So. I have my first ever job interview tomorrow, and I'm crazy nervous about that. Sure, I've done work experience and volunteering before...but this is an interview for an ACTUAL SATURDAY JOB! And as someone who keeps wondering how on earth she made it to adulthood...yeah, pretty nerve wracking. And then on Friday I have the second-year induction/ welcome back thingy at my uni. All of a sudden, after a few months of blissful nothingness, my calendar is filling up again. Eeep. un times. Anyway, sorry for offloading all that on you. I haven't actually told anyone (apart from my family, obviously) about the job interview because I couldn't think of a way to mention it without it sounding like boasting when really it's just an interview and no guarantee of a job...I'm babbling again. Apologies again, wonderful readers!
Now, a couple of chapters back a guest left me an anonymous review. I was going to use the author's note last chapter to reply, but I forgot and now I am too restless to search it out, so whoever that guest was, I hope you are content with the generic reply of- THANK YOU! Because I am always, always grateful for reviews and feedback, it really helps.
So onto a little explanation about the chapter. This is sort of a filler chapter, and so there is a fair bit of fluffiness in it, but it is also a character development chapter that sprinkles a bit of subplot in too, so it's not like the filler episodes in an anime which don't really contribute anything. These scenes will contribute to the story in some way or another. And also, they sort of serve as a way of skipping over the weeks where nothing much happens, especially since the different scenes don't all take place on the same day. So yeah.
I'll leave it that, and just hope that as usual, you'll enjoy the chapter!
"Ah, Tada, I'm not coming with you to Fuyumi's." Hiro told her brother as they left the house and began to walk down the street. Tada gave her a confused glance.
"You're not? How come?"
Hiro smiled happily, restraining herself from spinning around in joyful circles as they walked. Tada smiled knowingly.
"Ah, let me guess. You're meeting Yukiyama-kun this morning. That certainly explains it. You don't usually actively meet up, right?"
Hiro gave Tada a thumbs-up to tell him he was correct. It was corny of her, but she really was happy at the fact that finally, finally, Yukiyama had agreed to meet her at the end of the road where he lived, so that they could walk to school together. It meant a lot to her, for all sorts of reasons, but especially because she knew it that it had taken a lot for Yukiyama to actually agree to it. Perhaps they hadn't known each other nearly long enough to be able to confide everything in each other, but this was something she just knew about him. And so, she was grateful, and super excited.
"Ah, Hiro, you're blushing!" Tada teased. Hiro pouted and shoved him playfully, and then they both laughed and chatted for a while until they got to the road where they'd have to separate. She reminded Tada that she had club that day, before they exchanged goodbyes and he headed towards Fuyumi's house, while she wandered to the road where Yukiyama lived. It wasn't a part of town she'd ever been to, but Yukiyama had described some of the more distinctive features for her, and so she was fine. Hiro was a visual sort of person anyway.
When she found the maple tree that Yukiyama had suggested she wait by, she grinned and ran up to it. She briefly thought about climbing up it (all the better to see everything from) but she decided to just lean against the tree in the end and watch the comings and goings of other people going by, and all the cars going past too. There was a lot of noise, and as it went on it made her hearing aids crackle and her head hurt, so she thought about turning them off, or even taking them out completely, but unbidden, her father's voice came into her mind, telling her off.
"Chihiro, no! You shouldn't switch off your hearing aids when you're out, especially when you're crossing the road. You need to be able to hear what's going on, especially when you're somewhere busy."
Her father pointed to a part of the road where other cars were swerving because of another car that was driving erratically. Hiro blinked. She'd been looking at the cars near the crossing, and she hadn't even noticed the car over there, but now she did because it was coming closer. She told her dad this, and he smiled down at her, less annoyed.
"That's exactly it. Looking when you're crossing the road is very important, but it doesn't cover everything. So be careful, okay, Hiro?"
"Yes, Papa." Hiro said, reluctantly turning the aids back on and letting the storm rush back into her head.
As the memory played out in her head, she shook it, trying to get it out. No, I don't want to think about Papa now! She gritted her teeth and looked at the ground for a moment, until she'd composed herself. I'd much rather think about Mama than Papa right now….
