So...has anyone ever gone into an exam and forgotten most if not all the things they needed to know for it? This is is what happened to me on Tuesday with the topic I'd studied for the unseen essay portion of the exam...*sigh* On the bright side, the multiple choice questions were not that bad...meh, anyway, enough about me- here is the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy it! I certainly enjoyed writing it (it made me feel better about life, that is for sure)!


Sugaya was rearranging some displays that afternoon when Reimiya, Ayako, Akira and Hana came in looking for him, so he didn't notice them at first. But one of his part time workers, a merry natured high school girl called Aimi Tomoki, had spotted them, and their chattering soon caught his attention, so he left what he was doing and went over to where they were.

"Ah, back again, I see?" he said cheerily. "More browsing? I put some new stuff up since the last time, right, Aimi-Chan?"

"Yup!" she agreed happily, a lock of long blond hair falling over her face. She tucked it back behind her ear and grinned again.

"We might take a look later, Sugaya-san, but truth is, we're here for more posters!" Ayako proclaimed. Akira punctuated this by pulling out a couple of plastic wallets out of her school bag.

"Ah, cool. What are they for this time? For the project?"

"Yes and no," Ayako replied. "They're adverts for our school festival attraction."

"Oh yeah!" Sugaya mentally face palmed. "It's coming up to that time of year already! What are you going to be doing? A forest ramen restaurant like our class did? Did you know about that anyway?"

"Yeah, Tada-san mentioned that." Akira nodded.

"But we're not doing that. Well, not completely. We're doing a museum." Hana proclaimed. "A museum about us, and 3E in general."

The way she said this, and the way her eyes shone as she did, told Sugaya that the museum had been an idea put forward by little Hana. Somehow, he did not find this surprising at all.

"Oooh, that's uniqu-wait. Wait, wait, wait!" Tomoki's pale green eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head as she stared at the four girls. They all looked at back at her, confused. Huh? Sugaya was not any less confused.

"3E….Oh my gosh, you guys are the 'Ending the End Class' 3E, aren't you?" she asked eagerly. Ah, of course. Silly me, forgetting that.

"Yes…." Ayako said, looking a little bowled over by Tomoki's enthusiasm, which said something, given that Ayako was a bit of a force of nature herself.

"That's…wow, that's so cool!" Tomoki exclaimed. "I can't really say much about what I think of your project though, because truth be told the last time I heard about it I didn't really pay much attention to it before forgetting it again until now, but yeah. I'm happy that you're all doing it. "

"Thanks!" Ayako grinned back. "Perhaps you should look us up properly."

"Oh, I will!" Tomoki said cheerfully. She then took out her small sketchbook from her pocket and flipped to a new page, taking the pencil out from the spiral binding, and once again the four girls were left looking stumped as she began to sketch.

"Aimi-Chan, think you're up to manning the till for me?" Sugaya asked, chuckling. Aimi paused and looked up at him, smiling sheepishly.

"Ah, yeah, posters! Right, sure!" Aimi saluted him and the girls with the hand holding the sketchbook. "Good luck with the museum!"

"Thank you!" Hana said for all of them as they went behind the till and into his office. He noticed how messy it was and shoved some of the paperwork to a side. Paperwork was boring, but necessary. But these guys were more important to him, and so he'd do that later.

"So," he said as he set up chairs for them and then got the computer going. "What is it you need to advertise?"

"Well first, we need a poster to reach the 3E alumni, to apply for the museum." Hana explained. "We can reach a lot of people through Isogai-san and the others, like you and Fumiko-sempai, for example. But others from classes before they started to mentor, or those who perhaps were not able to be reached by them before, we need another way of getting to them, right?"

"I've already done a little online thing, via the blog." Ayako said, showing him it on her phone. "This is just to supplement it."

"And we were also thinking that we should do the general advert for the festival here now as well." Akira put in. "So what we'd be handing out once we've got all our so called 'museum attractions' and the school festival is nearly upon us. So, to get people to the museum itself. "

"If that isn't too much trouble, that is?" Reimiya finished up. Sugaya shook his head.

"No, no, that's fine. So, let's get cracking, shall we? I can see that you brought along some ideas already-ah, and Ayako-Chan, keep that page up on your phone, okay? I think it'll be good to have that as a reference."

