My daily routine of going to school, going home, going to work, then playing games continued for about a month. Though we hadn’t taken any real exams, I scored highest on every practice test that Ms. Yamada administered; despite my results on the practice exams, my class rank had yet to be “officially” determined. That is, until finals rolled around.

All of the students at Asuka took exams seriously, and they all wanted to be the best in the school. Being the best meant that you got invited to join the “A” class for your year. That being said, I had a huge target on my back because of my position in the school. Most of the student body, aside from my own classmates in 2-A, thought I had cheated on my entrance exam; they were jealous of me. I had been aware of their feelings, more or less, but this week I could sense a number of the students staring daggers at me.

As I walked up to Ms. Yamada’s classroom, I heard somebody behind me.

“I guess we’ll see whether or not you’re the real deal this week, huh?”

I turned around to see a trio of guys. The one on the left was short, but built like a body builder. The one on the right was tall, but he didn’t have too much muscle on him. The middle one, who had spoken just a second ago, was a bit shorter than me, and slightly less muscular than the guy on the left.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“Nothing,” the middle one scoffed as he walked up the stairs. On his way up, he shoved me out of the way with his shoulder.

“I’m sorry for that,” the tall kid said in a low tone. He was definitely a timid person, and I could tell that he didn’t want to cause any trouble.

“No worries, it’s not you who pushed me,” I said with a smile. I continued up the stairs and turned the corner into Ms. Yamada’s room. The only person in the room was Riku. His nose was buried in some notecards.

“What’s up?” he asked without taking his eyes off of the cards.

“Nothing much,” I replied as I took my seat. “What’s the point of cramming so soon before the test?”

No answer. I took out my phone and saw a message from Yua.

You ready for the test?

As I was typing out my reply, Yua walked into the room. She was wearing glasses, which I hadn’t ever seen her wear.

“You wear glasses?” I asked quietly.

“I usually wear contacts,” she huffed as she sat down in front of me. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

“I just got the notification,” I explained. “I was gonna reply, but you walked in as I was.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, are you ready?”

“I guess so,” I sighed. “I can’t imagine it’ll be much different than the practice tests Ms. Yamada gives us.”

“You’re probably right,” Yua said, nodding in agreement. “Anyways, my mom is giving us all week off, through Sunday, so don’t worry about coming into work.”

“Oh really?” I asked, surprised. “That’s nice of her.”

“Mhm,” she nodded. “Are you free Saturday?”

“Do I look like the type of person to have weekend plans?” I asked sarcastically.

“Right,” she laughed. “Do you want to go to a movie then?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Do you want to go to a movie?”

“Yes?” I answered, still confused. Did she just ask me out?

“Ok!” she said with a smile. “It’s a date!”

“…”

I lowered my head onto my desk so my face wasn’t visible, trying to contain my excitement. I felt Riku tap me on the shoulder. I looked up and saw him pointing at one of his notecards, which read:

Did she just ask you out?

I nodded my head quickly, then Riku scribbled something else on the card.

Niiiiiiiiice dude. Proud of you :)

I was practically vibrating from excitement as the other students began to feed in. Soon after the students had all taken their seats, Ms. Yamada walked into the classroom. She was holding a stack of papers, which she handed to us individually.

“Unfortunately, I can’t let you go home once you’re finished with the test section today,” she said, staring at me in particular. “The rest of the school is also taking exams, so we can’t be causing any noise. Also, I’ll need to collect your phones until class is over.”

The class groaned in unison.

“Todays subjects are English comprehension and Japanese. Please take your time and get as many right answers as you can,” she said as she collected our phones. Once she finished collecting them, she stood at her podium again. “You have three hours for each section. You may start now.”

As usual, I flipped through the packet to get an idea of what the test was going to be like. It didn’t look particularly difficult, but it was way longer than any of the practice exams we’d taken. About an hour passed, and I had finished the English section of the test. Like I’d thought, it hadn’t been very difficult. Riku finished soon after me, flashing me a grin when he did. We started the Japanese section at the same time; I finished it in 45 minutes, and Riku finished it in an hour. I gave him a wide smile, which he returned with a number of unholy gestures that would’ve made any person over the age of 60 consider killing him; I tried not to laugh. I decided to close my eyes and take a nap until the rest of the school was done.

I was woken up by Ms. Yamada poking me in the cheek with a ruler.

