All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

After finishing breakfast, Kotomi Izumi hurried toward the entryway with impatient steps, almost as though she were jogging, and took a pair of black loafers from the shoe cabinet.

The shoes Japanese high school girls wore with their school uniforms were generally loafers. However, some students did not distinguish between different types of shoes so precisely and were more accustomed to calling loafers uniform shoes.

Her delicate feet, wrapped in white pantyhose, slipped into the black loafers. After putting them on, Kotomi Izumi opened the front door while trying to grow accustomed to the new shoes she had never worn before.

When she opened the door, Megumi Kato was already waiting beneath the streetlamp, just as expected.

Seeing Megumi Kato waiting beneath the streetlamp whenever she opened the door had practically become part of Kotomi Izumi's daily routine on school days.

Kotomi Izumi smiled faintly and jogged cheerfully to Megumi Kato's side. Her pleated skirt fluttered gently in the breeze, while the new shoes, still unaccustomed to their owner's gait, struck the pavement with footsteps that sounded slightly stiff and inexperienced.

"Good morning, Megumi~" A sweet smile appeared on Kotomi Izumi's face as she ran to Megumi Kato's side.

"Good morning. A short vacation should be something for a student to celebrate, but I wasn't satisfied with this one at all. After all, even if I add up every moment you spent by my side, it didn't amount to twenty-four hours. From the beginning of the break until it ended, you were basically in Kyoto with Yui and Yukino the entire time."

Megumi Kato reached out and naturally rubbed Kotomi's soft cheek. Her voice carried a trace of resentment as she spoke, sounding halfway between a complaint and an attempt to act spoiled.

Kotomi Izumi naturally knew and could sense that Megumi Kato was unhappy. She giggled, reached out, and enthusiastically wrapped both arms tightly around Megumi's arm.

"Sorry, Megumi~ The next time we have a break, I'll definitely spend it properly with you."

Kotomi Izumi rested her small head on Megumi Kato's shoulder and spoke in a soft voice. After making her promise, she began soothing Megumi's unhappy feelings.

"Actually, when I first learned that we would have a short break after the cultural festival, I wasn't planning to go anywhere. I wanted to sleep in on the first day, then spend every remaining day with you. I wanted to go on dates with you and lazily spend an entire day together in my room~

"But the hot-spring trip was a token of Ms. Shizuka's goodwill. How could I bear to refuse?"

At this point, Kotomi Izumi deliberately added with a mischievous smile:

"Besides, I worked so hard during the stage performance. Since Ms. Shizuka had already prepared my reward, how could I refuse it? Wouldn't that mean I'd worked for free?

"If Ms. Shizuka hadn't 'visited my thatched cottage three times' to beg me to participate in the cultural festival performance, I never would have planned to go onstage. Rehearsing took a great deal of time and was exhausting. Although receiving applause onstage felt wonderful, and winning the Cultural Festival Grand Prize made me very happy, I actually prefer strolling leisurely around the festival."

Megumi Kato felt somewhat better after hearing Kotomi Izumi say this. More importantly, the small gesture of Kotomi tightly hugging her arm had played a significant role...

"The school will hold cultural festivals again in your second and third years. Will you participate in stage performances then?"

Megumi Kato asked with a smile, and something about her tone made Kotomi feel that the question carried deeper meaning.

Without the slightest hesitation, Kotomi Izumi shook her head and answered with great determination:

"I won't participate in another stage performance during either my second-year or third-year cultural festival. Preparing a single performance was simply too exhausting. I'll let this cultural festival performance be the first and last stage performance for Yui, Yukino, and me.

"We won the highest award among all the cultural festival performances—the Grand Prize—on our very first attempt. I'm already completely satisfied, so I'll let this serve as the perfect conclusion.

"Besides, even I never expected us to win the Grand Prize this time. Even if I participated again in my second or third year, I couldn't guarantee that the results would equal or surpass this performance."

