Chapter III - This Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Morning announcements ended. Class began.

And I, Kagami Shouma, reverted to my natural state of being: a ghost.

Fujiwara-sensei droned on. Someone’s cell phone buzzed loudly. Outside, the leaves on the courtyard trees were just starting to change. The wind carried the faintest hint of rain.

Minazuki Serena sat four seats away from me—close enough to smell the cigarettes and perfume, far enough to be out of reach. She didn’t bother taking notes. She rarely did. Instead, she leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, her skirt riding high enough to reveal a sliver of black lace stretched over pale thigh.

Wait, why was I looking at her?

“Okay, everyone, turn to page fifty-seven in your textbooks.”

The class moved in unison. I did the same. My eyes flicked back to the window. Minazuki-san’s head rested against the glass.

The first period at Amane Private Academy was always English, taught with all the enthusiasm of someone reading a shopping list. Today's lesson: conditional grammar.

'If I tried harder, I could succeed. If she had cared more, she would have stayed. If he hadn't died, our family might still be whole.'

That last one wasn't in the textbook.

I wrote down the answers mechanically as my pencil moved across paper with practiced precision. Class 2-A was divided into unspoken territories—Midou's corner near the door, where his lackeys congregated; the front row cluster of honor students with their color-coded notes; and the invisible middle, where people like me existed in the liminal space between noticed and forgotten.

Takahashi Ryunosuke, our wannabe class representative, raised his hand for the fifth time in fifteen minutes, eager to correct someone else's pronunciation. His planner sat open on his desk, every line highlighted, every margin crowded with annotations. He'd been trying to unseat me as male representative since April, not understanding that the position was less an honor and more a sentence.

"Good job, Takahashi-kun," Fujimiya-sensei said, smiling gently. "I'm glad someone's been keeping up with the vocabulary lists, but perhaps we could let someone else answer? Inoue-san, would you like to try?"

Inoue Yui, my seatmate, suddenly jolted upright as her pencil clattered to the floor. Unsurprisingly, she'd been passing notes with Harada Tsubasa, the class gossip columnist, who now pretended to be deeply invested in the textbook.

"Um... if I... would have studied... no, wait, if I had studied..."

I remember reading an article that overseas in America, it was a major concern that students were unable to read or write at an eighth grade level. I wondered if they could see the educational system in a place like Japan. How we were forced to learn from an early age how to regurgitate information and memorize answers without ever asking the uncomfortable question: what is this all for?

Then, I realized the answer.

Hearing people struggling with basic words really can piss you off.

Suddenly, the classroom door slid open with a clatter.

"Excuse me, Fujimiya-sensei." Arisato Seijuro stood in the doorway, back perfectly straight, uniform immaculate, the gold pin of the Student Council President seizing the morning light. "I need to speak with Kagami-kun regarding the Cultural Festival preparations."

Fujimiya-sensei's smile tightened almost imperceptibly. "We're in the middle of class, Arisato-kun."

"Tanaka-sensei has authorized me to pull student representatives as needed for festival planning. It won't take long."

Before Fujimiya-sensei could object further, Arisato turned to me with the placid simper of a shark.

"Kagami-kun, if you would?"

This, too, was part of the ritual. Every class representative knew the unspoken rule: when Arisato-senpai called, you answered. It was not because the teachers demanded it, but because the student council operated as its own shadow government, doling out favors and punishments akin to a bureaucracy. Refuse, and suddenly your club might find its budget slashed, or your class assignment shifted to the classroom with broken heating.

I rose silently. I didn't care my chair scraped against the floor. As I moved toward the door, I felt rather than saw Minazuki-san’s gaze slide across me—disinterested, evaluating, dismissing. Like someone assessing a piece of furniture they had no intention of buying.

Outside, the halls was quiet. Arisato was already walking ahead, expecting me to follow. They were meticulously maintained—polished floors that reflected the fluorescent lights, bulletin boards arranged perfectly, trophy cases gleaming. The school had been built in the 1950s, modernized in pieces over the decades, resulting in an architectural patchwork of traditional and contemporary. Old wooden beams supported new ceiling tiles. Ancient plumbing gurgled beneath renovated bathroom fixtures.

"You've fallen behind on the festival submissions," Arisato said without turning around. "Class 2-A is the only section without a proposal."

"...Ah... well, it can't be helped. Sairenji-san usually handles—"

"Sairenji-san is absent. You are not. The deadline was yesterday."

His voice cut through my excuse like scissors through paper.