With that, they spent a few good hours pulling together the two different posters that the class needed and tweaking the design, and as they did so they chatted, and Sugaya found out that not only was the museum Hana's brainchild, but that they'd already managed to get a few people from the thirty years ago 3E on-board to be 'museum attractions', including Isogai, Maehara and Megu, as well as Karma and Manami. And they'd also already managed to talk to a few outside of that, too.

"So," he said casually. "Don't suppose that I could be a part of the museum too?"

"Well, sure!" Ayako agreed. "What do you think, guys?"

"I can't imagine why we'd do otherwise." Reimiya said.

"I'm sure Tada-san and the others would agree with that." Akira put in.

"Coolio. So," he said as he clicked and dragged things on the screen. "What stuff do you need from me?"

"A photo of you now, a photo from back then-for you, since you were in Tada-san's mum's class, we're using the class album for that- and some information about you getting from 3E to here. And any other bits you want to bring in to go with that. "Hana answered.

The photo album? That same one we all made as a class? He figured it was a slightly stupid question, so he decided not to ask it. Even so, he wondered. If it's that particular album, being shown to that particular class…..ah, I don't know. I'll think about it later.

"I could bring along some of the shop displays that we're not using. Would that count as something?"

"Exactly! And, I don't think it'd be too much of an issue if you brought along some business cards or something, for this shop."

"That can be done." Sugaya said. He paused for a moment to locate a post-it note and his fish-shaped pen, and scribbled a note about the museum. Then, they got straight back to work.

When they were finished, he printed off both A4 versions and smaller hand-out versions of the poster that was asking former 3E members to apply to the museum, and they decided that he would save the actual museum adverts for when it was nearing the time to get people to attend.

"Thank you so much!" Hana said for all of them as they left, Sugaya personally seeing them out of the door.

"Not a problem!" he said, because of course it wasn't. Once they left, he walked over to the great painting and looked at it. I think you'd all agree with me, right? I'm sure you would. Aimi came up to him and stood next to him for a moment, and she looked at the painting without saying anything for a while.

"You know, I think this is my favourite thing out of all the things you've made in this shop. "

"It's mine, too." Sugaya looked at his part time worker, and thought of something. "Come back to the till a moment."

"Hmm?" Aimi tilted her head curiously and she followed him to the till, where he had left his copies of the printed out posters, and he plucked one of the handouts from the pile, before then handing the two A4 ones to her along with it.

"Stick the two larger ones where you think they'll be best placed. And the small one…well, keep it yourself."

Aimi frowned at the posters, then began to read the smaller one. It did not take long for a huge smile to spread over her face, and she nodded once at the poster before tucking it carefully into her sketchbook. Sugaya chuckled at her choice of storage place, but knew that was the place it would be the safest. Once it was safe, she beamed up at him.

"Right, I'm on it!" she saluted him, and then ran off. He chuckled again, and then sat down behind the till. I can't wait to see the museum and how it turns out.

"A museum?"

With some difficulty, Hasegawa and the others all crowded around Fujimura's phone, which was open on the Ending the End Class blog. Why the hell did he not bring in his laptop? He didn't bother entertaining that thought though, because he knew that it was being repaired- it was just the frustration of it that made him think of it, so instead he just asked Fujimura to hand him the phone and he looked at the post. It was a poster-type advert, apparently asking for help from any former 3E members in relation to the museum.

"Surely that's not allowed?" Otonashi frowned. "I mean, it's a school festival."

"You forget we're in Kunugigaoka, Otonashi-kun." Hasegawa patiently said. "The school festival is more than just that for each class. It's a chance to set yourself up in good stead for the future- not just in terms of the skills that you get from handling the attraction your class is handling, but in terms of contacts. And if you can get sponsors to help bear the costs, even better. You should know this."

"Yeah, I guess because it's them I didn't think of it this way…"

"That's true, that's true!" Otsuka clucked. "If only we'd known about this earlier though, perhaps we could have made them back out or something. Damn that stupid stutterer, going and getting himself caught."

