Sunlight shone through the classroom window.
Arato Endo, draped over a chair in the classroom, let out a groan. “It’s only April, why’s it so hot...” The sky seemed to stretch on forever. Arato turned his gaze to the ceiling.
“Look at you, sleeping through class like a boss.” Ryo Kaidai walked over to stand by Arato during the break. He was a handsome guy with long bangs, and the top button of his uniform shirt undone.
“Hey, you were out like a light too, so you shouldn’t talk,” someone said from behind them. The voice belonged to Kengo Suguri, whose seat was right behind Arato’s. Kengo liked to think of himself as the rational type. But, behind his glasses, his eyes (which were sometimes stubborn and sometimes frail) betrayed his often changing emotions.
“I got all my prep done yesterday,” Ryo replied, indifferently. It often struck Arato as odd that Ryo was even going to an ordinary high school like theirs.
“Must be nice, having all those brains and nothing to do with them,” Arato said.
Ryo still looked indifferent, but seemed strangely pleased by Arato’s words. “Aww, stop. The only reason they have schools around anymore is so we can practice getting along with other people. I think that, in our lifetime, we’ll see the day when it won’t matter how smart anyone is anymore.”
“You rich kids sure have it nice. Even your excuses for slacking off are high-class,” Kengo said, transferring the notes he’d taken during class from the school terminal to his own pocket terminal.
Arato saw a notification light blinking on his desk screen, and his shoulders slumped. He pulled out his card-sized pocket terminal to check the notice. The deadline for some new homework was written in red text on his personal scheduler.
“The hell?” he grumbled. “How come I’m the only one who gets extra homework?”
“By my calculations, here in about ten years the only work we men will have left to us is getting friendly with the ladies,” Ryo said, spreading both hands as if he was about to bust a move.
Arato felt like half of class 2C — the twenty female students to be exact — were sending icy glares their way. “It’s amazing you can say that kind of thing with a straight face in this class, Kaidai.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve hit on every single girl in the class.”
“That was my goal for the year,” Ryo protested. “A girl a week. I worked pretty hard at it.”
Arato and his two friends stood out in class, and not in a good way. It was all Ryo’s fault. Ever since they changed classes, the handsome, intelligent Ryo had flirted with every single girl in the class. Due to this, the relationships between the girls had been put in turmoil, until finally they had all come to the consensus that Ryo was the scum of the Earth.
The boys of the class, for their part, didn’t want anything to do with a guy the girls were all clearly avoiding. As a result, only his long-time friends Arato and Kengo would even hang out with him.
Sweat beaded on Arato’s forehead. “Ryo, you’re the one who just said school is for figuring out how to get along, right? One of these days someone’s going to teach you how you’re actually supposed to get along with others. Painfully, I’d guess.”
“Oh, hey. I’ve got a date with a girl from the next high school over on Sunday. You should come along, Arato,” Ryo said, grabbing Arato’s arm from behind.
“Nah, I can’t. I promised I’d hang out with Yuka...”
“Bull! Yuka’s not gonna shake you down when she knows you’re running low on allowance.”
“Stop pretending you’re an expert on my little sister,” Arato retorted.
“You sure love dragging Endo into everything, don’t you, Kaidai?” Kengo said.
At Kengo’s dry observation, Ryo flashed a huge grin. “It’s more fun with Arato around.”
Arato wondered if Ryo was actually so smart that he was wrapping all the way around to stupid again. Of course, this would make Arato and Kengo idiots too, for hanging around him.
The cityscape beyond the classroom window glittered. On the other side of the river, the solar panels in the residential district flashed with reflected sunlight.
It was April, and school had just entered third quarter.
Long ago, Japan had adopted the custom of starting the school year in September, like schools in Europe and America did. By this point, even in Japan people found it strange that, one hundred years ago, the school years had started under blooming cherry blossoms.
The route Arato and his friends took home ran parallel to the Sumida River, which was lined with cherry blossom trees. Passing by the Kototoi bridge, which had collapsed once over the last one hundred years, they slipped by the broken stone monument at the Ushijima Shrine. This path took them under a tunnel of cherry blossom trees, planted on either side of Bokutei Street.
“Hey, are we doing hanami this year or what?” Arato asked, referring to the Japanese custom of picnicking with friends under the cherry blossoms during their blooming season. He had stopped beside a relatively new stone monument, which had been built on the bank of the Sumidagawa River. Forty-two years ago, there had been a massive disaster people called the ‘Hazard.’ The monument had been put up to remind everyone of the disaster, which had reduced the Honjo Azumabashi district to a pile of rubble. Old folks often came and laid flowers at the monument. AR photos had been provided for the monument, and they started displaying as soon as Arato and the others got close enough.
In the heat of early April, Ryo stripped off his school jacket. “Let’s have a hanami this Sunday,” he said.
“Man, you never give up, do you? How many people did you already invite?” Arato asked, turning a small dial in the collar of his uniform. Electricity flowed into the coolant elements in the armpit of his suit, which started to cool off.
With a sly smile, Ryo held up four fingers. “Four ladies.”
“Well you’d better apologize to one of them, then,” Arato told him. “With me, you, and Kengo that’s only three guys.”
“Arato,” Ryo complained, “that makes it sound like you two are the only friends I have.”
“We are.”
“Oh come on, I have other friends. You’re gonna make me cry, here.”
Over the last fifty years, there had been some major land adjustments around the old Sumida District Office. With the Azuma and Komagata bridges as starting points, the streets of the district had been rerouted into a more regular grid.
The flow of cars down the wide roads was smooth as a river. Every vehicle had self-driving functions now, so traffic jams were a thing of the past.