Classes were over for the day. The clock read 4 p.m. as our math teacher walked out the door, and immediately voices rang out across the classroom—some distressed at the thought of having to stay another couple hours for club activities, others excitedly looking to see if anyone was interested in going to karaoke tonight. And then there was me. I had no plans or responsibilities for the rest of the day, so all I had to do was gather up my stuff and head home. As I walked out of the classroom and down the hall, I passed by several groups of students all dressed in sports uniforms or track jerseys.
Tsubakioka High was considered one of the more competitive schools in our general area as far as sports teams went. It was best known for its highly accomplished track and field team, but its baseball and volleyball teams were no slouches either. Every year, they performed quite well at the regional level. That said, I never really had much interest in being involved in any extracurricular activities. I was on the tennis team back in junior high for a while, but I really hated the internal team hierarchy and inherent competitiveness of it all, so I quit after my first year. That experience soured my interest in extracurricular activities so much that even now, in my second year of high school, I still hadn’t ever given any other clubs or sports teams a shot.
I descended the stairwell and made my way to the school’s main entrance, where I found all the other clubless students gathering to go home. Once I’d changed back into my street shoes, I headed out to retrieve my bike from the bike lot. I was displeased to find that the harsh summer sun hadn’t yet begun to noticeably abate, despite it being four in the afternoon.
I walked along the perimeter of the building to the bike lot, straddled my bike, and lazily pedaled my way off campus. Beyond the front gate, I went up a gear and cut my way through the muggy, lukewarm breeze. I rode through town until a red light at a four-way intersection forced me to stop. I looked around absentmindedly while I waited for the signal to turn.
As I watched a swarm of impatient-looking bats circle the paddy fields, I had a sudden realization—and felt a sinking in my gut. I touched my right pocket, then my left, but both were empty. I’d left my phone in my desk back at school.
“Ugh… Great, just what I needed…”
I slumped against my handlebars in defeat. I’d already come quite a ways from campus, too. Today really wasn’t my lucky day (even if I only had my own negligence to blame this time). But there was nothing for it; I’d just have to head back. It was Friday, so there was no school tomorrow, and I really didn’t want to be without a phone until Monday. All I could do was swallow my tears and turn my bike around.
I walked alone down the empty hallway. It was a little bit dusky in this part of the school at this time of day, when far less natural light reached this far in through the exterior windows. It was now going on five o’clock, so I was probably the only person left on school grounds who wasn’t engaged in extracurriculars. The halls were quiet; if I listened close, I could hear the soccer team calling out to each other and the kendo team doing their routine sparring shouts—but even these loud voices felt muted and indistinct, as if they’d been filtered through a thick, sound-dampening membrane before reaching my ears.
I climbed the stairwell and made my way down the hall to Classroom 2-A. The door was still halfway open, and the sun pouring in through the classroom windows flared out to form a rectangular shadow of light on the hallway floor. Shielding my eyes from the intense glare, I walked into the room and headed straight for my desk.
Before I could get there, I realized I was not, in fact, the only one in the room. There was a girl sitting at a desk by the window—one Natsuki Hoshihara, leaning her head against the wall and staring out the window with a listless, almost melancholy expression on her face. With her head inclined, I could see the back of her neck exposed as her permed locks hung lazily to one side. The light shone through her hair, making it practically glimmer in the late afternoon sun. I couldn’t help but be struck by the unexpected sight of this always-peppy girl looking so pensive and somber; it was almost unimaginable to me. But I wouldn’t get to stare for long, as she soon noticed my presence (albeit belatedly).
“Duh-HYAAAGH?!”
She jumped up several inches in her chair and let out a high-pitched squeal. It was such an extreme overreaction that I couldn’t help but let out a startled shriek myself.
“S-sorry!” I cried, scrambling to explain. “Wasn’t trying to scare you! I just didn’t realize you were in here, and then by the time I did, I felt like it would be weird to say something, and… Yeah. My bad.”
“Phew, you startled me…” she said, letting out a sigh of relief. “I literally didn’t even realize there was someone else in here. Boy, uh… That was quite the little sound effect I made just now, wasn’t it? Aha ha…”
She didn’t seem mad, thankfully. If anything, she sounded a little embarrassed.
“So, what brings you here, Kamiki-kun?” she asked.
This took me a little by surprise; I certainly didn’t expect her to remember my name. “Forgot my cell phone. Just came back to grab it, that’s all.”
“Ohhh, gotcha. Yeah, can’t go without that all weekend.”
I nodded in agreement, then went over to my desk—middle seat, back row. I reached inside, and my fingers settled on something hard and rectangular—not the phone I was looking for but a novel I’d been reading. I decided I’d bring it home as well to finish over the weekend, then set it on top of my desk. Seeing this, Hoshihara got up and walked over in my direction.
“What book is that?” she asked.
Another mild surprise—I didn’t expect her to have any interest in books—but I removed the protective dust jacket I’d put on it and showed her the cover regardless.
“Oh, yeah…” I said. “It’s a pretty popular series, actually. Been going on for a while now, too. It’s—”
“Ooh, hey! Of Moon and Men! Good taste!”
Well, damn. This was the third surprise in a row. I had not expected her to already be familiar. Of Moon and Men was a popular series of fantasy novels, and I was currently reading through the third book. Set in an alternate world, it was the story of a boy and a girl from warring kingdoms who get shipwrecked together on a deserted island and have to learn to set aside their differences in order to survive, then slowly grow closer over the course of the series. Although it was quite dense with lore and worldbuilding, the prose was awfully breezy, and I’d made a habit of buying each new entry as soon as it was released.