Sotoka’s POV:

Today I’m picking up Eriko at her house again so we could go to the school together.

But since I tricked her yesterday, I need to be extremely careful today, because she surely has something on her hands.

When I arrived at Eriko's house, I rang the bell and before long she came out. She had a big bright smile on her face, but she also had dark and deep circles under her eyes. She clearly didn't sleep well, so I couldn't help but worry for her.

“Morning, Eriko. You look really bad, you know?”

“Oh, these? Don't worry about that. I'm fine! Haha~”

She was totally not fine. It was obvious since she let out a big yawn while saying those words. But if she says she is fine, I'll play along for a while. Of course, I'll be paying attention to her, a sleepy Eriko could be really dangerous.

We walked towards the bus stop talking banal things. But our talking and walking pace felt slower than usual, Eriko was clearly lacking some sleep.

“Don't worry about that, Sotoka. I’m fine, I’m fine! Haha~”

No, she is on the verge of falling asleep. I need to be extremely careful with her and pay attention to every move she makes.

Sadly, just paying attention wasn't enough, and as soon as we arrived at the classroom Eriko fell asleep on her desk.

“Hey, Eriko, wake up! The class is starting soon!”

“Mhamg… Umhmm…”

“Tsh. Come on, Eriko! Wake up!”

“Mhmgm…”

It was useless. I shook her from her shoulders, but that didn't work at all so I resigned, hoping that she wouldn't get called out during the class.

But you can't live just by having hope, and so, when the teacher started our reading lesson, Eriko was called out.

Unexpectedly, Eriko stood up, grabbed her book, and started reading as if she hadn't been sleeping at all.

“A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them…”

Eriko was calmly reading without any mistake what she was instructed to read.

No, wait, there is something absolutely wrong about this. Eriko has her arms straight in front of her, there's no way that she could be reading at that distance. Even more, now that I'm paying more attention to her book I could see that it is obviously upside down. But there is something even worse between all this mess, the page she is reading is totally blank.

“How did she…”

I started using all my brain power wondering what was happening. Eriko noticed that my eyes were fixed on her and gave me a devil smirk.

That's right, there was just one way of explaining all of this mess, from her eye bags to her being there, reading an empty page. When I realised that, I wasn't able to control myself so I stood up and shouted while pointing at her with my index.

“YOU MEMORIZED IT!”

But Eriko had just stopped reading, and gracelly came back to her seat while smiling at me.

Now I was standing there, pointing at the air and being looked at by all the classroom while Eriko was doing her best to hold her laugh.

“Sotoka! Go and stand in the hallway, right now!”

“Yes miss…”

That's how I decided to never mess up with Eriko again.