Mash-Up: Anything for Money

China, inside a closed-off high school.

A boy with messy black hair was lying face-down on his classroom desk. To be honest, his hairstyle was already pushing the limits of the school's grooming rules.

Maybe it was the harsh afternoon sunlight, but the boy slowly woke up.

Still groggy, he sat up and looked around with a frown.

"Hmm? Where is this..."

"You're awake~" His desk mate, noticing him stirring, cheerfully patted him on the shoulder.

"Unbelievable that you can still sleep in class with the college entrance exams right around the corner. Luckily the last period was English..."

The boy froze for a moment at his desk mate's words, a puzzled look appearing on his face.

Seeing the confused expression, the desk mate raised an eyebrow and patted his shoulder again.

"Hakuto, are you still half-asleep?"

Upon hearing that name, a trace of clarity returned to the boy's eyes. He slowly stood up and shook his head.

"Sorry, I've just been a bit tired lately..."

"Come on, Hakuto, everyone's tired with the exams coming up. I don't have your top-ranked English grades. I wouldn't dare sleep during English class."

The boy, called Hakuto, nodded silently and asked a question instead.

"What time is it right now?"

"Just after school. I was waiting to grab dinner with you..."

"No, I mean... what year, what month, what day is it?"

"Dude, did you seriously sleep that deep?" His desk mate seemed surprised by the question but still answered instinctively.

"May 13th, 2016... The exams are just one month away."

Hearing that, Hakuto clutched his head and shook it, muttering to himself.

"I feel like I had some crazy dream... but what was it again..."

"What are you mumbling over there for? Are we going to eat or not? We've got evening self-study later, and if we're late again, that terrifying homeroom teacher will tear us apart..."

"No, you go ahead. I've got something to do..."

"You really did sleep yourself stupid, huh?"

His desk mate shook his head at the response and didn't bother arguing further. As he had just said, time was tight—he needed to eat.

Hakuto watched his friend leave and sat quietly at his desk alone.

With the exams so close, many students stayed in the classroom after school, eating bread and reviewing materials.

"The college entrance exam, huh... such a strange phrase."

Something felt off. He instinctively reached up to brush his bangs aside—only to realize his hair was so short it didn't even have bangs.

Oh, right... bangs can't go past the eyebrows. Otherwise, it's against the rules.

Leaning against his chair, Hakuto felt the crimson sunlight streaming through the window as the sun began to set, and he sighed quietly inside.

It felt like he had forgotten something. Maybe it was the contents of that dream. After all, for someone like him, school was the only setting he belonged in right now.

"I think I'm a day student, right..."

He mumbled to himself, but just then, a girl from the class came over and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Shiratori-kun, can you explain how to solve this problem?"

He turned and saw a girl in the same school uniform holding a math worksheet. 

She had short hair, practical and neat—though that probably wasn't her choice, more like the school's demand.

The girl was quite pretty—at least at the level of a classic "white moonlight" beauty.

Hakuto felt like he was familiar with that face, but couldn't remember where he had seen it before...

No, logically speaking, it should be normal to find a classmate's face familiar... There's no logic to this.

But Hakuto didn't seem too bothered. He reached out and took the worksheet from the girl's hand, glancing over it.

The last two problems in a high school math test were designed to filter out talent. If you could solve them, you could. If you couldn't, then you couldn't.

Math was truly an absurd subject. 

Even if you were terrible at every other subject, if you scored 150 on the math section of the college entrance exam, you'd be scouted as a special talent.

And the problem this girl asked about was the very last question on the test. 

To be honest, based on Hakuto's usual personality, he would have snapped at her and shoved the paper back.

Explaining it would be pointless. Those last two math problems weren't about effort—they were about talent.

But for some reason, Hakuto didn't have that attitude now. He looked at the short-haired girl beside him and asked,

"You're sure I can solve this?"

"Eh? You're in the top ten of the grade, Shiratori-kun. If you can't solve it, then maybe no more than two people in the whole year can…"

"Top ten in the grade, huh..."

Hakuto frowned. Shouldn't it be first in the grade? No, wait… why would I even think that?

He shook his head, then looked back at the paper in his hand and grabbed a pen from his desk.

"I'll explain it, but whether you understand or not... that's out of my control," he warned.

"Mhm!"

Hakuto's slender, well-defined fingers gripped the pen as black ink spilled across the scratch paper, laying down one complicated concept after another.

"Shiratori-kun, what's this 'a' here?"

"That's alpha. Though reading it as 'a' is fine—it's just a variable."

"And this little cross thing? What's that…"

At that, Hakuto glanced at the root-finding formula he had written, then looked at the short-haired girl beside him and raised an eyebrow.

To be honest, even though they were in the same class, he couldn't recall her name.

So he asked,

"Sorry if it's rude, but… could I ask your name?"

"Eh? Me?" The short-haired girl gave an awkward smile. "It's been three years, and you still don't remember my name, Shiratori-kun?"

"I probably could remember… or maybe I used to remember…" Hakuto felt like he was being illogical again today. Was he really that stressed? Just too tired?

"Well, you'd better remember it this time."

"Yeah."

"My name is ≯∮ℓ Flower!"

(눈_눈)? Hakuto frowned. Did his brain just glitch? Why was it censored?

He only caught the word "Flower" from the name. But he didn't press further—it would've been impolite.

"Yeah... I got it." Hakuto nodded without blinking, then returned the worksheet to "something-something Flower."

"But you haven't finished explaining yet, Shiratori-kun…"

"Just focus on your fundamentals. No need to chase after the big problems."

Hakuto had been very tactful in saying that. Normally, if it were someone he wasn't familiar with, his attitude would've started with sarcasm.

But apparently, there was someone—something-something Flower—who had once liked Shiratori-kun…

Apparently.