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Chapter 105: May 20th (Thursday) – Asamura Yuuta

Two months have almost passed since I became a third-year student.

I climbed the stairs up toward my now familiar classroom.

The May sky visible from the landing window was clear and blue. Light streamed onto the linoleum-covered stairs.

"Mornin\' Asamura, comin\' through!"

Yoshida overtook me by taking two steps at a time and skirting around the landing, continuing up the stairs.

"Good morning," I called out to his back as he disappeared out of sight.

The same scene had repeated itself countless times since starting third year.

The faces of the people I passed have become familiar too.

When did I stop noticing the number of stairs I climbed? Routine transformed fresh scenery into the mundane. Entering the school gate in the morning, passing through the entrance hallway, and heading up to my classroom was the epitome of routine.

Animals get used to repeated stimuli and stop reacting to them. This reaction was called habituation. The brain doesn\'t try to remember safe, familiar information as new. You only noticed a familiar thing when it\'s been replaced.

As I climbed the stairs, I looked down at my feet. I tried to recall each day I had taken each step. But, my feet suddenly stopped in their tracks.

The first thing that came to mind was when Ayase-san and I spent the night in each other\'s arms. The next day, we discussed our thoughts about the future.

And... um…

I can\'t remember anything else.

I sighed internally as I looked down at my motionless feet. A month has already gone by since then. Time seemed to pass so quickly. I\'ve only just become a third-year student, and yet another month has passed. But the reason I feel time passing so quickly is obvious: there hasn\'t been any significant changes in my relationships, Ayase-san included. Days passed without anything particularly noteworthy happening, just like these mornings on the stairs.

Before I knew it, May\'s weeklong holiday, Golden Week, had ended.

What have I been doing? Well, studying.

I\'m in my third year of high school. If I want to aim for a university with an eye on the future, it\'s a time when I can\'t afford to slack off. Compared to my second year, I\'ve ramped up my study time for exams. I\'m also studying with the midterms in mind.

To be honest, I\'m busy—too busy. Aside from school work and daily necessities like food, baths, and sleep; my only memories were of being hunched over my desk with books spread out before me.

That\'s fine, but the problem is that I still don\'t feel like I\'ve spent enough time studying, no matter how much time I allocated to it.

There\'s no sense of accomplishment.

I think it\'s… kinda strange.

Studying before a test is nothing special since I\'ve done it countless times. If anything, I should\'ve put more effort into motivating myself than usual, so that I could build confidence for my future. So why can\'t I shake this feeling of uneasiness?

I shook my head slightly to dispel my negative thoughts. It\'ll be alright. I\'ve been studying a lot. I\'m doing all I can. I\'ve been attending cram school since my second year, studying with exams in mind from the get-go. There\'s no way I\'ll stumble here. Today was the start of the midterms.

Anyway, I don\'t have time to stand here worrying. I should be hurrying to class to desperately cram the test material into my brain at my desk.

I rushed to the classroom to prepare myself for the midterm exams.

But—

Despite my determination, my thoughts remained dull and muddled when the test began.

During the exam, I couldn\'t shake the foggy feeling in my brain and I lost concentration. The more I panicked, the less I understood the questions in front of me…

As my frustration grew, the time left for the exam ticked down.

What have I done to myself?

***

Almost dinner time.

I\'m standing in the kitchen. It\'s my turn to cook today. During our exam period, I didn\'t have any shifts at work, so only Ayase-san and I were at home.

But, we hardly saw each other as we\'ve both been holed up in our rooms studying.

We live in the same house, are in the same grade, same class, and are taking the same exams, so it would be more efficient if we helped each other with difficult subjects. At the same time, the rational side of my brain said, "No, that\'s impossible."

It\'s obvious that I\'ve been too distracted to concentrate on studying. I want to touch her. I want to feel her warmth. I constantly battle those urges, all because I found her so damn attractive.

Along that vein, an experiment was conducted using smartphones. Participants with similar academic abilities were divided into multiple groups with their smartphones placed in different positions to solve tasks that required concentration. Group A had their phone on the desk, Group B had it in their bag, and Group C had it in the next room. As a result, the group with their phone on the desk performed the worst, while the group with their phone in the next room did the best.

The experiment\'s data clearly showed that if there\'s a task to focus on, having a smartphone within arm\'s reach is distracting. Even if you try not to think about it consciously, the act of "not thinking about it" uses brain power. Energy is needed even for "not thinking" apparently.

Put simply, Ayase-san is like a smartphone... wait, that\'s not important right now.

I was so lost in thought that I almost burned the contents of the frying pan. I hurriedly turned off the IH stove.

