It's a quiet day in the library. Well, *all* days in the library are supposed to be quiet, but this one is especially so. It's summer vacation! People don't want to be in a stuffy library all day when they could be outside making the best of their break. Besides, who has anything they need to study for anyway?
Answer: Madoka Kaname. The girl who was plunged from the lackluster school system of America and into the most competitive school in Tokyo. The girl who got excused from her original exams on the grounds that she complete a metric ton of catch-up work AND make passing grades on make-up exams next term.
The girl who's currently sitting at a table in the back of the library, fidgeting, checking her watch every three minutes or so.
"Where is everybody?" she wonders quietly to herself, scanning the empty book stacks for signs of life. She's fairly certain she has the right place. This library was around even before she left for America, so there's nothing inherently confusing about it to her. But Mamoru had mentioned that lots of people were coming, she'd arrived a minute or two after the designated meet-up time, and no one's here yet...
Mamoru hadn't answered her when she asked if he was in trouble.
Swallowing that nasty thought, Madoka types out a brief text to the upperclassman to make absolutely sure that she's in the right place, then puts her phone down and looks back at her notebook. There are some answers penciled in already, it's true. Far more noticeable, however, are the figures in the margins. Lining the columns of math problems are crude but lovingly detailed doodles of her in frilly, bow-covered dresses, all variations on a single silhouette. Puffy sleeves. A round skirt with a ruffly petticoat. Knee-high stockings and Mary Janes for shoes.
It seems like someone's been thinking lately.
Makoto does not spend as much time in the library as probably she should. In point of fact, she almost decided not to come today... although the reason for her hesitation, and the reason she ultimately made up her mind to come after all, is less to do with her general lack of motivation for studying and more to do with who the invitation came from.
She still doesn't know what to make of Mamoru Chiba.
But after all, a study session is a good opportunity to keep an eye on him - and heaven knows her grades do need the help. So as Madoka is looking at her notebook, the tall middle-school girl comes wandering over to the appointed place, and makes a similarly confused face at the absence of anything that could justifiably be called, you know, a group.
Mamoru definitely doesn't seem to be here. After a long several seconds of indecision, Makoto moves toward the only other person who is here, which is of course Madoka. "'Scuse me," she says, automatically pitching her voice a little softer for the sake of the library's atmosphere of quiet. "Are you here for the study group?"
He's late. He's never late. But no, Mamoru Chiba's late: he was out of school so much around finals, grey and drawn when in school, a break in his unbroken streak of perfect grades on finals, and then disappeared off the face of the earth for a couple of days after the unexplained tragedy in the park that made the news -- some students dead, many wounded, none knowing what happened. Newscasters and theorists are still trying to make sense of it.
And now he's whole minutes late to the study group meeting he called for make-up exams, but at least he doesn't look like death warmed over anymore. In fact, he looks healthy, and happier than either Madoka or Makoto has ever seen him, and his hair is windy and his clothes are the top of fashion for summer 2015, light-colored and natural fibers and obviously expensive and designer-- except for the t-shirt he has on under his probably Dolce and Gabbana short-sleeved button-down: it's got a picture of a planet with a whale and a heart on it. Obviously in celebration of the new pictures of Pluto, artist's rendition.
His approach is quietish, coming up behind Makoto more or less, and he can probably hear her. So: "Sorry I'm late!" he 'calls', low conversational volume loud enough to be heard from a few feet away in the quiet, and waves as he approaches. He puts his school bag down on the table. "But I guess everyone else is later, huh? Good on you two for being on time."
It's always just after she starts to feel better that something horrible happens. Mamoru comforts her on her first day, then winds up in the hospital. Akemi-san wants to be her friend, then kills something not six feet away from her. She comes to terms with mysteries and wishes and miracles, then there's a tragedy where students are *killed* and she knows, she *knows* it's magic --
Suffice to say that Madoka is back to being as high-strung as she's ever been. So the fact that she stops herself from startling when she hears the unfamiliar voice is truly a feat of willpower.
"Oh, hello!" she responds, more than a little relief softening the worry on her face. "If you're talking about Mamoru Chiba's study group -- then yes, I am. I was so worried I had the wrong place, since no one else is here, and it's already kind of late..."
And she's rambling. Oops.
"A-Anyway, I'm Madoka Kaname." She smiles, blushing just a bit in embarrassment. "Are you a classmate of Mamoru-kun's?" (She doesn't even consider that this girl who's seven inches taller than her is an eighth grader as well.)
Much of her remaining tension melts away when she catches sight of said upperclassman, who apologizes for his tardiness. Madoka shakes her head, smile a bit brighter than the situation would really merit to an outsider. "It's fine! It's really fine, I haven't been here too long. Just got started on a few of the math problems, and...oh."
Madoka's blush deepens as a realization comes over her. Her eyes flit down to the open notebook with her math problems. It probably wasn't the best idea to draw her silly doodles in her academic notebook, huh?
Makoto offers the other girl a friendly, faintly apologetic smile. "Ah, sorry if I surprised you. It's way too easy to be startled in places this quiet... or is that just me?"
