The bell rang, signaling that the school day was over. We’d managed to spend our entire time on cleaning duty at the pool without actually cleaning an inch. Yusuke and I made our way back to the classroom. He was silent as we walked through the hallways.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Something happen to you?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Yusuke was definitely acting fishy. Ever since that moment he’d shared with Nazuna at the side of the pool, he’d been distracted by something. I mustered up all my courage and spelled out what I really wanted to ask.
“Back there at the pool. Did you ask Nazuna out?”
“Huh?! What are you talking about?! Why would I ever do that?! Don’t be stupid!” He brushed me off, then shuffled ahead.
“I— Never mind… Sorry.”
Why was he acting pissed off all of a sudden? I was feeling pretty fed up with Yusuke but continued to follow him back to the classroom.
When we arrived, Junichi and Minoru were having some kind of argument with Kazuhiro in front of the blackboard.
“They’re round!” Kazuhiro’s shrill voice reverberated throughout the room.
Kazuhiro was the best student in the class. As serious as he was about studying, he quickly became riled up any time there was an argument.
“No, they’re not. They’re flat. What are you, stupid?” Junichi took every chance he saw to get a rise out of Kazuhiro, and he prodded teasingly with his reply.
“I’m telling you, they’re round! Think about it! The powder inside ignites, and then it explodes outward in all directions. Of course they’re going to be round!”
“Hey, Norimichi. If you see a firework explode from the side, does it still look round like a globe, or is it flat like a pancake?”
Junichi had noticed us walk into the room. He was eager to drag us into the conversation, but his question confronted me so suddenly, I struggled to respond.
“What do you mean? Like a bottle rocket?” I ended up stalling.
Minoru, obviously on Junichi’s side, chimed in. “No! Big ones, like at a fireworks display! Like the kind they’ll be using at the show tonight!”
“Display fireworks? Um…flat, I guess?”
I wasn’t very invested in my answer, but Junichi proclaimed his victory with a few more vocal jabs at Kazuhiro.
“See?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! They’re totally round!!”
“Yusuke? What do you think?”
Yusuke, who had returned to his seat and was putting on his backpack, replied with a complete lack of interest. “Huh? I dunno.”
As if triggered by Yusuke’s lackadaisical response, Kazuhiro’s speech grew more and more heated. “Are you all stupid?! Have you ever seen a sparkler before? Round, right?!”
“Just because sparklers are round doesn’t mean the big ones are the same!” Junichi’s voice had risen, too.
“All right, so have any of you ever seen a flat firework before?!”
“I have!” Minoru stood in front of Kazuhiro, full of confidence as he stared up Kazuhiro’s extra foot of height. “Last year, I watched the fireworks display from my grandpa’s yard. The fireworks were totally flat. Grandpa said it was because his house is at a bad angle for viewing the show.”
“See! If his grandpa says so, it has to be true!”
“His grandpa’s off his rocker!”
“No, he’s not! Not all the way anyway!”
“This conversation is going nowhere,” Kazuhiro declared, exasperated.
“Then, let’s take a vote!” Junichi charged.
“It’s not something you vote about! Fireworks are round, and that’s that!!”
“Anyone who thinks they’re flat, raise your hand!”
Oh, come on. This conversation is ridiculous.
By now, I’d gotten the gist of it: Would fireworks in the sky at a professional show always look round, no matter where you were standing? Or was that roundness dependent on the angle you were watching from? It seemed like Junichi, Minoru, and Kazuhiro had been at it for some time.
Personally, I was more concerned about my ankle, which had begun to ache. I wanted to go home already.
I turned my attention away from the silly vote to find Nazuna walking into the classroom. She’d changed back into her uniform.
Nazuna walked straight to her desk. This time, rather than shooting a glance in my direction, she looked at Yusuke instead. Their eyes met, and Nazuna kept her gaze firmly fixed. Yusuke appeared to grow uncomfortable, and he turned away to look out the windows.
