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After the midterms ended, the classes resumed as usual—lectures, note-taking, dueling, and so forth, with no significant changes. Except for one thing. However, that one subject could stir up the entire first-year class.

“Alright. For the second half of the semester, we will have group projects. There are 30 of you in Class 1, so… we’ll divide you into 6 groups of 5. Since you all know each other well by now, you can form your own groups and submit the member list to me after class. If anyone can’t find a group, don’t worry; I’ll assign you one.”

Group projects.

In truth, group projects didn’t seem particularly daunting. Those who had acquaintances among the seniors were reacting as if the inevitable had finally arrived, but I had no senior to share such stories with. Therefore, I couldn’t understand why the other kids were already distressed.

But just hearing the name “group project,” I thought it would be much easier than expected.

How difficult could the assignment be? At most, it would be at a first-year level. With five people, if one couldn’t come up with an answer, the other four could cover for them. Moreover, if you think about it simply, five people could solve the problem five times faster, right? Surely, the workload for a group project wouldn’t exceed five times that of a typical individual assignment, so it would end much quicker.

Besides, five in a group… the members were practically predetermined. Me, Selian, Anne, Yuli. This quartet had been hanging out together throughout the semester, preparing for the midterms as a team. There was no reason to form groups with different students now. The only question was where to find one more person.

“Ian! We happen to be one short in our group—care to join? In terms of grades, we have three top-tier students in our group!”

The top-tier students Anne was bragging about were surely Selian, Yuli, and me; why was Anne the one puffing up with pride? I almost wanted to commend her for not including herself in the count.

“What? If I join, I already know you’ll drag me down! And I’ve already formed my group!”

Ian sidestepped Anne’s invitation and headed towards the boys he usually hung out with. We stopped her from rushing at Ian for making fun of her and pondered who our last member would be. Looking around, most students were already grouped into fives. A couple of wayward kids were wandering about. We needed to recruit one of them to complete our group. Just as I was scanning the remaining students, someone approached me.

“Um, is there still a spot in your group?”

My gaze first landed on her black, horn-rimmed glasses, then I noticed her purplish hair, tied to one side and flowing over her shoulder. In our classroom, students who wore glasses were relatively few, and among them, the one in front of me happened to be our class president.

I think her name is…

“Eh? The class president is in our group? Isn’t that great?”

Her name is…

“If it’s the class president, we’re totally welcoming her! Right, Selian?”

“Yes, of course!”

Her name is…

“Then with Selian, El, Yuli, and the class president among us, we’re invincible!”

What was it again? I’d forgotten her name since I always just called her class president.

“Okay! Let’s fill out the list and submit it! The list… Ah! El is holding it. Then just write the class president’s name! I’ll take care of the submission.”

Looking down, I saw the paper with my name, Selian’s, Yuli’s, and Anne’s written on it. All I needed to do was add the class president’s name. Easy as pie, except…

“…”

Uh-oh! What was the class president’s name!? I smiled sweetly at her while slowly extending my hand towards the pen, trying to stall for time.

Come on, brain. Recall the class president’s name!

With the pen in hand, I slowly moved the tip toward the blank space on the list. In the meantime, my mind was working hard to dredge up the class president’s name.

Finally, the pen’s tip touched the paper, making the dot.

But I couldn’t move the pen. I still couldn’t recall her name.

My eyes were frantically darting around, seeking the answer. And finally, the frantic movement resulted in one breakthrough.

Lena.

There it was, written on the name tag hanging above her chest. It was a name tag infamous for being pointless, untouched even by the teachers, yet our diligent class president wore it to set an example for the other students. Though her seriousness bordered on stubbornness at times, I wanted to praise her for that quality right now. Hooray!

Once I neatly wrote down “Lena” on the list, Anne carried it off to submit to the professor.

Despite some minor setbacks, we managed to form our group successfully. Selian, Anne, Yuli, Lena, and I. With the five of us, we would undoubtedly be unbeatable.

There was a time I thought that way too.

“Hey, El?”

“Yeah? What is it, Selian?”