“Are you alive, Mr. Tanaka?” she asked.

“Huh?” I asked as I raised my head from my desk. The rest of the class, including Yua and Riku, were looking at me. “Yes ma’am!”

Yua stifled her laughter, but Riku couldn’t contain himself.

“Dude, you’ve got drool on your cheek,” Riku said through his laughter.

“Oh shit, really?” I asked as I wiped my face.

“Please mind your language, Mr. Tanaka,” Ms. Yamada scolded.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Everyone, have a good evening. I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, gesturing at the door. With that, everyone got up and left the classroom.

As I walked out of the school’s gate, I heard Riku call out to me.

“Wanna play USB later?”

“What happened to studying?” I asked.

“Tomorrow is math. Don’t have to study for that,” he explained with a laugh.

“Well then I guess so,” I said, “as long as you don’t mind losing again.”

“Shut up, I’ll win eventually,”

“I can let you win, if you’d like,”

“No, that takes the fun out of it,” he said as he walked away. “Be on by six.”

“Yes, sir,”

I made my way to Meio, where Sana was waiting for me outside of the gate. We walked home, stopping at the FamilyMart for drinks as we usually did. By the time we got back to the apartment, Takahashi had gotten off of work.

“How were exams?” he asked as we walked in the door.

“Boring,” we replied in unison.

“Naturally,” he said. “I’m going to order a pizza for you guys. I have to go back to work in about twenty minutes, and I won’t be back until about three in the morning.”

“Why do you have to go out so late?” Sana asked as she sat down on the couch.

“New leads on a few cases. I have to review them with my team,” he explained. “It’s pretty boring stuff, so I won’t bore you with a detailed explanation. Just know that it’ll take a while.”

Even though he didn’t seem like it, Mr. Takahashi was a very prominent figure in the Tokyo police department. He probably would’ve been promoted to a higher position if it weren’t for his age; being in your twenties was definitely rough for someone whose colleagues were all in their mid-forties to late fifties.

“Do you have time for a game?” I asked.

“Not right now,” he said apologetically. “I’ll be able to play tomorrow though.”

“No worries,” I sighed as I walked into our room.

The rest of the night was pretty boring. We ate our pizza, then I played games with Riku until I got sleepy. He had improved a lot, so the competition was a bit more challenging. After I got tired, I decided to go to sleep.

I opened my eyes to the same dream I’d been having. I was in the basement of my old house, and all I could see was the light of the door; the silhouette was still there, standing menacingly in the doorway. The dialogue had gotten so repetitive and boring that I pretty much zoned out, waiting for the dream to be over.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” the silhouette said in its distorted voice.

“That’s weird,” I thought out loud. “I guess even repeat dreams have some variation.”

The silhouette took its hand, as if to strike me down as it had in the previous occurrences; then, I noticed something new. It moved its other hand to its waist, taking what looked like some kind of pistol out of its body. It pointed the pistol directly at my forehead.

“I’m sorry,” the silhouette mourned.

BANG!

I shot up from my futon, and my sheets flew all over the room.

“Hnghnhgh,” Sana groaned from her spot in the opposite corner.

I checked my phone for the time.

“Not too early, I guess,” I sighed.

I got up and walked into the bathroom, going through my morning routine of showering and brushing my teeth. By the time I was dressed, both Takahashi and Sana were awake and going through their respective routines. I sat down on the couch with a parfait in my hands and ate it while I waited for Sana to be ready. About fifteen minutes later, Sana emerged from our room in her uniform.

“You’re going to eat something, right?” I asked as she walked to the door.

“Oh, right,” she said through a yawn, “thanks for reminding me.”

After I dropped Sana off at Meio, I continued on my way to Asuka. Once I had arrived at the school, I noticed that I was one of the last students to arrive. The halls were practically empty compared to normal. Most of the other students seemed to be cramming a few extra minutes of studying in before the exam started.

“At least you aren’t late, Touma,” Ms. Yamada said from her podium; the way she jumped from formal to casual speech was utterly confusing for me. As I took my seat behind Yua, Ms. Yamada began passing out the math packet. Once I received mine, I quietly flipped through it, looking for any problems that might be difficult to do. None of the questions looked particularly difficult, but the sheer quantity of problems was enough to make the entire class cringe in their seats.

