“We haven’t talked ever since the fight, did we?” I speak.
“Fight? Oh, Takayuki-san, you make it sound like a serious thing! It wasn’t that serious!” Ran exclaims.
It actually was a pretty serious thing though.
She continues.
“What are you doing here? Where are the other boys? Weren’t you guys supposed to be eating at the rooftop or something?”
“Hm? I thought the student council informed you all?”
“My memories are fuzzy… I can’t remember things all that good, tee hee~”
“It’s best for me to remind you. Well, honestly, it’s not at all surprising to know that the rooftop is ‘off-limits’ being bombarded with used desks and all.”
“Oh yeah, I guess I do remember now. It was bombarded with desks?”
“We moved the desks out to the side. I guess it really was our fault to begin with. Obviously, I’m telling you this so that you people don’t attempt going there either.”
“I know! I know! I can read the lines, you know!”
Strolling through the premises, the church of the school comes into view. It’s a breathtaking sight that I, myself had never been given the chance to enter.
“It’s a shame too,” I say, “To be blocked from such a beautiful view. What a waste to spend all that time fighting for the rooftop and we just get kicked out the moment we win.”
“It sucks!”
“I would’ve been fine if you girls could use it at least, but… Well, it shouldn’t matter, as long as we’re with our friends, everything’s alright.”
Going out of pace, she goes in front of me with a great pout.
“D-Did I say something wrong?” I wonder.
“Idiot!” she says as she bends her back slightly forward with an assertive point directed to my face, “They’re your friends! So you’ve got to give the best for them!”
“But what can I do?”
“Want to go?”
“Go? Where to?”
“The student council?”
“What can we possibly say?”
“You never know if we don’t try! I also want to go to the rooftop from time-to-time! Why don’t we fish out the details on why the rooftop is blocked off?”
“Fine, but can you lead. You’d make a better first impression than me.”
“Sh-Shock! One of the boys is leaving their fate into my hands! Such a development!”
“Save that energy for when we arrive there…”
“’Kay~☆”
…
..
.
Heading inside and going straight to the 3rd floor. We find ourselves in front of two gaping brown doors.
“Are we really doing this?” I ask.
Ignoring my questions, she pushes the door with both her hands and bravely marches forward.
“Good afternoon!”
“Shouldn’t we be a bit more formal?”
“Don’t sweat the details!”
Inside the room, we find the vice president, Yamanasahi Airi, President of the Public Morals Committee and also the Vice President of the Student Council, beside a guy sitting in front of a wide brown table.
He must be the president.
He hadn’t looked. All he cared about was taking care the mountains of paperwork cut out for him.
There was also another girl to his left.
Could she be the secretary?
She walks toward and stops just a few centimeters before the table. I shyly follow behind.
“Oh ho~ If it isn’t, Tanimoto-san! What brings you here?” Airi asks.
“We just wanted to file a complaint!” she cheerfully sounds.
Why did you have to say it like that?!
“A complaint from Tanimoto-san? Scary!” she replies sarcastically, but it seems the other girl beside the president didn’t take the remark as lightly as she did.
She steps forward and spreads her arm forward so we could not go further.
“Do you have a problem with the decision of the Student Council?! Of the President of all people?! Have you no shame?!”
Eccentric. I would expect no less from the Student Council. They also often hold extreme power in school settings, so I would rather not make an enemy of them.
From the ruckus that the girl made, the president finally takes a look in front of him. His eyes were stern and sharp, yet after a good second, his expression softens. He drops the loads of paperwork in front of us and crosses his arms.
“Ah, I didn’t know we had visitors. Sorry, I’m quite loaded at the moment… I apologize if I had come across as disrespectful.”
His voice is… soothing. In contrast with his earlier face, he seemed really courtly now.
“No, no, it’s all alright! When it comes to Gakuto-san, I always understand your efforts, so it’s all justified!” Ran says.
