“I gotta say, I didn’t expect this kind of behavior from good kids like you three. It’s honestly a bit concerni—ghcckk!” Gotou started to cough up his mouthful of noodles. “Haah... Man, why is it that super-hot food always makes you choke on the first bite? ...What? Just me?”
“Damn it, Gotou, just hurry it up already.”
“Inaba... We’ve been over this. I like to maintain a cool, laid-back reputation, so I’ll let you kids give me silly nicknames like ‘Gossan’ or whatever, but I’d appreciate at least a modicum of respect.”
Indeed, Gotou’s casual teaching style had made him wildly popular with the student body. Plus, it probably helped that he was in his mid-twenties. Maybe a younger teacher was just easier to relate to overall.
“You’ll get your respect once you quit slacking and start doing your job, Gotou. Remind me again who ended up handling all the bookkeeping for 1-C’s Culture Festival budget?”
“Oh yeah... Man, I really owe you one for that, Inaba-san! Hahaha... Please don’t mention that in front of the other teachers, okay?”
So relatable, in fact, that he was bordering on incompetent...
Gotou slurped up a few noodles, then took a sip of broth. Beside him, Taichi heard a small, cute stomach rumble in Nagase’s direction. He glanced over, and she stuck her tongue out in return, clearly embarrassed. Did everything about her have to be so goddamn adorable?
“Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. What were you guys doing, anyway? I’m told Aoki and Kiriyama missed first and second period, too. I mean, all five of you? Really? As your club advisor, I’m in hot water here... blah blah blah. Just play along with me.”
Yes, Gotou also happened to be in charge of supervising the Cultural Research Club. More specifically, he was the one who founded it earlier that year.
“We weren’t ‘doing’ anything. What happened was, we all split a 5-pack of mini chocolate cream buns yesterday, but it turned out they were expired. Sure enough, it made us all sick, and that’s why we were late,” Inaba recited matter-of-factly. She had warned Taichi and Nagase in advance to let her do all the talking.
“And if we asked Aoki and Kiriyama, would they say the same thing? I believe Hirata-sensei from Class 1-A is having a talk with them as we speak.”
“Yes, of course.”
Naturally, they’d conspired to come up with a cover story in advance.
“Mmmm...” Gotou let his eyes wander over the walls as he chewed, seeming to be deep in thought. “Well, there’s no proof that you’re lying, so I’ll take your word for it. You’re all free to go.” He gestured at the door with his chopsticks.
“Gladly. Let’s go.” With that, the three of them bowed their heads in farewell, and headed for the exit.
But before they made it out of the staff room—
“Next time you wanna skip class with the whole club, try to make it less obvious, okay?”
Either he was really understanding or just completely unfit to be a teacher.
“Thank you! We’ll be going now!” No one was listening, but it was still the polite thing to say regardless.
“Classic Inaban! I’ll never know how you can make lying look so easy!” Nagase gushed as soon as they stepped out into the hallway.
“Not only that, but she does it with such an uppity attitude, too...”
“I bet she’d make a great scam artist... Maybe insurance fraud or something!”
“Shut it, you two! If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all!” Inaba cut in, interrupting their commentary.
“Aw, c’mon. I meant it all as a compliment!” Nagase replied.
“Oh god, she’s serious...”
Despite the three-way body-swap they had endured this morning—a feat so ridiculous, it would almost certainly cause a schoolwide panic if word got out (assuming everyone believed them, anyway)—Taichi and the others seemed no worse for wear.
The key word here being “seemed,” of course. Something was almost certainly changing below the surface. But as long as no one got hurt—
—And at that, darkness fell in the blink of an eye.
The next thing he knew, Taichi was face-to-face with a girl he’d never met. He was sitting down, but even still his point of view was much lower than he was accustomed to.
“What’s wrong, [Yui]? You just kinda zoned out all of a sudden. And you dropped your asparagus on the table.”
At this rate, someone was bound to get hurt sooner or later.
“I... I gotta go to the bathroom real fast.”
“Huh? Right now? Are you feeling sick?”
“No... No, um, I’m fine...”
“Want me to come with you?”
“N-No thanks! I can go by myself!”
