Yamauchi's little I'm-going-to-pretend-I-didn't-hear-that cough made Mariko pause. Had that been too bitter? Had she missed the mark? Coral hadn't even laughed at the little joke she'd made, merely treating it like some kind of conversational aberration she wanted to sweep under the carpet as fast as possible. Not the best first impression, she privately admitted. Even though technically they'd already met. It was a figure of speech, she didn't need to read that much into every tiny thing. She thought about Princess Tomo, and her infuriating nice girl demeanour, and about how wide a social circle she'd ended up having in a week. She'd hate her for that, if she wasn't so likeable. What was it about her? Her speech? Was that it? Mariko opened her mouth, and began.

"I'm aware of that, Yamauchi, but thanks for speaking. And i'm in favour of the individual appreach, too. Well, there are two different ways we could divvy up work. Either divide the questions into three distinct blocks , or we each take one of every three questions. The former is fairer on paper, but these sort of questions have a tendancy to get harder as you progress, which is a major disadvantage to whoever takes on the last block. The second method has the advantage of fairness, but can also lead to situations where someone takes on an extra question or less, simply because they're not divisible by the number of people within that group. But that isn't nessecerialy a bad... eto..." Mariko became intensely, profoundly aware, that her impromptu speech was not being listened to. Yamauchi and Coral both had their heads down, pencils scratching paper fast enough to leave rubber marks if the graphite wasn't enough. She bent her head, chose a question at random, and began writing in earnest.