~oOoOo~
9:15am
The following Saturday morning was intensely hot. A drowsy silence fell over the Suzuki campus, but a pleasant sort of warm silence that one could fall into.
Kirihara sat wistfully staring out the window of the physics classroom at the sunshine, for today was his and Kamio's first week of detention, starting at nine o'clock in the morning and lasting for twelve whole hours. How that was even legal was anyone's guess. But boarding schools can do whatever they want. Kamio didn't spare the beautiful day a glance; perhaps not because he didn't care that he was missing out, but because looking wistful would only remind them both whose fault it really was that they were here.
Both boys were currently dying of boredom. Kirihara especially was having a difficult time sitting still. Neither had been allowed any form of entertainment, including conversation with one another, the teacher, or even school work. The day was to be spent in meditative contemplation of the wrong nature of their ways.
The only positive thing seemed to be that the teacher looked nearly as bored as the two of them were. She sat with one cheek resting on her palm, staring blankly at her computer screen, but not really doing anything. If watched closely, she could be seen shooting longing glances at the teacher's lounge which was just across the hall. Finally she clicked her tongue and stood up.
"I'm going to get coffee. I'll be back in five minutes. You don't move. You don't speak. You don't do anything other than think about why you are here. It's important for you to understand exactly why you are in detention for you to obtain the full benefits from it. When I come back if you've moved…." She trailed off, daring them to ask what would happen if they moved. When they didn't, she seemed slightly disappointed. "Everything understood? Any questions?"
"Yeah, quick question." Kamio asked.
"What?"
"Why are you speaking to us in English?"
"I'm speaking to both of you in English because it's his worst subject." She jerked her head toward Kirihara.
Kirihara frowned. "How did you know that?"
"You all took surveys at the beginning of the year, remember?"
"Those were supposed to be anonymous!"
"Didn't you notice that the first question was 'name'?"
They both pondered for a minute.
"…how did I not catch that?"*
"Doesn't surplise me." She said nastily. "Anything else you'd rike to know?"
Kirihara snickered at her Asian inversion of the "r" and "l" sound.
"Just because of that, I'm adding one detention to the ones you have! Kamio, too!" She shouted, careful not to use any "r's" or "l's" this time.
But I didn't do anything!" Kamio tried tiredly.
"Since when has that ever mattered?" Kirihara pointed out.
Kamio let his head drop onto the desk with a solid thud.
"One detention in addition now." She said.
Kamio didn't even look up.
The teacher finally shot one last warning look at Kirihara and left the room, after carefully propping the door into a wide-open position, so that she would be able to see if they left the classroom.
"Oh come on Kamio, it's just extra time to hang with me, how bad could it be?"
Kamio's body slumped out of its seat and landed heavily on the floor.
XxX
Kamio revived about half an hour later when the teacher had still not returned from her coffee break.
"Alright?" Kirihara asked.
Kamio said nothing but withdrew a sheet of notebook paper and a pen from his backpack.
"What are you doing?"
"By the looks of it, every one of our Saturdays for the rest of the year is going to be spent in here. I'm going to write a letter to the tennis coach. Even if I'm stuck here with you, I shouldn't have to miss out on the entire season."
"You think he'll accept your one-day-a-week absence?"
"I hope."
"That's never going to work. You have a bad reputation now. Who gets detention on the first day of school?"
The tip of Kamio's pencil snapped off from a pressure overload.
"It's a good thing." Kirihara assured him. "Ever since I first met you, I've seen your potential to become a master of the badass arts. This is just the beginning."
"Do you go around scoping peoples' abilities and determining how good they would be at any given situation?"
"Don't you?"
Kamio rolled his eyes and repositioned his pencil on the first line of his paper. He wrote:
Dear Mr.
Then stopped.
"Dude, what's the tennis coach's name?" Kamio asked, realizing for the first time that he had no clue.
"How the hell would I know? I didn't even know who Yukimura was until after my first six months at Rikkaidai."
"Then who do I address it to?!" Kamio snapped.
"Who cares? Your excuse won't be accepted anyway." Kirihara's voice took on a depressed quality. "God, how long have we been in here? Must have been at least......" He checked his watch. "....twenty-three minutes...."
"Dear Mr. Blank," Kamio dictated softly, writing on his paper, "tennis is very....."
"What a great beginning. He'll be hooked in no time."
Kamio furrowed his brow and erased this line. "Tennis is something that...."
"What a great beginning. You're good as hell at this."
Kamio erased it. "For me, tennis is rather...."
