After entering Eijō High School, Takaya made up his mind.
“First, I’ll make some friends.”
The first term began, and Takaya was placed in Class 1–3.
On the first day, after the seat lottery, classes started immediately.
During the first math class, he noticed the boy sitting next to him struggling with the assignment. Takaya leaned over and spoke to him.
“Don’t use the quadratic formula. Try plugging in three instead.”
“Oh, I see! Thanks, Fujii.”
Even among students at a competitive school like Eijō High, Takaya was still on the strong side academically. By helping his classmates with their studies, he naturally began to make friends.
To his surprise, making friends at Eijō was not difficult at all.
He found that teaching others was actually fun. As word spread in the class, more people came to him with questions, and the fact that someone wanted to listen to him filled Takaya with a sense of satisfaction.
Apparently, the study tips he gave were easy to understand, and soon he was known as “the one who explains things well.”
Whenever a difficult problem appeared, students began to gather around him after class to discuss it.
In the middle of that small circle, Takaya finally felt needed—and slowly, slowly, he began to feel a sense of self-worth he had never had before.
Then, something unexpected happened.
Not even two weeks after entering school, **three girls confessed to him**.
Takaya was both shocked and bewildered, but at the same time he realized just how much he had changed.
The first confession came shortly after school one day, not long after the entrance ceremony.
He was wandering around campus, unable to decide which club to join, when a girl from his class called out to him.
“You know who I am, right? We’re in the same class—Tomomi Kobayashi. You knew that, didn’t you?”
She was small, friendly, and not exactly “pretty,” but undeniably cute in a warm, approachable way.
Unfortunately, Takaya had never been good at remembering names.
He had hardly had any friends in the past, and very few people had ever caught his interest.
He had long felt that remembering names was pointless.
When she saw the troubled look on his face, she sighed playfully.
“Oh no… you still don’t remember me? I guess I’m just not very noticeable…”
He was so nervous—he almost never talked to girls—that all he could manage was a stiff, “What’s wrong?”
“Y’know, Fujii-kun… you’re kind of unusual. You look cool, but you’re not full of yourself at all. You’ve got that slightly bad-boy vibe, but you’re actually really kind. That gap is kind of… attractive.”
Then
“If it’s okay… would you go out with me?”
His heart skipped a beat.
It was, as far as he could remember, the first time in his life that he’d ever felt a positive jolt of emotion like that.
A confession—so suddenly.
He must have made another troubled face; the situation was so unfamiliar he didn’t know how to react.
No words came out.
Whether she understood his silence or not, she laughed lightly.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. You don’t have to answer right away. See you later!”
With that, she ran toward the school gate.
He had been confessed to for the first time in his life.
His heart was pounding; his palms were sweating.
He stood frozen for a long moment.
“Aya-chan… I got confessed to. For the first time. What am I supposed to do?”
Takaya murmured, dazed, rooted to the spot.