When she looked up again, she spotted Yukiyama at the other end of the road, walking down, stiff against the world as always. She could spot that even from this far. Ah, Saito. Maybe I'll just think about the living for now, instead. She smiled and stepped out so that Yukiyama could see her properly, and waved just to make things clearer. When he got closer, he smiled and lifted his hand slightly to acknowledge her.
"Good morning." He greeted when he got closer, sticking his hands in his pockets. He looked up at the tree for a moment, and then returned his eyes to her. She beamed at him.
"Good morning." She replied as they started walking. As they walked, they talked of random things.
"The weather's nice today, isn't it, Chihiro?"
"That's rather British of you, Saito, but yeah, it's nice. Great for sitting outside. "
"British of me?"
"Sure it is. It's like a stereotype, that British people always talk about the weather. Especially when trying to fill awkward silences."
"Erm…did we have an awkward silence?" Yukiyama gave her an odd look, which made Hiro giggle.
"Nooo….I was just teasing-Oh, Saito, you're too tense." Hiro carefully put a hand on his shoulder, not wanting him to bolt. Yukiyama could be unusually skittish at times, and it was sad to watch. Luckily, this time he just looked at her carefully before relaxing his shoulders slightly.
"That better?" He asked.
"Yeah, yeah it is. Sorry." She apologised.
"No, it's fine. So anyway, how do you know about British stereotypes? Have you been there?"
"No, I haven't. But I read a little bit and Tada reads a lot. He's always telling me about all these different books and the stories they tell. That, and we have a friend whose father is a government worker or some sorts. I don't really get it, but for some reason, that friend's father's particular work takes him to Britain a lot, specifically England. So he picks up those things, tells our friend and his siblings, and then we hear about it…"
"Ah, I see. So Tada's a bookworm, huh? That explains a lot."
"It does, doesn't it? Do you read much?"
"Not really. Not for leisure. "
"Ah, that's a shame. I'm no bookworm, but reading for leisure is great, you know."
"Hmm….maybe I'll try it then."
"You should ask Tada, then. He'd give you an entire list of books."
"…..Do I have to?"
"If you're afraid, then I'll ask for you! Seriously though, Tada won't mind. "
"…"
"…"
"Chihiro, you're incorrigible."
"If you say so. I don't usually get described like that."
Their conversation went on in a similar manner, veering in all sorts of places, and once they were really into it, Yukiyama even laughed a few times, which made Hiro feel good. Everything's better when you laugh, Saito. At least, it helps, and I should know this. Being happy's a good thing.
"Well, there's some interesting timing for you."
Hiro blinked at Yukiyama, not entirely sure if she'd heard him right. She fiddled with her hearing aids for a moment, making sure that the battery hadn't randomly died. Sensing her bafflement, Yukiyama repeated what he had said, but more slowly, before pointing. They were starting to approach the bottom of the hill that marked the route to the Class 3E campus- and Tada was approaching the same place with Fuyumi and Jori, only in the opposite direction.
Once she'd made sure the batteries were still working, Hiro put her hearing aids back on, and the two of them approached her brother and his other classmates.
"Oh, well, this is interesting!" Jori declared, regarding them sceptically. Then, she narrowed her eyes. "Are you two dating?"
Instantly, Hiro went bright red and became flustered.
"No, no, nothing like that." She stammered, waving her hands around in a loose approximation for the sign language for 'you're wrong', not even realising that this was what she was doing until Tada pointed it out gently. At that point, she just felt herself redden even more and she stuck her hands firmly in the pockets of her school sweater. I'm turning into one of those ridiculously soppy girls, aren't I? How corny.
"Don't be ridiculous. " Yukiyama stated shortly, cutting through the nonsense. Hiro nodded at him gratefully, but at the same time she felt disappointed. She sort of wished they were dating. She remembered the way it felt, setting eyes on him for the very first time. And she remembered how it felt the second time, standing in the new classroom, and looking at the sea of strangers only to realise one wasn't a complete stranger, even if the only things they'd exchanged until then were looks across a single encounter.
