Ryuuji and Taiga snatched at each other’s hands.
For a moment, Koigakubo Yuri thought she’d seen a hallucination of the two madly dashing as fast as they could into the hallway. Then she realized it wasn’t an illusion but reality.
“I’m sorry, Yuri-chan. We’re actually the Haruta theatrical group…” The idiot who should have been stretched out on the ground apologetically opened his eyes a crack. The others who’d played along with the scenario Haruta spontaneously devised lowered their heads to their teacher in the same way, one after another, as if to say, Sorry, teach. However, it was too late for apologies.
“W-w-waiiiiiiiiiiiiit?!”
Kushieda Minori ran from the classroom with light steps. Kawashima Ami ran the opposite direction. “Don’t have any clue what’s going on, but guess we’ll go, too,” Maya and Nanako said as they followed after Ami. Other students also yelled, one after another, “Escape!” “Let’s all go!” “Actually, what is this?!” Getting carried away, they kicked away their chairs and scattered as they ran from the classroom like juvenile fish escaping from a net. The layered sounds of their footsteps came from everywhere until it was impossible to separate out whose were whose.
Of course, it was only twelve months until their college exams. There were some students sitting at their seats with their textbooks spread open, unaware of the state of affairs. There were students who froze as they watched the situation, confused and unable to grasp what was happening. There were some who hadn’t been paying attention to start with and some who tried to reel in their disorderly classmates, crying “Everyone get a hold of yourselves!”
“Wait… Did they… Did they just stage a mass revolt against me?” As Koigakubo babbled in confusion, someone appeared in front of her.
“I’m really so sorry!” Kitamura Yuusaku lowered his head at a steep angle. “We are really incredibly sorry for causing you so much trouble. We’re just stupid children… I’m sorry…”
“Ah ah ah—” Koigakubo grabbed Kitamura by the shoulders and shook him as hard as she could. “If apologies could fix these sorts of things, we wouldn’t need the police! I won’t ever ever ever ever eeeeveeeer accept this kind of childish behavior from you! I underestimated you idiot kids! I’m going to catch every single one of you!”
“Teach, look!”
Someone showed the scrap of notebook paper Ryuuji left on his desk to Koigakubo. Ms. Koigakubo, read the first line. When Koigakubo looked at that writing, she suddenly turned her gaze to the hallway. She grabbed it and threw aside her wet hand towel. The rubber of the nursing sandals she was using as indoor slippers slapped against the floor as she ran from the classroom, her skirt fluttering.
She grabbed a boy on the landing of the stairs and then dragged him along as she sprang into the staffroom. “They escaped! Please help me catch them, catch everyone!” she cried at all the teachers within.
Koigakubo pushed her catch at the first male teacher who stood up and didn’t even knock on the waiting room door as she dashed to it and threw it open.
“Th-they ran away!”
“…”
Clunk. Taiga’s mother, who had been sitting on the sofa in the waiting room, dropped the teacup in her hand. She stared at Koigakubo’s face as the teacher hovered on the verge of crying. “I feel like I’m about to go into labor from the shock…”
“Eep?!”
“I’m joking. Well, didn’t I tell you?! I said I’d just leave with her! I can’t believe this happened… What an idiot I have for a daughter! Where does she think she’s going to run to?!”
“Please read this.”
What Koigakubo offered her was the scribbled note that Ryuuji had left on his desk. It read: “Ms. Koigakubo, I’m sorry. Taiga isn’t the type to just let herself be taken away. Please believe in us. I’ll make sure her mother hears from her by tomorrow.”
Taiga’s mother’s light-colored eyes scowled as if to say, What is this? She glared at the homeroom teacher.
That fearless gaze, that way she bites her lip and scrunches them when she’s frustrated, really is exactly the same, Koigakubo thought.
“Takasu-kun isn’t the kind of boy who’d break a promise. I’m sure they have a plan. Of course, we will do everything in our power to go after them. We will find Aisaka-san. But please believe him… Please believe me and at least wait until tomorrow, won’t you?”
“I don’t know Takasu-kun, and I don’t know you either, but I do know my daughter. She’s not the type of kid to obediently come back to me! She betrayed me yesterday, and now she’s done it again. What are you telling me I’m supposed to believe in?!”
“I may be overstepping my bounds, but you can’t fix a relationship immediately once trust has been broken. You need time. You and your daughter need time.”
“I’m her mother!”
“I’m her teacher!”
For a moment, the two women went silent and stared at each other like they were breathing fire. However, Koigakubo immediately lowered her face and took a step back.
“I’m sorry, but I choose to believe in the kids. I’m sure that they believe in me, too. I will put my eight years as a teacher on the line for them. Eight years may be nothing in the scheme of things, but to me, teaching is my whole life. I’m sure they’ll come home on their own. Please, believe in those kids.”
“They ran away from you, right in front of your eyes. They just betrayed you, too. You still believe in them, despite that?”
“Yes. Because I know that they believe that I believe in them. They ran away because they’ve put their trust in me. He promised they would come home, so I choose to believe him—I’ll believe in his promise, our bond, and our connection. Believing in them is my job.”
“In that case, why don’t you put that in writing for me? You can even write it on this scrap of paper. If my daughter doesn’t come home before tomorrow, you’ll quit being a teacher. You couldn’t possibly put your trust in a flimsy little scrap of wastepaper—isn’t that right, Ms. Koigafuchi?”
“My name is Koi-ga-ku-bo!”
Koigakubo flipped over Ryuuji’s note on the marble table. Though she didn’t notice it herself, her ballpoint pen shook as she wrote. She signed it, dated it, and as she did so, bet her teaching career on the backside of a scrap of paper. This little note was like a cliff’s edge of unemployment she would be blown off of. Please, Takasu-kun, please, Aisaka-san, she said quietly.
“I know just enough that I’m sure Taiga won’t trust me. I’ve done enough to make sure of that. Aisaka and I have both tried to hurt each other, and we’ve ruined Taiga’s life in the process. I wasn’t a good parent, and I can’t become one, even now.” While watching Koigakubo’s hand move, Taiga’s mother seemed to grumble to herself. “But right here and now, I can’t just leave her and go home.”
The reason why the person in front of Koigakubo’s eyes seemed like an impudent seventeen or eighteen-year-old student was definitely because the mother moved her lips in the exact same way as her daughter. Koigakubo put the pen down and once again looked up at the deeply chiseled face of the frustrated but elegant woman in the very expensive suit, who wore high heels despite being pregnant. Suddenly, anguished wrinkles appeared on her forehead.
“Ugh…so if I give birth on the spot, you’ll deliver it, right…?”
“You’re kidding, right…?”
“I am.”
“I was actually scared, please stop! You’re fine, right?!”
“I think so.” As Taiga’s mother looked haughtily at the teacher and spoke with a teasing tone, Koigakubo thought, again, that she looked exactly like her daughter.
The escapees of class 2-C were caught before third period ended or made their way back to the classroom on their own.
Around the same time, still not knowing that their homeroom teacher had bet her teaching career on them, Ryuuji and Taiga had long since jumped out of a window, run outside, cleared the fence, and escaped from the school. They were running on side roads where the public’s eyes wouldn’t follow them.