“The same rules as yesterday apply today; you may not leave the room until everyone has completed their exam. Good luck!” Ms. Yamada said with a smile as she sat down at her desk.

Riku and I finished our tests at roughly the same time, and the rest of the class finished about an hour after we had. Yua was the last person to finish, which made sense. We sat in silence while we waited for Ms. Yamada to release us from class.

Finally, more than an hour after the last test in our class was handed back, Ms. Yamada let us go.

“Good work today, class. I’ll see you all tomorrow morning for the history exam,” she said as we all left.

“Hey Touma—” Riku began, but was cut off by Shizuko.

“Riku! Take me to lunch,” she instructed as she dragged him down the hall.

“See you tomorrow,” I said through a laugh as I watched him disappear into the crowd with Shizuko.

The next two days carried on in a similar manner to the previous days. Riku and I were both the first to finish the exams, and the whole class had to wait a long time before being let go. Riku and I played games in the evening, and Takahashi had to work late again both days, so Sana and I didn’t see too much of him.

Finally, Friday rolled around; the day we would see our exam results. Normally, it would’ve been at least another week before all of the exams were graded, but somehow the Asuka staff were able to grade every exam the day it was taken. Maybe they hired third-party graders?

“How do you think you did?” Yua asked as she sat down.

“Probably ok, I think,” I said as I leaned back in my chair.

“Yeah, you were done really quickly on each section,” she sighed. “Anyways, about tomorrow.”

“What’s up?” I asked; I felt my heart rate jump up a few bpm at the notion of our date.

“What type of movie do you want to see?” she asked earnestly.

“Hmmm,” I wondered. “Maybe a comedy?” I’m honestly ok with whatever though, as long as its with you.”

Yua blushed immediately after I said that.

“Oh sorry!” I said in a slightly panicked tone.

“No, it’s fine!” she laughed. “I’ll pick the movie, then.”

“Sounds good,” I said, my face still hot.

Riku walked into class looking particularly happy. I considered asking him why he was so happy, but decided against it. Fifteen or so minutes later, the rest of the students were in their seats, and Ms. Yamada walked into the room.

“Good morning class,” she said with a smile, standing at her podium. “I’m going to get right to the point: as you know, exam scores will be posted today at noon. Each class will take turns going into the main hall to check their scores. We have the third time slot at 12:40. Until then, you are free to do as you like, as long as you stay inside the classroom. After you see your scores, you may feel free to leave.”

As soon as Ms. Yamada finished talking, Riku turned to me and took out a deck of cards.

“Do you want to play cards?” he asked.

“Which game?” I asked in response.

“How about blackjack?”

“Sure. Should we see if anybody else wants to play?”

“We can,” Riku said as he stood up. “Anybody want to play cards with me and Touma?”

A group of four students formed around our desks, including Yua. The other three were two guys and a girl, none of whom I recognized; probably due to the fact that I never really paid much attention to the rest of the class. Riku picked up on my obvious lack of knowledge and started talking.

“Hideki, you sit here,” Riku said, pointing at the left side of his desk. The shorter of the two guys sat down. He had messy black hair, and wore thin framed glasses.

“Kenta, you sit across from me,” Riku continued. The other guy took a seat. He was taller than Hideki, but shorter than Riku or I. His sandy brown hair was so long that he had to wear it tied in a bun just to keep it from being in his face.

“Kei, you can sit next to Yua,” Riku finished. The girl, who was considerably shorter than Yua, took a seat. Her dark hair was short, compared to most of the other girls, though it was still longer than Kenta’s.

“I assume you all know how to play blackjack?” Riku asked as he dealt the cards. Everybody nodded, confirming that we did. “Great, then I’ll play the house. Do you guys have anything you want to bet?”

“Aren’t we not supposed to…” Kei started, but was interrupted by Kenta.

“I’ve got 600 Yen on me,” he said energetically.

“I can do that,” Hideki agreed.

The rest of us took out whatever change we had, amounting to a total of 3600 Yen. Though each person hadn’t contributed too much, the total prize seemed almost excessively large. As Riku finished dealing out the cards he spoke once more.

“We should probably hide this, just in case,” he explained, moving all of the coins into his bag. “We’ll play ten hands. Whoever wins the most hands gets to keep all of the money.”

“I’m getting fired up!” Kenta said with a fierce smile.