But she could also recall watching the way he'd rejected everyone in that class, and she knew precisely how many times she'd gone up to him and said nothing more than a 'good morning' or a 'see you later' or a 'hello there' until he'd eventually melted enough that he was able to do the same in return without looking like he was walking across thorns. And sure, the greetings didn't take long to shift into easy conversations, but there was still that wariness, that caution. It was there even as she found that the more they spent time together, the more she loved him. So, there was no way she could take things further. Not yet. She would ask one day- there was no way she could live with these feelings forever and not let Yukiyama know, after all- but for now, she would wait, and be content with what she had. Because that's what love is.
"You will be, one day." Fuyumi pronounced. Everyone swivelled around to goggle at her. I wish I was that confident in the future though, Hiro thought.
"Erm….Fuyumi-Chan, perhaps you shouldn't be making assumptions like that…." Tada pointed out. Fuyumi gave him a look.
"But I know it." She protested, mildly. Yukiyama rolled his eyes.
"Like I said. " He snapped out brusquely. "Don't be ridiculous. Chihiro, I'm going up now."
"Mhm, okay." Hiro put asides her musings on Yukiyama and love. "Bye, Saito."
"Bye." And just like that, he trudged up the hill, not looking back, and reverted to his usual tense posture. Hiro sighed.
"Well, that was rude!" Jori fumed, although she didn't seem that annoyed.
"Erm….." Hiro ran a hand through her hair. "I think I'll just go now…"
"Okay then." Tada said. "Have a good day."
"You, too."
…
Ayako hated Home Economics. She really, really hated it. And she really didn't like the fact that the kitchen they had to do the lesson in was old, basic and really wooden. What if she burnt something?
She wasn't even sure if it was a help or just a new form of hindrance that Ichijou actually seemed to know what she was doing in this subject- writing down exactly what they needed to make the soup they were focussing on that day, as well as the exact recipe for it, and then going around and offering useful tips and guidance to everyone. It was…very un-Ichijou like. She's a Kunugigaoka teacher, to boot. How long can this last? And so, it was a very large frown that she wore on her face as she stirred and chopped and tested her soup.
As she did this, she half-listened to Ruko go around to everyone, finding out what they were doing, and teasing them where necessary. She didn't focus too much though, as she wanted to make the soup at least passable. Maybe if she did Ichijou would lapse and let her leave the room and do something more useful. Like checking on their 'Ending the End Class' blog. Now that was something she knew how to cultivate, and something she enjoyed while she was at it.
"What do you mean, you're awful at cooking?!" Ruko's shriek interrupted the mental plan of a written post she was thinking of adding to the blog.
"I am, really." Tada said, sheepishly shifting from foot to foot as he stood between Tsukuda and Yukiyama, holding a pepper pot in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other.
"But the cookies! And the toffees! You did make those, didn't you?" Ayako asked, just as surprised as Ruko was.
"Well, yes…but that was baking. Baking and sweet things are pretty much all I can do in terms of kitchen work." Tada apologetically explained. Ruko didn't seem too put out though, choosing to fling herself at Tada in a gesture of mock-affection, causing him to almost stumble into Tsukuda, who let out a short yell before nimbly getting out of the way.
"Well then," she declared girlishly. "You can bake me lots of nice sweet things, just for me!"
"Oh my, Tada-kun, you bake? Well then, perhaps we can choose a sweet treat for our next Home Economics lesson. How about it, children?" Ichijou clasped her hands as she addressed them.
The way everyone looked at the teacher, Ayako just knew that they were all thinking the same thing: Way to go for not reading the mood! Tada managed to duck away from Ruko, and pushed her back over to her work table with exaggerated patience, before returning to his soup. The others nearby all did the same. Ichijou blinked for a moment, and then became cheerful again.
"Well, we can always chat about it later. I'll just continue making the rounds. Ah, Yamada-san, do you need more help?" With that, Ichijou headed over to Yamada, who was clinging to her wooden spoon and staring at it as if it had dropped from space.
Ayako rolled her eyes, and returned to her soup. She took a taste of it, and decided it was utterly awful. Thinking for a moment, she looked back at the instructions on the whiteboard. That didn't particularly help her, unfortunately, so she decided to just keep adding in various random spices and hope for the best.
