120. The School Trip and the Female Teacher.

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“Boys, come help carry the luggage!”

Even in winter, Tsuchiya was as shameless as ever about showing cleavage as she stood inside the train car, directing the boys around.

“Wow, Tsuchiya brought so much luggage. What’s in all those bags?” Sakurakoji Sakura asked curiously from nearby.

“Hair dryers, curling irons, face-slimming devices, massage guns, all sorts of things.”

Sakura blinked and nodded. She could not help wondering whether bringing only a change of clothes made her completely unlike a girl.

A short distance away, Tsukishiro Jinguuji was speaking with a teacher when he suddenly felt someone’s gaze. He instinctively turned toward Sakura.

The existence of cliques and little social circles was an objective fact, whether among children or adults.

And nowhere was this more obvious than on school trips. One only had to look at the seating arrangements.

By the same logic, since no one had chosen to sit with Jinguuji, he could only sit alone in the rearmost seat of the train car. That, too, was an objective fact.

But unlike the previous semester, Jinguuji could now feel several girls in his class watching him with predatory intent.

There was no denying that human beings were creatures who loved to follow the crowd. High school students in the throes of adolescence were even more so.

When ignoring someone, everyone had to ignore them together, putting on an air of complete indifference.

But once someone broke that rule and punched a hole through it, the others would follow one after another, pouring out the emotions they had kept buried in their hearts.

It was impossible to say whether that was right or wrong. It was simply human nature.

The bullet train began to move, and cheers erupted throughout the carriage.

Jinguuji sat in the last row, silently gazing at whatever he had brought with him.

Today was the second-year school trip for Kamizakura High School, and the bullet train’s destination was naturally Kyoto.

“Hey, Jinguuji, want to play cards?”

Suddenly, Sakura leaned her head over the seat in front and stared at Jinguuji.

The boy visibly froze, confusion appearing in his eyes.

“Everyone refuses to play with me,” the girl said in a deeply aggrieved voice.

“Who refuses to play with you? It’s because you always come in last and start crying.”

“I do not!”

“You just want to find someone worse than you, that’s all. Jinguuji, you don’t have to accept.”

“Damn it!”

Sakura stubbornly rejected the accusation, then turned her eyes toward Jinguuji with the expression of a puppy soaked through by the rain.

“Please? You can, right? Please, please…”

Jinguuji closed his book and sighed softly.

“What are we playing?”

“Old Maid.”

Jinguuji’s expression immediately grew complicated. Old Maid was a game won through memory, and for someone with a photographic memory like Jinguuji, it was practically indistinguishable from cheating.

Even so, he joined the game. Besides Sakura’s usual group of girlfriends, there were two boys playing as well.

For Jinguuji, playing cards with his classmates on a bullet train during a school trip was so strange that it could almost be called surreal.

And since Sakura had invited him, Jinguuji thoughtfully came in last every round on purpose, putting his childhood friend in an excellent mood.

Jinguuji also noticed that someone else in the carriage continued to glare at him with hostility. It was a deeply rooted emotion, one that no person or event could shake.

He had always known about it. He had merely pretended not to notice.

But the boy knew that nothing in this world remained unchanged forever—not even Mount Fuji outside the train window.

Three hours later, they arrived in Kyoto and took a bus to the inn they had reserved.

After reaching the inn, the students were assigned rooms and settled their luggage before setting off for their first destination, Kiyomizu-dera.

Jinguuji was certainly interested in Kiyomizu-dera. Even so, he would have preferred to explore alone. Taking a class group photo in front of the temple made his entire body itch with discomfort, leaving him with an indescribable sense of unease.

In Sakura’s words, he was simply embarrassed.

Jinguuji firmly denied that explanation.

Compared with a flock of sheep kept in captivity, Jinguuji would much rather be a solitary bear.

A famous light-novel protagonist had once said that bears were proud animals who felt no anxiety about living alone—and that they could hibernate.

“Hey, Jinguuji! I’ll send you a copy of the photo later too!”

Whenever his childhood friend, who had grown up alongside him, addressed him so familiarly as “Jinguuji” in front of their classmates, the boy often felt as though his dream and reality had slipped out of alignment.

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The bears of this world, however, seemed to be animals easily tamed by beautiful girls, and that left him somewhat dissatisfied.

Fortunately, during this school trip, no one was required to form a particular group for the sightseeing portions. As long as they arrived at the designated location on time, no one would object.

Besides, Jinguuji was still the student council president.

Even so, his long-cherished dream of acting alone went up in smoke.

Sakura had not, as he expected, gone off with her group of girlfriends. Instead, she walked alongside him.

By now, Jinguuji no longer felt nervous simply because Sakura was walking beside him.

Looking back, his former self really had been a complete idiot.

But since there was no way to return to the past, the boy could only cherish the present as much as possible. Thus, when alone with Sakura, he no longer acted as timidly and cautiously as he once had.

“Moon, stand over there and don’t move.”

“What is it?”

Sakura pulled out her phone and took a picture of him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show it to Hoshino and make her jealous.”

Her tone was so matter-of-fact that Jinguuji could not even find the right moment to complain.

On the afternoon of the first day, they could only tour the area around Kiyomizu-dera. By the time they returned to the inn, it was already five in the evening.

