As I walked in, I called out a greeting. Only about fifteen students had arrived so far. It was mostly boys who turned to look at me, and the few girls who did the same offered only vague, noncommittal smiles.

I caught a few mumbled greetings in one ear as I moved toward a seat in the back, by the window.

The curtains were drawn, but the windows themselves were wide open, and a breeze tugged at the cloth, moving it slowly along the rails. A sunbeam fell on my desk, and I turned away in irritation. Gusts of wind cooled my cheeks where the sweat had plastered my hair to my skin.

There was an air conditioner next to the PA speaker, but no one had ever seen it on.

Desperate students had managed to get a homeroom teacher to explain that our air conditioners were the property of the city and that turning them on required explicit permission from the big shots down at city hall.

But even if they called them up and said, “It’s X degrees today, so we’d like to turn them on,” it wasn’t like the answer would be instantaneous. The application would be passed around back at city hall for who knows how long. The result: a wasted treasure.

While we all sat with tongues hanging out like a pack of starving dogs, our hands stuck in the comparative cool of our desk drawers, those big shots were probably kicking back in comfortably chilled conference rooms.

Meanwhile, the faculty office had two air conditioners that were always going full blast. If only there were no teachers there, it would be a midsummer oasis. Unfortunately, “faculty” was right in the name, so instead, it was like a mirage no one dared approach.

I rested my chin on my hand. The time before homeroom was always slow and dull.

Sunao had no friends in this class to pass five or ten empty minutes with. When she moved up a grade, Sunao had been split up from the group she’d hung out with in her first year and hadn’t found any openings in her new class; in the end, she’d chosen to go it alone, and so I did the same.

With nothing else to do until the bell rang, I spent my time observing the room. It was like a rectangular box, roasted by the blindingly bright sun until it became a sauna. Even the students who did have friends to talk to were struggling to keep their eyes open.

The heat was making it hard to think straight, and no one was saying anything witty. They were all shielding their faces with pencil boards or clinging to the window frames in hopes of some relief. A few boys had already drained their canteens and were running to the sinks in the hall.

Just watching the others made me sleepy. A yawn spilled into my palm. It felt as if someone were pouring lukewarm water down my ear canal.

***

Once classes had ended, the mood relaxed.

As I stretched, several students grabbed sports bags and rushed out of the room. Like them, I planned to drop by an after-school club, too.

Sunao belonged to the Literature Club. She hadn’t chosen it for any particular reason—school rules simply required you belong to something, and she’d wound up picking one of the plainer cultural clubs where she wouldn’t be missed if she skipped. It was pure coincidence that she’d chosen the Literature Club but a stroke of luck for me. Unlike her, I was quite a bookworm.

I liked to think that it was I who belonged to the Literature Club, not Sunao, even if she was the one who’d filled out the membership form.

I stuffed Sunao’s textbooks in her satchel and was about to exit through the classroom’s back door—when my eyes lit upon the lower-right corner of the chalkboard.

In sloppy handwriting, I saw a name far more familiar than my own.

“Ack!”

I’d totally missed it. Sunao was on duty today.

This role had a lot of responsibilities, but there were four main tasks: erasing all chalkboards between each period, locking up when we had classes elsewhere, filling out the classroom log, and closing windows and doors at the end of the day. Only now did I realize Sunao had called on me because she didn’t want to deal with the double whammy of menstrual pains and classroom duties.

The boy I was supposed to be helping had taken care of erasing the boards through fifth period without saying anything. But now, there was no sign of him, and the chalkboard was still covered in writing from our English conversation class. The log, too, was sitting abandoned on the podium.

Guilt seemed to tug at the sleeve of my uniform, forcing me to set about the remaining tasks.

First, I pressed the dirty erasers against the cleaning machine, letting it inhale the chalk dust. Then, slipping my hand through the floppy band on the back of one of the erasers, I stood by the podium, stretching all the way up to wipe the board from top to bottom.

There were words covering every inch of the chalkboard. It was far longer and wider than you’d think, and the marks themselves refused to vanish completely.

Counting the one on the rear chalkboard, there were three erasers in the room. I considered putting one in each hand and doing battle with the chalkboards that way, but I figured it would be even less efficient.

“I’ll take the left side,” said a low voice from behind.

At first, I assumed the boy wasn’t talking to me. I looked back, just to be sure—and caught my breath.

It was Shuuya Sanada.

He had strong black eyebrows; single-lidded, piercing eyes; and well-built shoulders. A sturdy neck held up his head. His features were even and handsome, but my first reaction was fear—because his face was devoid of expression. He didn’t even attempt a friendly smile.

