25. Yuuma Isogai: Icarus Flies Again (1/1)

April 7, the first day of school

Behind our run-down old school building, there's a concrete set of stairs that go down to an overgrown athletic field surrounded by trees. Everyone else is in the classroom, waiting for the first day to start, and the windows in there only look out the front, so these stairs seem like a good place to sit and regret your life choices. I don't want anyone to see if my composure slips.

Social studies is my strong suit, so I know quite well. There are several hurdles you need to clear in order to make it into one of the top universities, and then into one of the top jobs. And I'm aiming for the very, very top. Fail at any of those hurdles, and that's the end. Statistically speaking, the chances of coming back from that is practically zero for someone from a poor family like me. I thought I was on track. My final exam scores last year were close to the top quartile of one of the top schools in the country. Then I made a mistake.

And now I'm here.

"Isogai!" Glancing over my shoulder, I see my best friend jogging out of the building towards me. Now that I think about it, he's probably my only friend at this point.

I straighten up. "Maehara." I greet, as he takes a seat next to me.

He leans back on one elbow. "I got worried when you didn't come right back. You kinda left in a hurry."

I came to my new classroom, and in it I saw slackers, delinquents, punks. I was one of them, and it made me sick to my stomach. That's when it hit home, that my life was not going to take the trajectory I had intended. All my hard work was for nothing.

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit." He barks, smacking my arm. "I know you a lot better than that. You didn't even come in the room, you just looked in and left. You wouldn't run away like that unless it was really bad."

My mouth twitches. I didn't run away, I walked, Maehara. How about minding your own business? "I said I'm fine. I'll be back in a few minutes. I just needed some fresh air."

He pauses, looking like he's about to leave. But he decides to stay. "I'm just worried about you, man. I didn't think you'd end up here. Me, sure, saw that one coming. You don't… I mean, what happened?"

I don't want to talk about it. We stare at each other for a long time, but he doesn't back down. I look away first and sigh. Really, what have I got to lose at this point? "…Have you heard the official story?" Of course, there was a reason given, but rumors have still been flying about my surprise demotion. If he believes any of them, I have no more to say to him.

He shrugs. "Not much. Well, I'm sure most of it isn't true. It was because you're not allowed to hold a part-time job, right? I heard the board chairman called you in and sent you down here himself, and that it had nothing to do with your grades."

I pull my knees up. "That's right." There's a tightness in my chest. "He said that he wanted to increase the other student's motivation to stay in line by showing that anyone could end up here." This could be the end for me. "And he chose me because my father asked him to. He was the one who told them about my job."

Maehara's jaw drops open. "Yuuma. He… Why!? How could he!?" Betray me like that? It seemed rather easy for him, actually.

I look out at the treeline, feeling numb from emotional overload. "It was a punishment. My parents, as you know, are very conservative. They believe strongly in the cultural ideals of a man. Always courteous, always presentable, financially and emotionally independent, employed as a salaryman at a company where he'll work his entire life, in a stable marriage with at least one child. No odd habits, no scandals, no weakness."

There's a tingling in my hands and my scalp. "…I told them I'm gay."

My friend's jaw is working, but no sound comes out for a while. "Dude, you're not… to me?"

I laugh, though I can almost hear a cry in it. "No. I'm not so desperate that I'd be interested in a skirt-chaser like you."

"Ah, harsh, man." He puts a hand to his chest in mock hurt. "And here I'm just trying to be there for my friend." He says lightly, but I'm sure he's relieved nonetheless.

"Well, neither of us have too many friends to pick from right now, do we?"

"Speak for yourself, I've still got Aki to spend time with."

"…I thought you were dating Chiyoko from class D."

"Nah, we broke up a couple weeks ago." He scratches his cheek with a little smile. Apparently, ending that particular relationship didn't bother him any more than the others did.

I chuckle. Before I noticed it, all my fear had drained away. He's a complete opposite from me. Maybe that's why I find him so refreshing to be around. "Hiroto… Never change."

We sit together in silence for a while longer before returning to the classroom. For some reason, the teacher isn't there yet, even though homeroom should have started. Everyone's murmuring in confusion, and a couple ask if we know anything, which of course we don't.

I take a seat in the front row. I don't know if I can salvage my dream of becoming a business executive and putting my fair trade ideas into practice, but for now I'm ready to try. If I work hard enough, maybe I can even return to the main school. I have nothing better to do than to try. My world's been turned on its head, and I'm standing on the ceiling. It can't get any worse than this, can it?

Then the classroom door slides open, and the world turns sideways.

I guess it's about time to do this one. I mentioned a long time ago that I wanted to pick one of the characters to be gay, and Isogai was my choice. Now, here's my reasoning for why him. Isogai seems to try never to show weakness or disappointment. He's okay with showing exasperation, but when he's failed he doesn't wear his emotion on his shoulder as much as other characters do. He's also fairly formal, and wears the full three piece school uniform, while almost everyone else leaves out one of the parts. This suggests to me that he comes from a conservative family, which would make him a good candidate for the scenario I created in this chapter.

Originally, I thought he came from money, given that he wanted to go into business. Then the manga claimed that his family was poor, though that may have been a lie given the context. Well, for my purposes making him poor is even better. It also explains why he scores so high in every physical and academic test. He's driven to be a social climber. I have no doubt that falling into class E, no matter what the canon reason is, would hurt him much more than anyone else because it would likely mean losing his goals forever. Kunugigaoka's high school division is extremely high ranked. Because it's an escalator school (where middle schoolers transition directly into high school without having to take an entrance exam) failing to advance would look extremely bad on any high school application, regardless of grades.

And yeah, I cut off the chapter right when the students first meet Koro-sensei. The world turning sideways really doesn't begin to describe that.