SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

It was Saturday in January. The first weekend after school came back in session. Yuki was in the kitchen, waiting for her sisters to arrive for their tutoring session. She had their algebra books lined up in front her with some pencil and paper. Yuki anxiously tapped her pencil on the table as she stared at the clock. It was 12:55 pm.

We promised to meet up at one o'clock, Yuki thought to herself, Just where are they?

Just then, their mother Emi walked into the kitchen. She was carrying a plate of green tea cookies.

"Yuki dear," Emi said, "Have you eaten? I made these in case you three get peckish."

Emi placed the cookies on the table. They were patterned in a checkerboard style.

"Thanks mom," Yuki said, "Did you use the ingredients grandma sent you?"

"Yes," Emi responded, "Hope you enjoy."

Yuki took one of the cookies and took a small bite. She savored the sweet taste on her tongue. She looked at the clock again. It was now 12:57 pm.

Yuka Hayashibara fell more than walked down the stairs, magenta hair unbraided, somewhat frizzy, face bare, eyes with some sleep left in them, wearing a shirt two sizes too big for her and short shorts. This morning was when she recovered the sleep stolen from her by last night, having gone out with friends to celebrate surviving the first week of school. Waking up at 12:30 PM might have been a record for her, she wasn't sure. She could have stayed in bed for longer, but she'd specifically set an alarm for that time. The return of the weekly 1 PM study session was something she both dreaded and welcome, the former because that meant school in general was back, and the latter because, well. What woke her up more than the alarm was the smell of cookies rising, drifting throughout the house. She wouldn't let drowsiness deprive her of the closest thing to ambrosia she knew.

And then her sister came into view, and Yuka smiled, her eyes still squinting, slowly waking up. The other other reason for being on time for their study session. The main reason, of course.

She waved at Emi, letting out a quick "Good morning, mom!" even if it wasn't technically morning anymore. She took a cookie from the plate and nibbled on it, closing her eyes for a bit, taking in the sweetness. Once she opened her eyes, she looked at Emi.

"There are so good, mom. I love these."

And then her view turned back to the table, the algebra books in particular. She took a seat next to Yuki and scoffed, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated manner.

"I don't know about you, but I did not miss Mr. Terrance. Or this in general, to be honest," she said while gesturing at the books. "He doesn't even pretend to be interested, my god."

"Sorry for taking a while, by the way. Just enjoying the first Saturday, is all." She then took another bite from her cookie, and looked around, blinking a few times. She looked back at Yuki, forehead scrunched. "Where's Yuko?"

Yuko burst into the room, sweating and nearly out of breath. Yuki and Yuka were there already, and Mom, too. A brief spike of panic came over her as her eyes darted to her watch. 12:59. Yuko let out a sigh of relief. Alright, she wasn't late after all!

"Hey..." she said between heavy breaths. "I'm here... didn't forget..."

She completely forgot.

Yuko had gotten taken a jog over to the park but then she got caught up playing soccer with some guys from another school. Ha, the looks on their faces when she started kicking their asses was priceless. Anyway, they were about to get lunch when Yuko remembered that the Saturday study sessions were starting again. She ran back as fast as she could. It was so stupid of her. Yuko didn't exactly look forward to the return of these study session, but she could never stand up her sisters.

Yuko plopped down on Yuki's other side and stuffed a cookie into her mouth. Really, she wanted nothing more than to shower and change, but she wasn't going to make Yuki and Yuka wait for her. She hoped Mom wouldn't be ticked off at her for getting sweat on her chair or whatever.

"Great as always, Mom." She turned to her sisters. Yuki was super prepared and serious. Yuka was barely awake. Ah, school really was back in session.

"So... algebra, yeah?" Yuko said, trying to remember what exactly Mr. Terrance had covered the previous day.

Just as Yuki was about to answer Yuka, as if on cue, Yuko had arrived. Sweaty and breathing heavily, Yuki concluded that Yuko had come back from exercising. Now, with both her sisters at the table, she was ready to begin.