I’d never talked to him. Sunao hadn’t, either. But we knew who he was. He’d quickly made a name for himself on the basketball team and scored nearly all the points in practice games with stronger schools.

With him leading the team, our school had made it to the inter-high school level for the first time ever. Everyone had been excited to see what he was capable of at the next stage of competition, and it had seemed like he had a promising future, until—

“You’re struggling,” he said when I didn’t respond.

Sanada didn’t bother putting his hand through the strap. He simply gripped the eraser firmly, as if he were trying to push it through the board. The way he held it looked rough and aggressive, but the eraser slid along the chalkboard’s surface as if it were swimming across the sea.

Though unable to tear my eyes off it, I finally managed to say something.

“Aren’t you busy?”

There was nothing between Sunao and Sanada. Nothing that would make him volunteer to help if she was struggling.

“I’m not on the team anymore.”

I’d really stuck my foot in my mouth. I wished I had the ability to turn back time.

“Go on, do your bit,” he urged.

“Oh, right.”

I started moving again. Up, down. Up, down. As I pushed the eraser with careful motions, he made a second pass, overtaking me.

I cast a sidelong glance at him. He didn’t appear to be in pain, but the whole time, ever since he’d called out to me, he’d been putting all his weight on his left side.

Despite my concern, he finished quickly—almost too quickly. And yet his half of the board appeared practically brand-new. My side looked positively slapdash by comparison. I couldn’t help imagining my sorry half of the chalkboard envying its neighbor.

The last things I erased were the names of those on duty—Sunao Aikawa and the now-absent boy. Then I picked up a piece of chalk and began to write down tomorrow’s roster.

Meanwhile, Sanada stepped down from the teacher’s podium, his work done.

As I moved the chalk, I called over my shoulder, “Th-thank you.” My voice sounded hoarse. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.

Then Sanada left the room, and I was on my own.

It was still light out. The cries of students playing sports drifted in through the windows. Close and yet far away, I heard the distinctive sound of a bat connecting with a ball.

I brought the classroom log back to Sunao’s desk and took out a mechanical pencil. After three clicks, the lead finally showed itself, as if only just remembering what it was for. I wrote down the date, the weather, and the class schedule.

The “remarks” column was generally meant for recording anything the teacher or other students should know about, but looking at previous entries, I saw that students were playing shiritori with the teacher, or filling in the blanks with little doodles. Clearly, you could put down whatever you wanted.

I’d written a whole paragraph before my brain kicked in.

While I was struggling with my duties, Shuuya Sanada offered to help.

According to Sunao’s memories, he only just came back to school two days ago.

He’s a master at chalkboard cleaning and polished his part to perfection.

But I haven’t earned his kindness.

It never even occurred to me to go see him in the hospital.

At that point, I stopped and erased everything I’d written.

***

I picked up the log, its paper wrinkled from the eraser, then locked up the classroom. Once I’d finished, I went downstairs to return the log and key to the faculty office, then continued to the end of the hall and reached my destination.

The Literature Club’s room was tiny. It had once been a closet, but club members from long before I joined had negotiated with the school and had it refitted for their use.

Those former members didn’t know me, and I didn’t know their faces—but I knew their names and works. The club put out a magazine for the cultural festival, and a copy of almost every issue since its founding was kept in the clubroom.

In those pages were the former members’ short stories, poems, and articles. Art accompanied them, sometimes drawings done in a cartoony style and sometimes proper watercolor works of flowers and plants. Looking at the illustrations of hydrangeas or plump tangerines made me wish they’d been printed in color.

“Oh, hi there! You made it!”

As I pulled open the hefty door, I was met with an enthusiastic greeting.

“Ricchan, good morning,” I replied.

Inside the room was Ritsuko Hironaka. She was a year below me, wore round-framed glasses, and kept her hair out of the way with a school-approved black pin. Her smooth, pimple-free forehead resembled a boiled egg.

I took a seat on the folding chair across from her, and she let out an odd little laugh.

“You say ‘good morning’ all day like we’re celebrities or something. They say people in the industry use it because everyone’s schedules are so weird, but what’s your excuse?”

“Well, ‘good afternoon’ just sounds so uptight! And it’s too early to say ‘good evening.’”

“I guess…”

“Good morning” was the softest of the three greetings. It was like a chiffon cake with plenty of egg. “Good afternoon,” on the other hand, was like an egg fried too long, the whites singed, the yolk no longer runny.

Looking at Ricchan’s forehead always made me think of eggs.

“Oh, hey,” she said. “Will you read my new piece? It’s still not finished…”

“Sure.”

“A’right!”