The girl who ranted earlier grows a fit and retaliates from her statement. Possibly from her lack of Reigi(礼儀), which is a funny thought because I constantly break that etiquette.
|
Reigi(礼儀) is proper etiquette. One example would be using the last name of a person while addressing someone with an honorific is Keigo (敬語), also called respectful language - which are things Kibe definitely does not follow. |
“Y-You dare close the distance between you, commoner?! Write a 1000-letter apology letter right this instant! Know your place!”
He raises his left hand.
“Ishizaki-san, silence,” he ordered coldly.
“ロ、ロジャー,” she replies meekly. (R-Roger.)
This makes me wonder… what kind of connections do you have… Ran Tanimoto…
As his hand dropped to the desk, he took a good look at her and then at me. His gaze fixated at me, specifically.
“I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?”
“K-Kibe Takayuki. Nice to meet you.”
“I see. Let me introduce myself. My name is Senuma Gakuto (瀬沼 岳人), you’re free to address me as Tanimoto-san does, after all, if we’re promoting a safe space for the students, we need to keep things casual, right?”
Gakuto-san, as much as I’d like to respect that, if your secretary bursts out like that every time someone gets casual with you, I don’t think the Student Council is fulfilling that claim…
“Anyways, what brings you two here?” Gakuto-san wonders.
Ran pats my back and gives me two thumbs-ups.
You’re switching now?!
I clear my throat.
“G-Gakuto-san. I know it may be presumptuous of me to say so… but why is the rooftop off-limits?”
“Ah, so it’s about that, huh?” Airi comments.
She continues reading her book like it didn’t concern her. I carry on with my words.
“I just find it odd… the rooftop has such a nice view! You’re a high school student too! You should know how choosing what’s best for youth, don’t you?”
Ishizaki, the secretary acts up again, but he raises his right hand again which puts her to stop before she could speak.
“…I understand where you’re coming from, Kibe.”
“Then-”
“However, we cannot grant that request.”
“Wh-Why?”
“I can understand the appeal of going to the ceiling and eating with friends. I’ve done that in the past, I won’t lie. But there’s a special reason why the rooftop is blocked and it’s not something that may be comfortable, even so, are you willing to hear it?”
I look at Ran to see if she’d back out.
“It can’t be that bad~” she tells me, so I face him and nod.
“You see those safety nets on the rooftop?”
When I heard those, I already knew what he was talking about, yet I wanted to hear it from his own mouth.
“They weren’t always there. Around 15 or 20 years ago, someone had jumped off from the rooftop… and committed suicide. The details are blurry, and I don’t remember the name of the person that committed suicide, but it’s true and confirmed in the records. In memory of that person, they constructed those safety nets to prevent anyone meeting the same fate.”
It's starting to make sense now.
“Obviously, many people didn’t really want to go to the place where someone jumped off and met their death. Some people who went there even went so far as to say they were cursed. To summarize it up, people were afraid and in order to stop curious people, they decided to abandon the rooftop and sealed it off. It’s not such a good story to hear, is it?”
“Yeah, I understand clearly now,” I respond.
Still… going so far as to stack all of those rows of desks… wouldn’t that have blocked the hallways? There’s also the fact that the whole floor was abandoned. What was up with that?
Even if I wonder those questions, chances are they won’t be answered. Other people will come to solve that in due time.
It’s quite a shame though.
“Do you two have any more questions?” Gakuto-san queries.
“None for me!” Ran cheers with her usual genki girl attitude.
“Hmm…”
Given this opportunity, I may as well throw my shots.
“Say… what date is it?”
“Huhhh?!” Ishizaki acts up again, “Check your own damn phone!”
“Date?” Gakuto-san asks, “I don’t remember. Ishizaki-san, can you tell them?”
“Y-Yes, President!”
She checks her own phone. Once she’d found it, she looks at me.
“Listen carefully! The date today is May ***, 20XX.”
When her voice reached the specific number of the month, the volume disappeared. I wondered if I had problems on my end, but upon picking both ears, there seemed to be no problem.