It seemed like something had happened at the pool, after all…
As I was trying to piece it together, Nazuna wordlessly picked up her school bag and headed out the classroom door. Just before she disappeared down the hallway, she glanced back one more time. It was hard to tell whether she was looking at Yusuke or me.
She hadn’t bothered to close the door behind her. My eyes lingered there for a while.
“All right. If you’re that sure, let’s make a bet.”
Kazuhiro’s words, suddenly calm, pulled me back to reality.
“Hah! Okay. And if fireworks are flat, you’ve gotta do our summer homework. All of it—for all four of us.”
I didn’t really care about the fireworks, but those last words out of Junichi’s mouth caught my attention.
“Yeah!” I chimed in. “That’s our bet!!”
I was reminded that I hadn’t even touched my summer homework yet. The ridiculous argument suddenly seemed a lot more important.
“Okay. And if they’re round?”
“I’ll give you an up-skirt pic of Ms. Miura!” As Junichi made his latest announcement, he held his smartphone up alongside his face.
It was common knowledge in the class that Kazuhiro had a thing for Ms. Miura.
“What?! You’ve got a picture like that?!”
“Nah. I’ll take it for ya.”
“How?”
“I’ll just bend over like I dropped something, angle the camera like so, and snap!”
Junichi struck a pose, leaning backward as if he were about to do the limbo, then mimicked the shutter noise of a camera.
As I watched, unimpressed, another thought occurred to me. “…Hey, how do you plan on seeing a firework from the side anyway?”
“That’s easy.”
Kazuhiro walked over to a map of Moshimo affixed to one of the classroom’s walls.
“See here? Moshimo Lighthouse is right to the side.”
Most of the spectators for the fireworks display that night would be lined up along the crescent-shaped Moshimo Beach. The beach skirted the edge of a bay, which had a small island precisely in the middle. The fireworks were always launched from that island.
“The fireworks shoot up from Moshimo Island,” Kazuhiro continued. “And that means we can see the fireworks from the side if we’re standing there, right?”
As if to seal his victory, Kazuhiro brought a finger up to the bridge of his nose and coolly adjusted his glasses.
Not to be outdone by Kazuhiro’s sudden logical insight, Junichi doubled down with a firm response. “Perfect! So we’re all going to the lighthouse tonight, yeah?!!”
“Huh? All of us?”
I’d played along with Junichi’s bet, but actually going to the lighthouse was another story. It wasn’t just some short walk. The local schools held an annual 10K run in the winter, and the course used the road that led up to the lighthouse. The agony of past runs flooded my mind, but there was no stopping Junichi now.
“What do you mean? Of course we’re all going. Yusuke, you’re coming, too, right?”
Yusuke, who had been all but uninvolved up until now, blinked in surprise at the sudden inquiry. “Huh? Where?”
“To the lighthouse! Oh my gosh! Were you even listening?!?!”
“We’re gonna see for ourselves whether fireworks are round or flat and settle this once and for all!”
Overwhelmed by Junichi’s and Kazuhiro’s gusto, Yusuke scrambled. “Yeah, okay. I’m going.”
“Awesome! Okay, so we all meet at Moshimo Shrine at five PM!! No homework all summer. This is gonna be great!!”
“Not likely! And you better be serious about that up-skirt pic!”
Junichi and Minoru gave each other a high five, ignoring Kazuhiro altogether now.
“If it means he does all our homework, I guess it’s worth it…,” Yusuke mumbled with an uninterested expression on his face as he stared out at the schoolyard.
“Yusuke? What’s up?”
“Nothing! Geez, mind your own business.”
“Huh? What’s got you all pissed off?”
“I’m not pissed off! Okay, let’s go to the lighthouse, then! Great!! Sounds like an awesome plan!!”
“Um… Okay…”
Yusuke filed out the door after Junichi and the others, who were still chattering excitedly. I lingered behind, bewildered by Yusuke’s sudden shift from snippy to gung ho. What was going on with him…? I glanced out the window he’d been facing. The baseball club was practicing again in the schoolyard. Walking right through the center of the practice was Nazuna. She moved with purpose, as if she’d made up her mind about some plan.