Kaname grabbed Sousuke by the arm and marched him off the platform.
That day at lunch break...
“Can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched today,” Kaname muttered, reclining in her seat by the window. With her back to the blue sky, she carried on with eating her bland melon roll. A few girls from the same class sat across from her, pecking at their boxed lunches.
“Watched? Like, by a boy?” one of her friends asked, while sipping her Banana Au Lait through a straw.
“Dunno. It’s hard to describe... I just feel all stiff in the shoulder area,” Kaname said, craning her neck around to demonstrate.
“Huh... Is it that guy who tried to ask you out on the way home yesterday? Shirai?”
Kaname suddenly snapped to attention. “Oh, that reminds me! He accosted me on the station platform this morning. Right, Sousuke?”
Sousuke was eating lunch a little ways away, using his combat knife to shave off pieces of some kind of smoked meat and bring them to his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he denied.
“You know! This morning—”
It was just then that a young man appeared at the classroom door. “Is Chidori-kun here?” asked a calm but penetrating voice.
“Ah, Hayashimizu-senpai...”
He was a tall and lean third-year boy with a quiet but imposing demeanor. He had wire frame glasses and slicked-back hair, and looked like he’d be more at home in a tailored English suit than the school uniform he actually wore. His name was Hayashimizu Atsunobu, and he was their student council president.
“What are you doing in our classroom?” Kaname asked, not bothering to hide her umbrage at his presence.
Hayashimizu replied simply, without pleasantry, “Oh? Am I bothering you?”
“Nah.”
“But your face doesn’t exactly say, ‘Ah, my esteemed superior and wise mentor, Student Council President Hayashimizu Atsunobu, graces me with his presence. I’m the luckiest girl in the East,’ either,” he pointed out.
“Have you been watching N*rth K*rean propaganda?” she asked suspiciously.
“Kindly do not compare me to that particular leader,” Hayashimizu told her loftily. “I have nothing but respect for personal freedoms. I’m even in favor of showing genitalia in X-rated comics.”
“You see why you bother me? It’s because you just say stuff like that!” Kaname shouted, turning red as she felt her classmates’ eyes turn towards her.
“Calm down, Chidori-kun,” he advised, “I merely came to offer you a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Yes. Given your reaction, I assume you haven’t heard... First, look at this.” Hayashimizu handed her an envelope. She dubiously opened it to discover a stack of Polaroids inside.
“Pictures of the bathrooms?” she asked. “What the heck?” There were twenty-two in total, each with the site where it had been taken written in magic marker on the back. The photos themselves were of gray tile walls or stall partitions, each covered in absurd graffiti. It was typical stuff—delinquents’ boasts written in overly complicated kanji, “Looking for a good time? Call Gon in Class 3,” and that sort of thing...
“What about it?” Kaname asked.
“Look at the red markings on the walls,” Hayashimizu pointed out. “The newest additions.”
Kaname’s lips pursed slightly. Each of the walls pictured did indeed contain new graffiti done in red magic marker.
Student Council Vice President C.K. got the election supervisor to pad out her votes to get elected. As a reward, she gave him the panties she was wearing that day.
Chidori Kaname from Class 4 takes younger girls home and rapes them.
Chidori Kaname (2-4) has a sugar daddy who bought her that Cartier watch.
C.K. lives alone and will take up invitations from anyone to spend the night.
Chidori Kaname of Class 2-4 buys uppers from drug dealers in Kabukicho.
It was all that kind of thing.
By this point, her friends had clustered around her to read over her shoulder.
“Wow, that’s not cool...”
“Yeah, that’s just mean,” they said to each other.
“It’s especially prominent in the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms in the north building and on the west side of the south building. I received the report before noon and had a subordinate take pictures,” Hayashimizu explained lightly.
“Um... Did you only take pictures?” Kaname asked pointedly.
“Don’t worry. I hid the graffiti itself behind paper.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Certainly,” said Hayashimizu. “Needless to say, this is baseless slander; anyone with common sense won’t pay it any notice. But I fear that ‘common sense’ isn’t as common as I would like.”
“Nobody’s gonna believe this crap!” Kaname shrieked.
The girls around her nodded in agreement.
“It’s totally made up!”
“Kana-chan’s not that kind of person!”
Hayashimizu stood there quietly as they made their protests, then said, “Your friendship is admirable, but gives people too much credit. A single credulous fool can change everything—in most cases, bad money drives out good.” He was basically saying that the stupid people who believed the lies would drown out the smart people who didn’t.
But... sexual favors and stimulants? Kaname wondered. What kind of idiot would believe that? It was then that she noticed that Sousuke—who had previously been eating lunch on his own a ways away—had joined the group to stare at the Polaroids. She asked, “What’s wrong, Sousuke?”
Clearly taken aback by the content of the graffiti, he turned to Kaname in shock and suspicion. “Chidori. Are you... Are you...”
“Don’t just believe it!” Kaname yelled, and sent Sousuke flying with a full-power kick. He plowed through about eight desks, knocked over a boy eating lunch, and then fell unconscious with said lunch on his head. Kaname watched him, shoulders heaving.
Hayashimizu waited for Kaname to catch her breath, then said, “Well, Chidori-kun? Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“No,” she told him. “I honestly can’t think of anyone who’d do something this extreme.”
“If you have even the smallest suspicion, please tell me.”
“Well, also... I don’t really want to know,” she confessed.
“No one will hold it against you,” he told her.
Kaname knew President Hayashimizu to be a shrewd man, despite how he sometimes presented himself. He even held sway with the delinquents and teachers. Still, she couldn’t imagine anything he could do making things better for her. It’s not as if punishing whoever did this will make them stop hating me, she thought.
“It’s fine, really. Don’t try to find the culprit,” said Kaname, standing up.
“Ah, Kana-chan. Hey...”
“Sorry. Not feeling well.” She cut off all attempts at discussion and strode out of the classroom. She didn’t even spare a glance at Sousuke, who was still buried under the desks.
Once Kaname was gone, President Hayashimizu gave two five-thousand-yen notes to her classmate Tokiwa Kyoko and told her, “Once school is over, take her out for drinks on the way home. Don’t forget the receipt.”
Kyoko, with her braids and coke-bottle glasses, said uneasily, “Um, I appreciate the sentiment, but we’re still high school students...”
“That’s fine,” he said absently. “Now, excuse me.”
“Wait, Senpai!”
Hayashimizu ignored Kyoko and left the room. While the rest of them just stood there, wondering what to do, Sousuke finished extracting himself from the fallen desks.
“Sagara-kun, you survived that?”
“Yes, although it was quite painful.” He gathered up the pictures that had fallen on the floor and tucked them into his own pocket. Then he made a great show of thinking. “In the places where I was raised, lying and disseminating false orders is a serious offense. Those who disrupt the chain of command and contribute to societal unrest would traditionally be executed by firing squad.”
“Well, I don’t think this is quite that serious...” Kyoko said, while internally lamenting, Ah, I forgot there was someone even weirder than President Hayashimizu in the room...