To avoid getting tangled up in that topic for too long, Kotomi Izumi employed the method she was best at, smoothly changing the subject without leaving a trace.
"Oh, right. Aimi, want to guess what my class' new homeroom teacher used to do for a living?"
"Wasn't she a teacher too?"
The moment Kotomi Izumi tried to change the subject, Aimi took the bait without the slightest hesitation. She had absolutely no guard up around Kotomi and failed to realize that her Onee-chan was deliberately steering the conversation elsewhere.
"You could say she was a teacher, but she didn't teach at a high school before. Guess where she used to teach."
"At a middle school? But come to think of it, a middle school teacher moving to a high school and becoming a homeroom teacher immediately after being hired would be pretty exaggerated, even if she used to be a very experienced third-year middle school teacher."
After thinking for a moment, Aimi Izumi gave her guess.
After hearing Aimi's guess, Kotomi Izumi did not keep her in suspense and directly revealed the answer:
"You guessed wrong. She wasn't an elementary school teacher either. She used to be a university professor, and a fine arts professor at a prestigious university, no less. The university she worked at was Kyoto University."
"Eh—?! She's that impressive? Wait, wait, doesn't that make it even stranger? A professor at a prestigious university willingly resigned to teach at a high school? Even if she became the homeroom teacher at a top high school, the social status still couldn't compare with being a Kyoto University professor, right?"
After learning that Kotomi's new homeroom teacher had previously been a fine arts professor at Kyoto University, Aimi Izumi was immediately shocked, her face filled with disbelief.
Anyone who learned that a Kyoto University professor had voluntarily resigned and gone to work as a high school homeroom teacher would find it strange and difficult to understand.
After thinking with her little head for a moment, Aimi asked:
"Onee-chan, could Sobu High School's board of directors be ridiculously rich? So rich that they had nowhere else to spend their money, so they offered a huge salary to poach a professor from a prestigious university?
"But why would they poach a fine arts professor?
"At the secondary-school level, unless you're an art-track student preparing for specialized entrance exams, art isn't exactly considered an important subject for most students. Forget hiring a fine arts professor from a prestigious university. Most students would be lucky just to have those pitifully few weekly art classes held on schedule.
"Don't tell me Sobu High School is planning to transform into a school that specializes in art education?"
"Haha. If it really tried to transform like that, Sobu High School would definitely get cursed to death by the students and parents. The board isn't stupid either. There's no way they'd allow something like that."
Kotomi Izumi said with a grin before continuing:
"Actually, I don't know why she resigned from Kyoto University to become a homeroom teacher at Sobu High School either. Sobu High School didn't spend a fortune poaching her. She applied on her own initiative. As for the exact reason, she refuses to say and keeps acting all mysterious.
"Back when Mashiro, Senior Naegi, and I went to Kyoto for the first exhibition, she was the teacher responsible for receiving us, so I'm fairly familiar with her. Because of that, I figured I'd chat with her during the break and see whether I could get the real reason she resigned from Kyoto University and came to Sobu High School as an art teacher out of her.
"But in the end, I still couldn't get her to tell me.
"It seems she must have some very personal reason. Since she doesn't want to talk about it, I didn't press her further. I'm curious, sure, but it's not like I absolutely have to know. I'm not some little curiosity monster."
"It's really hard to imagine what kind of reason could make a Kyoto University fine arts professor voluntarily resign and come to a high school as a homeroom teacher. Could she have some grand ideal?"
"Hehe. She certainly doesn't look like someone with some grand ideal," Kotomi Izumi chuckled.
"Then it really is strange."
"Eh, why think so much about it? There's only so much you can concern yourself with in this world. Sometimes it's enough to just mind your own business."
"That's true." Aimi nodded in agreement.
Kotomi Izumi shifted comfortably beneath the covers, adjusting herself into a more comfortable sleeping position.
Aimi, meanwhile, rested her head on Kotomi's pillow again, prompting Kotomi Izumi to complain before going to sleep:
"Seriously, little Aimi, why do you insist on using my pillow?"
"It's more comfortable sleeping like this. Don't you think so?" Aimi asked with a grin.
"Nope."
