“Speaking of which…”
“Hm?”
“Has Toujou Kaisoku not been coming to class lately?”
“Honestly, I’m impressed you even noticed.
That girl’s presence is approaching algae-level.”
Inside the New Era faculty office, Class A’s homeroom teacher voiced his concern about his student—the one who was actually quite cute but somehow invisible—having finally vanished off the face of the earth.
“She’s getting bullied, isn’t she?
Should I call the police?”
“Dial back the protective instincts a little, would you?” The head of student affairs was unimpressed.
“The dorm checks confirmed she’s in her room and hasn’t gone anywhere.
She just submitted a rather lengthy leave request.
Normally that would’ve been denied, but for whatever reason, the principal spoke with her personally and approved it.”
“But is she really just on leave?
If she’s on leave, why would she stay cooped up in her dorm?” The homeroom teacher was still worried.
“Has she become so withdrawn that she can’t even bring herself to step outside her room?”
“If you’d put half the stat points you dumped into imagination toward blind dates, you’d have found someone ages ago.” The head of student affairs sighed.
“Fine, fine—if you’re that worried, just go check on her after class.
You can’t even prep your lessons properly like this.
Hard to believe you graduated from Waseda.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly a star student at Waseda either.
I kind of dropped out to play in a band, so…” The homeroom teacher scratched his head.
His sister had pulled strings to get him this teaching gig.
But he’d stuck around this time because he’d unexpectedly found a few umamusume in his class.
“Oh, you mean Satono Diamond?
I know—an heiress from the Satono family actually attending our public school…” The head of student affairs quipped.
“Must be because it’s close to home, right?”
“But the one I’m most worried about is Toujou Kaisoku.
That kid has no one to lean on and no friends.
I don’t even know if she’ll continue to high school after graduation.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she dropped out entirely.
Though I’d really rather she didn’t.” The man was pushing middle age, and tear ducts got fragile around that time—especially for someone like him.
Kids like Kaisoku got an extra dose of his concern.
“I just hope everything works out for her…”
“Morn—” Satono Diamond had woken up in Kitasan Black’s room this time.
Not because Kaisoku had kicked her out—the girl wouldn’t have had the nerve.
But lately, Kaisoku had been studying so intensely that she was compressing her sleep to the absolute minimum, and having Diamond in the room meant she could only study by the dim glow of a desk lamp at night, trying not to disturb her.
So Diamond, considerate as ever, had voluntarily relocated to Kita’s dorm.
After all, Kaisoku was attempting the early admission exam for Tokyo University—as a middle schooler.
It wasn’t as though such prodigies didn’t exist, but one look at Kaisoku’s do-or-die study habits was enough to tell Diamond this was serious.
The girl genuinely intended to get into Tōdai, and once she’d sunk her teeth into an opportunity, she wasn’t letting go.
To support her friend, Diamond had stepped aside the moment she realized she was a hindrance.
And while not being able to see Kaisoku every day—not brushing her hair for her, not buying her breakfast, not taking her out to eat, not sneaking her treats, not occasionally holding her hand or wrapping her in a hug—left Diamond with a faint pang of regret… it was like having a pet she’d raised for ages suddenly sent to board at someone else’s house.
Beyond worry, there wasn’t much else she could feel.
“I wonder if Kaisoku’s been eating properly…” Diamond murmured to herself over breakfast.
Beside her, Kitasan Black couldn’t take it anymore.
“If you’re that worried, just go see her.
I’m sure Kaisoku wouldn’t mind.”
“Just because she wouldn’t mind doesn’t mean I should go bother her!” Diamond truly, desperately wanted to check in, but she was also terrified of being a distraction at the wrong time.
Kaisoku seemed dead serious about her bet with Symboli Rudolf, and while Diamond would have loved to attend Tracen Academy together, standing in Kaisoku’s corner as a friend meant wanting her dream to come true.
The conflict left Diamond unable to do anything useful at all.
“Speaking of which, Dia—why do you care so much about Kaisoku?” Kita sprawled across the table and asked.
