The class representative apparently had to check with the homeroom teacher about announcements before class started every morning. Though Kitamura Yuusaku had a lot of things on his mind, he’d headed to the teacher’s office at the usual time that morning, but Koigakubo, their bachelorette teacher, had been called away to meet someone and wasn’t at her desk. It couldn’t be, Kitamura thought, but he said there hadn’t been a way for him to confirm whether she’d been meeting with the Aisakas.
“Do you think it’s weird?”
Ryuuji didn’t know who said that, but that utterance caused the dam to break. Whispers started to fill class 2-C after their third hour of mandated self-study. Normally, they would be having their English class, which their homeroom teacher was in charge of. However, their teacher never appeared, and a different teacher dropped in and told them to self-study. Why? they asked, but the teacher closed class 2-C’s door, decisively ignoring their questioning voices.
“I wonder what happened to Yuri-chan?”
“She’s not taking a vacation, right? What could she be doing?”
“I wonder if she’s sick. But if that happened, they could have announced it to us.”
“I heard earlier that class A had to self-study their whole second period during Yuri-chan’s English class.”
“Come to think of it, when I said Tiger still hadn’t come during morning attendance, they just said ‘We know.’”
That’s weird. Ryuuji didn’t even open his English textbook as he grabbed the edge of his desk. A strange sweat broke out on his palms.
“Takasu, is Tiger out today?”
“No, she’s supposed to come. She said she would,” he finally managed to grumble. He couldn’t answer the question that came after that, I wonder if it’s related to Yuri-chan not being here?
Ryuuji was scared, too. What would he do if their brief parting the other day at that crosswalk really was their last moment together? He’d thought that going back home would give Taiga’s mother a sense of relief, and let them prepare, so when an opening came, it would be easier to run away. Maybe that had been naive of him.
Have a good life—what if, with that meager phrase, Taiga just disappeared? This is serious, Ryuuji thought as he stared at the packed book bag hanging from the hook of his desk.
“Quiet! The other classes are in session!” Kitamura warned them like the rep he was, but he was lacking his usual composure. Minori opened and closed her flip phone over and over again, and Ami had been touching her fingers to her lips the whole time. After making a scene trying to get something out of Ryuuji just that morning, Maya and Nanako also seemed to have inferred something was up and were currently silent.
Noto turned around to mouth, “You okay?” Haruta hadn’t even dozed off, and his head was upright.
“Maybe Yuri-chan’s turned in her announcement that she’s retiring after a spur-of-the-moment elopement?”
“‘I have a spur-of-the-moment announcement for everyone. I’ve…bought a condo.’”
“Are you really going there?!” Several people laughed at someone’s joke.
“Actually…maybe Tiger did something bad again?”
In that moment, everyone in the class went silent. They still recalled the time when the third years had rushed into their class and clamored, “The Palmtop Tiger is on a rampage!” That event hadn’t just scarred Ryuuji and his close friends.
“In that case, it wouldn’t be a laughing matter.”
“She’s already been suspended once, maybe this time she’s really out…?”
“No way…but that would be so bad! Kushieda, what do you know about it?!” a girl asked Minori, and Minori seemed troubled as she turned her eyes to Ryuuji.
“Taiga is—”
Ryuuji raised his head and said, “She’s not going to disappear. Not ever! I won’t let her do that!” He was trying just as hard to convince himself of that.
Taka-chan, what’s the matter, why are you getting out of your seat—came Haruta’s anxious voice. “So it’s weird enough to make that guy worry!” The class was reduced to even more confusion, and that was when it happened.
Clatter. The front door opened.
“To your seats. Everyone, get to your seats. I have something I need to speak with you about.”
Their teacher, who had been nowhere to be found—the bachelorette homeroom teacher Koigakubo Yuri (age 30)—finally appeared before them. She held a hand towel to her face, sniffling, as if to hide her smudged makeup. Her voice was hushed and her shoulders shook.
Every single person in class 2-C was at a loss for words as Taiga entered the classroom after the bachelorette, holding her pale, small face in her hands. Every single one of them understood that something terrible had happened to Aisaka Taiga.
Taiga—Ryuuji’s eyes opened, glowing softly. You’re late, you dumb girl! I can’t do this anymore, it’s over! Over, I tell you! I’m slaughtering everyone! Of course, he hadn’t snapped, only released the breath he’d been holding. She’s finally here, he thought.
“Aisaka-san, do you want to tell them? Or do you want me to…?”
“P-please tell them for me…uh, ugh, uwh…” Taiga was clearly faking her distress. Ryuuji saw no sign of her mother beyond the door Taiga had left open. He grabbed the bag that he left hanging on his desk.
“Then I’ll tell them. Everyone, please listen.” Koigakubo had probably been crying the whole time. She raised her bright red face. “Aisaka-san needs to move because of family circumstances, so she is going to be leaving school.”
Whaaaat?! No way?! The students raised their voices in shock. Standing behind the teacher, Taiga slowly lowered the hands covering her face. Ryu-u-ji, her rosy lips voicelessly moved. Her tough, beautiful face was defiant with arrogance, and she shamelessly raised her chin. She had her coat and a bag across her body, and in one of her hands, she—good job. Ryuuji nodded at her. She was holding her shoes in a plastic bag, just as she was supposed to.
“I know everyone is probably shocked. I also haven’t really been able to accept this—”
Taiga raised the thumb of her free hand and then pointed it at the hallway. Ryuuji once again nodded at her. A question mark seemed to float above the heads of the students of 2-C as they followed these motions, which their teacher couldn’t see.
Koigakubo, the bachelorette, told them from where she stood in front of the teacher’s podium, “I’ve been asking her mother to reconsider this whole time, but—”
She seemed oddly towering, almost like she was forming a wall between Taiga and Ryuuji. Ryuuji felt he would immediately be caught if he displayed any out-of-the-ordinary movements, but Taiga was already gradually shifting a little bit at a time towards the door, so he held his bag to his chest and tried to raise his butt from his seat.
“And Aisaka-san herself is so incredibly sad about this—” Koigakubo was crying fat tears again. She was clearly trying not to upset them, but to Ryuuji, just then, she was like the guardian deity of an impregnable iron wall. “As your teacher, I also wish I could have done more… I’m so sad that I don’t have enough power to protect you—”
Once the teacher was finished talking, Taiga would be returned to her mother’s side. Ryuuji slowly pulled his body away from his desk until his butt was in the air. All the muscles in his body shook. He had to go now, had to leave now, but couldn’t get caught.
Then suddenly something happened behind him.
“Tigeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!”
A shriek echoed through the class, and Ryuuji automatically jumped up and flipped around. Haruta, the one who cried out, stood up. His eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites showed. He had the shadow of death upon him. Ahhhh! While the girls screamed around him, the idiot twitched as he dramatically knocked over his seat and desk, swooning to the floor like a marionette cut from its strings.
“H-Haruta-kun?!” Koigakubo’s gaze was nailed to the collapsed idiot.
“What’s wrong, Haruta?!” Noto ran over with enough momentum to practically slide to Haruta’s side. His black-rimmed glasses were horribly askew. “Teacher, this is terrible, Ms. Koigakubo! Haruta fainted!”
“Why?! What happened?! Is he okay?!”
Koigakubo climbed down from the lectern, weaved between the confused students, and ran over to Haruta’s side, where he was splayed on the ground. She got to her knees and checked that he was breathing, then hesitated slightly before shaking him. “S-s-someone go to the office and get another teacher! We need to get him to the nurse’s office!” she yelled as she looked around at the students’ faces.