All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

After flipping through Yui Yuigahama’s notebook from cover to cover, Izumi Kotomi closed it and sighed.

”I don’t know if I underestimated your English or overestimated it.”

Hearing the hint of exasperation in Kotomi’s voice, Yui could only awkwardly touch her cheek and let out an embarrassed laugh.

While Yui was usually carefree, she wasn’t oblivious to her own situation. If her math grades were abnormally bad, then her English grades were catastrophic! The most troublesome part for her was the inevitable English essays in every exam.

”Learning English isn’t something you can master by just studying hard for a few days. It takes long-term effort,” Kotomi explained. ”But since the exams are next week, there’s no point in lecturing you on that. We don’t have time to start from scratch.”

”So, does that mean I should just give up on the English exam?” Yui asked anxiously.

”Don’t give up so easily! Pull yourself together,” Kotomi said firmly. ”I knew from the start that your English might be pretty bad, but I still agreed to help you. Do you know why?”

Why indeed? Yui pondered this.

Could it be that…

Perhaps because she had recently been reading a few romance manga, Yui’s mind started to conjure up scenes from those stories. She knew it was just her imagination, but the more she thought about it, the more vivid it seemed. Her face began to blush, and she stammered nervously.

”Could it be because… K-K-Kotomi, you… like…”

Before Yui could finish, Kotomi interrupted.

”Of course, it’s because I have a method to boost your score! Don’t worry, back in middle school, my English wasn’t great either, but my scores were never terrible.”

She wore a proud little smile as she said this.

”Huh?” Yui blinked in confusion.

”Well, English exams actually have some techniques you can use. For example, take the listening section. First-year high school listening tests aren’t too difficult. Most of the answers are pretty straightforward. If your English isn’t good, listening is actually the best way to improve your score!”

Yui’s eyes lit up, as if she had just discovered a new world. ”It works like that?!”

”Exams are merciless, so you’ve got to learn a few tricks,” Kotomi said matter-of-factly, adding, ”Of course, these are strategies for listening comprehension, not cheating. How have you been handling listening exams until now?”

”I just… listen directly,” Yui replied.

”Listening exams usually play each section once or twice. The speed isn’t too fast or too slow, but they don’t give you much time to find the answers afterward. Let me guess—you wait until after the reading is over to start looking for the answer, but before you finish, the next question’s already started playing, right?”

”How did you know?!” Yui gasped, surprised that Kotomi had nailed her process down to a T.

It was almost as if Kotomi had some kind of supernatural insight!

”Because I went through the same thing,” Kotomi said with a shrug.

What she described were issues she herself had encountered in her past life during English exams. She had only intended to give Yui an example, but to her surprise, Yui had the exact same shortcomings that she had experienced.

When it came to struggling with studies, it seemed they were kindred spirits.

Hearing this, Yui was a bit surprised. Seeing how good Kotomi was at school now, she hadn’t expected her to have struggled with English in middle school. But any nervousness Yui had felt earlier began to melt away.

”I’ll teach you a good technique. Actually, it’s more of a habit than a trick. If you pick it up, you’ll at least be able to score more points on the listening exam.”

Kotomi grabbed her black gel pen and tapped it on the English exam papers she had prepared, ready to share the wisdom she had gained from her previous life’s struggles.

”When the test papers are handed out, after you’ve filled in your class, name, and student number, quickly scan through the listening section’s answer choices and silently read them over in your head. Try to remember as much as you can. Even if you don’t get everything, just having a rough idea will make it easier to find the answers while you’re listening.”

”And…”

In just five minutes, Kotomi laid out all the little tips and tricks she knew for the listening section.

Yui’s expression lit up with understanding. Following Kotomi’s methods, the listening part of the exam suddenly didn’t seem so scary!