Homework was the one thing Coach Hitomiko wouldn't stop nagging them about.
In which fighting aliens to save the earth doesn't exempt you from studies, apparently.
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There is only one thing that can ruin a camping trip. Actually, there are more than one, but for now, Rika is only concerned with only one of them. Homework. For a coach who barely seems to care about what they do as long as they're performing well, Coach Hitomiko sure can be serious about studies, going as far as to postpone practice until they finish them.
Now, Rika would love to take a day off and spend it with Darling on a shopping trip or something equally as fun, but homework is not something she likes to do even at home, let alone at camp.
"What's that supposed to be?" Touko asks.
Rika glances at the girl by her side, who is staring at Rika's diary, and pouts. "What do you mean "what"? It's me and Darling!"
Touko, being the awful friend she is, says, "That doesn't look anything like Ichinose."
Rika rolls her eyes. Clearly, Touko can't appreciate a work of art to save her life. "You just don't have any artistic sense." Rika turns to find Tsunami and a grin makes its way to her face as she thinks of an idea. "If you want, I could draw Tsunami for you. I mean, you'd want a memento, right?"
"Memento for what?" Poor girl obviously thinks she's subtle about her crush.
Still, Touko needs to come to terms with it on her own. No use forcing someone's feelings out, especially if they're that shy about it. Like Darling's feelings for her.
Well, a small prod here or there wouldn't hurt.
So, Rika just grins and says, "You know what."
Touko pretends to look even more mystified, as though it is actually fooling someone. "I really don't."
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Endou scratches his face with his index finger. "I'm lost."
Yuuto sighs, barely keeping his frustration at bay. No matter how much Yuuto likes and even admires Endou, he can't deny that the latter is denser than osmium. "We've already gone over this ten times. What is it that you don't understand?"
Endou frowns at him. "It's hard, okay? It doesn't make any sense. Why does it become negative on the other side?"
Sitting next to Yuuto, Gouenji sighs as he flips the page of his history book, having long given up on making Endou understand.
"Because," Yuuto says for the eleventh time that hour, "we need to keep the equation balanced."
It's times like this that Yuuto really wishes Endou wasn't such a soccer freak. If he didn't have that single-minded hyperfocus, maybe he would understand things that weren't soc—
Wait a minute. There was only one way to make Endou understand Maths. "Picture this. This is a field, and that is the opponent's side. When you switch sides after half-time—"
"You switch directions!" Endou's eyes seem to sparkle and a bit of understanding seems to show in his eyes. "So, the signs are like directions?"
"Congratulations," Gouenji says, though his smirk is definitely teasing.
"It's not my fault Kidou didn't explain it like that sooner!" Endou objects, although he, too, is grinning with triumph.
Yuuto smirks. Really, Endou was a true soccer freak.
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"I'm done," Kogure-kun says, scowling as he hands Haruna his notebook. "Can I go now?"
Haruna regards him and his frustrated countenance for a while and then sighs. "Fine. I'll check this later."
"You're not my teacher," Kogure-kun mumbles but leaves without a fuss or any of his usual antics, so Haruna lets him get away with it.
She turns back to her own work and frowns at her essay. She can write better than this; she has in the past for the newspaper club. Nodding to herself, Haruna starts to erase everything.
She is only halfway done when she hears a soft voice ask, "Is everything alright? You look tense."
Haruna looks up to find Fubuki-san looking at her with concerned eyes from across the table. She smiles at him, trying to look as reassuring as she can. "Oh, yes, everything's fine."
Fubuki-san's expression shifts into a small smile and Haruna has to glance away. Really, no one has the right to look so cute — even if Haruna doesn't like him like that. She busies herself with Kogure-kun's notebook as Fubuki-san goes back to his own work — which is a relief because over the past week, he had spent most of the time just staring at it.
When Haruna opens the notebook, a mixture of anger, resignation and frustration bubbles within her.
"Otonashi-san?"
She ignores Fubuki-san in favor of glaring at the words in the notebook that mockingly tell her, You fell for it!
"Kogure-kun!"
Distantly, Haruna can hear the aforementioned boy snicker.
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Whenever he moved up a year, Jousuke vowed to himself that he wouldn't open a book from the previous grade ever again. Now, he is staring at words that seem completely alien to him.
"What does this mean?" Tachimukai asks, pointing at a word in his book.
Jousuke scratches the back of his head. "Well… Um… Let me see that." He snatches the bokk and holds it close to himself, trying to recognize the infuriating word.
He hears Tachimukai sigh. "You don't get it either, do you?"
Jousuke hands his book back and laughs awkwardly. School had never really been his thing. "Not really. But even the most difficult waves can be overcome if you approach it the right way."
It clearly flies over Tachimukai's head but he smiles politely anyway. "Thanks. I think I'll ask someone else."
Jousuke grins at him. "Sure. I need some help myself."
Kidou was smart enough to help him, despite being a year below him. That guy's brain was amazing. Jousuke wasn't entirely convinced that Kidou wasn't an alien who had turned on his old comrades.
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"We should be practicing, not doing homework!"
Natsumi's eyebrow twitches as she feels a headache coming. Her patience is depleting quickly and she wants nothing more than to leave, but she knows that if she does, Megane-kun and Kabeyama-kun will just delay their work.
So, she says instead, "Just because we're fighting aliens doesn't mean we don't have exams to take."
Kabeyama-kun sighs and murmurs a resigned, "Okay…"
On the other hand, Megane-kun isn't so easily deterred. "But we're fighting aliens! Their strongest team! We need to be prepared for that!"
Well, it's not like he's wrong. But his argument has one issue. "Your words would hold more merit if you actually joined training."
Megane-kun freezes and almost falls over when Kabeyama-kun says, "Natsumi-san has a point."
"This is cruel!"
Natsumi sighs again, wondering just how she got stuck here. At least Endou-kun is cute even when he gets worked up.
… Wait, what?
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"Oh! So that's how you write it in Japanese!"
Kazuya is lucky his two friends have lived in Japan for years now. It's been so long since he's written Japanese that he's become rustier than he had thought. Speaking it is fine, since he used to speak it with Aki and Domon even in America, but writing it is a whole other story.
Domon sighs. "I had been hoping we wouldn't have to do homework while fighting aliens."
Aki giggles. "Well, I guess it can't be helped."
Domon folds his arms behind his head. "Still…"
Kazuya smiles to himself. "We've got no choice but to do this. It's better than doing it all at once later."
Domon sighs again. "I guess."
Kazuya had missed his friends over the past few years.
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Hitomiko takes the scene in with a patience and passive countenance born from years of experience.
Touko-san and Urabe-san are chattering at one side, homework completely forgotten. Near them, Gouenji-kun and Kidou-kun constantly have to bring Endou-kun back on track. Only a few steps away, Fubuki-kun is thankfully doing his work instead of staring at it as though it held all the answers in the world, while Otonashi-san is chasing Kogure-kun all over the camp. Natsumi-san is scolding Megane-kun for something or other while Kabeyama-kun seems to be trying to disappear from her line of sight. Only Ichinose-kun, Domon-kun and Kino-san seem to be close to finishing.
It's so oddly reminiscent of the kids at Sun Garden that Hitomiko can't bring herself to look for too long. That's why, she reminds herself, we can't afford to lose.
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March 16, 2021
Word count: 1378 words.
Inspired by Endou's dialogue in episode 37.