Reality's Blade

Chapter 23: Tutoring

I had spent my morning lessons wondering whether Naoki would really show up at lunch time. Doing more studying during a break wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but I had a feeling he would take it seriously for the sake of his baseball tournament. If it hadn't been for my job I might have recommended after school, but Naoki also had club practices to go to, and although I told myself I'd give it up if I needed to, I had Legerdemain to get home for.

Airi and I were sat talking when Naoki sauntered into the room and came to join us.

"Yo! What brings you here?" Airi asked him chattily.

"Bad grades and a personal tutor. Fujimiya made a promise to me." He explained pulling up a nearby chair so he could sit with us.

"Ah, again." She replied knowingly. It wasn't the first time Naoki had needed help dragging his grades up. "Show us what we're working with." She sighed, already getting in the role of tutor.

I hadn't told Airi that Naoki had come to my house or about the arrangement we had made, but she took it all in her stride processing in an instant what needed to be done. The level-headed way in which she thought had always impressed me.

Naoki grabbed his bag and sifted through, eventually pulling out his latest tests. We spread them out across the desk to inspect the damage, while Naoki averted his eyes, obviously not proud of his marks. After a quick inspection even Airi couldn't stop her expression from falling slightly. I picked up his maths test, scanning the questions to see what was mostly going wrong with them, it became fairly evident what the problem was.

"Naoki, how long did you actually spend revising this stuff?" I asked incredulously.

"Would you like the honest answer? I don't think I did." He admitted.

I sighed, holding my head in my hand. "I think we both know how this is going to be solved. Do you remember if you understood it at the time and just need to actually remember it, or if you didn't get it in the first place?"

He shrugged in reply.

"Okay. Then we're going to go through this test question by question and find out what you don't understand and what you've just forgotten. Not that you ever knew it in the first place." I muttered under my breath.

From the edge of my vision I saw Naoki's posture change to a more hunched over defensive position, and wondered whether what I had said was too harsh. Then I noticed him make a small beckoning motion.

"Mmm?"

The low noise came from behind me, I had to supress the astonishment I felt from completely taking over my face, my jaw trying to drop. Kazehiro stood, looking expectantly at Naoki who had signalled for him to come over. He was holding a packaged sandwich which he seemed to have just bought from the cafeteria.

Naoki cleared his throat. "I just want to apologise for what I did the other day. I went too far, I'm sorry."

Kazehiro's eyebrows raised, not appearing to be expecting an apology from him.

"Okay." He answered quietly, with a slow nod.

I took it to mean he had accepted the apology. I suddenly saw a hint of a smile fleet across his face before it left as rapidly as it appeared. He pointed to the desk, I looked down to find he was pointing at Naoki's test paper.

"All the workings for this question are correct up to there, where he wrote his answer down wrong for the next part. Whoever marked it was being lazy." He noted.

It was Airi and Naoki's turn to look astonished.

"Kazehiro, what are you doing this lunch time?" Airi enquired. I could hear the intention in her voice, she was planning to recruit him to help with Naoki's studies. If it was obvious to me, it was certainly going to be clear as day to Kazehiro.