Right Arm of the Saint Read Free Page B

make it?”
    The other person sitting at the table asked in a lighthearted, not-my-problem sort of voice. Kojou made no reply. He directed an expressionless gaze at the pile of textbooks for a while.
    “Hey… I’ve been kinda thinking about this lately.”
    “Mm?”
    “Why do I have to take this huge pile of make-up exams?”
    Kojou muttered his question as if to himself, and his two friends looked up at him.
    Kojou had been ordered to take a total of nine make-up exams, including two for both English and math, plus a phys ed half marathon on top of that. Certainly there weren’t many souls who had to go through this on the last weekend of summer.
    “…I mean, the range of questions asked in these make-up exams is too broad. I haven’t even had classes in this stuff yet. And supplemental lessons seven days a week—what the hell? Do my teachers have some kind of grudge against me?!”
    The two friends glanced at each other’s face as the young man bitterly cried out. They wore a male and female uniform, respectively, from the same school. They shared a brief glance at each other, as if to say,
What’s he going on about
now
?
    “Er… Yeah, they do have a grudge.”
    It was the male student who replied, twirling a mechanical pencil round and round, headphones hanging around his neck, hair short and combed spikily back. His name was Yaze Motoki.
    “You just casually skipped out on their classes all that time, day after day. Of course they think you’re dissing them. …Plus you were absent without permission for the tests before summer, too.”
    Aiba Asagi smiled, gracefully touching up her nails as she spoke.
    She had a gorgeous hairstyle and a uniform decorated right up to the limit of school regulations. Rather mysteriously, she still didn’t come off as overly gaudy, perhaps because she had good taste. At any rate, she was a girl whose appearance stood out.
    She’d be an undisputed beauty if she’d kept silent, but perhaps due toalways having that smirk on her face, she wasn’t very charming. Perhaps that’s why being with her felt like being with one of the boys.
    “…But that was an act of God. There were circumstances! For starters, I told that homeroom teacher over and over that my physical condition makes it hard for me to take tests first thing in the morning…”
    Kojou made his excuses with an irritated tone. The thin lines of blood in his eyes were not out of anger, but from simple sleep deprivation.
    “What do you mean, physical condition? Got hay fever or something, Kojou?”
    Asagi inquired curiously. Kojou, realizing he’d made a verbal slip, halted his tongue.
    “Ah no. I mean I’m a…night person. It’s hard waking up in the morning.”
    “How’s that a physical condition issue? It’s not like you’re a vampire.”
    “Y…yeah. Ha-ha.”
    Kojou smiled stiffly as he made a verbal parry. Vampires were not a rare sight in this city. The very fact that you were just as likely to bump into one as a hay fever patient was the real problem for Kojou.
    “I love Natsuki-chan, though. She has wonderful taste. And she’s letting the insufficient-attendance thing slide with the extra lessons, isn’t she?” As Asagi spoke, she sipped her juice, making small slurping sounds.
    “I guess,” Kojou agreed.
    “Plus, I’m taking pity on you and tutoring you, too.”
    “Don’t apply for sainthood when you’re eating whatever you like on someone else’s dime.”
    Asagi glared vilely at Kojou across the top of the textbooks piled before her. There was no sign of where it all fit in her slender body, but Asagi was a huge eater beyond all bounds of common sense. He wished he’d remembered that when she’d told him
I’ll teach you how to study, so treat me to lunch
.
    “Just to say it, you’re paying for Asagi’s lunch with the money I lent you. You’d better pay up, Kojou.”
    Yaze pointed that out in a calm voice. Rich man’s son or not, he was really uptight about this kind of