At the same time Eiren Kanagawa drove out of Sobu High School, Seiko Kirigiri arrived outside Class 2-B.
Standing at the classroom door and looking inside, she failed to spot Hibiki Naegi anywhere.
"Where did Onee-chan go? Before we got to school this morning, I told her several times that we'd go home together after school. Did she go to a teacher's office to ask something? But even if she went to a teacher's office, she wouldn't have taken her schoolbag with her, would she?"
Seeing that even the schoolbag was gone from Hibiki Naegi's desk and chair, as though she had already left the school long ago, Seiko Kirigiri could not help quietly voicing her dissatisfaction.
Hibiki breaking their promise did not merely make her angry. It also made her somewhat uneasy. The Hibiki of the past would never have broken a promise like this. Yet for some reason, recently, Hibiki had not only started doing things like breaking promises, but would also frequently seem distracted whenever they were together.
Seiko Kirigiri had originally wanted to chalk it up to Hibiki being exhausted from practicing her art lately. After all, Hibiki was already in her second year of high school, and in roughly another year, she would have to take the art entrance examination. Second-year students specializing in athletics, fine arts, or music had all recently begun devoting most of their energy to training.
But... ever since learning of the existence of a woman named Eiren Kanagawa, the unease in Seiko Kirigiri's heart had begun spreading like dirt dropped into a cup of water. Seiko Kirigiri did not want her suspicions to cause their relationship to fall apart either. Making a bento for Hibiki on her own initiative that morning had been Seiko Kirigiri's way of hinting to her:
'As long as you're willing to settle down from now on, I can pretend to be stupid and act like I never knew about all the lies you told me before. As long as you promise not to have anything more to do with that art teacher named Eiren Kanagawa, then everything that happened before can be left in the past. The two of us can keep living happily together, and once we graduate from high school, we'll get married.'
Seiko Kirigiri had originally intended to say those words to Hibiki herself over dinner.
But now, it was barely afternoon, and Hibiki Naegi had disappeared.
Perhaps Seiko Kirigiri was still holding on to a little hope, because instead of turning around and leaving, she remained beside the door of Class 2-B, waiting for Hibiki Naegi to return.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes...
Time passed little by little. By the time the last student in Class 2-B had left the classroom and locked the door behind them, Seiko Kirigiri, exhausted from waiting and crouching against the wall beside the entrance, still had not seen any sign of Hibiki Naegi.
Another twenty minutes passed. Not only had Class 2-B emptied out, but all the students from the neighboring Classes 2-C and 2-D had also left, yet Seiko Kirigiri still had not seen Hibiki Naegi return. Thinking that perhaps Hibiki had already bought the ingredients and gone home, Seiko Kirigiri took out her phone to see whether Hibiki had sent her a message or called.
Seiko Kirigiri had the personality of an obedient, well-behaved student. Even though she brought her phone to school, she kept it on silent most of the time and did not dare secretly play with it during class.
But when Seiko Kirigiri turned on her phone, the notification panel was completely empty. Forget a message or phone call from Hibiki Naegi. There was not even a single spam message. Of course, the phone might simply have blocked those automatically. Smartphones nowadays basically all came equipped with automatic spam filtering.
Glancing at the 38% battery remaining on her smartphone, Seiko Kirigiri sighed helplessly and looked toward the gradually darkening sky outside the window. Hibiki Naegi still had not returned.
The emotions churning in her heart were not so much anger or sadness as they were confusion. Sobu High School might be large, but it was still only the size of an ordinary Japanese high school. Hibiki Naegi still had not come back. Surely she had not gotten lost inside the school? She had already been studying at Sobu High School for two years. How could she possibly get lost?
Then where exactly is she right now?
Seiko Kirigiri asked herself that question in her heart, and also asked the absent Hibiki Naegi wherever she might be.
A series of footsteps approached. Seiko Kirigiri instinctively tried to stand, but after crouching against the wall for so long, both of her legs had gone badly numb, and she could not fully straighten up at once. The footsteps came quickly, sounding like those of a teacher.
Before Seiko Kirigiri could completely stand, the owner of those footsteps had already appeared within her field of vision.
"Eh? Why is there still a student in the teaching building? There shouldn't be any club activities today, and you're even outside our classroom. Huh? You're a first-year student too... Excuse me, is there something you need?" The person approaching her was none other than Class 2-B's homeroom teacher, Chiharu Iyama.