“Um… isn’t there way too much text on the screen? Maybe we should reduce the amount a bit?”

“But don’t you think it’s better to show everything we’ve researched to explain to the others?”

“…Not really. I’ll handle the organization.”

With that, Selian began erasing the lengthy notes I had written down, leaving only a few lines.

“El! Why the heck did you include a puppy here?”

“But isn’t it cute? I thought it would grab everyone’s attention!”

“Wow~ It really would capture attention! As expected of El!”

Anne clapped her hands, praising me. I truly believed putting a picture of a puppy licking its tongue would be a stroke of genius.

“Take it out now!”

For some reason, every single one of them called out to me whenever I tried to intervene. Each time, whatever I touched disappeared. Eventually, they stopped even calling my name and simply sighed as they reverted everything to before I had touched it.

Why!?

“Um… El, could you do the research? I’ll handle making the video materials.”

I was even stripped of my original role. At this rate, even the dense ones were starting to catch on.

I… am useless…?

Eventually, I got kicked out of the role of making video materials and found myself in the library, searching for reference materials for the research. While I was sifting through the books in the section dedicated to mazes, someone came up beside me and pulled a book off the shelf. Ah, that’s the book I was looking for…

“Here, is this the one you were looking for?”

The one who handed me the book was the class president.

“Uh? I thought you were supposed to make the video materials instead of me? What are you doing here…?”

“Research was originally my role. I figured you might get lost, so I followed to help you find related materials.”

Lena said that, and then she started walking me around, showing me where all the necessary materials were located one by one.

“This book, despite the title, has quite a bit of content about mazes. It will be good to know.”

“Wow—if it were me, I wouldn’t have touched that book. What kind of title is that? How did the class president know?”

Lena stayed closely beside me, opening the book and explaining. Just as she said, the book contained thorough content about mazes, contrary to its title.

While I was receiving guidance on the research, I found myself naturally asking what had been on my mind.

“So why did you want to join our group, Lena? I didn’t think the others would let you go that easily.”

“Well, that’s true. But your group seemed likely to get good grades. Also—”

Suddenly, Lena pulled me into a tight hug.

“Thanks to this, I got to become friends with Elysia! It worked out great! I didn’t know Elysia was so clumsy, though.”

Lena, who I didn’t know at first, proved to be quite sociable. I had worried she might feel out of place mixing in with our tightly-knit group of four, but Lena easily blended in without a hitch.

“Oh, El! There you are! And… Lena?”

Selian came over to us, having spotted us in the narrow corridor between the shelves. I wondered what brought Selian here.

“I’ve been searching for you two since you hadn’t come back. What have you been up to?”

Selian’s voice was colder than usual. I mean, she and the others were busy working on the group project, while I had wandered off here to ‘help’ Lena. It was no wonder she was angry.

However, unlike me, who was somewhat perceptive, Lena didn’t seem to pick up on Selian’s mood.

“Oh, Selian. We were about to head back since we found all the needed materials… huh?”

Lena halted, seemingly noticing something mid-sentence, then tilted her head for a moment before…

Wham!

She hugged me again.

?

And once again, Lena’s arms quickly released me.

“Class president?”

But the class president seemed to act as if she didn’t hear, hugging me tight before quickly letting go again. This cycle repeated several times with Lena pulling me into hugs and letting go.

“Hmm~ So you two were like that?”

Lena, who had been acting strangely, grinned enigmatically.

“Eh? What do you mean by ‘like that’?”

“What do you mean, ‘like that’!?”

While I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, Selian was blushing as she shouted with her head hanging low. Did she understand what Lena was talking about?

“Hmm~? Was it a one-sided thing?”

Lena continued speaking in riddles and approached Selian, this time pulling her into a hug instead of me.

“I’m not picky about things like that. What do you think? What do you think? I could help you out!”

For some reason, Lena seemed eager to help Selian.

I observed as Selian, whether she was accepting Lena’s suggestion or not, moved closer to her, and they began whispering together, their heads leaned together, speaking softly so I couldn’t hear.

Although I felt somewhat sidelined… if they got closer, wouldn’t that be a good thing?