"I'm aware of that." I maintained a pleasant tone while my stomach knotted itself. "We've had some... disagreements about theme. I'm working on a compromise."

The truth was simpler and more pathetic: I couldn't force a decision like Sairenji could. A good chunk of the class wanted a maid café, which was frankly predictable, profitable, and unoriginal. Others wanted an interactive mystery room which was creative, complicated, and potentially disastrous. There were a bunch of other suggestions as well, but those were the main two ones. Eventually, I had suggested a traditional tea ceremony display, hoping to find middle ground.

No one had even acknowledged I'd spoken.

We stopped outside the student council room. Arisato turned and regarded me with that same placid smile that never reached his eyes.

"I won't lecture you on responsibility, Kagami-kun. I understand your circumstances are... unique. But the work must be done. By someone."

There was only one implication with that sentence: That someone was me, because no one else would bother.

Because my usefulness was directly proportional to my willingness to bear what others wouldn't.

"I'll have a proposal by the end of the day," I promised.

"Good." Arisato reached into his blazer and extracted a stack of forms. "Also, these need to be distributed and collected by Friday. Budget requests for next semester, supply inventories, and club registration renewals."

The stack weighed as much as a small child. I took it without protest.

"The rooftop access key needs to be returned to administration, by the way," he added. "Apparently it's been missing since last month, and Yoshida-san believes someone may be using it after hours. I don't want to point fingers, but Class 2-A has been known to bend the rules on occasion."

"..."

My pulse spiked. The key to the roof was currently in my desk drawer, tucked beneath a folder of completed assignments and a manuscript copy of Akise's light novel he wrote about a year back. I'd "borrowed" it from the faculty office during cleaning duty, made a copy at the hardware store near the station, and returned the original three days later. No one had noticed.

Or so I'd thought.

"I'll keep an ear out," I said neutrally.

"Please do. Handling that sort of rule-breaking quietly is also part of a representative's duty."

He was already turning away when he paused, an afterthought manufactured to seem casual. "Oh, and Fujimiya-sensei asked about the counseling session you missed last week. I informed her you seemed fine, but perhaps you should check in."

Before I could respond, he was gone, disappearing into the student council room like fog dispersing.

I stood alone in the hallway as I clutched my stack of bureaucratic penance, and took three slow breaths.

The façade had slipped, just for a moment.

I had calculations to recalibrate and timelines to adjust. If Yoshida-san suspected the roof access, I'd need to be more careful. If Fujimiya-sensei was asking questions, I'd need better answers.

What a damn mess.

When I returned to class, Midou had his feet propped on his desk while Fujimiya-sensei wrote on the board. Harada was sneaking photos of Serena with his phone under the desk. Takahashi glared at me for disrupting the lesson. And Minazuki-san—

Minazuki-san wasn't there.

Her desk sat empty, but the chair was pushed in. On the floor beside it lay a single earbud, a white cord coiled like a sleeping snake.

No one else had noticed her absence. Why would they? She came and went as she pleased, a specter with crimson hair and eyes like winter, existing in a parallel dimension where rules were mere suggestions and consequences were for other people.

I slid back into my seat as Fujimiya-sensei explained the difference between present and past participles. Inoue nudged me with her elbow.

"What did Arisato-senpai want?"

"Festival stuff."

"The class voted on a theme while you were gone." She slid a folded paper across to me. "Maid café won, obviously. Midou said he'd help organize."

Of course he had. Anything involving girls in costumes catering to his ego would naturally appeal to him. I unfolded the paper, a hastily drawn mockup of café layouts, with little stick figures in frilly headbands.

"We took a vote?" I asked.

Yui shrugged. "More like... Midou suggested, and no one wanted to argue."

I sighed. "So be it."

Inoue glanced at me sidelong, then tapped her own temple. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." I offered a weak smile. "Thanks."

Typical. "Democracy" at Amane meant whoever shouted loudest or threatened most effectively got their way. I tucked the paper into my bag. Another problem for future Shouma. Present Shouma still had three more class periods to navigate.

Second period: Mathematics with Takeda-sensei, who seemed personally offended by anyone solving wave functions differently than his prescribed methodology.

Third period: Classical Literature, where we dissected the Heian poets with all the grace of children pulling wings off butterflies.

By fourth period—Modern Japanese History—the stack of forms on my desk had grown to include:

1. Three separate Cultural Festival checklists

2. A request for lost item forms

3. Permission slips for the upcoming school trip

4. Nomination forms for student awards

Each one bore the same unspoken message.

Handle this so no one else has to.