Chapter Text
Cram school. Yokoi had to practically beg her parents to send her, especially since it was so close to high school entrance exams. Just a short walk from her neighborhood, there was a run-of-the-mill franchise cram school, and today was her first day, like many other students. It was September now, so she needed all the help she could get. Yokoi excelled in English and Japanese, but her math scores… well, that’s why she was going to cram school.
The teacher spoke very softly, “Today you’ll be taking a placement exam, which will determine which class you’ll end up in”. Yokoi settled into her seat as the teacher spoke about the test. She’d recently read somewhere that kids who sit in the middle column of seats tend to do better in school, and she was committed to making sure her education was perfect from here on out. The last middle column seat was at the back of the classroom; however, she was still able to see the board, so she didn’t mind. She placed her bag down and pulled out her pencil case, notebook, erasers, highlighters, and ruler, all placed neatly in front of her. Yokoi gave herself a nod of satisfaction. She felt like the perfect student, ready to learn.
As the teacher passed around the placement exam, Yokoi let her eyes wander around the classroom. She saw friends from previous years, friends from this year, and some who had just lived in her neighborhood whom she hadn’t seen in what had to be years. Sato-san, Gotou-san, Maeda-kun, Seki-kun, Hashino-cha- SEKI-KUN?!??!!! Yokoi’s head whipped back over to the seat on her left to confirm what she had seen.
Yokoi looked down at her placement exam. Surely, she had to be imagining him, right? The last time she saw him was at least a year ago. A year's worth of memories came flooding into the front of her mind. The shogi, the cute lunches he would brutally destroy, finger puppets, animation, messing with Maeda-kun, bowling, igloos. God, it made her so mad! Yokoi finally built the courage to look over at Seki-kun. She rolled her eyes; of course he hadn’t started his exam yet…well, to be fair, neither had she, but that’s because she needed to make sure she didn’t get distracted by him.
Her eyes slowly looked over his desk to see what he was getting up to now. It looked…normal? Was he just slacking off rather than playing around? A pencil, an eraser, his entrance exam, a couple of smaller pieces of paper. It all checked out. She narrowed her eyes. Something was off about him today, but never mind that; she needed to focus on her exam. Yokoi knew her English well and her Japanese even better, she shook her head, of course, Seki-kun wasn’t doing his exam; he never took anything seriously. He couldn’t even stay serious during emergency drills; why would he take a placement exam seriously?
Out of the corner of her eye, Yokoi saw Seki-kun begin to take things out of his school bag. She gave a small sigh of relief; maybe he wouldn’t be slacking off this time. She couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering over to his desk. Just a quick peek, Yokoi thought to herself. But it wasn’t going to be quick or simply a peek, she knew that as well as anyone else. There, on Seki-kun’s desk, was a tiny replica of his own desk. Yokoi moved herself slightly closer to get a better look. Was that…THE ROBOT FAMILY!??!? The two parents sat at “home”, on the other side of the desk, watching television while the child sat intently at the tiny desk. Seki’s exam remained blank, but the tiny, robot child’s was quickly becoming complete as he wrote with a serious expression on his face.
Yokoi leaned over and hissed, “Seki-kun, you have to focus on your exam,” but Seki kept his laid-back demeanor. His chin rested on his hand as he looked blankly at Yokoi before returning to look out the window. Yokoi could’ve exploded from rage; she channeled that energy into her exam. If Seki wasn’t even going to try, she would make sure she did infinitely better than him. She was different from her first year of middle school; she was no longer going to get distracted by his nonsense like she did before (yes, she was. In fact, she was currently itching to look back at the robot child. Her body betrayed her to take one more quick peek; the child looked like he was struggling now! His little hand was placed on his forehead; he was seriously stressed.
Yokoi leaned over to whisper to Seki again, her voice softer this time, “Seki-kun is he ok?”. Seki lifted his blank exam and pointed at the English section of the paper with the same blank expression as before. Yokoi sighed in defeat. The little robot needed help on the section she had already translated and moved on from. She imagined what would happen if he failed. He would get an F on his high school entrance exam for sure since the cram school class he’d be put into wouldn’t be good, that’s for sure, then he wouldn’t be able to get a good job or go to university, he’d be forced to work in construction and come home tired every night, leaving barely any time to spend with his kids or his wife. His marriage would begin to fall apart, and his kids would begin to resent him! No, she couldn’t let that happen to him! A funeral where no one mourns him?! Her heart clenched at the idea. She just had to help. Yokoi snatched the paper from him quickly and copied the part of the exam off her own paper, then, quickly, after checking to see the teacher falling asleep at her desk, she passed the exam back over to Seki. The little robot kid looked so grateful. His little hands were clasped together, and his head was bowed. Hopefully, they can get into the same cram class together, and Seki, who still hadn’t even begun his placement exam, would be the one stuck without help.
As the class came to an end, everyone brought their exams up to the teacher and placed them on her desk. Yokoi had to quickly finish the math section as rapidly as she could, since helping the little robot took up a lot of her time. She looked over as Seki-kun placed his blank paper on top of the pile as well. Yokoi chuckled to herself quietly. Why couldn’t Seki just focus on his work ever? Well, that serves him right with his blank exa- HOW WAS IT COMPLETELY FINISHED?!??! He had spent the entirety of his class time playing with the little robot and filling out his exam instead of his own, so how was it finished? He just must have filled it with guesses at the last minute, Yokoi thought to herself. Either way, there’s no way we’ll see each other again; they couldn't be placed in the same class with such obviously different exam scores. Yokoi let out a sigh of relief and walked home proud of herself.
The next afternoon, she walked to the cram school right after school so she could find out what class she had been placed into and her seating arrangement. She was so tired from being up late into the night thinking about the fate of the little robot boy and what class he was going to get into. Which, in hindsight, was even dumber than it already was since the toy couldn’t be enrolled in any class. She looked over the list of names, scanning for her own. Finally, she found she was put in a higher medium class along with Hashino-chan, Gotou-san, and Maeda-kun and even Seki-kun!
…
Seki-kun…