"Now that's a good one! Hook him by giving a heartwrenching account!"
"Want to shut the hell up?" Kamio shouted.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Shiosake heard his scream and came running back into the room.
"Way to go, Akira." Kirihara said.
Kamio was too preoccupied by Mrs. Shiosake's wrath to notice the use of the first name. "I told you not to say a word." She spat, literally quivering. "I don't even know why I'm surprised that you couldn't follow the rule! Am I going to have to separate the two of you into different rooms for this detention?"
"No, ma'am!" Kirihara said immediately.
"What's that!?" she added, noticing the paper in front of Kamio. He made a move to hide it away, but she snatched it from his hand and held it up to read.
"For me, tennis is rather." She read. "What a compelling beginning."
Kamio blushed deeply and Kirihara felt a stab of pity though he had been making fun of it thirty seconds ago.
"Well, this does it." she said triumphantly, folding up the letter. "I told you not to do anything but consider why you are being punished, and this is proof that you were working on other things. It's off to the principal's office with you."
"Sweet." Kamio was personally quite glad to put distance between himself and Kirihara.
"You, Kirihara," barked the teacher, "you stay here. When I come back, if you've moved, it will only be more trouble for you. You stay still and do nothing, is that absolutely clear? Any questions?"
"Yeah." said Kirihara. "Did you have to ask Tezuka Kunimitsu for permission before you stole his personality or did he give it away for free?"**
XxXxX
And so Kamio did end up having to spend the whole day with Kirihara, but in the principal's office instead of the physics classroom.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXXxXxX
8:30pm
Silence fell in the Naruto dorm. Saturday night and everyone was studying.
"Is it just me or is there something lame about the fact that you and I are the most social people in our dorm?" Kachiro asked Katsuo.
"You know, I was just thinking that as well."
The two of them were lying on their beds, staring at the ceiling.
"…maybe we should go find some of the other guys."
"Are they really going to want to hang out with us?"
"Probably not. But we'll die of boredom if we stay here all night."
"We should play a game or something together."
"No, no games. We should avoid action. Let's go find friends and have some sort of conversation or something."
"That doesn't sound like fun at all. Why would we do that?"
"Because the only way to avoid abuse through flashbacks is by avoiding action altogether."
"What do you mean?"
"We won't be exploited if we don't do anything."
"Ah. I see your point."
There was a pause.
"Ever wonder what the world would be like without flashbacks?"
They looked at eachother and burst out laughing.
XxX
Finally, ten minutes later, Katsuo was the first to peel his body off his bed and force himself to leave the room. He went from door to door in the Naruto dorm, knocking softly and slipping invitations under each person's doorway, imploring them to come to the communal gameroom of the dorm.
Fifteen minutes later, all the boys except Kirihara and Kamio were in the gameroom, staring around at one another and not really knowing why they had been called. Everyone was sitting with his group of friends from his old school.
"Well!" Kachiro broke the silence. "Since it seems that we are going to be living in the same dorm for a while and most of us only know the people who we went to school with last year, wouldn't it be a good, no, fantastic idea for us to all get to know each other?" he asked.
No one spoke.
"I think that's a fantastic idea, Kachiro." Said Katsuo finally.
Still no one spoke.
Echizen got up to leave.
"No—come on! Don't go!" cried Kachiro. "Okay, we don't really know how to put it without sounding really awkward, but we just think that it would be a good idea for us all to hang out tonight and try to get to know eachother instead of cooping ourselves up in our separate rooms. We've been at this school together for almost two weeks! We need to warm up to one another."
Yuuta and Shinji exchanged skeptical looks.
"…do you have anything in mind?" Ichirou finally asked.
"Well, sure!" exclaimed Katuso, intensely relieved that someone had responded. "We could all sort of…hang out…"
"Or watch television, or talk, or play some kind of game." Added Kachiro.
"What sort of game?" Yuuta frowned.
"Well, it doesn't have to be a game as such, but just some sort of way for us all to hang out and enjoy one another's company. Any ideas?" Kachiro and Katsuo gazed around at the group of silent, glazed eyed boys.
"…Anyone?" asked Katsuo again, with a hint of desperation. "Anyone have any ideas on how we could have a fun night?
To everyone's intense surprise, Katsuo's question got an answer.
"Usu." said Kabaji, sitting up straight in his armchair.
oOoOo
A/N
* I don't know if anyone noticed, but in the first chapter, the principal says that the survey is anonymous and then the first survey question is "name". Yeah, I have no clue how I didn't catch that...
** Merci à Moi