“Shhhh!” the rest of us hushed Kenta in unison.

We played out all ten hands. I won three hands, Yua won two, Riku snagged one, and Kei walked away victorious with four wins.

“I think I might like cards,” she said with a sly grin as she motioned for Riku to give her the money from his bag.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said sourly as he forked over the change.

“Alright guys,” Ms. Yamada said from the front of the room. “Grab your things, we’re going to look at the scores now.”

With that, we all left the classroom and descended the stairs into the first floor’s main hall. Five white banners, each at least a meter in length, were plastered to the wall of the main hall. I scanned the wall for my name, finding it at the top of the leftmost banner. On the left of my name was the number one which meant I had taken the top spot among second years. To the right of my name was a large red number “500.”

“Ms. Yamada?” I asked. “What does the number on the right mean?”

“That is your score out of 500 points. Each section was worth 100 points,” she explained.

“So then…”

“Yep,” she chirped, “you got the highest score out of all second years, not only this year, but every year since the new testing system was put in place.”

“Is that going to put a target on my back?”

“Possibly,” she said, “though I wouldn’t be too worried about it. Most students acknowledge the effort that goes into getting high scores.”

“Oh ok. Thanks,” I said. I turned on my heels to see what Riku had scored.

“Nice score man,” Riku said as I walked towards him. “I got a 493.’

“That’s awesome!” I said, trying to reassure him, though to no avail. All he’d cared about was beating me.

“It’s ok I guess,” he said in a depressed tone. It looked to me as if his soul had left his body. “I’m gonna go home now.’

“Oh, ok,” I said. “I’ll text you later.”

With that, Riku walked towards his locker, changed shoes, and left the school. I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, so I turned back around to see Yua standing in front of me.

“Nice work!” she said with a smile. “I couldn’t quite beat Riku this time either, but I got closer!”

“What’d you get?” I asked.

“490,” she said happily. “That’s my best score so far!”

“Awesome!” I said, congratulating her. “That means you’re third among the second years?”

“Mhm,” she said, nodding proudly. “I’m going to head home and read to celebrate. I’ll talk to you later about tomorrow, ok?”

“Sounds good,” I confirmed.

I waited to leave until the rest of my class had finished looking at their scores, then I took a picture of the wall and sent it to Takahashi. After I’d sent the picture, I collected my things and changed into my shoes, then left the school. I walked in silence for two or three minutes, but then I heard someone yell in my direction.

“What do you think you’re doing?! Getting a score that high? You had to have cheated!”

I looked behind me to see two thirds of the trio from day one of exams. The only one missing was the tall kid.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“You heard me,” the taller of the two grunted as he walked towards me.

“Well I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” I sighed.

“All I’ve wanted since I got into this school was to get into the “A” class,” he said, his voice getting louder as he got closer to me. “Now that you’re here, that’ll never happen.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t know what you want me to do about that.”

I could sense that I’d provoked him a little too much by what happened next.

“I want you to leave,” he grinned as he got within a few centimeters of my face. He punched me in the stomach, and I doubled over.

“Yeah Taichi!” the shorter guy shouted. “Kill the asshole!”

Taichi kicked my legs out from under me, throwing me to the ground, then dug a knee into my chest. I tried to move, but I couldn’t do anything with him sitting on top of me. I lifted my head a little bit, trying to get a look at my surroundings, but he instantly punched me in the nose, driving me head into the ground. A sharp pain shot down my body as I slowly fell unconscious.

“No, no!” Taichi yelled with a grin, slapping me in the face. “I’m not letting you fall asleep just yet!”

He stood up and gestured at the other guy, then started to kick me in the ribs and my arms. I screamed in pain as I felt my ribs crack and break underneath my skin. Then, the other guy joined in the kicking, stomping on my upper leg until I felt a crack and another sharp pain shoot throughout my body. I cried out in pain once more, but they still weren’t done with me. Simultaneously, the two guys jumped on my forearms, snapping a handful of bones.

“Hey!” a voice yelled. “What’s going on here?!”

“Shit!” Taichi yelled, running away from me and in the opposite direction of the voice, followed quickly by the other guy.

“Oh my god,” the voice muttered, getting closer to me. “Hang on kid! It’ll be ok! Just stay with me!”

I felt warm. Warm and wet. I didn’t like the feeling. Slowly, my eyes closed, and I finally blacked out.