He almost deleted it. Another free PDF. Usually, they were poorly scanned lists of vocabulary, blurry and useless. But the name "Gakushudo" nagged at him. He remembered Yuki mentioning their N5 workbook had been a lifesaver.
He picked up his phone. "Yuki," he typed. "This Gakushudo PDF is amazing. Where has this been all my life?"
The rain was drumming a steady rhythm on the roof of the small apartment, a sound that usually made Kenji sleepy. But tonight, it only amplified his anxiety. Scattered across his desk were printouts, a tangled mess of highlighters, and three different textbooks, all open to different pages on te-form conjugations.
Kenji laughed. He actually understood it. He wasn't just memorizing a dry explanation; he was seeing it happen.
Six weeks later, Kenji walked out of the N4 exam hall. He didn't know if he had passed. But for the first time, he hadn't felt lost. The reading section had been about a lost wallet—similar to the story in the Gakushudo PDF. The grammar questions felt familiar.
Illustration: Stick figure touching a hot stove. Example: "Kono sutobu ni sawattara, yakedo suru yo." (If you touch this stove, you'll get burned.)