“Me, I just like any kid who’s cute.
I want to get along with everyone.
But you’re different, Dia.
You’re the type who’s warm on the surface but guarded underneath.
If someone doesn’t interest you, it doesn’t matter how hard they try—you’d never get this close.
Let alone this attached.”
“…Mmm.” Diamond propped her chin on one hand.
Good question—why did she care so much about Kaisoku?
At first, she really hadn’t been all that interested.
How could you build a relationship with someone like that?
“Maybe… maybe it’s because she suddenly said something that stuck with me.”
“What did she say?” Kita’s face lit up with gossip-hungry curiosity.
“Can you tell me?”
“At first I just thought I should look after this poor kid a little…” Diamond shook her head.
“But then I realized I’d never really understood her.
She’d been quietly working so hard, all this time… I think it was the day you raced her.
That’s when it hit me—this girl who always kept her distance from everyone had been pushing herself relentlessly.
The way she ran, the look on her face—you can’t fake that.”
“…I get what you mean, but what exactly did she say to you?” Kita felt like her question had been dodged, so she pressed.
“Details, please.”
“…Ugh, you’re so annoying, Kita.” Diamond recalled those words—practically a confession—and her face went scarlet in an instant.
She shoved Kita’s nosy face away with one palm.
If the intensity of her embarrassment could’ve been converted directly to temperature, Diamond’s body heat would’ve been pushing two thousand degrees Celsius.
Being hated by someone you like is so much worse than being hated by someone you already dislike.
Someone you like…
Like…
When did that kid start… feeling that way about me…
Diamond buried her face against the table like an ostrich hiding its head.
“I don’t know, okay?!”
“You really can’t hide anything, can you, Dia?
Oh—but I did hear something.
Apparently, Kaisoku used to have a pretty close childhood friend.” Kita clapped her hands together as though just remembering, and tossed out the tidbit casually.
“Who is she?”
“?”
“Who is she, where does she live, where does she go to school, what’s she like?
What are her family’s assets?”
“Dia… that’s a little scary.”
“Huh?
No, some nobody out of nowhere thinks she can cozy up to my Kaisoku—anyone would be annoyed, right?”
“Dia… are you sure we weren’t switched at birth?
You sound more like someone from my family.” Kita was genuinely taken aback.
“She and Kaisoku haven’t been in contact for a long time.
She goes to a different school now.
I only found out because I happened to accidentally flip through her diary the other day.”
“Name?” Diamond tilted her head.
Her eyes were flat, devoid of their usual sparkle, a strand of hair caught at the corner of her mouth.
“Give me the name first.”
“How would I know?
But in the diary, she called her ‘Deep.'” Kita sighed.
“Sounds like a nickname, though.
Probably not the full name.”
“Deep?” Diamond frowned.
The name meant nothing to her, but the raw hostility she felt toward this person she’d never met was already fierce.
“Fine.
I’ll ask Toujou-san about it next time we’re together.
Gotta be subtle about it, though—otherwise she’ll think I’m some kind of stalker.”
“…Honestly, you already are.” Kita looked vaguely horrified.
“Please don’t do anything illegal, okay?”
“That’s rich coming from you, Kita…” Diamond turned a flat gaze on her.
“Reading someone else’s diary isn’t exactly a virtuous act either, is it?”
“…Ehehe.” Kita looked away.
“I mean, the diary was just sitting right there.”
“Hmm~” Diamond chewed on her thumbnail, lost in thought.
Eventually she stood.
“But you’re right, I really should go see Kaisoku.
I should be checking on her regularly.
What if she’s forgotten to eat?”
“Good point.
I’ll come too.” Kita and Diamond tacitly agreed to bury everything they’d just discussed—probably taking it straight to the grave.
They scarfed down the rest of breakfast and set off toward Kaisoku’s dorm.
The moment they reached the door, something felt off.
Her expression darkened.
“I’ve got a bad feeling we’re already too late…”
“Let’s just open it—” Kita was worried too.