“Can you say that one more time?” I request.
“Geez! What do I expect from a lowly student?! Listen real carefully.”
In case the volume cuts off suddenly, I watch her mouth to get a read of what she says.
“The date today is May ***, 20XX.”
Oddly, just as I began to focus on her mouth, it distorts and I couldn’t make out any letter at all. I hadn’t caught a whiff of what the exact day of May it was.
“Ah, thank you. I apologize for the trivial question; we’ll be on our way now.”
Ran follows behind me and closes the door as we exit.
“Tch, I hope they never return,” Ishizaki retorts.
“Haha, as cruel as ever, Ishizaki-san.”
…
..
.
“What a shame~ and here I wanted to at least see that scenery once more,” Ran groans.
“There’s a good chance it was cursed.”
“If you say that, then we’re looking pretty fine, don’t we?”
“Good point.”
Maybe a prayer each time we go there would suffice as a sort of respect for the dead, but the Student Council still forbids us. If we get caught there again, we might not get off with a simple warning.
“Nothing we can do. We’ll have to make do with other places,” I tell her.
With that we silently walk along the way. Somewhere, she’ll part ways with me, because we’ve pretty much did what we could.
In any case… the date. Why is the world making drastic measures to hide it?
“Hey, Takayuki-san…” she calls me.
“Yes?”
Before I could respond, I see a familiar someone from a distance.
“Hang on,” I tell her.
Squinting both eyes, I spot Kurata which makes me snicker.
This girl messed with my name yesterday.
“Who’s that?” Ran asks me.
“A teasing kouhai.”
It felt imperative for me to wave at her.
“Hey!”
Her response was rather late that it took a good 2 seconds before properly albeit awkwardly waving back.
From walking, we’re finally near each other, so I joke about.
“You little- I’ll mess your name up these days too!”
“Takabi-senpai. I simply call you appropriately,” she answers.
“Someone scored themselves a girlfriend!” Ran teases me while nudging my elbow.
“I’m not that lucky!” I reply.
“Have you exchanged LINE contacts with her~”
“…Do I have obligation to answer that?”
She grabs me around the neck and nudges my head.
“That’s totally someone who did it would say!”
“Shut your mouth! Let go of me!”
I squirm, but she reaffirms her grasp each time I almost get out.
“No, me and Takabi-senpai hadn’t exchanged contacts,” she says.
Ran surprised by her answer weakens her grasp which leads me to an opening to escape. Just as I do that, I confront her.
“H-Huh? What do you mean, we exchanged them yesterday! You even texted me, didn’t you?”
She tilts her head.
“You don’t remember?!” I exclaim, “Here, I’ll show you.”
Pulling out my phone, I open the LINE application and check the contacts. We recently talked, so our chat shouldn’t be far from the top. Yet-
“It’s not… huh… wh-where is it?”
Scrolling up and down, checking each and every single chat log. There was no Kurata Kasumi anywhere I checked.
That can’t be right. What’s going on?!
“I’ll be going now. See you later Takabi-senpai and other senpai,” she says farewell.
“Wait!” I shout; however, a hand grabs ahold of my left shoulder.
“Takayuki-san, about the dates earlier…” Ran speaks.
I force her hand to let go of me and distance myself.
“You. You know what’s going on, don’t you?”
I strongly accuse her without evidence, but because of the weird things that had been happening so far, I needed an object or a person to lash out on. It just so happened that Ran was beside me, coincidentally speaking about the dates.
“You’re a bit confused, aren’t you, Takayuki-san? I’ve heard that you’d joined the boys pretty recently, so you hadn’t come across these periods, I believe.”
“Periods? Are you talking about the lack of specific dates? Because no one is telling me! Everyone is avoiding the subject! What is this ‘period’?”
With a great big smile, she opens both hands and arms as if to allow me into an organization.
“Welcome to our world! A world of endless days. A world of endless happiness!”
END OF EPISODE 50