"We'll just have to manage without him." Hasegawa said simply, hiding his annoyance. In truth, he felt the same as Otsuka did. He had not heard anything from Hidaka for a few weeks, and then he'd happened to see Hidaka bump into some of his classmates one morning on the way to school and flinch, looking ashamed, and that had told him everything he'd needed to know. It was a shame, for he had been useful for a while, but that had clearly been outlived and so he put it behind him. Simple as. And as Hidaka hadn't performed well enough to even get back to the main campus the typical way, as the Aida who'd refused him had done, that just proved his point further. Really pitiful.

"So….what will we do about this?" Maeda asked. "Can we just leave them to it?"

"I…hmm…." Hasegawa studied the advertisement. Museum. What are they thinking they'll achieve with something like that, exactly?

"Well, museums kinda have a reputation for being fusty and old-person centred, right? And being up there, that's kind of a bad combination. So it could easily be said that they're being stupid!" Maeda suggested.

"I'd argue that museums are a great educational resource but yes, I get it." Fujimura nodded. "It would be easy to discourage people from going, at least those we can reach. "

"Exactly." Hasegawa agreed. Though, a museum's a pretty original idea for a school festival. And though I am not going to help them by visiting it, I sort of want to see how it will work out.

"Plus, from the sounds of it, it's a museum centred on freaking 3E students! Who in their right minds would pick a bunch of losers as their attraction!?" Otsuka sniggered.

"Exactly!" Maeda crowed.

"Still," Otonashi put in. "I don't see why we can't achieve that by promoting the main campus attractions, or at least our class's one, so that it goes above theirs. We can't just deride them, it won't mean anything if we don't have something really spectacular to counter it. Does that make sense?"

"I guess…." Fujimura, Otsuka and Maeda frowned. Good, yes, that makes sense. It's not as if this 3E is completely weak after all. They seem to keep bouncing back and bouncing back. They, along with Otonashi, then turned to look at him, and he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before delivering his verdict.

"We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

Satoru Nigita, from the 3E of 29 years ago, came right up to the campus to see them at lunchtime. Somewhat unexpectedly, Isogai came along too. When they had come, Ichijou had looked a little dazed upon their arrival, and had remarked that she'd probably need to start getting used to unexpected visitors-Sugaya with the art displays and a current photo for them to store, Oshiro coming along to refresh his memory about the campus (for he had also offered to be one of the ones to help with the heavy lifting) bringing along Kousuke Sawada for them to meet and more recently, Izzy's rather amazingly whirlwind-esque neighbours Yuuya and Naoya (who had ended up Ruko's new real-life OTP by the time they had left) - and had hurriedly retired to the staffroom with reiterations that if she was needed, she was to be fetched immediately. Either way, it did not take long for all of them to gravitate around Isogai with questions and greetings and the collective fondness and gratitude they all had for him, and it was truly a sight to see.

"Woah, "Isogai laughed, holding his hands up in mock surrender. "This feels like being a middle schooler again!"

"Oh, sorry! Did we crowd you much?" Ayako stepped back a little and laughed, and Isogai laughed with her.

"No, no, it's fine." Isogai laughed.

"Apparently Isogai was incredibly popular with the entire school." Tada told them, thinking of the many stories he had been told by his mother, and then more recently by Isogai, Megu and Maehara. "But of course, being a lifelong Ikemen means he'll downplay it all."

"Ah, I don't think I was that great…"

"Ah! Tada's right!" Tsukuda grinned, pointing at him dramatically. "You are downplaying it!"

"You guys seem like a merry class." Nigita, who hadn't said anything until that point, commented. His pale green-grey eyes sparkled as he took them in. Yeah, we are. Even the more onlooker-ish types like Yukiyama and Kitabayashi were merry. Only Hidaka was hesitant, but though Tada felt bad he found himself unable to easily reach out and pull him in as he had done so before, and this made him feel a little bad, even as he quashed it.

"That's one way of putting it. Thanks so much for coming all the way up here to meet us, Nigita-san." Eriko said gratefully, stepping forward on behalf of them all, as she had been the one to have contacted him in the first place.

"Ah, it's not a problem. I'm happy you even decided to request my help on this. This campus seems to have changed quite a bit, but at the same time it really hasn't." he mused.

"Wait!" All eyes turned to Tsuwabuki, who was staring at Nigita with a puzzled look. "I recognise you…I think?"

