Her Otherworldly Smile (Kyo⨯OC; Yuki⨯OC)

「Chapter 05」

—An Entrance Exam (and a Maid Cafe)—
—Skylar—

"I'm going to need you to sign your names here," the lady says, pointing to the line at the bottom of the page. "It states that, should you be caught cheating in any way, you understand the consequences listed above."

I glance at it and have to keep myself from rolling my eyes: it's a list of roughly 20 things that are all basically saying we'll be disqualified indefinitely from any entrance exams for this school and its associated universities if caught cheating, and it'll go on our record for all other entrance examiners to know.

Kyo signs his name without reading anything. I'm pretty sure he hasn't been paying attention this entire time—Shigure dragged the three of us (me, Aly, and Kyo) out of bed at six this morning without any warning, so both Kyo and Aly have been staring out in space without any real idea as to what's going on around them.

"Good," the woman continues, eyeing us with disdain. Aly and Kyo look like they've been possessed by Sandy the Sandman, and me and Kyo have unnatural hair color—not to mention the fact that none of us are dressed appropriately, with me and Aly in yet another pair of kimonos we borrowed from Shigure, and Kyo in a dark shirt and combat jeans—so this teacher has already deemed the three of us delinquents with no hope of passing. "If you'll follow me, I'll take you to your respective testing rooms."

I look back at Shigure, who waves with a big smile, and sigh silently, following after the woman.

"This is where you will be, Miss Skylar," she says, sliding the door open enough for me to fit through. "Please follow the proctor's instructions carefully."

I bow a little and head inside.

The proctor is a tall woman, I notice, towering over me by a good seven inches. Her light brown hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail, showing clear skin and pretty brown eyes. The outfit she's wearing isn't very flattering—an ugly off-white polo shirt and khakis—but I can tell all of her height is in her legs.

"Yo," she says, waving me over. "I'm Mayuko Shiraki, the literature teacher here at Kaibara. You can call me Mayu."

Wow! It's Mayu-sensei, Tohru and Yuki's homeroom teacher! She looks so tall in person~

She tilts her head. "Skylar, right? Nice hair. Technically, it's against school rules to have colored hair, though."

"Uh... The blonde is natural," I say, trying to control my expression.

"Well, it doesn't matter to me. Just keep that in mind when you go to the interview."

I tilt my head. "Interview?" I repeat.

She nods. "Most high school entrance exams include a written exam, which you're about to take, and an interview."

"What kind of questions will they ask in the interview?"

"That, I can't tell you," she says, picking up a folder. "I can tell you that they'll mostly be about you as a student: what your weakest subjects are, what your strongest subjects are, what you'd like to accomplish while in high school, what kind of reading you do—things like that."

"If I say manga, will they reject me?" I mutter.

She laughs. "Probably not, especially if you do well enough on this exam."

"I didn't mean to say that out loud," I admit, ruffling my hair.

She laughs again. "Just take a seat, Skylar. As soon as I hand out the exam paper, you'll have three hours to complete it. When the time's up, you'll put your pencil down, hand me your exam, and I'll call Fujiko back in here to take you to your interview."