Quite Sudden

At this moment, Izumi Kotomi felt as though a row of question marks had popped up above her head. She even wondered if she hadn't fully woken up yet and was still dreaming.

I'm… pregnant?

This pregnancy… feels quite sudden.

Yui Yuigahama and Yukino Yukinoshita, sitting at the desks in front of her, were desperately trying to hold back their laughter. Even Mashiro Shiina, usually expressionless, had her hand trembling as she held her baumkuchen.

Yui laughing was no big deal—she was always laughing.

Mashiro laughing? Still not a huge issue.

But seeing Yukino laugh? Now that's a problem.

Kotomi knew right away—something definitely happened while she was absent this morning. And the mastermind behind it? It had to be Megumi Kato!

"Yui, what's going on?" Kotomi asked as she sat down, feeling the strange atmosphere, and lightly tapped Yui's back.

"Pfft—" Yui, unable to hold it in any longer, burst out laughing. It seemed like she wouldn't be able to explain for a while.

Kotomi, having dealt with situations like this before, calmly said, "If you don't tell me, I'll add two more assignments tonight."

"No, I'll talk!"

"You surrendered so quickly. Are you French?" Kotomi teased, throwing in a playful jab.

Under the "pressure" of having more homework, Yui quickly explained everything that had happened in the morning to Kotomi.

As Kotomi listened, her face darkened, as if she had just swallowed a fly.

It turned out that her upset stomach last night was due to eating all of the overly salty tamagoyaki that Aimi had made for her, leading to a stomachache that lasted all night. As a result, she had to take half a day off this morning.

But somehow, Mashiro had come up with the wild idea that Kotomi was pregnant because of her stomachache.

"A stomachache means pregnancy? Mashiro, your biology teacher from middle school must be crying right now!" Kotomi said, her face clearly showing her frustration.

Her stomach had been feeling better, but hearing Mashiro's absurd comment made it ache again.

"My biology grades were good... but when I heard that you had a stomachache, I just instinctively thought it must be pregnancy," Mashiro replied in her usual calm tone.

"And why would you think that?" Kotomi asked, utterly baffled.

"Because in dramas, whenever the female lead has a stomachache, it's almost always because she's pregnant," Mashiro stated matter-of-factly.

Kotomi's face darkened even further. "You need to watch less TV."

"Exactly," Megumi Kato chimed in, backing her up.

"And you, Megumi, don't go around making jokes that can easily cause misunderstandings!"

"Understood~ I won't make such jokes again," Megumi replied sweetly.

"Then could you kindly take your hand off my stomach?"

"Nope, I want to keep touching it a bit longer~"

Megumi Kato—quick to admit her mistakes, yet resolute in not changing her ways.

Friday afternoon's classes were mostly light. Though there were technically two periods, the second period was a large self-study session, different from regular self-study sessions in that students could choose to stay in the classroom to study or head outside to play.

As long as they didn't cause too much noise, even the usually strict and omnipresent headteacher, who often patrolled the halls, wouldn't bother them. This second self-study period was like a free pass for students after a long week of school.

The first period, which was English, had already ended, leaving them with the large self-study period.

This schedule reminded Kotomi of her past high school days.

Back then, they only had weekends off every two weeks, so during the last period on Friday afternoons, or Thursday afternoons during the second week, they would have a big cleaning session. After finishing that, the time until evening self-study was free.

Of course, whether or not the cleaning was taken seriously was another matter. Kotomi, being on good terms with the class president, often just wiped the blackboard as her only task. Once that was done, she'd slip away with her friends to grab a bite at the school canteen or convenience store and play mobile games.

This kind of free time made Kotomi nostalgic for her previous life's high school days.

Snapping back to the present, Kotomi noticed Yui and Seiko Kirigiri getting ready to head outside to the playground.

Smack!

Kotomi lightly but firmly pressed Yui back into her seat.

"Yui, where do you think you're going~?" Kotomi asked with a "friendly" smile.

Yui flinched, her whole body tensing up. Why did she suddenly feel like she had been caught doing something bad by her mom?

"I-I just wanted to go outside for a bit…" Yui stammered, awkwardly laughing.

"Have you finished your weekend homework?" Kotomi asked, cutting straight to the point.

Yui's answer was immediate.

"No." But she quickly added, "The class rep hasn't written the homework on the board yet, so I don't even know what the assignments are! How can I finish them?"

"Don't worry. I already asked the class reps and wrote down all the weekend assignments."

Kotomi pulled out a small piece of paper and slapped it onto the desk. It listed all the weekend homework.

"If you finish all your homework during this period, then you'll be free to do whatever you want once you get home."

Yui thought it over and realized Kotomi's reasoning made a lot of sense.

Still, Kotomi could tell that Yui wanted to stretch her legs after sitting for so long. She took out two coins from her wallet and handed them to Yui, saying, "Go to the school store and buy me a peach-flavored yogurt drink."

"Got it!" Yui happily took the coins and left the classroom.

Although one coin would've been enough for a drink, Kotomi had intentionally given Yui two so she could buy one for herself as well. After all, Yui had been running errands to buy lunch for Kotomi all week, as a thank-you for tutoring her. This level of mutual understanding was already well-established between them.

Having someone run errands for you during lunchtime was such a nice feeling~

Kotomi was tempted to extend the tutoring sessions for a little longer.

After a while, Yui returned with the drinks.

"You work on your math and English homework. If you run into anything you don't understand, just ask me."

"Got it! And I'll leave the Japanese homework to you, Kotomi~"

Yui wasn't too bad at Japanese, typically scoring around 80 to 90 points on tests.

The reason she didn't like doing Japanese homework was because it involved flipping through the textbook a lot.

Especially for reading comprehension, which required reading the passage over and over to figure out what the author's emotions were when writing it, what they were trying to express, and what literary devices they used.

The questions were often so detailed that it felt like the examiners understood the text better than the author did.

If she could just copy the answers, she would save a lot of time.

"Oh? Doing homework?" Megumi, having played on her phone for a bit, leaned over and asked softly.

"Yep," Kotomi nodded. "If we finish all our homework before the end of class, we can enjoy the weekend completely free."

"Exactly! All the freedom!" Yui echoed, nodding enthusiastically.

"You'll be studying at home this weekend. Don't forget that we have exams next week," Kotomi said mercilessly.

"Ughhhh…"