Nigita tipped his head in confusion, a gesture that made him seem youthful as he considered this, and then his face cleared.

"Aha! Tsuwabuki-san's son! Daichi-kun, was it?"

"Yes!" Tsuwabuki nodded vigorously at this. Nigita grinned. Well, this is unexpected.

"Well, you've grown a lot since the last time I saw you with your father. You were this small the last time I saw you." Nigita indicated this with his hand. "How is he, anyway?"

"Meh…." Tsuwabuki considered. "Could be better, but he's mostly fine."

"That's good to hear, that is."

"You two know each other?" Eriko asked, flabbergasted. "I didn't know that!"

"Well, it's not so much we know each other as such, more that I've only met him a couple of times before, right, Nigita-san?"

"Yes, that's right. I've worked with Daichi-kun's father before, at Tokyo University."

"Ah, so are you a palaeontologist too?" Kinomoto asked. Nigita shook his head at that as he sat down on the seat Eriko had pulled out. Isogai, observing, went and perched on Fuyumi's desk, earning a kind smile from the girl as he did so.

"No, an archaeologist. But our careers have crossed over a lot-to put it simply, mainly because we both have a lot of digging to do. But with that being said, in recent years, I've mainly been lecturing younger students on how digs work and the history behind things they may discover, rather than actually going out on digs and making new discoveries myself, but I'm pretty content with that, really. I'd always assumed that actual archaeology would be little more than a fanciful career for me, so the fact that in a sense, I'm still doing it is pretty great to me."

There was a warmth and happiness in Nigita's voice as he said this, a fundamental belief in the good of the world. He was truly content in the life he had created for himself and was able to weather the bad by holding on tightly to what was good, and not forgetting it. The type of adult we should all be, I guess. As he continued to talk more, he settled his bag on his lap and pulled out a few items.

"Okay," he said after he'd explained a little more about his career and how he'd ended up there. "Eriko-Chan-and Kataoka-sempai too actually- mentioned that you'd need pictures, one of me now and one from when I was in that year. I managed to find a good candid one from my 3E year, but the present day one is just the university website one- I hope that's okay? I also brought along some photographs and photocopies of paper abstracts that you could use, too."

"Ah, this is fine, perfect, really." Tada took the two photos of Nigita while Eriko looked through the other things. The photo of the middle schooler Nigita showed a boy with short straight dark-green hair that curled slightly at the ends, staring into the camera with a honest smile, his uniform clean and pressed. He had a youthful, honest air about him, which remained in both the live present-day version of Nigita and the photographic version. The only real physical differences were that as an adult, Nigita's cowlicks were not as prominent and some of the childish softness about his face had gone.

"Why are there only abstracts of these papers?" Kinomoto asked, having gone over with a few of the others to look at the papers Eriko was looking for.

"It's a copyright thing." Tsukuda said before Nigita could answer. "You're not really meant to share out journal articles to random members of the public. You either have to pay upfront, be a subscriber or attend a university that allows you access to the paper in order to do that, pretty much."

"That strikes me as a bit stupid." Hirigi remarked.

"It is," Nigita agreed, "But it's the rules."

"That's right." Tada conceded. "Even Manami-san said the same thing to me, which is only why she emailed me PDFs that contained the abstracts."

"Pfft." Was all Hirigi had to say in response to this.

Tada handed over the two photographs of Nigita to Eriko, who then carefully tidied the pile of things that Nigita had given them before going over to Fuyumi, who took out a new paperclip, a sticky label, a pen and a plastic wallet.

"Yukimura-san is our admin, in a sense." Eriko told Nigita. "She sorts out all the little details for us and keeps things organised."

Nigita nodded approvingly as he watched Fuyumi at work, putting all his things together and then slipping it in with the various notes for other people that she already had.

"I like that." He said. "Which reminds me, I hope you don't mind me troubling you further by giving you one more person to add to your museum?"

"That's no problem at all." Fuyumi smiled. "It's actually quite helpful."

"Who is this person you want to add?" Hana asked.

"My friend, a classmate from the same class as me. Sayo Okazaki. She couldn't come with me, she's pretty busy at the international school she teaches in, but she sent me some photos for me to bring in, the brochure for her school and also her contact details. Oh, and one of her exams."

