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Aakashi Kana hadn’t started her holiday yet. She was just using the weekend to help Aakashi Asuto pack his things.
Since Asuto would be attending high school at the same school as Kana, the two of them would be living together for the next year.
Spring break was different from the summer holidays.
The entire holiday only lasted a little over two weeks.
It wasn’t practical for him to stay at home either, since their parents’ work schedules meant they had no time to take care of him. After thinking it over, the parents decided to let Asuto move in with Kana early. This would also give Asuto a chance to familiarize himself with the high school environment in advance.
“So you actually managed to lead your team to the Nationals!”
Kana leaned against the doorframe with a bag of crisps in one hand. Watching Asuto pack his clothes, she looked him up and down in surprise, as if getting to know her little brother all over again.
Although she had already heard their parents mention it briefly during the summer holidays, she hadn’t paid much attention at the time.
After all, she knew full well that ‘having the strength to compete in the Nationals’ and ‘actually qualifying for the Nationals’ were two completely different things.
The simplest comparison was this:
Every year, at least four or five high school volleyball teams in Miyagi Prefecture were strong enough to compete for a place at the Nationals. But in the end, there was only one qualifying place.
So, when Kana later heard from her parents that her younger brother had truly led his team to the Nationals, only heaven knows what expression she had on her face.
After all…
Whether at the secondary school or high school level, none of the clubs that Kana had participated in had ever reached the national level. They hadn’t even come close to reaching the national level.
“It was all right. Honestly, qualifying for Nationals isn’t that difficult.’
Asuto folded his clothes without turning his head as he replied.
“The main reason is that there weren’t many powerhouse schools in the prefecture this year. The only opponent that posed any real threat ended up having internal problems during the match. Otherwise, qualifying this year would have taken more effort.”
Kana: “ヽ(゜Q.)ノ???”
Was that even something a human should say?
Her fists clenched.
As someone who had never participated in a national-level competition, Kana’s fists instantly clenched.
If this had been two years ago, she felt her fist would already have landed on her little brother’s forehead.
But now, recalling the muscles she had accidentally seen on her younger brother during the summer holidays, Kana could only regretfully abandon that tempting idea.
Sure enough, if you wanted to bully your younger brother, you had to do it early. If you delayed too long, eventually you wouldn’t be able to beat him anymore.
“Oh right, speaking of which, Asuto, why did you choose our school? With your current volleyball skills, you should qualify for a special recruitment offer from Shiratorizawa by now, shouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, people from Shiratorizawa did contact me beforehand. But I turned them down.”
“Why?”
“Because the scholarship they offered wasn’t as high as this school’s.”
“(O_o)?”
Several question marks seemed to pop up above Kana’s head as she asked in confusion.
“Scholarship? Since when do club recruitment offers come with scholarships?”
Asuto put down the clothes in his hands, turned around, and replied helplessly.
“Of course, it’s not a club scholarship. It’s an academic scholarship based on grades.”
Kana still looked puzzled.
“If I remember correctly, our school only awards scholarships to students who rank in the top 100 in the prefecture for the high school entrance exam, right? Don’t tell me you actually scored that highly?”
“No way! It’s absolutely impossible.”
Before she could finish, Kana burst out laughing and waved her hands repeatedly.
“How could that possibly happen? Our family doesn’t have any genius-study genes, OK?”
Asuto: “…You really are my biological sister.”
“But unfortunately, I’ll have to disappoint you. I performed pretty well in this entrance exam. I ranked twenty-ninth in the prefecture, so not only did the school waive my tuition fees, but they also gave me a pretty generous scholarship.”
Although Asuto was very skilled at volleyball, he had never treated it as the sole deciding factor when choosing a school.
You never know what the future might bring.
He could suffer an accident one day and never be able to play again.
That kind of thing wasn’t impossible.
After all, the Involution System could only protect Asuto from injuries sustained during normal training. If the problem arose from external trauma or illness, the System would be unable to help.
So, even with the System, Asuto had never planned to neglect his studies.
On the contrary…
Not only did he have no intention of abandoning his studies but he also planned to put the University of Tokyo as his first choice when it came time for university entrance in the future.
For that reason, he could not possibly choose a mediocre school for high school.
The reason for striving for a higher scholarship was even simpler.
It was for one very straightforward purpose:
To fill his stomach.
Ever since his [Strength] stat had broken past 80, Asuto had already noticed that during training, his body’s demand for energy was becoming increasingly outrageous. If he stuck to his usual diet of rice and side dishes, then even after eating seven or eight bowls to the point of near-bursting, he might not recover by the next day.
To keep up with his nutritional needs, Asuto had recently started spending all his allowance on high-energy beef.
And that was an extremely expensive expense.
Asuto also found it difficult to ask his current parents for money. Considering the local price of beef and his appetite, adding that expense to the family budget would put a considerable strain on them.
So recently, he had also been thinking about ways to make money.
Fortunately, the scholarship he had just received had temporarily eased Asuto’s financial burden.
Honestly…
If he hadn’t experienced it personally, Asuto would never have imagined that, as a transmigrator reborn into the modern world, he would one day actually end up worrying about having enough food to eat.
If word of this got out, it would seriously damage the reputation of transmigrators everywhere.
Kana, of course, had no idea how many thoughts had flashed through Asuto’s mind in that instant.
Because right now, she herself had already petrified into a statue.
Only one sentence echoed repeatedly in Kana’s mind:
“Twenty-ninth in the entire prefecture? How is that even possible? All these years, I’ve never even ranked twenty-ninth in my own year group!”
“Logically speaking, our family shouldn’t even have genes like that! Could it be that, when we were little, Mom and Dad accidentally switched babies and took someone else’s child home?”
“But that doesn’t make sense either. After all, Asuto looks so much like me. Anyone could tell at a glance that we’re biological siblings.”
“In that case, it means our family really does have ‘genius’ genes. But then why haven’t they shown up in me all these years?”
“Could it be that… I’m just useless?”
“No, no, no. Impossible. Absolutely impossible…”
(End of Chapter)
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