In actuality, I’d tripped and fallen over on purpose. Not wanting to stand there and watch while everyone else in class pointed and laughed at Akari’s mud-covered distress, I decided to join her down there and hopefully take some of the negative attention off of her in the process. That plan ultimately backfired, though, since all it did was make everyone laugh even harder at the both of us. Still, after all these years, I didn’t quite feel comfortable revealing the actual reason to her, so I tried to paper over it with a lame excuse instead.
“Well, I mean, it was a long time ago. Hard to remember exactly,” I said.
“Oh, reeeally… Well, okay. Hey, that reminds me—speaking of field trips…”
Akari and I carried on waxing nostalgic like this for a good, long time. Here I was, sitting alone in an empty classroom at night with the very girl I once had intense—though unrequited—feelings for. One might assume that I would feel pretty nervous and antsy in this situation, but right now, I was simply having too much fun talking with her to care. It wasn’t until the little wall clock over the blackboard struck 3 a.m. that a great big yawn escaped from my mouth.
“Getting sleepy?” she asked.
“Nah… Not really,” I lied, determined to stay here and talk with her for just a little longer. The truth was that I felt extremely tired, and our conversation was kind of dying down—so I racked my brain for other potential topics to bring up before she had a chance to suggest that maybe we should call it a night. “Oh, yeah! There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Oh, really? What’s that?”
“It’s about the night that Akito died. Do you have any idea what I was doing, or where I was that night after I said goodbye to you down at the seawall?”
As soon as the question had left my lips, Akari’s eyes shot open as though I’d just caught her in a compromising position. She seemed to be in genuine shock; her mouth hung open the slightest crack, but no words came out. All I could hear was a long, shallow breath. Concerned, I called her name again, and this time she snapped out of it. Then, her expression warped into a smile that was blatantly insincere.
“S-sorry, sorry. You’re talking about April 1st, right?”
“Yeah. My grandma told me I spent the night at a friend’s house that evening, but I couldn’t think of a single friend who’d post me up like that. Wondered if maybe you knew anything about that.”
“Er… No, sorry. I only saw you that one time at the seawall that day, so I wouldn’t know what you did after that…”
“Gotcha… Well, thanks anyway.”
Well, that was fruitless. If Akari didn’t know, then I hadn’t the first clue who else I could ask. Neither Eri nor my grandmother seemed to know either. I was trying to brainstorm other avenues I could investigate when I heard Akari let out a tiny gasp beside me. I turned to look at her and saw that she was covering her mouth with one hand, meaning that I couldn’t quite make out her expression.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she turned, slowly and fearfully, to face me. Her brow was furrowed as if she’d realized some grave mistake. After a few moments of silence, she lowered her hand and flashed a weak smile in an attempt to reassure me.
“It’s nothing, sorry,” she said. “I had this sinking feeling because I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the door on my way out or not.”
“Oh, gotcha… Yeah, that happens to me all the time,” I commiserated, even if I still thought that was a bit of overreaction. I reiterated: “So you’re sure everything’s all right?”
“Yeah. I thought about it some more, and now I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that I did lock the door, actually. So we’re cool.”
She shot me a carefree grin which finally convinced me that it really hadn’t been anything more than that, even if I still found her initial reaction a bit odd. I was probably overthinking it, though. Akari stood up from her chair and stretched her arms out.
“All right, it’s getting pretty late. Or early, I guess. You ready to head home?”
“…Probably a good idea.”
Though I still didn’t want to have to say goodbye, I knew we couldn’t stay here forever. I rose from my own chair as well. I let Akari leave the room first so that I could lock the door from the inside, then I exited through the tall window the same way I’d come in.
“Well, guess that’s the end of the grand tour, huh?” I joked as we made our way down the hall.
“Yeah, not too much else to see,” Akari nodded. “Plus, all the other classrooms are gonna be locked… Oh, but actually, there is one more place I’d like to show you before we go. C’mere for a sec.”
I followed Akari as she led the way up the stairs, past the third floor, all the way to the roof-access landing. The only things I could see up there were some stacks of student desks that weren’t currently in use and the door leading out onto the roof, which was secured with an ordinary padlock—meaning we couldn’t get outside.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” I asked.
“Heck no. Gimme a little more credit, wouldja? It’s on the other side of this door.”
Akari pulled two small lengths of wire from the inside of a nearby desk. They looked like hairpins which had been yanked on until they were relatively straightened out. Before I could even register the implications of what she was about to do, she’d already jammed the wires into the padlock and begun rattling them around inside. In a matter of seconds, the lock was picked.