When Chiharu Iyama saw Seiko Kirigiri, surprise appeared on her face as well. Nearly an hour had already passed since the dismissal bell rang. On a Friday with no club activities, there should not have been a single student left in the teaching building at this hour.
Not only the students, but even some teachers who did not need to work overtime had already left the school long ago.
Chiharu Iyama herself had almost reached home when she suddenly remembered that she needed to drive to the elementary school today to pick up her two children, only to realize she had left her car keys in the right-hand drawer of her desk in the faculty office. So she had hurriedly jogged all the way back to school and returned to the office to retrieve them.
After getting her car keys, she thought she might as well check whether the door to her classroom had been properly locked. That was why she took a slight detour and came to Class 2-B. The moment she entered the corridor where Class 2-B was located, she saw a girl in a first-year uniform crouching beside the classroom door.
Seiko Kirigiri staggered slightly as she stood up. Her legs were so numb that she could barely keep her footing, and just as she nearly fell, Chiharu Iyama caught her in time and asked with concern, "Are you really all right? If there's anything you need help with, you absolutely have to tell a teacher."
"Thank you, Sensei... I'm... I'm fine."
"Which class are you in? I remember every student in Class 2-B very clearly. You shouldn't be one of my students, right?"
Chiharu Iyama asked. Although the thing she most urgently needed to do now was pick up her children, a first-year girl was crouching beside the door of her classroom at such a late hour. As both a teacher and homeroom teacher, how could Chiharu Iyama possibly feel comfortable simply leaving her there?
"I'm a student from Class 1-F. I came here to wait for my Onee-chan. We agreed that we'd go home together after school, but I've been waiting until now and still haven't seen her... I'm sorry for causing you trouble, Sensei. I'll go look for Onee-chan somewhere else."
After explaining, Seiko Kirigiri apologized. She could tell that the teacher in front of her seemed to have something urgent to attend to, and by remaining here, she was only wasting the kind teacher's time. So she prepared to leave and search for Hibiki around the art classroom.
"Wait."
Seeing Seiko Kirigiri about to leave, Chiharu Iyama hurriedly took hold of her wrist, unconsciously controlling her strength for fear that she might accidentally hurt the first-year student in front of her.
"If you were waiting here, that means your Onee-chan is one of my students, right? What's her name? Making her little sister wait here alone like this is completely unacceptable. When she comes back to school on Monday, I'll definitely call her into the office and give her a proper talking-to!"
Chiharu Iyama said helplessly. She was an older sister herself, with a younger brother and a younger sister. Even though both of them had long since grown up, started careers, and formed families of their own, she still worried about them as their older sister.
Having been a good older sister from childhood all the way into adulthood, she naturally could not stand the idea of someone making their younger sister wait this long.
"There's no need, Sensei. Onee-chan's been a little absent-minded lately. Sometimes she's just like this. She's probably exhausted from training recently. Thank you very much for your kindness, Sensei. I'll be going now." "Training?"
A teacher naturally possessed the sharp instincts of a teacher and could easily pick out the clues or inconsistencies hidden in a student's words.
The instant she heard the word training, the first thing Chiharu Iyama thought of was students with specialized talents.
And Class 2-B had only one student specializing in the arts—Hibiki Naegi, who studied fine arts.
At the same time, Chiharu Iyama also remembered that Hibiki Naegi had a younger sister who had started school a year late.
Since she had started school a year late, when Hibiki Naegi was in her second year of high school, her younger sister would naturally be in her first year.
Chiharu Iyama glanced again at the first-year uniform worn by the girl in front of her.
At that point, Chiharu Iyama was more or less certain that the girl before her was Hibiki Naegi's younger sister.
"If I'm not mistaken, you should be Hibiki Naegi's younger sister, Seiko Kirigiri, right?"
"Y-Yes."
Seiko Kirigiri nodded, unable to understand how the teacher in front of her had managed to guess her name and know that she was Hibiki Naegi's younger sister when she had not said anything about it.
"If you're looking for your Onee-chan, I remember she seemed to have left the school quite a while ago. She was heading downstairs just as I was going up. She was talking to a woman at the time, so she didn't notice me either. The two of us happened to pass right by each other."
"With a woman? I'm sorry, but could you tell me what that woman looked like?"
