After summer vacation, the classroom for 2-A returned to normal; all traces of the festival atmosphere were completely gone. I slipped inside with moments to spare.
The boy who sat beside me, Sakura Chiaki, lifted his head as I tossed my bag on my desk. He must’ve been sleeping—his shirt had left impressions on his face. “Morning, Iguchi.”
“Good morning.”
He was the only classmate I greeted. We usually exchanged post-summer-vacation pleasantries like “Oh, you got so tan!” and “How have you been?” with people we hadn’t seen for a while on the same day as the second-semester opening ceremony.
The bell rang, and Rintaro opened the door. We all stood at Chiaki’s command.
Stand up. Bow. Say good morning. Every day began in the same way.
The students replied indifferently as Rintaro took attendance. His voice echoed brightly through the classroom, in contrast with their apathetic responses. He wore one of the ensembles I’d put together for him. Some girls started whispering as they noticed the light-blue striped shirt and pink tie I’d chosen.
“Looks like Rintaro’s fashion sense improved,” I heard one mutter. I patted myself on the back internally.
“Sakura Chiaki.”
“Here,” Chiaki responded, trying to suppress a yawn. He probably wasn’t getting enough sleep; his charmingly large eyes looked like they would close at any moment. “Hey, Iguchi,” he murmured, still rubbing his eyes, “can I see your English homework?”
“You were supposed to do that over summer vacation. Why didn’t you finish it?”
“I was really busy with art club every day. Please? I’ll treat you to something later to make up for it.” He clasped his hands together as if he were praying.
Heaving a small sigh, I started searching for the homework folder I’d put in my desk.
Rintaro was already starting the girls’ roll call. “Iguchi Hikaru.”
“Here.”
Rintaro checked my name off casually on his roster. He read the morning announcements, then his face broke into a nihilistic smile. “2-A’s hair and uniform inspection is today. I’m sure you must be raring to go.”
Once summer vacation ended, they always conducted the hair and uniform inspection the day after the school’s opening ceremony. Homeroom teachers would join the second-year head teacher and guidance counselor as they went from classroom to classroom, checking each student’s appearance. Our school was usually so lax that everyone almost forgot the rules; teachers only came down hard on us on inspection days.
A chorus of boos met Rintaro’s suggestion that we get ready now.
“It’s not like anyone sprang this on you,” he pointed out. “You all knew this was coming. You should’ve come to school prepared.”
“You say that, Rintaro, but you’ve still got bedhead yourself,” someone retorted.
“No way.” Rintaro tried to tidy the back of his hair. He’d been conscientious about what he saw head-on in the mirror, but apparently hadn’t noticed his almost-artistic back cowlick until now. “I’m going to go put some water on it,” he said. He disappeared from the classroom, looking more like a fellow student than our teacher.
Chiaki followed the school dress code to the letter daily, since he was our class representative, and so while the other class members fussed with their appearance, he attempted to hastily copy my homework. He wrote so fast that the hand holding his mechanical pencil blurred. I was just fastening my dark-green uniform tie when he asked out of the blue, “Does my uniform look weird anywhere?”
“No. Want to borrow my perfume, though?”
“If I did that, I’d attract more unnecessary attention.”
He’d finished copying the paper, so I leaned over to retrieve it. “You smell like oil, though. Did you hole up in the art room again?”
My comment prompted him to sniff at his uniform. “Shoot. I think it absorbed some of the smell.” He looked drained. I was sure he’d gotten to the art room in the early morning.
“Refresh my memory—what’s the school code say about stinking?”
“Perfume would be too strong, though,” Chiaki insisted, then called, “Hey, anyone have spray deodorant?”
“I do!”
It was Tono Riku who’d responded, which prompted Chiaki to chuckle. “Why do you have that?” he teased.
“It’s Ichika’s. And what the heck? If you laugh at me, you can’t borrow it.”
“My bad, my bad. Can I use it, Hasumi-san? Pretty please!” he wheedled until Tono-kun sprayed him with it.
Hasumi Ichika had even had the feminine foresight to pour some deodorant spray into a portable bottle and bring it in. Well, color me impressed. Tono-kun had just finished dousing Chiaki with it when Rintaro reentered the classroom, the head teacher and guidance counselor in tow.
The hair and uniform inspection consisted of the teachers lining students up by the window three at a time, then checking whether their appearance conformed with the school dress code. The boys underwent a detailed examination of the length of their facial hair and the hairline around the nape of their neck.
As the head teacher approached Chiaki, his eyebrows twitched. “Are you wearing perfume, Sakura?” That elicited peals of laughter from the class, who knew exactly what had transpired.
“It’s deodorant spray! I was worried that I smelled like paint!” Chiaki tried desperately to explain, but the head teacher—who was in charge of P.E.—didn’t seem to buy it. It was true that the spray Hasumi-san had lent Chiaki smelled more like sweet air freshener.
Rintaro piped up. “Sir, Sakura’s in the art club. They have a big competition soon, so he’s spending a lot of time in the art room. He was probably concerned about the smell.”
The head teacher paused. “I see. You’re the club advisor, correct?”