"One of her exams?" Tada quizzically echoed.

"Yeah. Okazaki-san heard about a boy in Kataoka-sempai's class….yours too, obviously, Isogai-sempai." Isogai nodded at the acknowledgment and Nigita continued. "He took the Kunugigaoka High transfer students exam and passed with flying colours, so she had ideas about doing the same, and managed to. She was one of the high achievers too, which she was pretty proud of. "

"Ahh, so she fell under the spell of Karma-san." When Nigita looked at him quizzically, he sweat dropped. "My friend's dad is the person you're talking about, who inspired your classmate. He was….kinda fiendish. Legendary. Still is, actually. My friend takes after him."

"That description is apt." Isogai laughed.

"I've not met Akabane-san's father so I obviously don't know for sure….but since we've all encountered Akabane-san himself….. I say I agree with that." Eriko shuddered. Kaori patted her shoulder sympathetically.

"Ah," Nigita said simply, before handing over the leaflet, exam paper and the two photos to Fuyumi. Knowing they were curious, Fuyumi held up the two photographs, showing a freckle-faced, confident looking female sporting a lilac pixie-cut. Tada wondered what she was like.

"Ah, the contact details. Okazaki-san said she'd probably email you herself, but she doesn't mind one of you making the first move, as it were. So, should I give them to one of you guys or to Mission Control over here?"

Fuyumi beamed at the 'Mission Control' label, and pointed over to Tada.

"The Representatives and Aoshima-san are handling most of the contacting-3E alumni matters. I just store everything, make notes and keep it all in order."

"That sounds fine to me." Nigita said, handing the small card over to Tada, who pocketed it.

"All this reminds me I have a couple of details to pass on too." Isogai piped up. "I got into contact with one of the members of the 3E of 15 years ago- his name is Seiji Kashima. He didn't know about the project, but now he does, so he's looking into it and seeing what it's about himself. He's especially interested because he still has a sister in the school- your year, actually. He said he'll definitely come and help you with the set-up for sure, so he'll contact you, but I figured I could just give you a heads-up about him. "

"Cool." Tada nodded. "Don't suppose you have any pictures?"

"Well….his time in Kunugigaoka wasn't…the best time for him, I guess. He knows he has some photos from the time period at his parents' house, and as for recent ones, the best one is here."

Isogai took out his phone and clicked a few times, then brought up a website that seemed to relate to a charity for putting young offenders back on track. The picture was one of many on a page about different events, and the one that showed Seiji Kashima was one where he was surrounded by teenagers of different ages. The man was muscular and slightly tan, and looked weary even as he smiled along with the teenagers-a lot older than his years, his hazel eyes notably surrounded by wrinkles that shouldn't have been there. Isogai looked a little sad as he himself re-studied the picture. Tada mentally noted the web address, so that they could get the picture later, and noticed Eriko writing it down too.

"He does good work here. He hasn't had things easy, and admittedly some of his undoing was done by Kashima-kun himself….but he told me to tell you that even though that's the case, he definitely supports you and wants to help."

"What did he do that's so bad, then?" Ayako wanted to know. Isogai was about to answer, but then hesitated.

"It's okay, you don't need to tell us. If he wants to, then he can. "Tada reassured. "But, you mentioned he had a sister on the main campus?"

"There was a Kashima in our class last year, remember, Tada?" Tsukuda said.

"Uhhh….."

"Does that even matter though?" Kuroba asked.

"Not as such….I'm just curious about it." Tada said, shrugging, slightly embarrassed.

"It's understandable to be." Hana commented. No doubt she was thinking of her own brother, and Asami too. "And…whatever bad thing he's done, this museum could be the thing to allow him to feel he's forgiven. Isogai-san, will you pass that onto Kashima-san?"

Isogai inclined his head respectfully.

"Of course." He agreed. There was a moment of silence, and then he thought of something.

"Ah, Tada-kun, you mentioned to me that you were going to Matsuraiken to ask for the recipe for the ramen we did during our own school festival. When will you be going? If need be, I could take you."

"You don't need to do that, Yuuma-san. I know how to get there. I'm going to go today, and I'm taking Akira-Chan, Haru-Chan and Hirigi-kun too- right, guys?"