“She probably pulled an all-nighter, right?”
“That’s what I’m thinking—” Diamond produced her key.
As it turned in the lock, something clicked on the other side.
The door swung open, and a cascade of exam papers spilled out like a tide breaching a levee.
Before their horrified eyes, the dorm room they’d only left a week ago had been engulfed—practice tests and problem sets covered every surface.
Energy drinks lined the desk.
A full canister of coffee, now completely drained.
And Toujou Kaisoku, slumped over her desk, glasses perched on her nose, a vocabulary booklet in one hand, the other hand still scrawling furiously.
Beside her lay the corpses of over a dozen gel pens.
The scene was straight out of hell.
Diamond and Kita couldn’t even find a place to step.
They picked their way through the least paper-covered patches until they reached the girl, but Kaisoku—locked in a study trance so intense it would’ve put a senior two weeks before college entrance exams to shame—didn’t register their presence at all.
Her lips kept mechanically reciting vocabulary.
Her pen kept moving.
She finished a paper, pulled out an answer key, checked it, then tossed the paper onto the mountainous pile beside her.
Diamond picked up the discarded sheet and scanned the questions one by one.
Then she realized something—most of the problems on this exam were the kind that made her dizzy just looking at them.
What in the world was Kaisoku studying for?
The Trisolaran invasion?
“This can’t go on… She’s been surviving on nothing but instant noodles and energy drinks.
I’m starting to wonder if she even gets three hours of sleep.” Kita spotted the alarm clock on the nightstand set for 4 AM and felt her scalp go numb.
“We need to get her to the nurse’s office… no—just call an ambulance!”
“I agree!” Diamond was on the verge of tears.
What has this child done to herself?
Symboli Rudolf, this is your fault!
She was a perfectly fine kid, and one week of this has left her barely human!
“Kita, hold her down and carry her out.
I’ll call for an ambulance—”
“On it!” Kita lunged forward and snatched the vocabulary booklet and gel pen from the girl’s hands.
Stripped of both objects, Kaisoku sat frozen in place for a moment, then slowly raised her head as though waking from a trance.
She saw Kita’s worried face and Diamond on the phone with emergency services.
A weak, exhausted smile surfaced.
“Oh, you guys came… I thought… I was hallucinating again.” The dark circles under Kaisoku’s eyes were so heavy that Kita half-expected her to ascend to the afterlife on the spot.
“Sorry—I haven’t cleaned the room at all this week.
It must be a mess.”
“This has gone way beyond ‘a mess’…” Kita offered a fair assessment.
“You need rest.
And a hospital.”
“Huh?” Kaisoku scratched her head.
“I’m fine, though.
An umamusume’s constitution can take a lot of punishment.”
“Nothing about this is fine—you’ve lost your mind!” Without waiting for a response, Kita scooped the girl into a princess carry, and the moment Diamond confirmed the ambulance was downstairs, she was off like a shot—sprinting from the sixth floor to the ground level in one breath and depositing Kaisoku onto the stretcher.
By the time the girl knew what was happening, she was in the emergency room.
Doctors bustled around her.
She blinked at Diamond in confusion.
“What happened?”
“The results are back.
Beyond malnutrition and fatigue, nothing serious.” The doctor who’d finished the examination came over to Diamond.
“Though if she’d kept this up much longer—well, Miss Toujou’s physical constitution is genuinely impressive.
The fact that this level of self-abuse didn’t cause any major damage is a small miracle in its own right.”
“Listen, Kaisoku—I’m willing to support your Tōdai plans… but you can’t treat your own body like it’s disposable.
From now on, you will maintain a normal sleep schedule.
Otherwise, I will personally make sure you never touch another practice exam again.” Diamond’s eyes had gone dead.
Kaisoku swallowed hard.
She knew that right now, nothing she said would get through.
So she just nodded.
“Okay…”
What Kaisoku hadn’t anticipated, however, was that the news of her hospitalization—for studying too hard—had already spread across the entire school.