"Say, Tada, does Hiro cook at all? Or does she just do a few particular things, like you?" Ayako heard Tsukuda asked. There was a beat of silence before Tsukuda gave an awkward laugh.
"Okeydokey then, I won't ask anymore."
Ayako suppressed a laugh at that. Just from that little snippet, she could imagine what sort of look Tada had given Tsukuda. She grinned, and decided to try and overhear more interesting things as she continued with the soup. Doing this, she managed to hear a lot of interesting and amusing snippets, all things she could add to her notebook, but her fun ended when she tasted her soup and nearly gagged.
"Takashita-san, are you okay?"
"I…I think I poisoned myself, sensei." Ayako groaned, unable to see past anything but the horrible, horrible taste in her mouth. She knew she was hopeless at these things, but she had not expected it to taste quite that bad. Ichijou took a spoonful and tasted Ayako's soup for herself. Her owl-eyes went wide, and she blinked.
"Well…I can safely say you won't have poisoned yourself, Takashita-san, but I don't think we should be serving this. How about you clean up and dispose of the soup, and then go back to the classroom and study for a while until next period? I've already sent Eriko-san, Arisato-kun, Kuroba-kun and Azama-kun back, so you can join them."
Ayako nodded in compliance, trying hard to stifle her glee at getting to leave the kitchen, and she began to clean up. As she did so, Kitabayashi unexpectedly voiced a complaint.
"Are we not going to make bread, as well?" the look on his face was very sulky. Huh?
"…Bread, Kitabayashi-kun? Whatever for?" Ichijou asked.
"To have with the soup, of course!" Kitabayashi said incredulously. He then muttered phrases in English, all of them a variation on 'are you stupid?'. As ever, though, Ichijou either didn't realise or just let Kitabayashi's rudeness wash over her, because she just seemed to consider what Kitabayashi had said about the bread.
"But…that's a bit strange, isn't it?" Ichijou came up with eventually.
"Not at all, Ichijou-sensei!" Koujiro said enthusiastically. "Katsu's actually talking a lot of sense. I've had bread with soup before, and it's really good. You basically dip the bread in the soup and then eat the bread. You can spread it with butter before doing so, if you want." Katsu? I need to ask Tobe-san about that. That's an interesting nickname.
"Alternatively, you could rip the bread up into small pieces and treat them like croutons." Tada joined the conversation, clearly interested in the idea of making bread. Yamada could be heard asking what croutons were, while Tsuwabuki shushed her.
"That's true! When I went to visit my friend in America we had bread with tomato soup as a dinner this one time. The soup was the canned type, but it's a very comforting meal." Jori added.
"It sounds good!" Fuyumi agreed. "Oh, please could we make bread, Ichijou-sensei? Just a few of us? I'm sure nearly everyone has finished with their soups." Or given up.
Ichijou shifted from one foot to another and wrung her hands, not sure what to say. After what must have been at least some mental deliberation, Ichijou opened her mouth to say something when an almighty crash and some shouting from Haru's area interrupted her.
"What the fuck?" Haru was standing in front of Yamada, who just looked down at her hands and stared at them, utterly confused. Her pot of soup was on the floor, and the soup had spilled out on the floor. At least, some of it had. A lot of it was all over Haru's uniform, and justifiably, she looked angry, her eyes narrowed and cheeks red. She let out a stream of swear words before Ichijou bustled over and fretted over them. Next to Haru, Hirigi was also soaked with soup, and he stared at Haru with barely-concealed surprise. Frankly, Ayako didn't blame him.
"Ah, oh dear, Kuroyama-san, Kuroyama-kun and Hirigi-kun are all wet too!" Sure enough, Both Kuroyamas were wet, Reimiya more so than Reno. Haru whirled around to look at Ichijou, clearly on the warpath for some reason, when she caught sight of the other three soaked students. She blinked at them, and then the colour drained from her face. Just as quickly, she became red again soon after, but this time it was embarrassment that could be seen in her features, as opposed to anger. She slapped at her cheeks a few times and then immediately began checking that the other three were all right, bending down to pick up the pot and put it away, and offering to clean up the mess on the floor. Ichijou told her not to worry about it.