Megumi Kato was very satisfied with Kotomi Izumi's answer. She said softly:

"Then it's settled. You aren't allowed to participate in stage performances during the cultural festivals in your second or third year. I don't want you to be absent from my side at every cultural festival throughout all three years of high school because you're busy preparing for a performance. Nor do I want you to be absent during every short vacation afterward because you've gone traveling."

"Mm... I promise." Kotomi Izumi nodded and gave Megumi Kato another firm promise to reassure her.

"Hehe~ Kotomi, thank you for tolerating my little moment of selfishness."

After hearing Kotomi's promise once again, Megumi Kato revealed a smile and happily pressed her lips against Kotomi's.

It was not a brief, fleeting kiss, but a long kiss that conveyed all her love.

By the time the kiss ended, Kotomi Izumi's lovely face had turned completely crimson. Although Kotomi had kissed Megumi Kato several times before, with Kotomi's shy personality, being kissed by Megumi on the street naturally filled her heart with embarrassment and nervousness. She feared that someone might see them, yet she also did not want the kiss to end too soon.

At the same time, after the kiss ended, Megumi Kato continued what she had been saying earlier:

"Actually, during the vacation, I'd already decided to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto to see you. But when I told Mom about the idea..."

Megumi Kato sighed helplessly at this point.

"She refused. Not only that, but she also scolded me very harshly and demanded to know whether I'd been slacking off recently. Even though the school hadn't assigned any homework, Mom found a huge pile of practice tests for me and made me finish all of them during the short vacation. It felt as though the entire break was meaninglessly wasted amid the sound of my pen scratching across exam papers."

Kotomi Izumi knitted her delicate brows and asked in confusion:

"Why would Aunt Kato do that? Your midterm grades improved compared with your first monthly examination. How could she say you've been slacking off?"

Kotomi Izumi had never truly understood why Ikemi Kato demanded such high grades from Megumi. Even if she desperately wanted her daughter to succeed, valuing academic performance to this extent already seemed somewhat obsessive.

Megumi Kato's grades were not poor. She was an honor student, so logically speaking, Ikemi Kato had no reason to constantly worry about her academic performance.

Seeing Kotomi Izumi's puzzled expression, Megumi Kato smiled helplessly.

"Actually, Mom wasn't very satisfied with my midterm results, even though they improved... After all, she has always demanded that I rank among the top ten students in the entire grade. Since entering high school, I've taken one monthly examination and one midterm. Although my scores were good both times, I failed to enter the top ten, and my overall score didn't reach the threshold she set for me, so naturally, she was dissatisfied.

"When the midterm results came out, Mom even scolded me because she thought my improvement was too small. She asked why I couldn't work a little harder and score another hundred points.

"After she scolded me, I originally wanted to talk to you about it. But you were constantly busy rehearsing for the cultural festival performance with Yui and Yukino, so I never found the right opportunity. That's why I waited until now to tell you."

"I'm sorry..." After hearing this, Kotomi Izumi could not help feeling guilty.

"It's all right. Now that I've told you about it, I feel much better. A lot of the frustration I accumulated while spending the entire vacation doing practice tests has faded too," Megumi Kato said with a soft smile.

The two walked side by side in silence for some distance. Then Kotomi Izumi slowly spoke:

"The top ten in the entire grade... Aunt Kato's expectations are far too high. I'm not saying you could never rank among the top ten, but we've been in high school for less than two months. Setting such a demanding goal so soon won't motivate you at all. Forgive me for being blunt, but it will only become pressure weighing on you."

After learning that Ikemi Kato had set such demanding academic expectations for Megumi, Kotomi Izumi had many things she wanted to say, yet she did not know how to express them.

"Exactly. It isn't motivation at all, but pressure. I understand my current academic level very well. If I work hard, ranking among the top fifty in the grade shouldn't be a problem. But the top ten... At least for me right now, that's simply too difficult. After all, it isn't something that can be accomplished through hard work alone. It's like two students who are equally talented and equally diligent. Even if both work just as hard, they still need a little luck to enter a prestigious university. Otherwise, being admitted to a solid first-tier university would already be a fairly good outcome."

