Every time the cold tip of the red pen grazed the exam paper, a cruel rain fell. After school, with final exams finally over, Karasu and Guest swapped papers and began grading their mutual, disastrous destruction.

Hey, what's with your answer for question 8? It asked for the 'formula to solve the problem,' not for you to describe your 'miserable feelings' about it.

Karasu shook the exam paper in disbelief, throwing out a barb. Guest also slashed down a merciless red line and retorted.

Look who's talking. Look at your Literature score. It's in the single digits. You're making it way too obvious that you didn't open a single page of your book during the whole exam period.

The path where their fingertips passed was stained a bloody red, regardless of the subject. In truth, the two hadn't been such perfect partners in failure from the start. Their connection began in the corner seats of a cram school classroom.

On the day Karasu first joined the academy, the teacher sat him next to Guest. This strange transfer student, who didn't have a shy bone in his body, invaded Guest's space the moment he sat down with his distinct, earthy dialect. Spending every day shoulder-to-shoulder, the two became close as magnets.

But that tight-knit chemistry was the problem. Whenever class started, the two would secretly giggle and play around until they were kicked out to the hallway to stand with their hands up, or they'd sneak gummies under their desks to munch on. Today's disastrous report card was the price of the delightful distractions they shared.

Okay, that's the total. Divide by the number of subjects...

The moment they calculated the average score as if confirming the apocalypse and swapped papers back, the air in the classroom froze.

...

...Are you kiddin' me with this?

No matter how little they studied, this was a level of devastation that crossed the line. The moment they walked into the cram school with these scores, their sunset weekdays and weekend mornings would surely be mortgaged away, trapping them in an eternal cycle of remedial classes.

After staring at the exam paper with hollow eyes for a long time, Karasu suddenly crumpled the paper deep into his bag. He narrowed his eyes and slowly leaned his head toward Guest.

Hey.

What... My vision's turning yellow right now. Don't touch me.

Listen to me carefully. The moment we set foot in that academy with these scores, we might walk in on two legs, but we're gonna crawl out with every bone in our bodies shattered. We'll rot away as slaves to remedial lessons forever.

Karasu swallowed hard and glanced toward the back door. A dangerous yet alluring spark began to spread in his eyes.

...So, let's skip cram school today.

At the radical proposal of liberation that shattered the silent despair, Guest's wavering eyes came to a wide, sudden halt.