"I think Yamada-san and I will clear this up, and then go back to class, right, Yamada-san?" Yamada nodded meekly at this, face expressionless as she scrutinised the chaos through her glasses. "In the meantime, the four of you should clean up and change into your P.E kits for the rest of the day and...uh, what else? Oh, the bread! I think we do have ingredients for some basic bread, so how about some of you team up and start now, and then once I make sure everyone else is in class, I'll come back and supervise?"
"Sounds good!" Tada said instantly. "I'd like to be one of the ones making the bread. What about you, Akira-Chan?" Instantly, Tada turned to the small blue-eyed girl, who was standing at a counter by herself, watching everything unfold calmly. The smell coming from her soup was brilliant. She shook her head.
"No thank you, Tada-san." Akira said politely.
"Oh, okay." Even though Tada said this cheerfully, Ayako could tell that he was disappointed, and she stifled a grin. I think I'm going to have to review my OTP list. After some asking, it was decided that Koujiro, Kitabayashi, Jori and Fuyumi would accompany Tada in making the bread.
"Ah, I could come back afterwards, couldn't I?" Haru asked eagerly at this point, her outburst from moments ago all but erased. Hirigi stared at her again, and then turned to Ichijou.
"I think I would like to help too, with the bread that is." Hirigi looked nervous as he said this, but this soon disappeared when the others accepted his offer whole-heartedly, and he grinned as Koujiro grabbed him in a friendly headlock for a moment, declaring that they were all going to make the best bread ever.
As Hirigi and the three others who had gotten soaked by Yamada's soup left to change, Ayako took that moment as a chance to finally get back to the classroom. Once there, she instantly got out her phone, and went straight to her email account that she'd set up for the class blog, and began sorting through that, occasionally going to the actual blog to check how things were going. Since most of the photographs she had been planning to upload were on her home computer, she just busied herself herself with replying to comments, correcting posts, and planning a text post she was planning about the incidences of bullying across the country, and how they compared with Kunugigaoka's unique situation. That, naturally, was one of the ideas she had. There were so many more, floating around her head and waiting for her to nurture them.
"AYA-CHAN!"
Ayako nearly fell off her seat. She scrambled to steady herself, and once she had, she glared at Ruko.
"What the hell? I was doing something, you know?"
Ruko just grinned.
"Dude, the bread and soup is all finished. All the other guys are in the Home Ec room, enjoying it. We tried to get your attention, but it didn't seem to work? Guess you're checking on the blog?"
"Yeah, I am? We haven't been getting an overwhelming amount of attention, but all the comments are positive so far, especially for the posts that are about bullying in general. "Ayako stated proudly. Ruko grinned at her. Satisfied that her friend was impressed, Ayako turned back to her phone. Ruko, however, wasn't having that.
"Well, that's good and all, but BREAD! You can't miss out on the bread that Tada-Chan and everyone made! Now for god's sake, come!"
Seeing that Ayako was going to refuse, Ruko pulled her out of her seat and dragged her to the Home Economics room, moaning and groaning. But when she got there, the smells of the food changed her mind, and the way all her friends were chatting and laughing as they ate the bread and dipped it in the soup changed it even more. She supposed she could eat for a while. Just a while. So she sat down. Then, she Hirigi to serve her, and then she tucked in with gusto, enjoying herself. And while she did this, her mind kept planning and creating ideas to make the Ending the End Class blog the best it could be.
…
"Izzy, come to lunch." Izzy looked up from his laptop at Kuroba, who was frowning at him.
"I'm not that hungry." Izzy explained. "Besides, this is a lot more interesting." He gestured to the Facebook page open on the laptop. He'd spent a little time carefully hacking into the school databases for all the records from thirty years ago, but the security on those particular files had been protected by more security than the rest of the school databases combined. In other words, nothing had changed from the last time he'd attempted to get in. At least the simple class roster hadn't been delegated to the more secure files. That, combined with all the extra time he'd clocked up since coming to 3E, had allowed him to get his hands on one particularly special roster, complete with names and ID pictures. The one from thirty years ago.
