Gifted Academy: The Perfect Student

She seemed to be quite happy with herself after winning that game of chess.

"You know, it's been a while since I've been this happy to win a chess match~"

"That's nice. Am I really that deserving of an opponent?"

"You were the first person to beat me in years... um... wait, what was your name?"

"It's Mizuhara Ayato."

"Ah, Mizuhara... or should I say teacher?"

"Just Mizuhara is fine."

As she packed up the chessboard, I got up.

"So, can you show me your work from yesterday?"

"O-okay."

She picked up the chess board and walked with me over to her room. I looked at her desk, which was packed to the brim with various chess trophies. In the middle, however, there was a very worn textbook and a huge amount of paper.

"Ah, wait!"

She quickly grabbed all of the loose sheets of paper and put them on her bedside table. She then showed me a workbook.

"Here."

I opened it up and looked at her working out for the questions.

They were quite messy, but I could still see her thought process.

As I observed her work carefully, I noticed that her work had a specific pattern to it.

As I read through her answers to all the questions, I put the workbook back onto her desk.

"Kanako."

"Yes?"

"Are you dumb?"

"Eh...?!"

"I'm just kidding; if anything, I think that all of your past tutors have been dumb."

"What do you mean...?"

"There's a very obvious pattern to the mistakes you make."

I wrote some notes down on a sheet of paper. After that, I looked through her maths textbook and circled some more questions.

"Answers these questions, and make sure you pay specific attention to the notes I made."

She took a seat at her desk and began doing the questions.

This was probably going to take a bit of time.

I decided to take a seat on her bed which was a mistake.

In the corner of her eye, she managed to see me sitting on her pink blanket.

"Hey! Why are you sitting on my bed?"

"Uh, you don't have any other seats in this room."

She looked at me with a stern expression.

I decided to get up.

"You know what, it's fine. You can sit there if you really want."

"Um, you don't sound very satisfied. Do you want me to sit somewhere else?"

"Just sit wherever you want, okay!?"

Geh.

What was I meant to do here?

I decided to make my way over to her living room and grabbed a random chair.

As I returned, I saw that she was hard at work on the questions, looking over at my notes every once in a while. I placed the chair on the side of the room and took a seat.

I had come prepared today with my book, so as she worked, I read through Being and Nothingness. 'I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.'

What a dark view of the world.

After almost an entire hour, she managed to complete all of the questions I assigned her.

"I'm done!"

She passed her workbook over to me, and I looked through the answers that she had written.

After examining all the questions, I saw that she managed to get 60%.

Well, that was enough to pass. At our school, a passing grade was 40%.

"You did quite well."

"Really?" She seemed to be quite overjoyed at my statement.

"If you keep up this rate, you'll be able to pass."

"No way..."

I looked through the question that she'd gotten wrong and tried to find another pattern. My previous strategy managed to increase her score from 20% to 60% in a relatively short amount of time. However, it would likely be much more difficult to increase it from there.

"Kanako, let's move on to English now."

"Ah... okay then," she was more enthusiastic than before, at least.

I looked at her English textbook and quickly flipped through the pages. I circled a few reading and comprehension questions and handed them to her.

"Complete these."

"Ah, okay."

I sat back down on the out-of-place chair and opened Being and Nothingness back up. As I got lost in the words of Jean-Paul Satre, I was awoken from my literary slumber by the sound of Kanako struggling.

"Eh... how do you do this...?"

English was a much more subjective topic than Maths. Her pattern recognition and chess skills helped her significantly in terms of maths as well. It seemed that she was struggling to grasp the problems that required interpretation of the texts' non-literal meanings.

I put my book down and made my way over to her.

"Which question are you having trouble with?"

She pointed at the second question I set.

According to the text, what is Kevin's primary intention for committing the theft?

"Can you point to the part of the text where it talks about Kevin's theft?"

She scanned the passage for a little before pointing at a paragraph.

"...here."

"Alright, read it out loud to me."

She read out the passage.

"Alright, now what does it say about his theft?"

"Um... it says his heartbeat increased, and he was quite excited when he left the store."

"Now, what does that imply about how Kevin was feeling afterwards?"

"I guess he enjoyed doing it?'

"Yes, so what does that mean?"

"Um... that he does it for the thrill?"

"Yep."

"Ah, I see!"

I grabbed another sheet of paper and wrote down some tips.

If you're stuck, first, find the paragraph referring to the question, then read again slowly, and finally, make small associations until you finally get it—think about when, where, why and how.

After placing the sheet of paper next to her, she got back to working on the next question.

I got back in my seat and continued to read the book on existentialism.

It looked like I was going to have to put in quite a lot of effort to teach this girl.

I had to go back to school tomorrow as well, not that it really meant anything. I had already completed any homework I had, and there wasn't much else I needed to prepare.