Once again, the body-swapping phenomenon had struck, this time between himself and Kiriyama. Thinking quickly, he piloted [Kiriyama’s body] to the girls’ restroom to wait it out. The next moment, Kiriyama’s phone started buzzing—but before he could answer it, they switched back.
All in all, the switch lasted just over three minutes.
It was a crazy whirlwind of events... A destructive force that left no one intact.
□■□■□
At last, sixth period came to an end.
Regardless of whatever bizarre trials the members of the CRC were forced to endure, so long as it had no impact on anyone outside the five of them, the world carried on like normal.
As he packed up to leave, Taichi chatted with his neighboring classmates. Then Gotou came in to hold a brief class assembly—making sure everyone was caught up on the latest updates, announcing who would be assigned to cleanup duty—and with that, the day was officially over.
Today’s routine was just the same as always. It didn’t matter if a hellacious tornado of destruction was tearing up five measly lives. To the world at large, it was a tiny blip at the most.
Together with his assigned group, Taichi headed out of the classroom to clean the restrooms.
Suddenly, he sensed someone glaring daggers at him, and a shiver ran down his spine. He turned to find Fujishima Maiko, president of Class 1-C and key participant in the antics that went down yesterday when he and Nagase had swapped bodies. Beside her stood Nagase, who shooed Taichi away with an anxious look on her face.
Perhaps today’s routine had deviated a little...
“Sorry I’m la—aagh!”
The instant he opened the clubroom door, Nagase pounced.
“Taichi! You little punk... We need to talk, NOW!” Her whole body shook with barely contained emotion; her expression rife with confusion and panic.
“Wh-What’s going on, Nagase?”
“Yesterday, in the classroom, before I got there... what the heck happened between you and Fujishima-saaan?!”
Evidently things had taken a turn for the worse.
“Oh, not much—”
“I’ll decide how ‘much’ it is, mister!”
“Whoa, dude. Iori-chan almost never gets this mad,” Aoki commented, but Taichi’s brain only vaguely registered it. He had more important things to worry about... like Nagase’s terrifying expression. He knew trying to cover it up would only make things worse, so he decided to come clean—and that meant telling Nagase that Fujishima had seen him fondling [her] breasts.
“Waaahhh! You squeezed my boobies?! Now I’ll never get married!” Nagase sobbed.
“I... I swear, I was just trying to figure out what was going on! I needed to know if I was actually in a girl’s body!”
“Yeah, I know... It’s actually not that big of a deal... But F-F-Fujishima-san... Aaaagghh!” Nagase began to visibly quake. She was legitimately freaking out.
“Y-You okay, Nagase?! What did she do to you?! What kind of monster are we dealing with here?!”
At this rate, Fujishima was rapidly proving to be scarier than any horror movie monster. It was hard to believe any ordinary human could strike this much fear into the heart of the same girl who laughed off their body-swap like it was nothing.
“Okay, moving right along! I have a question for Taichi!” Aoki cut in loudly. “How big are Iori-chan’s—bwegh!”
Inaba brought her fist down on Aoki’s skull. Just watching it was painful.
“Quit wasting time with your stupid questions! If you wanna know so badly, I’ll tell you! Iori’s a C cup, okay?! And before you ask, I’m a B cup, and Yui’s an A cup!”
“Wh... What’d you go and tell them mine for?!” Kiriyama howled, leaping up out of her folding chair with such momentum that it fell over.
“Sorry. Caught up in the moment.”
“Iori’s one thing, but now you throw me in ‘cuz you got ‘caught up in the moment’?! You did that on purpose!” Kiriyama shouted, slamming her hands on the table as Inaba looked on in amusement.
“Yo, relax, Yui! So what if your twin peaks are more like speed bumps? There are plenty of other great things about you!” Aoki flashed his pearly whites.
“Speed bumps?! The heck is THAT supposed to mean?! And besides, they say anything more than a handful is a waste!”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t really have a decent frame of reference for cup sizes until now. So Inaba’s a B, and Kiriyama’s an A...”
“TAICHI! What, are you like taking notes?! You j—hhck!” Kiriyama screamed herself into a coughing fit.