Having the names was a start, and it satisfied him to know that four names were ones they had already come across- Yuuma Isogai, Megu Kataoka and Hiroto Maehara, the three who had self-appointed themselves mentors of Class 3E. Then there was Tada's mother, whose maiden name turned out to be Kurahashi. He supposed he could have extended his hacking to get into other databases to cross-check the other names, but he still found himself disbelieving of Tada's ignorance. If his mother had been in that class, and he'd grown up with other members of that class, how could he have not caught on to anything odd at all? Tada was clearly smart, so Izzy would have expected him to have done searches on interesting things that had happened in the same year that Hinano Kurahashi had been in that class.
But apparently not. He didn't even find the coincidence of the moon explosion odd. This was fair enough, given that the moon had been the way it had been for their whole lives anyway….but combined with all the other weird things, like those sightings, and how 3E had apparently had more teachers than normal? Whatever the reason was, it was more than coincidence, and Izzy couldn't understand how somebody wouldn't be able to see that. This was why Izzy had decided to lay off the hacking for now, and just see what social media sites Tada was signed up to, and just scroll through those for clues. After all, people could be so stupid about their social media. Currently, he was on Tada's Facebook page, and it was very interesting.
"That's Kitakawa's Facebook page, isn't it?" Kuroba dragged a chair up to Izzy's desk and sat down on it. "What are you searching for?"
Briefly, Izzy explained his reasoning behind what he was doing, and soon they were discussing everything that Izzy had been looking for. Izzy did stop short of telling Kuroba that the mystery of thirty years ago was exactly why he was currently in this classroom. That, for now, would be a step too far, no matter how well he got in with Kuroba.
"Ah, isn't Akabane one of the surnames on that class's roster?" Kuroba asked.
"Yeah, it is." Rather than ask why Kuroba had fixated upon the name 'Akabane', Izzy looked at the post that Kuroba was focussed on. It was a link to a playlist of character songs from some anime show or another. It had been posted to Tada's Facebook wall by one 'Kou Akabane', and that person had added a cheeky caption saying: Hey, since I can't come down there, here's something awesome. My favourite of the character songs is Kumiko's 'BrushupXBrassup'. Enjoy!
There were a whole host of emojis after this pronouncement. The profile picture of Kou Akabane showed a smiling, handsome boy with dark purple, almost black hair and lively golden eyes. Izzy studied the post. Tada had 'liked' the link, and his sister Hiro had too. Tada had also made a comment telling this Kou that he was 'utterly obsessed' but that he'd 'give it a whirl anyway'. Nodding to himself, Izzy scrolled back up and looked through the other posts. Sure enough, Kou Akabane was someone who liked and commented on a lot of things that Tada had posted or shared. He tried his best to ignore all the different condolence posts that various people had made to Tada's Facebook wall. All that internet sadness reminded him of what he didn't have.
"I can't stand emojis." Kuroba said when Izzy had scrolled back to the playlist. "But I think you should perhaps check his profile."
Izzy gave Kuroba a thumbs-up, and obliged. It didn't take him long to get a result- a red-haired man who looked so much like Kou Akabane it couldn't be a coincidence. I wonder how much I look like my father, whoever he is. Izzy shook the thought away and clicked a few more times, and then he had it. Kou Akabane's father was one Karma Akabane. And that name was on the Class 3E roster from thirty years ago. And even better, it looked as if Kou's mother, Manami Akabane, would have once been Manami Okuda, from the same class. The three of them and Kou's three younger siblings lived together in a good part of Kyoto. Of course, he'd need to do a little bit of actual hacking to confirm the identity of Kou's mother, as well as a few other tiny details. But still, it was a result.
"Karma Akabane…I've seen his name in the political sections of newspapers before." mused Kuroba. Izzy scrutinised the images of the redheaded man, noticing how the sensible amount of photos (that is to say, not so many that he was at risk of oversharing, but not so little that his Facebook page was pointless) were mostly relaxed family photographs, or smart professional ones with the man wearing formal buisnessy suits. Again, it reminded Izzy of things he didn't have.
"So either he's a politician or he has some other governmental job."
"From what I remember he didn't seem like a politician to me, so I'd vote for other government job."
"He probably knows a whole lot of things relating to the incidents if that's the case. Perfect blackmail material, don't you think, Sei-Chan?"
