River of Stars

Chapter 2 - Still the Same

After his conversation with Takagi at the shrine, Nishikata returned home and went to his room. It was the end of the day already and the sun was setting. After all that had happened that day, Nishikata laid down on his bed, completely overwhelmed, and he tried to process everything.

He was going to study to try and enter Sekai Eda High, but the exam was still a year and a half away. He felt the motivation to work hard to achieve that goal, but right now he was at a loss for what he should do. Where should he start? Nishikata pondered for a moment and felt that it would be a good start to try and get better grades at school in general. His scores had recently been average or lower, and particularly bad in math. So he thought that starting from there might be a good choice.

Before long, however, his thoughts were interrupted by his mother calling him for dinner, and he had no other idea in particular.

The next day, Nishikata found Takagi at their usual spot, the mere sight of her made him blush, as he remembered the events of the previous day.

"Good Morning Nishikata" she greeted him with her usual smile.

"G-Good Morning Takagi-san" Nishikata greeted back nervously

"You're already blushing Nishikata? Is my presence alone that effective on you?" she smiled teasingly.

Nishikata's face went beet red "OF COURSE NOT, I-I-IT'S JUST STILL HOT, SUMMER JUST ENDED YOU KNOW?"

Takagi put a hand in her stomach as she laughed cheerfully at the nervous boy "Oh Nishikata, it's good to see you back to normal"

He just looked away shyly in response. As they walked alongside each other to school, Nishikata relived the previous day. He never thought Takagi would go so far to help him.

"Hey, T-Takagi-san" he called, as she looked in his direction "I... I just wanted to thank you again for yesterday, you did so much for me, I will definitely win this time" he said with determination.

She smiled, "That's what friends are for."

The school day went on normally, but Nishikata was more focused on the class, and Takagi was going easy on him, trying to avoid any teasing during class. It was still the second school day, so the lessons were still relatively easy and Nishikata didn't have many problems to keep up, except with math. He was understanding, but it was surely harder for him. After classes ended, Takagi waited for Nishikata so that they could go home together, he went to her and spoke a bit nervously.

"S-Sorry Takagi-san, you can go home without me, I'll stay at the library to study a little bit."

The girl tilted her head, before forming a smile "It's okay, I'll go with you, I can even give you some help if you need it."

This made the boy blush a bit "Y-You don't have to do this, you know?"

"It's alright, they say teaching can also be a great way of studying, besides, I want to stay with you" She said, with a bit of pink flushing her cheeks, though Nishikata couldn't see it, which led him to almost drop the books he was putting in his bag.

"Because you want to tease me right?" He asked quickly.

She looked sharply at him "Let's get going" she said with a smile.

After this they went to the library. Upon entering it after classes ended and on the second school day after summer break, they weren't surprised to see that it was practically empty. They chose a desk to sit and set up their materials.

When all was ready, Nishikata started doing math questions, his worst subject, while Takagi revised some History chapters. He would eventually ask Takagi how to solve some problem and she would happily help him, sometimes teasing him in the process. As time passed, Nishikata started having problems with more and more questions.