“In middle school? Wait, Hanekawa, you and Senjogahara went to the same middle school?” “What? Isn’t that why you’re asking me?” Hanekawa made a face like she was the one who never saw it coming. “Yes, we’re from the same middle school. Kiyokaze Public Middle School. We used to be in different classes back then, too, but─Senjogahara was famous.” More famous than you? I almost said that, but I caught myself in time. Hanekawa hated being treated as famous more than anything. Personally, I thought she needed to be more self-aware, but she seemed to think of herself as “a regular girl who had nothing to recommend her but being on the serious side.” She wholeheartedly bought the cant that anyone who tried hard enough did well in school. “She was pretty, and she was a good athlete, too,” Hanekawa said. “An athlete…” “She was the star of the track team. Some of her records should still be standing.” “The track team, huh?” In other words. She wasn’t like that in middle school. Cheerful and energetic─two more qualities I couldn’t imagine from the Senjogahara I knew, to be honest. “So I did hear a lot about her,” Hanekawa told me. “Like what?”