As I was plating up, Ayase-san peeked her head out of her room.

"...Mackerel?"

"Yeah. I tried marinating it in miso sauce."

On the net I found out that eating oily fish like mackerel was good for boosting concentration as it contained a lot of DHA.

Ayase put her hand to her mouth as if she\'d just realized something.

"Ah."

Her eyes seemed to suggest that she wanted to say something, but since she didn\'t elaborate, I spoke instead.

"You don\'t like it?"

"No, I was actually thinking I wanted to try it."

"Well, that\'s good to hear."

"Thanks for making it."

"You\'re welcome. I don\'t think I messed it up… hopefully."

I followed the recipe, so it should\'ve turned out fine. It looked presentable enough, at least. I also kept Ayase-san\'s advice to my old man in mind and tried to make the seasoning on the lighter side.

We sat down at the table facing each other, put our hands together, and said, "Let\'s eat."

I broke apart the white fish marinated in miso sauce with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth with rice. The sweet and savory aroma tickled my nose as steam rose, and the soft flavor spread gently on my tongue.

Mmm, it turned out pretty good.

Ayase-san also said it was delicious. But she seemed a little down, and it made me worried.

"Are you feeling sick?"

"No, I\'m fine."

While saying that, her chopsticks began moving again. She looked like she\'d remembered something. Not able to press for more details, I industriously moved my chopsticks in the same way.

We continued eating in silence.

After dealing with the dishes, we exchanged a spontaneous "Well then" and "Yeah" before retreating to our respective rooms.

Time for more studying.

I spread my notebook out on the desk.

In the end, I couldn\'t bring up today\'s exam with Ayase-san. If I ask her how she feels about the exam, I\'ll have to answer the same question myself. It\'d be hard to say that it went perfectly, but it\'d also be dishonest to lie to her right now. Plus, it\'d be an unbearable situation when the test results actually came out.

Before the exams, Ayase-san and I agreed not to touch each other like couples do in order to focus on our exams. That\'s why we had to achieve good results.

It\'s time to put my head down.

If I can\'t produce good results, I won\'t feel confident at all, and if I neglect what I should be doing, I can\'t expect to have happy times with Ayase-san in the future—It\'s just not the right way to go about it.

I get it.

But, the reality is that I finished the first day of the exams lacking concentration anyway. Then, along with my frustrations about the situation, another worry reared its ugly head.

Ayase-san\'s feelings.

Going off her expressions and behavior, she seemed like her normal self. She was calm and collected, as per usual. There were moments when things felt awkward, but that\'s probably because I\'m not acting normally myself. It could\'ve also been because of me making her feel anxious.

It\'s not like I\'m a mind reader, so I couldn\'t decipher Ayase-san\'s feelings. Since we\'ve been holding ourselves back from touching, strangely enough, I feel like the emotional distance between us has grown as well.

Beep, beep, beep. I hurriedly looked up. It was the alarm I\'d set.

The Pomodoro Technique— a method of studying involving splitting up time into chunks to improve concentration. I set the alarm to ring every 25 minutes. One chunk consisted of 25 minutes of study and a 5-minute break.

I dropped my eyes back down to my notebook. I hadn\'t made any progress at all.

Once again, I spent the time I should\'ve used for studying thinking about things there weren\'t any answers to.

This can\'t go on.

But I can\'t think of any solutions.

I guess it is true that it takes brain power to deliberately not think about something. And a lot of it, apparently.

I somehow need to shove the things I\'m anxious about so far into the back of my brain that I can\'t reach them.

But, for me, Ayase-san the "smartphone" is always in reach when I get home, in the same classroom at school, and even at work. Lately, she\'s even carved out a place for herself in my head.

I was a bit disappointed that we were in different classes during our second year, but I never thought that being in the same class would lead to the current situation.

If we were anxious about something, we should discuss it. Right now I feel anxious, but what\'s the actual reason?

That\'s how I should\'ve been building a relationship with her.

But if we talked about it and the outcome wasn\'t good, I can\'t even imagine what\'d happen to me.

Before last year, when Ayase-san became my Stepsister, I couldn\'t have ever imagined being in that kind of state. I feel pathetic, constantly being pulled this way and that by new emotions. I believed that If I had confidence I could think of a solution, but since I have none and can\'t solve it, I can\'t gain any confidence… It\'s a terrible cycle.

Our agreement is wavering.

Our life as Stepbrother and Stepsister seemed to be faint and transient, like a bubble on the water\'s surface, about to disappear.

If even suggesting starting a dialogue with Ayase-san made me feel anxious, how the heck would we adjust our relationship?

The alarm beeped again.

I can\'t keep going on like this.