ER. . IS . . IT . . INOO!? :C

“I would.”

All of them were obviously staring at the door, guessing who that familiar voice was.

“Aah, Okamoto-kun, I thought you wouldn’t be around until tomorrow. Lemme guess? Your dad sent you home early from England, right?” Yuto asked the English boy.

“Pretty much, yeah. Mom said I could go back to England once the semester was over but it seems that there would be practices for our winter concerts at that time. So, I was guessing I’ll be going back to England during the summer of next year.” Keito replied in his light tone.

“I see, but it’s great that Keito-kun would be volunteering for the prince part for our RPG in the school festival. It’s unlike you to that.” Yuto squinted at that fact.

“Wh-What?!” Keito said, surprised “I didn’t. That wasn’t me.”

“E-eh?! Then who?!” Yuto said, stunned.

“That was actually Hikaru, and the other members. They said they wanted to drop me off here at school and they also said that they wanted to see you. But it seems that they left after I opened the door.” Keito replied wide-eyed.

‘Those guys, obviously they’re up to no good.” Yuto murmured to himself.

“Hn? Is there anything wrong Nakajima-kun?” Aya asked worriedly.

“Aah, don’t worry,” Yuto answered “by the way this is Okamoto Keito, a good friend of mine. He’s also from Hey! Say! JUMP. He’s also our classmate but he wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

“Anou, Yuto, that’s a very long introduction.” Keito said shyly, he then faced Aya “Nice to meet you, I’m Okamoto Keito. I’m very sorry for disrupting your preparations for the school festival.”

“The pleasure is mine, I’m Nakashima Aya. I’ll be your class representative for the year.” Aya bowed politely.

Keito shook her hand and immediately went to his seat. He sat there silent.

“So shall we continue with the preparations?” Aya quickly brought the topic up. “Anou, Okamoto-kun are you still volunteering for the prince role?”

“’Course he is.” Yuto cut in, bouncing up and down.

“E-eh?! But that’s –” Keito said as if he being held against his will “Fine. I’ll take the role.”

“Okay, then who’d do the role of the princess then?” Aya asked.

“Hmm, it seems that you’d make a great princess Aya-chan” suggested her new friend, Kari.

“E-eeh?! No way, I’m not really into the whole dress thing. I guess I’d pass too.” Aya rejected, at the same time surprised. “Maybe some other role would do, anything but the princess.”

“How bout Youko-chan? Since she’s really great with all our school plays, she’s been playing the lead roles ever since.” suggested Hiro.

“I guess, I have no choice.” Youko stood up and shook hands with Keito “I hope we’d be doing our best for this, Okamoto-kun.”

“Aa-ah, same here, Nakata-san.” Keito shyly replied.

“Okay, I think everything’s settled now, right?” Aya was pleased at the fact that the main characters were now chosen, now for the minor details. She was pleased that everyone in their class were cooperative enough to suggest and agree so easily. “So we better get started with the details, but I guess everyone’s already worked out for this and that we’d be having the best booth in the whole school, don’t you think?”

“I guess, homeroom periods over everyone. Please get back to your seats.” Mihara-sensei closing the classroom door. “Again, I’ll be your English teacher for the year. Please take out your pencils we’ll be having a short pop quiz so that I could see if everyone still remembers the lessons from last year.”

Everyone groaned in unison, ‘Wow a pop quiz, how fun’ one sarcastically remarked.

“Quiet everyone, I’ll be expecting a lot from you since all of you did great on your English last year.” Mihara-sensei cautioned.

‘English. I barely had time to study it last year. I almost failed it. Uwaa, how am I supposed to survive this.’ Aya thought.

Aya was doing great in all her subjects except English. She managed to get straight A’s but she always considered English as a problem so she always goes by the extra credit work. Sure she had cram school afterwards but it wasn’t enough for her to fully understand what Shakespeare or those verbs, nouns, and prepositional phrases had for her. I mean for heaven’s sake she was Japanese, why learn English?

The test was over, papers were passed and they were marked right away. Aya was relieved that the whole English test of horror was over. She was obviously staring into space thinking how’d she get to survive throughout the day. She was feeling a bit tired so she was thinking of how she was going to relax when she got home.

‘A nice bubble bath would do the work.’ Aya thought.

“Anou, Aya-chan, Mihara-sensei wants to have a word with you.” her seatmate, Kira called.

“Ooh. Okay. Thank you.” Aya replied, standing up from her seat, heading out the classroom door, where Mihara-sensei was.

‘I wonder what it could be?’ She thought.

“Sorry to call you out of the blue, Nakashima-san. It’s just that I have to inform you about your mark from the English quiz a while ago.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it, Mihara-sensei?”

“It isn’t actually what I expected comparing it to your grades from your last school. So I was wondering if you could have one of your classmates tutor you.”

“A tutor?! But I already have cram school.” Aya defensively answered.

“I’m afraid to tell you that, you having a classmate tutor you wouldn’t be so bad.” Mihara-sensei suggested “Okamoto Keito seems to be the best one to ask, since he aced the test flawlessly.”

“Ehh?! But sensei, I seriously can’t have someone tutor me. I have this feeling the pressure from my parents would increase once they hear about this.” Aya resented. Obviously, she had too much pressure from her parents, and now that she has to get a classmate to tutor her they’d surely go furious.

“No buts Aya. I’m sure you’d do well, I promise that when you get an A in English you won’t need Okamoto-kun to tutor you anymore,” promised Mihara-sensei “don’t worry about telling him. I already called him before I told you this. He’s willing to teach you, just listen to him, okay?”

Aya sighed. Deep. She has a new school, a new life, a new classmate she barely knows that’ll tutor her.

Great. Just great.

Aya walked back to their classroom, quietly.

‘At least the day’s already over right?’ she thought to herself. ‘Maybe this tutor thing won’t be bad, Okamoto-kun seems to be a good person. Hopefully, I get an A with his help and then bye-bye tutor.’