Chapter 4

Four days until final exams for the term. Members of the Disciplinary Committee were checking uniforms at the school gate in the morning, lest students start to slip in their sartorial discipline here at the end of June with a nice, long vacation just ahead of them. Club activities were suspended for the period immediately before the tests, so there was no morning practice; this was the one time when the student athletes arrived at school along with the rest of the student population. Kagiura seemed to be taking the opportunity to demonstrate his sleeping prowess; somehow, it was harder to get him up now than it was when he had to get up at five in the morning. Kagiura didn’t need very long to get ready in the morning, but all the same, Hirano was a little worried that he would get in trouble, because he definitely looked like a guy who had overslept. He gave Kagiura a good talking-to before he left the room. The inspections weren’t a surprise; they’d been announced ahead of time, so there weren’t many violations. It was boring, sure, but not a problem. Hirano stood there suppressing a yawn while the checks went on. The first-years had only been in high school for a few months. Some of them were still nervous—and most of those nerves had to do with the dress code. Most of the rules were things like: When you’re not on campus, make sure your buttons are fastened, make sure not to loosen the necktie of your winter uniform, and avoid loud colors or patterns on your vests or cardigans. In short, don’t let your uniform look slovenly when you’re out and about. It was all about how you looked outside of school—if you could get through the school gate, there wasn’t much to worry about. The dress code was lax enough that even dyeing your hair blond wouldn’t get you anything worse than a self-reflection essay, so Hirano didn’t bother redoing his dye job. The year before, as a first-year, he’d tried to take it seriously, dyeing his hair back to its natural dark color, but when he returned to blond soon after, he’d done serious harm to his hair. The dye didn’t hold as well as he’d have liked, and the color started to run. Thinking about all the damage he could do switching back and forth, he realized that having to write an essay was the lesser of two evils, and he decided that this year, he would ditch the blond for the closing ceremony at the end of the year, and that was all. Kagiura arrived at school a mere five minutes before the final bell. “Geez, you barely made it. I know I woke you up this morning,” Hirano said. “Yeah… Sorry. By the way, can I ask you something?” “Hmm?” “Who’s that guy you were talking about earlier? The one you said looked like he’d been crying…” Hirano did a lot of odd jobs around school and knew a lot of people, so Kagiura’s initial question didn’t clarify things for him, but those last few words narrowed it down. “Oh, you mean Miyano. A junior of mine on the Disciplinary Committee.” “Are you, uh, close to this Miyano guy?” Hirano wasn’t sure what to make of that question. “Close? Eh, I guess we talk. He’s a bit of a weirdo, though.” He was going to add that if Kagiura was curious about Miyano, he should poke his head into the next class over, but Kagiura didn’t actually seem interested in meeting his fellow first-year. “Hmm.” Kagiura lapsed into silence and didn’t take another step. Hirano thought he looked like he was in danger of being judged in violation of school rules by the other nearby committee members, some of whom were glancing over at him, giving him odd looks. They expected him to move on; there was nothing wrong with his hair or uniform at a glance. “Hey, it’s all good, but you’d better get to class, or you’re gonna be late,” Hirano said, giving Kagiura a gentle shove on the back. Kagiura’s face finally relaxed. Huh. Freaked out about his first uniform inspection, huh? Hirano started to smile, amused to realize Kagiura had this sweet side, when he heard a voice behind him. “What’s Kagiura doing standing around?” the person asked. “Did he fail inspection?” The speaker was another student in an impeccable uniform, suggesting he was a first-year himself. Apparently, he was also a friend of Kagiura’s. His empty hands made it clear he’d already been to the classroom to drop off his stuff and had come back for some reason. “Nah, nothing like that. He’s my roommate,” Hirano said. “Ah! You’re the famous Hirano, then?” “What do you mean, famous?” Hirano asked sharply. “I hear you’re kind enough to wake him up in the morning. I’m Niibashi, same class as Kagiura.” He gave a polite greeting, and Hirano simply said, “Sure,” realizing how forceful he must have sounded. Niibashi was a bit on the short side, which, combined with his boyish features, made him look like a middle schooler when he stood next to Kagiura. He looked a lot like Miyano, in fact, but his air of confidence made him feel completely different. The breeze puffed out his hair a bit, giving him a sort of “fuzzy” look, but his excellent posture and the fact that he was friends with Kagiura suggested he was into sports. “Are you also the Hirano who’s nice enough to get angry when Kagiura fails to take notes in class?” “Seriously, what’s Kagi been saying about me? What do you mean, ‘nice enough to get angry’?” “Ah. I only ask because Kagiura once told me that if he didn’t take notes, you’d get angry at him—but he looked rather pleased when he said it.” From the way Niibashi grinned and looked Hirano right in the eye as he spoke, Hirano started to get a pretty good idea of the young man’s personality. He’s an egotist through and through. He was cute, he knew it, and he was going to make use of it. It might not seem like a very nice thing to think about his roommate’s friend, but Hirano could already tell this was someone he wouldn’t get along with. “Y’know, I remember you mentioning you had a friend who let you copy his notes, Kagi. Try to take ’em yourself if you can, eh?” “I’ll try, honest. By the way, Niibashi, why are you here?” Unlike Hirano, who was feeling a bit put off by Niibashi, Kagiura seemed to engage with him very directly. The rules of engagement in the dorm, not obsequious but rarely casual, meant that Hirano hadn’t really seen Kagiura talking affably with his classmates before, and it was kind of nice to see. “’Cause you didn’t answer my text! I went out of my way to let you know that we have to move classrooms for first period and that if you don’t go straight to the new one, you’ll never get there in time. You should be grateful! The teachers are already giving you the evil eye for sleeping in class.” Niibashi was keeping his voice down so the people around them wouldn’t hear, but Hirano was close enough to pick up what he was saying. He’d assumed Kagiura was just having trouble following the class material, but he was also sleeping during lectures, huh? No wonder he didn’t always take notes. Hirano couldn’t help glancing at Kagiura, who looked away reflexively. The nerve of the guy. “When we get back, Kagi, I’m gonna run you through some past test questions,” he said. Hirano was on the advanced track, while Kagiura was doing the general course of study, so their classes weren’t quite the same, but the two groups had about the same first-year curriculum. Hirano had even had a lot of the same teachers as Kagiura last year, so he could teach Kagi most of the material. Now, then… Sighing a little as Kagiura scampered away, Hirano signaled the other committee members to pack up. Hanzawa, who was also the vice president of the Disciplinary Committee, would get their notes together and hand them off to a teacher. Several faculty members would be doing the uniform inspections for the students who made it to school by the skin of their teeth or were tardy. It was the rainy season, but this was a rare sunny morning, and Hirano’s head was scorched from being out in the sun. Speaking of Hirano’s head, he was, of course, the first offender disciplined by the faculty’s dress-code inspection.