Isogai and Maehara would have been easier pickings, since they were nearer and had practically put themselves at the beck and call of the current 3E. Even Megu, far away in France, was only an email or a phone call away. But somehow, they were so nice that even Izzy would feel bad about blackmailing them. So he'd decided that in their case, he'd take a wait-and-see approach.
"Mhm." Kuroba agreed. "Admittedly, this man is your best bet. Or his wife, if it turns out she was Manami Okuda. But since you haven't even cross-checked the other names on the list, I wouldn't place all your bets on him. Besides, I have a feeling he'd be formidable if you did try to wrangle information from him. Not that would bother me, but I don't have death wishes and neither should you."
"Ah, Sei-Chan, you worry too much. But yeah, I might hit a jackpot with someone else, so I'll wait. " Flexing his fingers a little, he left Tada's Facebook page, then opened up the spreadsheet that he'd created and entered the new information he'd found. Then he looked at the names and wondered which one to check next. Suddenly, Kuroba's hands came to cover the screen.
"Izzy." Kuroba said in mock patience. "You recall that I came in here to get you for lunch?"
"So?" Izzy pouted.
"So come! You can't skip meals; it isn't good for you at all! And I am guessing you didn't even have breakfast today. So your lunch is even more important. We can have it outside, which takes care of another thing you need-fresh air. Which basically means, this isn't an option. We can come back to your searches after eating, if you so wish. " Kuroba actually tutted after he finished his mini-rant and this made Izzy crack up.
"Okay, okay!" he surrendered, saving his spreadsheets, logging out of the sites he'd logged into, and closing all programs. Once he'd shut down his laptop, he put it carefully into his laptop bag, then picked that and his bento box up.
"Okay, I'll come out and eat lunch. But I'm going straight back to this afterwards. I'm on a roll, you see!"
…
As the light of the setting sun filtered through the dojo room Eriko was currently in, she continued to strike at the dummy she was practising on, trying attacks from all angles. Normally, she wouldn't be practising so hard, given that she wasn't even going to run the dojo as an adult, but she was doing it for 3E. Some of the skills that you got from kendo could be just as useful in defending yourself against bullies as Tsukuda's hand-to-hand combat and Tada's 'sparring' were. She wanted to be as good as possible, so when 'her' P.E lessons came up, she'd be able to teach them properly. It was her duty as one of the three Class Representatives.
And naturally, knowing how to protect themselves would serve towards their overall purpose of breaking down the school system.
As the dummy span around and around after one particularly nasty hit, Eriko stopped for breath and silently bemoaned a lack of a proper partner to fight. All the other dojo workers were busy, and of course, her family weren't talking to her, so there was no way they'd practise with her. She was lucky that they'd allowed her to take their old wooden swords into school in the first place. Just being around them made her want to wallow in shame and humiliation, so asking them for something had been even worse.
"Don't let them force your head down, and don't give off an aura of despair, and that way you should be able to keep the respect of everyone else. "
The way Megu said those words, and the way her eyes settled into the middle distance, it seemed like she'd said words like these to others before, many times. But all the same, Eriko could feel the honesty in Megu. It was emanating off her, in the same way that guilt or grief or loneliness did. She just nodded, as they walked down the road.
"I said something similar to a boy once, when I was nearing the end of my year in 3E." Megu added, as if reading Eriko's mind. "He was in 2C at the time, but was preparing to become a member of 3E." She stopped at that, and got the wistful look on her face again, as if thinking back on that year.
"I agree with those words." Eriko declared. "I really do. In fact, that's what we're all trying to do, especially with our project. But…the reason I ended up in 3E. Every time I just think about it I just…I don't know."
She didn't know how to express the anger she felt over getting excluded for stopping Miki Otsuka from harassing the old lady. She didn't know how to rail against the fact that Miki Otsuka hadn't even been punished- she'd practically gotten rewarded, instead. And she certainly didn't know how to explain how draining that injustice was.
Megu stopped, and so Eriko did too. The older woman put her hands on Eriko's shoulders.
"You know something? When it comes to doing the right thing, part of it is just persistence. You just have to keep carrying on. Those words I said to you, and to that boy, about not letting them force your head down? It applies to the everyday act 'doing the right thing', too. So keep at it."
