“Yep. It’s just like it was last year.”
“Yikes. That’s terrible. This place is a hellhole.” Wailing, she started scribbling in her notebook. “So this summer, we’re going after summer lessons hard.”
“Yeah. We’ll do everything we can to upset them.”
We were out to relieve our frustrations—and hopefully change the school while we were at it. If we wanted anyone to take our attacks seriously, we needed to have lots of witnesses.
“I’m on board with our target, but what should we do? I’ve run out of specific ideas. Nothing else on tap!”
“Hmm… If we’re starting from scratch, I’d like to do something to point out the irony of summer lessons.”
“Good point. All our classes feature abuse, so there’s no use griping about it here. Not that I’m okay with it, but…”
“I get your point,” I said, nodding.
I did. She wasn’t just trying to do something different this time. We had a more specific target now, and she wanted to make the best of that opportunity.
But what could we do? We thought about it for so long that we even forgot we were holding hands, but nothing really came to mind.
“Summer lessons have just started, so I guess we should spend a little while observing,” I suggested.
“I guess so, yeah. If we find something new to grumble about, that might give us a lead.”
“Then let’s head out. We’ll schedule another meeting at a later date.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be in touch.”
Kurumi snapped her notes closed, wrapping up our strategy session. We let go of each other’s hands, and I grabbed my bookbag and got up to leave.
“Oh, Natsume. Hang on a second.”
“Hmm? Oh, sorry. Did you have more to say?”
“No, I’m done. Just…smooch.”
Her soft, warm lips brushed mine. She’d leaned in as I got up and kissed me.
“…Caught me off guard, there,” I said, trying to act unperturbed as I brushed my fingers against my lips.
Kurumi licked hers, then flashed me a mean-spirited grin. “Mwa-ha-ha! Don’t read too much into it. Let’s go!”
She packed up, pinned her hair to hide the gray, and left the room.
Wait… What do you mean, “don’t read too much into it”?
Making out was part of our bad behavior and a way to vent stress. What else could I read into it?
…Better not overthink it. I don’t want to cause any misunderstandings.
✦ ✦ ✦
Our garbage classes continued, still full of insults and dehumanization. The lectures went nowhere as teachers wasted all their time yelling at kids. And that wasn’t even the half of it.
Appallingly, these classes cost money—on top of our regular tuition fees. Students participating had to apply ahead of time and pay for the privilege.
They took our money and didn’t teach us a damn thing. That was the truth behind the summer lessons at Saigou High. The whole thing was completely unsalvageable. It was clear the school didn’t give a shit about their students.
“Don’t screw up something so easy, brat. Go back to junior high!”
The day after Kurumi and I picked our new target, teachers were yelling over the sound of toppling desks once again.
Our summer classes continued to be a sick joke. Yet as awful as they were, every year, a fair number of students attended them. Since they cost extra, they were naturally optional—yet the majority of students wound up enrolling in them anyway.
A few students might have positive motivations—they needed to be ready for college exams and wanted to spend summer vacation reviewing what they’d learned, or something like that—but I knew for a fact many of them were here for much darker reasons.
“Don’t slack off just because it’s summer! At the very least, you’re better than the hopeless idiots on this list! Make the most of it!”
The teacher was standing by the secondary chalkboard to one side of the room. The week’s schedule was written on it…along with a list of six names beneath the header APPLICATION NOT SUBMITTED.
And there you have it—the reason almost everyone attended summer lessons: Anyone who opted out got their name written up on the board. It was the same in every class and every grade, a Saigou High tradition. The list went up in mid-May, and every single student’s name went up on the board, erased only when they turned in their summer lesson application.
What did that mean? Well, basically, this: Anyone who didn’t attend—cheaters, if we’re being mean—would have their identities exposed. Putting those names on display generated a buzz, and students would start asking one another why they weren’t applying.
Unless you were extremely sure of yourself, not attending would put you in a very awkward position at school. And like dominoes, all the students gave in to the peer pressure. That was what the school wanted, and that was why their names were on the board.
“Everyone on this board must have a very busy schedule. Lots of summer plans! Isn’t that nice? You don’t? So do your damn work!” Spitting sarcasm, the teacher went back to the podium.
Everything about this public humiliation sucked, but there was one aspect of it that pissed me off more than anything else: the way the teachers pretended they left those names up just for reference.
We all knew it was about malicious humiliation. And for that reason, the way they avoided overt insults galled me. The phrase APPLICATION NOT SUBMITTED was full of cowardice.
Don’t pretend like you’re being polite. If you’re gonna be assholes, go for broke. Gimme a reason to clock your ass. Don’t go around with an innocent look on your face, like you haven’t done anything wrong.
This chain of thought reminded me of my strategy session with Kurumi. If I took aim at this frustration, maybe I’d find a line of attack.
Hiding my phone under my desk, I sent Kurumi a text.
“For our resistance, wanna hurl a stone at the list of names?”
She was in class, too, but her answer came quickly.
“I have a plan. I call it ‘Painted Heads on Pikes.’”
It was hard to tell what she was talking about. What did this scheme involve? The name was awful, but that was nothing new.
I was about to reply when she sent the details.
We’d need to get some paint—or magic markers—and sneak into the classrooms undetected. Then we’d change the lists’ headers to read “Heads on Pikes.” That would force the teachers to admit that they were treating nonattenders like executed prisoners. And it would certainly help vent our frustration with our summer lessons.
“I like it,” I replied, before quickly glancing back at the chalkboard and sinking into thought.
Now that we’d settled on our method of attack, we needed a date and time. When could we safely get this done? We’d have to do our homework. We’d need to figure out the right color and size for the writing, too. We needed to hammer out all the details.
As I pondered these questions, Kurumi wrote back.
“Another idea: Could we decorate the header with this?”
She’d attached an image, and it almost made me crack up in class.
It showed a very real-looking severed head, almost certainly made by doctoring a cheap mannequin. The hair was a mess. The eyes were rolled back, showing only the whites. The neck was painted red, as though blood had gone everywhere.
It was a horrifying image. Where had she even found it?
“Awesome,” I replied. “Let’s make some and hang them everywhere.”
“Let’s swing by a hundred-yen store on the way home!”
It seemed we’d be making these gruesome heads, then. We hadn’t done any arts and crafts since the eraser stamps. Though I hoped I would be more useful this time around, I doubted I’d improved at all.
I still had my phone in my hand when another text arrived. But this one wasn’t from Kurumi. It was from a totally different account.
I swapped over to the screen with the new message. It was from Tanaka, who sat next to me in class.
“If you keep looking at your phone, the teacher’s gonna catch you.”
I glanced over, and our eyes met. She maintained eye contact, smiling faintly.
…She was such a do-gooder. She could’ve just hung me out to dry.
My fingers danced on the screen, punching in a quick reply.
“Thanks for the warning.”
I flashed her a quick smile of my own.
It had been a month and a half since I started talking to Tanaka, and I’d finally worked something out: This was as close as we should ever be.