Although Kotomi Izumi appeared to rank first in the grade with ease every time, for most students, entering the top ten was by no means easy.

Even the honor students in Class A could not guarantee with absolute certainty that they would rank among the top ten in every examination.

The students who ranked among the top ten generally possessed both ability and talent.

Talent alone was not enough, but without at least some talent as support, entering the top ten was as difficult as climbing to the heavens.

When it came to studying, hard work and diligence were naturally important. The humanities were somewhat more forgiving. As long as a student firmly held on to hard work and diligence, they could achieve fairly good grades.

However, in the sciences, ranking among the top ten required not only hard work and diligence, but also a certain degree of intuition.

After all, with science problems, either you knew how to solve them or you did not. You could not rely on the humanities approach of rote memorization.

Kotomi Izumi thought for a moment, then said to Megumi Kato:

"Megumi, why don't I find some time later to speak with Aunt Kato and ask her not to push you so hard? Studying isn't something that can be forced.

"Also, if you want to rank among the top ten, choose the humanities when we divide into humanities and science tracks in our second year. Ranking among the top ten in the humanities would be relatively easier.

"If you choose the sciences, the difficulty of the second-year material will definitely become a dividing line. Some students who perform fairly well in science subjects during their first year will see their grades decline to varying degrees in their second year. It won't be because they haven't studied properly, but because their comprehension and logical reasoning may not keep pace."

"I want to choose the humanities too, but... Mom told me as early as the end of my middle school entrance examinations that I had to choose the science track in my second year," Megumi Kato said with a trace of helplessness.

"Huh? Why? Doesn't Aunt Kato understand that people should play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses?"

Kotomi Izumi was deeply puzzled. Generally speaking, choosing an academic track in the second year directly affected the university entrance examinations in the third year. To a certain extent, the choice between the humanities and sciences served as an important bridge between the two.

The second year of high school was like a springboard. Only students who successfully launched themselves from it could keep up with the pace during their third year.

When faced with choosing a track in their second year, students who excelled in the humanities naturally selected the humanities, while those who excelled in the sciences selected the sciences.

Students preparing for art university entrance examinations would begin preparing for those examinations. Kotomi Izumi could not understand why Ikemi Kato would force Megumi Kato to choose the sciences despite knowing that Megumi was not good at them. Did Ikemi Kato truly want Megumi to enter a good university or not?

"Of course Mom knows I'm not good at science subjects. I think it was back in elementary school, when we had only recently begun learning equations. Other students might understand a concept during the lesson, while I needed to work through several problems before I could grasp it. I learned very slowly.

"On top of that, whenever Mom tutored me in mathematics, she was always extremely impatient. She explained problems very quickly, as though she expected me to master everything immediately. There were some problems I clearly didn't understand, yet I was afraid to tell her.

"That's because I remember how terrifying Mom looked the first time I told her I still didn't understand after she explained a problem to me. She tore apart my entire mathematics workbook and threw the pieces all over the floor. She screamed and demanded to know why I was so stupid. I didn't dare say a word, but no matter how much she shouted, I still didn't understand that problem. I had merely told her honestly that I didn't understand, yet she became so furious that it seemed as though she wanted to kill me. Ever since then, whenever Mom explains a problem, I haven't dared say the words 'I don't understand' again.

"Mom knows perfectly well that I'm not good at science subjects. Even so, she still insists that I choose the science track. Perhaps it's because of an obsession in her heart..."

"An obsession in Aunt Kato's heart?"

"Before Mom got married, she worked as a mathematics teacher at a cram school. But she never originally wanted to teach mathematics at a cram school. She wanted to become a professor in Kyushu University's Faculty of Science. Back when she was a student, she chose the science track because her dream was to enter Kyushu University. But she neither succeeded in entering Kyushu University nor became a professor in its Faculty of Science. That left her with an obsession concerning Kyushu University."

"Kyushu University? No wonder Aunt Kato insists that you choose the science track in your second year even though she knows you aren't good at science subjects."

Kotomi Izumi gradually began to understand.

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