"Okay." Eriko said uncertainly. "Okay. I'll do that, Kataoka-san."
Megu nodded, pleased, and they continued walking.
"Besides, "Megu added, conversationally. " I'm starting to think that now, if you don't manage to change this system, then nobody will. And I think you will, because you're actually setting out to do it. Yuuma, Hiroto and I, we just thought it would happen inevitably, because of how we were different as a class. But in the end, that's not how it turned out. "
And we've all been beating ourselves up for it ever since, was the words left unspoken. There were other things floating around that were just as unspoken, but she didn't know what they were, as they were things clearly related to Megu's own personal history with 3E, things that she didn't know of, and most likely things that even Tada did not know of. Either way, whatever those things were, it was clearly a great contributing factor to the 'informal mentoring scheme' that Megu, Isogai and Maehara were running.
Eriko didn't know what to say to the sincerity that mixed itself in the raw shame and guilt she could feel in Megu. Class 3E was truly an awful creation, and the creation of it was definitely not the right thing. Both of them knew it. But Eriko didn't say anything, not wanting to accidentally make Megu recall more sad things, so she thanked her profusely, and then asked one more question.
"So, that boy you met that time? Did you manage to help him? Did he manage to persist?"
At this, Megu smiled, and she actually seemed happy, as if recalling something joyful, or rather, something that was hopeful.
"You know what?" she said, her grin growing ever wider. "I think he did."
As Eriko recalled the conversation they'd had that day- the day after the 'Ending the End Class' meeting, and the day before Megu had left Japan to return to France- she stopped the dummy from spinning. Then, she adjusted her clothes, picked up her kendo sword, and adjusted the pose of the dummy. After this, she stepped back an appropriate distance, and got into the start stance.
"I'm going to keep my head up. And I'm going to keep on doing the right thing. "And while I'm at it, I'll break this system. Both for my class's sake, and for Kataoka-san's sake.
And with that declaration, she charged at the dummy in the sunset-stained dojo, ready to attack.
The conversation Megu tells Eriko about in the flashback was adapted (and somewhat paraphrased)from Chapter 113 of the Assassination Classroom fanfiction 'Judecca' by Adamant. That happens to be an incredibly intricate, intelligent and thoughtful fanfiction, and I recommend you all read it. Not in one sitting though. There are about 117 chapters at the last count. 117! Also, I tried to read it all in one sitting myself and failed horribly. But definitely read it. However, the point I was trying to make is that Adamant was kind enough to allow me to use that particular chapter of their fanfic as stimulus for various aspects of this one, and even gave me permission to use the OC they created for that chapter, who is the boy Eriko gets told about. He'll make his own appearances a fair bit later, so when that happens, I'll credit that OC properly then. Thank you very much, Adamant!
It occurred to me as AssClass's events presumably take place in the 2014/2015 school year or something near to that, then social media would have changed a lot between then and the events of these fics. But coming up with fictional 'new' sites is a little beyond my capabilities, so I'll just keep referring to the current social media sites for now. Also, I kinda glossed over Haru's explosion in the home economics scene because quite frankly, I am a prude. I understand that people do swear out loud and stuff in frustration, etc (indeed, I swear in the privacy of my own head), and I know that sometimes it can make a character's voice/ feelings authentic. But it feels super weird writing it, so I limit myself to sporadic outbursts here and there rather than the 'stream' I described. I'm working on that particular aspect of my prudishness though. I promise.
Also, I just couldn't resist hinting that Kou Akabane (my OC who is indeed the eldest son of Karma and Manami- you might remember his 5-year-old form from 'That Moment Onwards' and some of his outstanding traits from that) is obsessed with Hibike! Euphonium. It feels fitting, somehow. And when he gets his own appearance in this fic, maybe you'll see why ehehe.
Ah! You might remember that I said that the scenes in the chapter didn't take place on the same day? Did you notice how I arranged the scenes to seem as if they could have taken place on the same day anyway? It's an idea that I'm toying with for character development/filler chapters that I don't already have a specific agenda for. What do you think of the setup? Do let me know.
And I think I'll leave the author's note here, because I'm clearly in a chatty mood and need mental restraining. So, again, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please leave feedback, as usual!
