physical features and outward actions, they would find a respectful and kind person, hidden by Hikigaya's general vibes he gave out.
She couldn't decide whether to be disappointed or happy that Hikigaya wasn't getting attention, even when he agreed to be a tutor for the class.
She originally felt a little guilty when she had subconsciously pressured Hikigaya into joining, but if she didn't, she thought that he would be even more detached to the class. It also made no sense for the smartest person in the class to be doing nothing.
While Ichinose had already knew of Hikigaya's ability to see the big picture almost instantly, she didn't expect Hikigaya to be academically gifted, getting the highest scores in every subject.
Ichinose was confident in her mathematics, and even she had trouble with the last three questions of the math exam, causing her to get a 92. Hikigaya on the other hand, solved at least 2, with his score of 98.
It was a small damper in her self esteem, but since it was Hikigaya it was okay.
So when she asked her friend Amikura Mako how it went, she didn't expect her response.
"He's actually a pretty nice guy,"
Hmm? But wasn't she silent the entire time?
She had said as such, and another unexpected response awaited her.
"Yeah sure, his look is a little intimidating, I admit it, but if you look further you can see that he takes the time to make sure everyone was on the right track and when someone looked confused, he would take his time to explain it again. A rude person wouldn't do that."
Ichinose understood what Amikura had said 100 percent.
During their weekend excursions, when Hikigaya thought she wasn't looking, took out napkins when she was eating something with sauce, refilled her cup, and reorganized the table when it was cluttered. It was these small things that attracted Ichinose to Hikigaya.
But… but…!
It was supposed to be only her that was supposed to know that!
But she didn't want anyone knowing about her jealousy.
"That's true. So are you more confident about math now?"
"Yeah, Hikigaya's a pretty good teacher,"
Amikura nodded in agreement, implying her acknowledgement of Hikigaya.
Ichinose wanted nothing else but to yell out "I know right~?" at that moment.
For the past 4 weeks, Hikigaya would patiently explain whenever she had a problem she didn't understand, give an example, and made sure she understood.
It was like she was getting pampered by how caring Hikigaya's method of teaching was.
She didn't know whether to be proud on behalf of Hikigaya or jealous.
"That's nice to hear,"
But she couldn't tell anyone about her feelings.
Espcially Hikigaya.
About her jealousy, her need to see him every waking moment, everything.
Imagining Hikigaya's possible disgusted expression crushed her.
A/N: lowkey, the reason that the time before the midterms are around a month and a half is because normally in japan school starts april or may, and I decided in april. and if the midterms are in middle of june, then the summer special exam would be during hikigaya's birthday.
I might be a genius.
we are so back.
I don't know the specific timeline of when sudo got mad at horikita, but I think it was done pretty early on so it was in the middle of the timeskip.
I feel like I'm adding too much math and school related things, but I dont want Hikigaya to explain anything other than math. this is because i only remember stuff from math and I have like no knowledge of the japanese language and history.
This math explanation is coming from a data science major, so id assume that it's pretty accurate.
its 5 am rn and i have cognitive science work due tomorrow, and a final project due in two weeks. I also have a coding project due next week.
College truly isn't for the weak. But i might spend a majority of my thanksgiving writing to spend my time. expect reduced updates starting next week and the week after, unless I just decided to give up on my classes.
peace.
I thanks for reading.