The moment Seiko Kirigiri heard this, she immediately became alert. Although she did not know who the other person was, Seiko Kirigiri had a premonition that the woman who had left together with Hibiki was very likely Eiren Kanagawa.
"About that... I'm sorry, Kirigiri. At the time, I was chatting with my husband on LINE about whether we should take the kids out to eat tonight or have dinner at home, so I didn't really notice who the woman beside Naegi was.
"Actually, it wasn't until a few seconds after Naegi and I passed each other that I realized the person who had just walked by was Naegi. By the time I turned around to look, the two of them had already reached the next floor, which happened to be outside my line of sight."
Chiharu Iyama explained.
After hearing this, Seiko Kirigiri fell silent for a few seconds, then bowed lightly and expressed her gratitude.
"All right, I understand. Thank you very much, Sensei. I won't trouble you any longer."
"Not at all. It was nothing. Your Onee-chan may already be home, so you should head home early too. Public safety may have improved nowadays, but boys and girls who are still students shouldn't stay out too late."
"I understand. Thank you, Sensei. Goodbye."
Seiko Kirigiri buried the emotions surging inside her deep within her heart, while her face showed no sign that anything was troubling her. After giving Chiharu Iyama a slight bow, she turned and left.
Inside a classically decorated restaurant.
"One bowl of chicken soup with mushrooms and scallions. I'll have the Hungarian beef stew, and for the staple, please give me a medium bowl of white rice. Hibiki, what would you like for your staple?"
"Ah? Just a bowl of soup is enough for me."
Hibiki Naegi said. Seiko was going to cook dinner herself tonight, so Hibiki did not want to fill herself up now. If she ate a staple food at this hour, then no matter how delicious dinner was later that evening, she would not be able to eat any of it. Hibiki Naegi did not have a particularly large appetite.
After all, not every girl's appetite was as absurd as Kotomi Izumi's.
"What would you like for your staple?"
Eiren Kanagawa asked again in the same calm tone as before. Just like earlier, her tone did not sound as though she were asking for Hibiki Naegi's opinion. It sounded more like an order for Hibiki to name a staple food she wanted to eat. Almost as though... Eiren Kanagawa had seen through Hibiki Naegi's intention not to fill herself up now, and was deliberately determined to make sure Hibiki ate her fill anyway.
"I..."
For a moment, Hibiki Naegi did not know how to answer. She had originally thought that if she only drank the soup, then after returning home, she could exercise a little more and still eat dinner normally later. But now, it felt as though Eiren Kanagawa had completely seen through her intentions.
At the same time, Hibiki Naegi was also somewhat confused. Even if Eiren Kanagawa could see through her thoughts, why was she so determined to make Hibiki eat her fill right now?
When Hibiki Naegi failed to answer for a long time, Eiren Kanagawa simply made the decision for her, or perhaps she had already decided on it in advance. She said to the waiter, "Please give her a bowl of rice with cured pork and vegetables. Make it a large."
"Certainly. Will there be anything else?" the waiter asked while writing down everything Eiren Kanagawa had ordered.
"That's all for now. If we need anything else, I'll call you later."
"Understood."
After finishing writing down the dishes, the waiter excused himself and left.
"Wait..."
Hibiki Naegi was left behind with the words still caught in her throat. She had wanted to ask them to change the large bowl to a small one.
Eiren Kanagawa looked at Hibiki Naegi with a smile at the corners of her lips and chuckled softly.
"Chicken soup with mushrooms and scallions is a light soup. Pairing it with a bowl of rice with cured pork, vegetables, and Chinese sausage is absolutely perfect. Have you ever tried that combination before? If not, today's the perfect chance to taste it."
"But isn't that too much food?" Hibiki Naegi shrank back slightly and asked cautiously.
"It's fine. I'm paying. I'm the adult, after all. How could I possibly make a child like you pay?"
"But I can't finish a whole large bowl..."
"It's fine. Take your time eating. That way, I can also take my time teaching you some important points about the art entrance examination. Make sure you listen carefully in a moment. Don't get so distracted by the delicious food that you forget to study.
"What I'm about to teach you is something you might not get even if you enrolled in tutoring classes costing a hundred thousand yen per lesson. Don't underestimate the abilities of a Kyoto University fine arts professor."
Eiren Kanagawa spoke with complete confidence.
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