"Okay, let's see," Yuki said as she skimmed the page she had her book opened to. "Mr. Terrance was first reviewing graph inequalities when we came back. Let's try the first four questions on page 235."

The question read as followed:

Solve each inequality. Then graph it on a number line.

1. 2x + 3 > x + 5
2. 7h - 1 < 6h
3. t/13 < 13
4. 12b > -144

"Don't forget to show your work," said Yuki. Her pencil rapidly moved in her hand as she began to solve the problem on her own sheet of paper.

Yuka nodded at Yuko. "This again, I guess."

Yuki didn't even reply to either of them. She just went straight into it. Yuka had lived with her for literally her entire life, listened to her aspirations and fears, her interests and darkest secrets. For 17 years. And she still didn't understand why she enjoyed this. The best guess she could make was that Yuki had masochistic tendencies no one in the house was aware of.

Then, the questions presented themselves. Yuka stared at the page for a whole five seconds.

She stood up and walked away from the table.

"Be right back," she said without looking at the sisters.

The stairs thundered a bit as Yuka jogged up them, trying to shake off some of the sleep. Emi peered from the doorway of the bedroom she had retired to after cooking, looking up at her with narrowed eyes. Yuka stopped halfway and looked between the gaps of the bannister at her mother, saying a quick hushed sorry before resuming her journey, being much more deliberate with her steps.

She went back to their bedroom and retrieved a metal desk organizer from underneath her study table. It was a gift Yuki had given her the previous year, so that her notes and school supplies wouldn't be scattered on the desk and crumpled in her bag. Instead, two out of five compartments were filled with lipsticks, one with mascaras, one with eyeliner pencils, and one with actual colored pens. One of these days, she'd mix them up and put permanent ink on her eyelid, but that day had not arrived yet. So, things stayed where they were.

Four pens were pulled from the organizer: one light blue, one lilac, one pink, and one neon green. Using colored pens to draw her graphs and write down lectures literally brightened up her notebooks, reduced the weight of those technical words her teachers would use, and kept her just a bit more awake. They were an essential part of high school life.

She put them down on top of the table and took a few seconds to fold her blanket, to avoid giving her mother another reason to be annoyed with her. Once that was done with, she got her pens and her math notebook, tiptoed down the stairs, letting out a sigh of relief as she saw Emi not waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, but back in her and Kengo's bedroom, watching TV. Maybe baking had exhausted her enough to cool her down a bit.

She flashed the pens and notebook at her sisters as she entered the kitchen. "Just needed to get these," she said as she took her seat. And then she started to draw the x and y-axes with her blue pen.

Without looking away from her paper, she asked, "So, Yuko, how was your morning?"

Yuko grabbed her book and quickly turned to page 235. Inequalities, yeah. Graphing. That all sounded familiar. She squinted at the questions that Yuki had directed her towards. These... didn't look too hard. Half-remembered lessons started peeking out of the back of her mind. Alright, she could do this.

Yuka suddenly stood up and bolted out of the room. Yuko stared at her back as she disappeared. Er, she wasn't panicking was she? Yuka was smarter than Yuko when it came to most things, but math was her weak spot. Yuko hadn't remembered her struggling particularly badly this year, though. She hoped that if Yuka was struggling badly, she would be willing to turn to her for help. Even if she wouldn't be much of a help...

Gah, what was she doing? Worrying over nothing? She was just trying to distract herself. Yuko turned back to the book and... wait, she didn't have any school supplies. Crap.

Just then Yuka returned with a notebook and a bunch of pens. Of course that's what she was doing!

"My morning? It was alright... did some running. Showed some fools up in soccer." Yuko said, eyeing the colorful pens. "Hey, can I have a pen... and a page from your notebook... please?"

As soon as Yuka left the table, she was back again with a bunch of pens. For a moment there, Yuki thought Yuka was trying to procrastinate, but then again she could have needed to use the bathroom. But now that she’s back, they could continue.

