A heart that has discarded anger is beautiful.
Students with no talents or achievements must cultivate beautiful hearts.
Therefore, Zero and Minus students must never get angry.
✦ ✦ ✦
Those were the principles the school’s rules were built on.
“I see… So what happens if you break those rules?” the girl asked Chika.
“Well…if a Minus student gets angry too often, they won’t make it into the Zero classes next year. Or if they’re already a Zero, they might get demoted to Minus. That’s the general idea.”
Chika had been an angry Minus before. But she’d discarded that ugly, impure emotion and finally worked her way up to Zero. She felt a renewed surge of pride at having achieved that.
She happened to glance at the silver-haired girl and suddenly froze. The girl was staring at Chika intently, her one uncovered eye giving her an ice-cold, piercing glare.
“…”
Chika found herself at a loss for words. But then the girl smiled like nothing had ever happened.
“Gotcha. So you’re a good girl who always follows the rules,” she said. “In that case, here. A present for you!”
“Huh…?”
The girl handed Chika something. It all happened so quickly, Chika didn’t have a chance to say no or even check what it was.
She gazed at her hands. There was a small, flat object, like a travel card or a coupon, with the words GAP ENTRY TICKET printed on it. That didn’t really tell her much.
Chika looked up to ask what this thing was…but the girl in pink wasn’t there anymore. Chika was alone.
✦ ✦ ✦
“A Gap Entry Ticket, huh…?”
She still wasn’t quite sure what it was, or why the strange girl had given it to her.
“The ‘entry ticket’ part’s clear enough… What, can I use this to slip into any gap or something…?”
She didn’t believe that, but she walked over to the lockers by the wall anyway. With the ticket in one hand, she reached out the other toward the space between the lockers and the wall.
Suddenly, Chika’s hand slipped effortlessly into the narrow gap, disappearing up to the wrist.
“Huh…? Whaaat?!”
She jerked her hand away.
Chika shifted her gaze from it to the gap and back again, comparing their sizes. No matter how she looked at it, there was no way her hand could have fit into that gap.
“Was I just seeing things? Or, maybe…”
Chika’s gaze wandered to the ticket in her other hand. She reached out toward the gap again…
Swsh!
“…!”
She wasn’t seeing things. She could reach all the way in, and her arm fit into the gap effortlessly. The rest of her body still looked completely normal; it was just the part between the wall and the lockers that had somehow shrunk to be paper thin.
“Is it…because I’m holding this ticket?”
Again, she looked at the card-like object the silver-haired girl had given her. After a moment’s hesitation, Chika took off her shoes and climbed up on top of the lockers.
“It’s a little scary, but here goes…”
She gulped and, still holding on tight to the ticket, jumped toward the wall.
Slip… Thud!
She felt her feet touch the ground.
Chika’s body had slipped perfectly into the gap. The lockers came up to her waist, and above that point, she looked the same as ever. But below the waist, she was almost completely flat, more or less the same size as the space between the lockers and the wall.
She tried shifting her position. She’d been facing the wall before, but now she turned ninety degrees to the left. Sure enough, her lower body changed as well, making the part that was inside the gap perfectly flat.
✦ ✦ ✦
Even when my body changes, it doesn’t hurt one bit. All right, in that case…
Chika crouched down, her whole body sinking into the gap. Her shoulders, her face, everything up to the very top of her head became as thin as a sheet of paper, fitting perfectly into the narrow space.
Now right up against the wall, she began to slowly crawl forward. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it still felt a little cramped.
Huh…?
She felt funny. It was like a vague, long-buried memory was drifting up to the surface of her mind.
That’s weird… Did I do something like this before, a long time ago…?
This sensation of her body up against the wall, squeezed into a dark, narrow space with no room on either side, only able to move straight forward… It felt familiar. But the memory only drifted up for a split second. It was there one moment, and the next, she’d lost it.
Well, whatever. I’ve got more important things to worry about…
Lots of other stuff had fallen behind the lockers. Sticks of chalk, pens, folded-up worksheets, even some loose change. But none of that interested Chika.
…Aha! Here it is. The eraser!
She’d finally come far enough to find what she’d knocked into that gap a few days before. There was no mistaking it—this was what she’d been looking for.
Down there in that cramped space, Chika reached out and closed her thin, flat fingers around the eraser. With that done, she slowly stood up. Once her head and shoulders were above the top of the lockers, they returned to their original size. From there, she climbed back out into the classroom, none the worse for wear.
✦ ✦ ✦
She immediately made her way to the faculty office to return the eraser. With permission from the teacher in charge, she was finally allowed to head out and see the bazaar.
Unfortunately, by the time she got there, everything was already starting to wind down. Most of the stalls—whether they were selling food, drinks, or something else—were putting away their wares and packing up. Even the few that were still open didn’t have anything very interesting on display, just the scattered remains of what they hadn’t been able to sell.
Disappointed but determined nonetheless, Chika decided to wander around for a little while longer.
Right at the edge of the campus, she noticed a strange man sitting in front of a large, ragged-looking old briefcase. He wore a hat with a wide brim and had a thick scarf wrapped around his neck. Chika could have sworn that he was looking at her…except the shadow cast by the hat and scarf meant she couldn’t see his face at all.
Is he one of the stall owners here today? Maybe he’s carrying his products in that big case.
As she walked past the strange man, Chika wondered what he could have been selling. In the end, though, she left the bazaar that day without finding anything interesting.