That was what Kotomi Izumi said, but she did not actually push Aimi back onto her own pillow. Rather than saying Kotomi was tsundereishly allowing Aimi to share her pillow,
it would be more accurate to say that Kotomi herself also liked the feeling of lying on the same pillow with Aimi. It was simply that her slightly tsundere personality made her too embarrassed to admit it for the moment.
...
Several hours earlier, in the afternoon, at Sobu High School.
When the dismissal bell rang after the second afternoon class, Eiren Kanagawa shot to her feet like a student who had been waiting forever for school to end. Instinctively, she was about to turn around and leave the classroom immediately, but just as she took her first step, she suddenly remembered that she was no longer a university professor. She was now a high school homeroom teacher.
Before officially starting the job, Eiren Kanagawa had also asked a friend who had been a high school homeroom teacher for years about various things, such as what a high school homeroom teacher should pay attention to in their daily work and what they should keep in mind when interacting with students.
Although Eiren Kanagawa had been a professor at a prestigious university, there were still many differences between a university professor and a high school homeroom teacher.
The most obvious difference was that apart from class time, university professors rarely saw the students they were responsible for.
Forget professors who merely taught a particular course. Even academic advisors responsible for an entire class, who theoretically interacted with students more often, would become almost impossible to find once the freshman orientation period ended and all the introductory class meetings had been held.
Whenever students needed to get in touch with them, they usually just sent the advisor a message through LINE or called them directly.
Unless another class meeting was necessary, students might see their professors more often over the course of a week than they saw their academic advisor.
In short, as a university professor, Eiren Kanagawa knew how to teach students and how to keep them from becoming bored in class, but she genuinely had no idea how to be a good high school homeroom teacher.
So she had asked that friend, who had been a high school homeroom teacher for several years, about many different things and small details. One of those details was that during the final class on Friday afternoon, she absolutely had to give the students a brief reminder, such as repeating the middle school holiday safety rules that had already been repeated who knew how many times.
Remembering this, Eiren Kanagawa stopped herself from leaving and gave the students of Class 1-F a few reminders.
Once she finished, she immediately left the classroom because there was somewhere she desperately wanted to go—Class 2-B.
Even before coming to Sobu High School, the very first thing Eiren Kanagawa had looked into was which class Hibiki Naegi belonged to.
Eiren Kanagawa might not have known the route to the rooftop, but she definitely knew the route to Class 2-B better than anyone.
She had long since memorized the routes to Class 2-B from every part of the school.
Arriving at the door of Class 2-B with practiced ease, she glanced inside through the window and saw a female homeroom teacher standing at the podium, still giving the students below her various reminders.
Eiren Kanagawa could not help sighing:
"I thought the reminders I gave just now were already comprehensive enough. I didn't expect Class 2-B's homeroom teacher to be even more thorough than me. She's still not finished. Still, for students desperately waiting to go home, reminders that are too comprehensive probably aren't a good thing either."
As she spoke, Eiren Kanagawa did her best to find somewhere inconspicuous to stand. After all, if she kept standing directly outside Class 2-B, then once the homeroom teacher finished and walked out of the classroom, the first person she would see would be Eiren.
Eiren Kanagawa had no desire for Class 2-B's homeroom teacher to ask why she was standing outside the classroom.
When she had gone through the hiring procedures earlier, Eiren Kanagawa had briefly met Class 2-B's homeroom teacher. They had greeted one another and politely exchanged phone numbers.
Class 2-B's homeroom teacher, Chiharu Iyama, was a middle-aged woman who always spoke gently no matter the situation. According to the other teachers, apparently no one had ever seen Chiharu Iyama lose her temper.
That made Eiren Kanagawa somewhat curious. How many teachers genuinely never lost their temper? Some students really were mischievous enough to give people headaches. Even university professors occasionally got so angry during class that they snapped, much less high school teachers.
Another two or three minutes passed. After the exceptionally good-tempered Chiharu Iyama finished reminding the students of everything, she picked up her handbag and walked out of the classroom.
Class 2-B, which had been quiet moments earlier, immediately became lively. Some close friends chatted while packing their schoolbags, asking one another whether they wanted to stop by a family restaurant for afternoon tea after leaving school.
Eiren Kanagawa looked toward the Class 2-B classroom from a distance. The corners of her lips curled into a smile as she sighed:
"Ah, youth. Those carefree school days really are something adults can't help envying."
