I was taken to the art room.
That standard art classroom that all middle schools have.
But at Yubiwa Middle School, electives have long since been removed from the curriculum, so these days the art room─like the music room, the industrial arts room, and the home ec room─sits unused.
Even though I’d been earnestly studying at this school for more than a year, I’d never been to that room.
And so I didn’t know.
That a group of students had taken advantage of the fact that the room was unused to use it themselves, without permission, after school.
No─it’s a bit of an understatement to say they were using it “without permission.” I should probably say that they had commandeered it.
That’s really the only possible word to use once you’ve set foot in that recklessly redecorated room.
The floors, which must originally have been unfinished wood, were covered in luxurious rugs whose pile was so deep that I couldn’t help but want to kick off my shoes and bury my bare feet in them, while the fluorescent lights that must have hung from the ceiling had been replaced by not one but two chandeliers.
The standard-issue desks and bland chairs had all been removed, and in their place stood an elegant, heavy, almost certainly imported table and a couple of sofas that looked so plush I was sure my whole body would sink in if I sat down. The design of the intricately embroidered tablecloth looked exactly like a wedding veil.
The flowers in the enormous vase were arranged so naturally I could hardly imagine a human hand had placed them there, yet with an art that only a human could have achieved, brightening the whole room.
The walls covered in fresh wallpaper were crowded with paintings so famous even I recognized them, despite not being very bright about that kind of thing since I’ve never taken art; and in the four corners, statues that were definitely not plaster copies meant for sketching exercises watched over the classroom like guardian gods.
The huge cupboard in the back was lined with an eclectic collection of antique-looking ceramic and silver dishes, but rather than appearing overdone, the display was perfectly harmonious.
The built-in shelf next to the blackboard was stacked with rare books you’d never find in the library─the kind of treasures that even an old book shop would lock away in a glass case.
Not even the clock was the same as the ones in other classrooms, but was instead a large grandfather clock that I half suspected was the one that famous song was written about.
Unbelievably, there was even a canopied bed in the room, and I could tell at a glance that it, too, was a storied antique. I didn’t think I’d sleep very soundly in it, but it was made up as impeccably as the beds in the sort of luxury hotels you see in movies.
Forget art room, it was an art museum.
That was the unavoidable impression.
I froze, dumbfounded to discover that this space, so strange that it seemed almost outside the human realm, had been right there in my own middle school this whole time.
Or maybe it wasn’t so much the room that made me freeze as the fact that the four boys who were lounging around in it─without a trace of guilt or shame at having broken the rules and redecorated a school facility in this way, and who, far from acting uncomfortable in their showy, show-offy surroundings, actually appeared to be in their element─were all looking me up and down.
Four boys.
The truth is, they fit into that art room perfectly─my guess is they’d never in their lives felt the kind of visceral awkwardness I was experiencing at that very moment.
I’d been standing there motionless for a while when one of them spoke up.
“Well, well, whadda we have here? Looks like this time you dragged in a girl who’s as gloomy as India ink.”
Those were the words, too jeering to call a greeting, that the unfriendly-looking boy standing in front of one of the statues directed at me. This guy was seriously using a metaphor to describe my gloominess?
“She’s so gloomy I bet she searches news sites for the word ‘regret’ just to see how many people around the world are feeling sad and then laughs about it.”
Okay, that metaphor was way too specific.
Who even does that?
Those were the thoughts running through my mind, but I couldn’t get them out of my mouth. I’m not the only one without the guts to contradict him─I bet you could count the number of kids at this school who would dare to do it on one hand. There might not even be a single teacher who would.
He didn’t seem to know who I was, but I knew who he was─Michiru Fukuroi, year 2, class A. A legendary delinquent with a name infamous even beyond our school, and a slender build that didn’t suffer one bit from comparison to the statue he was standing next to.
They called him “the bossman.”
It’s an old-fashioned title, but it suited his dangerous aura oddly well. One glare from the long, narrow eyes set in that fierce face of his could make a person turn and flee.
There were girls who actually burst into terrified tears at the mere mention of his name.
On the list of kids at Yubiwa Middle who you absolutely should not get involved with, he was far and away number one─and while I never expected to cross paths with him under such circumstances, now that I had, my impression was just as bad as the rumors suggested.
The funny thing─the thing that made me hesitate to write him off completely as a bad guy─was that in contrast to his ordinary appearance in the hallways of our school, here in the art room he was wearing an apron over his disheveled uniform, and a triangular handkerchief around his head.
Even as he smirked and made these nasty comments to me, he held a rag in his hand─maybe the reason he was standing near the statue was that he was polishing it?
Given that frightening face of his, the apron and handkerchief couldn’t have seemed more out of place, but the mood in the room was such that I didn’t feel like I could laugh or tease him about it.
However, not everyone felt the same way.
“Come now, come now, Michiru. That’s no way to talk to a young lady you’re meeting for the first time. I must say, you’re making me feel quite regretful. Look, now you’ve gone and made the world that much sadder.”
Drawn by the exquisite softness of the oh-so-refined voice chiding the infamous delinquent, I turned in its direction. And let out a mental gasp.
I hadn’t recognized him before because, unlike when he was up on the stage giving speeches, his long hair was tied back in a ponytail, but now that I realized who he was, there was no question about it─no student at Yubiwa Academy could mistake the owner of that pleasant voice.
The boy gracefully sipping a cup of black tea on the sofa was the student council president himself, Nagahiro Sakiguchi. Moreover, he was no ordinary student council president─he’d held the position three years in a row. He was such a master speaker, he’d won the position the moment he delivered the address as representative of the incoming class, before the election even happened.
Among the girls at least, there wasn’t a single person who wouldn’t recognize that appealing voice, which captured the hearts of listeners with the skill of a voice actor.
But what was he doing here?
I couldn’t contain my shock at seeing “the bossman” Michiru Fukuroi, problem child extraordinaire, in the same room as councilman Nagahiro Sakiguchi, spokesman for the honor students. On top of that, Sakiguchi had called him by his first name, like they were old friends or something…
In political terms, the top dog of the official world and the top dog of the underworld should’ve been such an explosive pair that they wouldn’t even have enough common ground for a conversation… And yet this is how Fukuroi responded to Sakiguchi’s reprimand:
“Oh, so you’re gonna sit there and bitch to me while you’re drinking the tea I made you?” He shrugged, and that was that.
The mood wasn’t even faintly explosive.
And he made the tea? The bossman?