Yuki began solving the problems one at a time. These equations were simple enough. For the first problem, you’d subtract three from five on the right side, then subtract one from two on the left side. She drew a little line graph next to the problem, marking it with a zero in the middle. The result is x > 2, and she put a dot on the line about where the two would be.

Before she started the next problem, she looked up at her sisters to see if her sisters were doing them along with her. Yuko was asking if she could borrow a pen from Yuka. Not to hold anything against Yuko, but maybe if she had managed her time better she would be better prepared. No need to worry though, she’ll catch up. Yuka too. Yuki continued to work.

"Yeah sure!" Yuka ripped a page from the handbook and handed it to Yuko, along with her lilac and pink pens. "Which one would you like?"

The blue and neon green ones would stay with her. She had gone to the stylist a few weeks ago and asked for chartreuse hair, expecting a magenta-like shade to match the lilac wardrobe she had grown fond of lately. The mistake became very apparent a few minutes into the dyeing session, but after going through the seven stages of grief, she decided to live with it, and came to accept and love it. The ink in her neon green pen was running low after only two weeks, so she would need to run by the stationery store and replace it soon. But for now, it was doing its job.

She held the pen against the ruler to draw the axes, taking a few seconds longer than necessary. Making sure the lines were nice and straight and solid. After adding the arrow-heads and labeling the axes, she finally willed herself to look at the problems. And they actually weren't that bad, to be honest. A lot better than the hell-subject that was geometry. If she heard Mr. Terrance say one more word about congruence or supplementary angles, she would probably run screaming outside the classroom, drop out, and live her dream life as a make-up YouTuber.

It wasn't that hard. It was just that after Christmas break, it felt like her brain was restarting, slowly and not-so-surely retrieving all the knowledge from what felt like years ago. The first week after a break was always tough, always made her feel a little dumber, a little duller than she was. But these were fine, these four problems, she could do this. It was just arithmetic with letters. Just subtract or add stuff on both sides of the equation. Transposition is how Yuki referred to it.

After she solved the first problem, she set herself to graphing it when she encountered a small problem. She was 70% sure of the answer, but she wanted to be sure. Drawing the graphs, as relaxing as it was, would just become annoying the second time around.

"Yuki, how do we draw the line again if it's just a more than sign? Is it a solid line or a dotted line?"

She waited for a few seconds before smirking at Yuki. She had asked the following question a few times before, but it made good conversation. Filled the silence in this room, too.

"Also, why do you enjoy this again?"

Yuko looked at the pens offered to her, and after a few seconds of deliberation, picked the purple one. Yuko wasn't the type to write out her notes and homework in flashy colors but she had to make do with what she was given.

She borrowed the ruler after Yuka was done with it, drawing two straight lines on the paper. Then- hm, it was coming back to her, but slowly. Yuko glanced at Yuki's paper, but then quickly tore her eyes away. Come on, she had to figure this out herself. Copying from Yuki wasn't going to do anything but show that Yuko couldn't do it without relying on her sister. She stared at the paper for a good while, and then made a dot where the two should be.

Yuka asked a question. Two questions actually, both of which Yuko wanted to hear the answer to.

"Yeah, Yuki, what's the deal?" Yuko leaned back and stretched out her arms, already starting to feel the urge to get out of her seat. "What's the fun in it?"

“I’m pretty sure it’s a solid line,” Yuki responded.

"Also, why do you enjoy this again?"

"Yeah, Yuki, what's the deal? What's the fun in it?"

Yuki took a minute to ponder those questions. Why ask such a question? Yuki had never thought about it. Nor did she feel she ever had to.

“I-I wouldn’t say I enjoy it,” Yuki stammered, “I just happen to be good at it.”

As she mustered up another answer, she brought the pencil to her lips.

“Although, I guess on an unconscious level, I enjoy the challenge.”

In the minute it took Yuki to answer, Yuka had drawn a solid diagonal line and shaded above it, taking her sweet time to fill the upper portion of the graph with cross-hatching, making math prettier one neon-green line at a time. She was a fourth of the way through by the time Yuki finally spoke up.

"Huh."