A short while later, Eiren Kanagawa finally saw the person she had been waiting for all along. It was because of her that Eiren had hurried over the moment the dismissal bell rang, afraid that if she came even slightly later, the two of them might miss each other.
"Hibiki, how does it feel? School only restarted today, and tomorrow and the day after are already two days off again."
Seeing Hibiki Naegi walk out of the classroom, Eiren Kanagawa stepped forward with a smile to greet her.
The brilliant smile on Eiren Kanagawa's face formed a perfect contrast with the astonishment on Hibiki Naegi's.
"P-Professor Kanagawa?!!! Why are you here?"
Although Hibiki Naegi knew that Eiren Kanagawa had been staying in Chiba recently, suddenly seeing her at school still gave Hibiki quite a shock.
Because she had not slept well last night, Hibiki Naegi had been listless all day. Aside from going to the restroom, she had barely left the classroom.
For lunch, she had eaten the bento Seiko Kirigiri had prepared for her.
To make Hibiki Naegi's lunch, Seiko Kirigiri, who had also slept poorly, had gotten up at five in the morning and gone to the kitchen to start cooking. By the time Hibiki Naegi woke up and came downstairs, Seiko Kirigiri had not only finished preparing the bento but had also made breakfast.
As Hibiki ate the "loving wife's bento" Seiko Kirigiri had prepared, every dish inside the insulated lunch box was one of Hibiki's favorites. Rather than merely feeling happy, Hibiki felt a measure of guilt mixed in with that happiness.
Returning to the matter at hand, precisely because Hibiki had barely left the classroom, she had no idea that Eiren Kanagawa had come to Sobu High School to work as a homeroom teacher.
Although Momoka Mito had already learned that morning that the school had hired a new art teacher named Eiren Kanagawa, who had even become the homeroom teacher of Seiko Kirigiri's class, Momoka had spent the rest of the day in the music room receiving instruction from Ami Koishi after meeting Eiren that morning. She had even eaten lunch with Ami Koishi.
Naturally, she had not gotten a chance to tell Hibiki Naegi about it.
Seeing Hibiki Naegi looking somewhat flustered amused Eiren Kanagawa greatly. She said with a grin:
"If I told you that I missed you so much that I resigned from Kyoto University and came to Sobu High School as an art teacher, and just happened to become the homeroom teacher of your little sister's class, would you believe me?"
Eiren Kanagawa delivered those words with extraordinary casualness, but Hibiki Naegi, who heard them, was anything but calm.
"What?! Y-You're saying you've already resigned from Kyoto University? Why? No matter how good Sobu High School's benefits are, they can't compare with being a professor at a prestigious university, right? And why did you become my little sister's homeroom teacher?"
At that moment, Hibiki Naegi was like a walking book of One Hundred Thousand Whys, with countless questions exploding through her mind all at once as she desperately sought answers from Eiren Kanagawa.
Faced with the thoroughly confused Hibiki Naegi, Eiren Kanagawa merely said calmly:
"Let's talk while we walk."
Although her mind was filled with questions, Hibiki Naegi had no choice but to follow Eiren Kanagawa if she wanted the answers.
Meanwhile,
in Class 1-F,
after packing her schoolbag, Seiko Kirigiri eagerly headed toward Class 2-B. She wanted to ask her older sister, 'How was the bento I made for you? Did you like it?'
She also wanted to tell her, 'If you liked it, then I'll wake up two hours earlier every morning and make you a bento. If I put everything into an insulated lunch box afterward, we won't have to worry about the food getting cold by lunchtime either.'
Everything Seiko Kirigiri was doing was meant to let her do everything within her power to slowly call back the heart of Hibiki Naegi, which had been drifting farther and farther away from her.
"There's no club activity today, which means Onee-chan can go home with me. On the way home from school, maybe I'll go to the supermarket with Onee-chan. We can buy some snacks we like and drinks we enjoy, then pick up ingredients for dinner too. Tonight, I'll make nothing but Onee-chan's favorite dishes~"
Murmuring softly to herself as she imagined going home from school together with her older sister later, Seiko Kirigiri's footsteps unconsciously became lighter and more cheerful.
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