At the other girl's question, she shakes her head, smile turning wryly lopsided. "I'm Makoto Kino," she explains. "I go to Seishou middle school. Mamoru-san invited me - to be honest, when I didn't see anyone else here I wondered for a second if he wasn't pulling a fast one or something, so I'm really glad you're here for the study group too--"
And OH LOOK THERE'S MAMORU and he probably totally heard that, didn't he. Makoto very abruptly shuts her mouth and tries, not very successfully, not to look embarrassed. Which might at least help Madoka feel a little less self-conscious, since of the two of them she was not the one embarrassing herself out loud.
WHO, MAMORU? No: his eyes are sparkling. He heard, but he's not offended. Gloss, gloss, gloss! He smiles at the two girls and pulls out a chair, dropping himself into it unceremoniously. "Madoka-chan, Kino-san, hello! Looks like it'll be catch-up tutoring today, mostly; I was expecting at least three others, but I'll probably get apologetic texts from the beach later."
His satchel gets unbuckled and he pulls out an iPad and then rifles through the rest, tugging out a dog-eared couple of notebooks. "I've digitized a lot of my old notes, but I haven't gotten around to all of them -- and I have a bunch of practice problems and separate solutions for your math class," he nods to Madoka, "since I had the same teacher and you're using the same textbook."
Warily, he glances sidelong at Makoto. "I also brought some of the material I was covering at the time in most of your classes, too, though I don't know anything about your teachers or which texts you're using." There's a little pause, like he's waiting for her to get mad at him, before he soldiers bravely onward. "I think we should start with whichever subject you both feel you'd like to improve the most, or whichever make-up exam has you the most worried."
Mamoru is extremely politely not calling attention to Madoka's doodles. He pushes up his glasses.
"If that's all right with you two?" Apparently, despite his unusual upbeat cheeriness, he is very serious about being focused on their grades.
(As Makoto said her brief piece about Mamoru, Madoka had tilted her head, confused. The older boy had been nothing but kind and reassuring to her whenever they'd been together -- why did she think he was pulling a fast one on her?)
The thought is banished when she hears the cheer in Mamoru's voice. She looks back up from her notebook to see him happier and more relaxed than ever before, getting down to business with a twinkle in his eye and a wide smile. Without thinking about it, without even realizing it, her face begins to mirror that same smile, though her cheeks are still flushed from her brief moment of embarrassment.
With everything that's been happening, and with everything she'd heard, she'd been so worried...
"It's good to meet you, Kino-san," Madoka finally replies to the Seishou girl, so wrapped up in her relief high that she forgets accidentally calling her a high schooler. "I spend so much time over at Infinity, I'm really glad to meet students from some other schools." That smile like sweet sunshine is directed at Makoto for a moment, and then she sighs, hearing Mamoru's question.
"Yeah, that's fine," she affirms, looking over with dread at her stack of books on the table. "Though honestly, I need help in almost everything. I think I'm at least a year behind in math. English is the only thing I'm really confident I can pass."
Drumming her pencil on the table absentmindedly, the pink-haired girl looks to Mamoru again. "Sorry. I know that's not helpful."
Makoto does not get mad - although there's half a second or so there in which she looks as though she'd really like to stick her tongue out at Mamoru or something. She doesn't do that, either. Instead, she turns her attention toward Madoka, answering the friendly overtures with a bright, quick smile of her own. "Same for me," she acknowledges. "Most of my friends go to Seishou, so I don't have a lot of chances to get to know people who go to the other schools. It's nice!"
A disheartened little groan escapes her when they start talking about specific subjects and actual study plans, and she represses the urge to just go ahead and faceplant into her own notebook. "...although I have a feeling I'm probably just going to drag you both down," Makoto concludes wryly. "I guess I should probably try to focus on math and science. I'm hopeless at English, too, but there's probably no helping that one anyway."
Mamoru gives Makoto a faintly wounded look, but then he thinks about the cake he cleaned up in his kitchen, and actively has to cover his mouth and sink in his chair to keep from laughing, and it probably looks pretty bad. He coughs to cover it up, then waves a hand around. "Don't worry about it," he tells Madoka cheerfully. "We've got plenty of time. I mean not necessarily today, but there's plenty of summer break to catch up in! And I've got incentives worked out. Finish two chapters of whatever we're covering for the day, and we go get ice cream. So while I'm here, let's work on math for now-- Kino-san, Madoka-chan's been in America for the past few years, so she'll be able to help you a lot better with English than I could," he explains to the woeful brunette.
No really this amount of good cheer is almost unnatural. Something really nice must have happened to him. There's that smile twitching at the corner of his mouth again. He hides it by adjusting his glasses once more. Then clearing his throat. He pushes the notebooks to the center of the table, then turns on the iPad.
He has to swipe it off of Tumblr really quickly. There are kitten gifs.
He is slightly red now. But the thing is also displaying a hypertext course outline for eighth grade math, now, and he says determinedly, "We'll just work off the exam first. It makes a reasonable study guide, and I have some from a few different years handy. They're all more or less the same, but they're good for practice problems if they get redundant on topics." He swipes the screen again and comes up with one math final, then digs in his school bag a little more and comes up with a paper copy of another one. "Um, obviously write in your own notebooks. Ask me the minute you come across something that's not obvious, or that you don't get. Because I don't want to rehash anything you're already good with."