The school was about a twenty-minute train ride from Niigata Station, and the train was full of students, all of whom were wearing the same uniform as Kai. It must always be like this around the time school starts, he thought. The train car was alive with the loud back and forth of high schoolers talking, and the few cleanly dressed adults on their way to work looked hideously uncomfortable.
Despite having the same uniform, Kai also had no one to talk to, and he felt closer to the suit-wearing adults than his fellow students. He stuck a pair of earphones in and joined the businesspeople in grimacing while the train swayed back and forth.
Meikun Private High School’s motto was “Pen and Sword.” With the creation of a middle school branch a few years ago, it became a combination school available to both age groups. From Kai’s research online, he’d found that the big points of interest were their large variety of club activities and the fact that the declining birthrate had led to issues with a shrinking student body.
The school itself was surrounded by rice fields in every direction, and at the end of those fields lay a mountain ridge, unobstructed by man-made buildings. Kai stopped for a moment to think that this may have been the first bit of country scenery he’d seen since moving to Niigata.
He stopped by the teacher’s lounge before heading towards his classroom. Even if he’d wanted to go straight there, he wouldn’t have known where it was. When he explained his situation to someone at the lounge, he was sent over to an older teacher with deep wrinkles and grizzled hair. He was probably only a few years away from retirement.
“When didja move over here?” the old teacher asked.
“Well, I’ve been here since March,” Kai told him.
“So I guess you’ve had some time to get used ta living around here. Ho ho ho!”
The way the old teacher laughed was the spitting image of a cheery old man. His name was Haimura. He taught classic literature, and apparently, some students called him Hai-jii. His old man accent felt a bit exaggerated, but strangely enough, Kai thought it fit him well.
“You can call me by whatever name you’d like, son,” Haimura offered generously.
“Understood... Haimura-sensei.”
“Aw shucks, you’re no fun,” the old teacher sighed. Kai thought that maybe Haimura had been trying to ease his nerves with a light joke while walking down the hallway together. As they approached class 2-D, he shot Kai a glance as if to double-check something. “Are ya all readied up?”
“Yes, I’m ready,” Kai affirmed.
“...You sure? There’s uh, that thing, right?” Haimura asked, hazarding a guess. “If you muck up your high school debut nowadays, it’s a whole mess, ain’t it? You’ll get canceled on Twitter and RNR’d on LINE, and, uhh, what else was there?” It wasn’t quite what you’d call working knowledge, but he at least seemed to be familiar with a lot of slang terms. To think he’d have to keep up with all of that at his age, teaching must have been a busy job.
“...I think I’ll be fine,” Kai replied.
“Alrighty, let’s go on in.”
When Kai followed Haimura in, it felt like he was being skewered alive by everyone’s gazes. He thought he’d seen the “transfer student at the beginning of a semester” trope enough times in manga and anime to be sick of it, but being put into the hot seat himself was something he could only describe as a living hell.
First of all, the staring was relentless. That alone was already painful and exhausting. It wasn’t often that he’d been judged by others so extensively. Next, once Kai took his place on the teacher’s platform, the stares were coming from right in front of him. There were two girls sitting next to the window who exchanged glances, and Kai read their lips to figure out that they were saying, “He’s kinda average.”
I’m sorry for not being hot, he replied mentally. Just let me off with the fact that I’m not a horrible person, okay... Wait, I don’t have time to be apologizing in my head. Everyone’s waiting on my self-introduction.
Akane’s teachings suddenly flashed across his mind. “—Clear, concise. Listen up, Shiraseki. A planner has to converse with many different developers. It’s common to present your plans to them, too. The most important thing you can do in a situation like that is to explain yourself in a clear and concise manner. I won’t tell you to make it interesting or funny. Clear, concise. That’s all I want you to keep in mind at first—”
...Clear and concise. He repeated the phrase in his head and took a deep breath. Then, he slowly opened his mouth. “M-My name is Shiraseki Kai. Before I moved here, I went to high school— Er, well, I mean that was obvious but, uh, I-I went to high school in Tokyo. It’s only been a month since I moved, and I still, uh, don’t really know anyone... T-Thanks for having me.”
A few stray claps went his way, and he responded to them with an awkward half-smile.
He’d originally planned to smile normally, but his mouth just wouldn’t move into position. From his classmates’ perspective, it was doubtful if they could even tell if he was trying to smile or not.
“Look, see? I told you you’d mess it up,” said his inner vision of Misako, looking smug.
What the hell, Kai internally castigated himself. What do you mean, “I don’t know anyone, so thanks for having me?” Thanks for what? Why?! Couldn’t you at least have said, “Let’s get along?!”
No, well, I was planning on saying something like, ‘I don’t have any friends yet, so I’d like to get along with you.’ He had even practiced the night before while taking a bath. Still, the words just wouldn’t come out when he got up for the real thing, and the end result was a “Thanks for having me” devoid of any actual meaning. All he’d managed to do was to let the world know that he didn’t have a single friend in Niigata. This wasn’t clear nor concise at all!
Kai took his seat in the far back, next to the window, and let out a heavy sigh. If he could have gotten away with it, he would have liked to bury his face into the desk.