She enjoyed the challenge, huh. Yuka guessed her sister really did have a masochistic streak. Yuka herself could try to understand enjoying the challenge. There was always a bit more satisfaction in mastering a dance routine, no mistakes, no trips or missteps, after a few days, as opposed to getting it right on the first try. Or nailing that make-up look after working for it on hours. Not really 'Good things come to those who wait', but 'things feel better after being waited on?' Yuki was the writer among the three, she was the one who knew how to work with metaphors and sayings.

In any case, Yuka didn't see how that translated to math. You wrack your mind for several hours and come up with a number or equation. And then? Any satisfaction she got from acing a hard exam was more because she wouldn't have to take the subject again, as opposed to getting the answer itself. So, in short, maybe Yuka would never understand. There would always be some mysteries best left unsolved.

She looked at the second problem. Easy enough. Even easier than the first, in fact. But, partly to fill the silence and partly out of piqued curiosity, Yuka asked some more questions.

"Did you ever consider becoming a math teacher? Or, like, doing anything related to math, if you enjoy the challenge?"

"Challenge, eh?"

Yuko rolled her head around and looked at the ceiling. Yuko could definitely understand enjoying a challenge. On the field, trying her best to outdo her opponents. Trying to push herself to the very limits to prove she was the best. The pride she felt after winning. She couldn't understand how any of that would apply to math, though. Maybe for Yuki doing tough math was like... proving to the problem that she was smart enough to conquer it. Or something like that, anyways.

Yuko leaned forward, figuring she should continue looking at the problems, but Yuka saved her from that by asking another question.

"Yeah, you'd make a good math teacher, Yuki. I mean, if you can teach us, you can teach anyone." Yuko scratched her head. "Or... why stop there? You could be like, a mathematician."

Yuko didn't know what a mathematician actually did, but she was sure Yuki would be a good one.

A mathematician? Well, it’s not like she hasn’t thought about it.

“I suppose,” Yuki said, “a teaching position could support me financially as I perfect my writing skills.”

Yuki briefly imagined herself as a mathematician, teaching students at a top notch university. She’d be up at the podium in front of the class among dozens of students as they took notes of complex equations. Then outside of class, she could go home and continue her reading and writing passions. An ideal future if there ever was one.

She was getting distracted. She needed to get back to the study session. However, this did have Yuki curious over what her sisters hoped to achieve in their futures.

“Yeah, I could see myself as a math teacher,” said Yuki, “What about you two? Do you have any ideas for any future careers?”

Yuki sounded so sure of herself. She answered casually, with little hint of emotion, but she sounded sure also. Like, 'Yeah, I'm fine with it.' No worries. No second guesses. It was all laid out for her.

Yuka smiled to herself as Yuki turned the question back to her for a bit, and then the smile faded. She should have known that would happen.

She didn't answer for a few seconds, taking sudden interest in shading the graph. But after those seconds, she put down the pen and let out a deep exhale. Her head turned towards Yuki but her eyes looked to her left, at nothing in particular, distracted.

"Well, like... I don't want to get a corporate job, that's for sure. It's not for me. Like, I've always been one to believe in loving your work, loving the things you do. Like, I can't imagine going to work just to clock in, clock out, that's not for me also."

And as she said this, she grabbed her wrist with her other hand somewhat tightly. Her eyes continued to avoid meeting the gaze of both her sisters.

"And... I guess I want something related to theater. Or dance. That would be nice and fun. I've heard that the programs for those are super hard to get into, and super stressful, and I read on the internet that you should never make your hobby your career, or else you'll stop being interested in it."

Her fingers dug deeper into her wrist, the edges of her thumb turning deep red as it pressed.

"Like, I get it, I don't want to lose my passion, but if I stop doing that, then what do I have left? Do I just randomly choose a course in college? That sounds fun, and that sounds risky, and I like risk, but I... I don't know."

In the end, it all boiled down to one simple thing, and her sisters deserved the truth.

"So, really, I guess... yeah, that's it. I don't know," she said quietly, eyes looking down.