Chapter 7

CHAPTER 2 SUMMER PREP. “Huh? Hrmmm,” Hirano grunted as he looked over the uncharacteristically messy pile of his stuff. He’d been packing his bag to go home, but then he’d turned it over and emptied everything out. Still, he didn’t see what he was looking for. “Not here, either, huh…” He shook his head. He was out of ideas. He’d looked all over the room’s floor, of course, and under the bed—he’d even checked the hallway and the cafeteria. He always took them off before he went to sleep, so there were only so many places they could be. Unfortunately for Hirano, things done habitually are often forgotten. Had he put them somewhere different from usual after he took them off last night? Or had something happened? He remembered Hanzawa showing up suddenly the night before. The dorm leader had knocked furiously on the door. He’d claimed he didn’t need anything special, but he had looked strange. Uncomfortable. Had Hirano already taken them off by then? He couldn’t quite remember. He did recall Kagiura showing up on his side of the room, rolling on the bed and remarking how nice freshly laundered sheets felt. It left the sheets all wrinkled, and Hirano had shouted at him to straighten them. Unlike Hirano, Kagiura hadn’t put his sheets out before going to the bath, so his mattress pad was still visible. “That’s no excuse to go randomly lying in a person’s bed!” Hirano had exclaimed, shortly thereafter insisting that Kagiura take care of his own bedding. No matter how I try, I just can’t seem to remember what I did with them. Since he was missing both the right and left ones, the chances that he’d dropped them seemed slim. The clasps hadn’t been loose, and he knew they hadn’t caught on anything. Yet they were nowhere to be seen, leaving Hirano scratching his head in frustration. “What’s wrong, Hirano?” A voice shook him out of his reverie, and he belatedly realized his roommate was back. “Oh, hey. Nothing. It’s not a big deal, but I can’t find my earrings. I was sure they must be around here somewhere, but I’m not seeing them…” Hirano never took them off except in the room, so they had to be in the dorm. Kagiura quickly crouched down. “I’ll help you look,” he said. “Thanks, but don’t worry about it. I can do it. Just try not to step on ’em, okay?” “Sure. But you’ve got to feel weird without them, right?” “Eh. The holes won’t close up in just a day or two. I’m more worried about you, Kagi. Didn’t you say you had to go right out for practice after you dropped your bag off? Didn’t you promise your friends?” With summer vacation almost upon them, and the accompanying steamy weather, the sports teams were on break, but Kagiura continued running regardless. He’d explained as much enthusiastically when he and Hirano had crossed paths at lunchtime. It was probably his way of working off the stress of the end-of-term tests. With the trouble studying gave him, the gloom of midterms had been hanging over Kagiura like a cloud. The tests had gone perfectly fine for Kagiura, thanks in no small part to Hirano, who was quite good at looking after younger students. Kagiura got a score that was worth noticing, sports recommendation or no. In his own appraisal, he’d “studied like I was trying to get into college!” There was a respite from team activities today so that the faculty adviser, current club president, and incoming president for next term could go to a conference at another school. Considering the heat, it was also something of an act of mercy, but having just survived the tests, Kagiura didn’t appreciate it. “Oh, you’re right! Gotta go! See you later!” He looked like he was about to run all the way to practice. Nice that he’s able to be so energetic when it’s this hot. Now that he got up at the same time as Kagiura and understood his lifestyle, Hirano had nothing but respect for how much more exercise Kagiura did than him. “Sure, have a good workout,” he said. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when he saw Kagiura being especially careful of his feet as he left, just as Hirano had asked him. Ever since his new roommate had arrived, the place seemed unbearably quiet the moment Hirano was alone. Personally, Hirano thought that now that they had really jelled as roommates, they were as good a combo as you’d find anywhere in the dorm. That feeling was only amplified by knowing that just a year ago, he was the one who’d been the underclassman. It was just a week or so until summer break now. It’s gonna be a little too quiet, Hirano thought. His household was only himself and his parents, and his father sometimes lapsed into silent spells. Exuberance was not his “thing.” They all got along just fine; Hirano had no complaints about his family, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang when he saw people his own age who were used to living with their siblings. “Funny. I didn’t even think about it last year,” he murmured. He stood up and stretched his stiff hips. He looked over at his roommate’s messy bed, a testament to how bad he was at getting up in the morning. An oversize hand towel was still balled up on top of it. Hirano even pulled the sheets off Kagiura’s bed, just in case his earrings were there (although it wasn’t likely), and then put them back neater than he’d found them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of his lost jewelry. The titanium studs, his first piercings, were matte, which made them hard to spot. Defeated, Hirano packed his stuff back into his bag and started in on his homework. During the break, he would be taking summer lectures at a prep school, along with a number of practice exams. For a student in their second year of high school, summer vacation wasn’t much of a break at all. To be fair, it wasn’t as though all his courses were intensive lectures, and yes, he would have more free time than usual to play around or travel. But there was no question that the flow of his time would be different than it had been the year before. If Kagiura can just pass his classes, I’ll bet he could get an athletic recommendation to college no problem. Hirano’s gaze softened a bit at the thought—but it was a pointless fantasy right now. He started on the practice problems. The cicadas buzzing outside seemed to fade into the distance, as if Hirano had entered a place cut off from the rest of the world. The circulation to his fingers must have been just a little too good, though, for his hand on his mechanical pencil seemed to itch. Preparations for the cultural festival would be starting the next day. In the short time before the summer break, each homeroom class would have to submit their plans to divvy up the tasks and responsibilities for getting them ready. Just deciding what they would do was an involved process: There was a two-step audition you had to pass, including a written proposal and then an oral interview. Only if you passed both those stages could you proceed to true planning. The only things likely to get accepted are stuff you can do on a low budget in a small space. Fact is, it’s likely to be a fight over who gets to do what food stall. Preparations were so intense that some claimed studying for exams was easier than being on the Cultural Festival Committee at this time of year. Events were selected by a group composed of representatives of each class and year from the festival committee and the student council, along with a faculty member. The cultural festival was hard on the people who had to run it and the people who wanted to take part in it—and it all started this week. Hirano’s homeroom, second-year Class E, had already decided what they were going to do and were ready to tackle the vetting process. They planned to use two classrooms and the entire hallway between them to build a haunted house. By taking off the classroom doors and joining the rooms to the hallway, they could make use of a larger space than was normally available for a cultural-fest event, making it hard to guess where the “ghosts” and “monsters” would come from. And by having plenty of distance between the entrance and exit, people going in were less likely to overhear people coming out talking about the surprises. Taking over an entire hallway meant the event would be a one-way affair, so they had to do it somewhere near a flight of stairs, and they would have to give serious thought to how to evacuate in the event of an emergency. Decorating the classrooms would be time-consuming, not to mention they would need to make costumes. This cultural fest would demand some real passion, and Hirano, who belonged to a club that didn’t exactly set his heart racing, had enthusiasm to spare. Now, what about Kagiura?