River of Stars

Chapter 4 - Promises

Weeks had passed since Nishikata's birthday, and he continued his exhausting studying habits. His friends started noticing signs of fatigue in him, they remembered how he was in the previous year, and he seemed even worse now. They asked him about it, but Nishikata would always lie telling them he was fine, but they didn't buy it, and it was pretty clear to them that he was overworking himself. They tried asking him to hang out during summer in various places, but he would always give vague answers that they knew meant he didn't intend to go.

The first tests of the semester finally came, and school became a chaotic environment, with students sitting alone or in groups here and there, studying hard in that last moment right before summer break.

But for Nishikata and Takagi, nothing was really different. In fact, they didn't even change anything in their respective schedules and didn't think about the upcoming tests at all. Without even realizing, they had done the tests, and all of their scores were nearly perfect at the very least, with even some perfect ones. But that wasn't nearly close to being enough.

So it was that summer break finally started, and it was definitely the most uneventful summer of Nishikata's life. In the beginning, his friends and, mostly, Takagi would invite him frequently to hang out, but he would dismiss them or make excuses not to go every time. His friends gave up trying and, eventually, even Takagi did so, with hopes that at the very least she would be able to see him during the summer festival.

There was no moment, before or after that summer, where he studied so much. Nishikata pushed himself to the absolute extreme during that period, he would start studying right after breakfast and go on until late at night, and still he felt like he made little progress. His parents had never been so worried about him, and they thought for a moment of forbidding him to do the exam for that high school, but they feared that would make him even worse. They would make him go out on errands, to try and force him to get his mind out of the books for a while, but what they didn't know was that during those he would study through his phone in the meantime. He also started leaving every now and then to trick them, taking his books hidden with him.

Nishikata's appearance had gotten worse with each day, he constantly had eye bags, and his very being emitted an aura of weariness. His room was a constant mess, books were spread out in all directions, posters of animes that he now rarely watched were unsticking from his walls, his trash can was overflowing, he didn't even bother to make his bed anymore.

It didn't help that Takagi was taking an unusually long time to respond to his messages.

Nishikata: "Hey, Takagi, did you see that History question I talked to you about? I still don't understand it"

This was a message he sent her in the beginning of their second week of Summer Break, but she only responded two days later.

Takagi: "Sorry, Nishikata. I've been focusing more on science in the past few days, I ended up forgetting it, I'll take a look"

It was 00:27 when he received this response. He looked at the message and yawned, and went back to staring at it for a few seconds. '...' Nishikata leaned back on his chair, and there were several books and notebooks open on his desk. 'Maybe I can send her a scary video! It's really late right now, it should be super effective' a smirk grew in his face. 'But...' the hand he had been using to hold his phone was also holding a pen, his eyes passed through it and then to the papers on his desk, he sighed. 'I'd actually have to find a scary video, besides... It's unusual for her to be up this late, she must've been having it tough'. He scratched his eye, and then stared for a few more seconds at his phone, and then back at his books, 'I'm wasting time' he turned off his phone and went back to writing.