"Yep!" Hirigi said for all of them.

"We decided that for whatever isn't accounted for by Fumiko-sempai's snacks and the sweet treats Tada-kun'll make for the last day of the festival would be made up for by the attraction of the forest ramen. " Haru explained. "And since we all know how to cook, we'll take care of that."

"I see, I see." Isogai nodded. "Then, what about Terasaka? That's a bit further out, and I won't have time to get my car to drive any of you there, but Hiroto wants you to know that he could if you were going to take up that offer. Just tell him when you're going."

"We could do that today as well." Eriko said. "I don't mind going. But maybe a couple of others should come with me too. It'll make more sense to. "

"Then I will come." Hana said, quiet but firm. Eriko nodded at that.

"C-Could I come along, too?"

"Miya-Chan?!" Reno's shock echoed all their thoughts, not having expected that.

"I want to go. I'd like to actually help in bringing people to the museum. "She earnestly said.

"B-but it's a mechanic's place. And it's far away! I don't even know where you'll be or anything!" Reno protested.

"An auto repair shop is not the criminal underground, you know." Ruko deadpanned. Reno narrowed his eyes at her snarkily.

"That isn't what I meant." He sighed heavily.

"And in any case, Maehara-san be the one taking us." Reimiya said to try and reassure him. It didn't seem to work, for Reno looked ready to tear out his own hair.

"At least let me come with you, then!"

"I don't mind that-" Eriko started, but Reimiya firmly shook her head.

"Y-You have cleaning duty anyway, Reno. It wouldn't be fair to swap with someone else whose had it recently." Her eyes had a resolve around them, and so Tada knew that what she meant was 'I can do this myself, give me the chance'. And naturally, Reno saw this, because his shoulders slumped and he shrugged heavily.

"Okay, fine. Fine. "He smiled at Reimiya, and ruffled her hair. She smiled sunnily up at him.

"Okay so it will be me, Hana-san and Reimiya-san going over to visit this Terasaka-san." Eriko proclaimed. "Tada-san, will you give a message to Hiroto-san."

"Sure." Tada said, getting his phone out to do just that.

"Well, I don't want to take up more of your time when you've got things to do, and I have some other bits that need doing, so I will be off then. If you need any more help, let one of us know, okay?"

"The same goes with me." Nigita said, having been silent for a while now. "You have my details, otherwise you can get me via Kataoka-sempai or Eriko-Chan. Good luck with the museum. "

"Thank you!" Tada said. He went out with Tsukuda and Hana to walk Nigita and Isogai to the door, and then they came back in and sat down to discuss the next set of plans for the museum and have lunch while doing so.


Supplementary OCs introduced this chapter:

-Aimi Tomoki (belongs to: AliceKuroNeko)-Seiji Kashima (belongs to: CrazyRabbit2)- actually, this was another iffy case just like with how I initially introduced Kinomoto, but I describe Seiji in quite some detail in this chapter, so again, I figured it counts. But of course, he will get his first appearance in due time.

(((Also, because this site doesn't seem to like Seiji's creator penname, as exhibited by the last chapter where Yukine was introduced, I wrote it slightly differently this time. )))

Also, though he isn't one of the OCs I gained via the supplementary SYOC, Satoru Nigita is not one of my own. Rather, he was very kindly given to me by Adamant, the author of 'Judecca' which is currently the fanfic with the most chapters in this fandom's archive, and also one of the most amazing. If any of you remember the 'Bread and Soup' chapter, you'll notice that Nigita was referred to there as well, though not by name, and I've also explained what part of Judecca I borrowed him from in the authors note of that chapter. Anyway, again, many thanks to Adamant for allowing me to use this OC! ((If you are reading this, I hope you like the reason I asked for him))

((And to everyone else, if you have yet to start reading 'Judecca', then hurry up and do it. Rather than having a 'notice me, sempai!' moment, this is a very major 'everybody, notice sempai!' moment, so yeah. Check it out. ))

In any case, though not much happened in this (all things considered, especially when I think of some of the things that'll happen in this arc), I hope you found this chapter interesting anyway, and that you liked it. As always, please do leave feedback!