After dinner, the baths were reserved for the boys until eight o’clock. As usual, Jinguuji preferred solitude. At around ten minutes before eight, when it was almost time for the girls to take over and the bathhouse had emptied completely, he slipped inside alone, giving the impression that he had rented out the entire place.

A male high school student, when all was said and done, was simply a teenage boy. To put it bluntly, he was still a child.

That was the thought that occurred to Jinguuji after his bath, when he slid open the door to the bedroom and saw pillows flying everywhere.

He immediately closed the door and silently backed away.

Even if things were somewhat different from the past, there was no way Jinguuji could take part in something as clichéd as a pillow fight during a school trip alongside those idiotic boys.

So he went alone to the inn’s central courtyard. Kyoto was truly chilly at night. Wearing the dark yukata provided by the inn, Jinguuji sat on a bench and gazed absently at the moon overhead.

Deep within the courtyard, he noticed a young woman crouching as she trimmed the branches and leaves of the plants.

Her black hair was tied into a bun, and she wore the inn’s work uniform. It was immediately obvious that she was a member of the staff.

Jinguuji did not know whether trimming branches at night was some kind of special custom. If it was, he had never heard of it, which presumably meant he had not read enough books.

But this was clearly not the time for idle speculation. When the moonlight shining down from above illuminated the young woman’s face, a dark cloud seemed to descend over his eyes.

Even though he could have predicted this, he still felt uneasy.

Jinguuji was about to rise and leave when the woman from the far corner suddenly walked toward him.

“Good evening, sir.”

She spoke in the Kyoto dialect. Back when she had been in Tokyo, she had always spoken standard Japanese.

Jinguuji quietly studied the woman before him. She had gentle features, with the corners of her slightly pursed lips turned faintly upward. She was neither tall nor short, and her slender figure radiated a delicate, fragile air.

“I need to take the toolbox that was left over there.”

She pointed beside Jinguuji. Only then did he notice the toolbox resting on the bench. Apparently, she had come to retrieve it.

Jinguuji picked up the box. It was unexpectedly heavy. He handed it to her.

“Thank you very much.”

Jinguuji thought she would leave immediately, but there seemed to be a trace of curiosity in her eyes.

Clearly, the woman in front of him did not remember a person named Tsukishiro Jinguuji. It was obvious enough; one only had to look into her eyes.

Though he had expected this, Jinguuji felt a faint sadness well up inside him.

“Are you a guest from Tokyo?” she suddenly asked.

“…Yes.”

“Oh! My mother said that a high school from Tokyo was coming here on a school trip today. Are you one of those students?”

Jinguuji nodded, feeling that her manner of speaking was strangely peculiar. He could not tell whether it was because of the Kyoto dialect or something else.

He assumed that she would ask him the name of his school, or perhaps remark that she had once worked as a teacher in Tokyo.

Hoshino Hoshino was proof that the girls he had once conquered could forget everything about him. Yet aside from that portion of their memories, nothing else had been lost.

For that reason, Jinguuji had always believed from the bottom of his heart that the woman before him had merely forgotten him. She should still remember having worked at Kamizakura High School.

However…

“That sounds wonderful. I’d love to visit Tokyo someday too. I heard that at the aquarium there, penguins swim over people’s heads. Is that true?”

Jinguuji stared blankly, unable to react at once.

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She set down the toolbox in her hands. An expression wholly at odds with her age appeared on her face as she suddenly sat beside the boy and said, her features filled with yearning, “Hey! Could you tell me about Tokyo? Anything at all.”

“Anything at all…? Wait. You mean, you don’t remember?”

“Hmm? Remember what?”

Her bewildered expression was so convincing that, if it was an act, she surpassed even Hoshino Hoshino.

“You…” Jinguuji paused, then continued, “You used to work in Tokyo, didn’t you?”

“Me? Ahaha… Do I really look like a sophisticated city woman?” she said with a bright laugh.

Her hearty laughter did not quite match her gentle, slender appearance.

“I’ve never been to Tokyo.”

“…”

Come on. What kind of joke was this?

Jinguuji could not laugh at all.

“So? Do penguins really swim over people’s heads?”

“…I’m not entirely sure.”

The boy lied instinctively. It was not because he wanted to deceive her, but because his heart was in turmoil.

Once a person began to waver, they would instinctively say things that did not match the truth.

“Oh, I see.” She nodded, without seeming particularly disappointed.

Jinguuji could not understand.

There was no doubt that the woman before him was one of his former girlfriends, a woman who had once taught classical literature at Kamizakura High School.

Could she have a twin?

Jinguuji immediately rejected the absurd notion. Even identical twins possessed undeniable differences in appearance, and with his photographic memory, he could remember even her fingerprints with perfect clarity. He could therefore be certain that she was the same Aoyama-sensei he knew.

And yet a powerful sense of incongruity rose within him. It most likely came from the woman’s eyes, which held a primitive simplicity and a longing that…

“Excuse me. Do you have any impression of Kamizakura High School?” Jinguuji asked, pretending to remain calm.

“Kamizakura High School? What high school is that?”

“…”

“Oh, wait. Is that your school? Wowww… So it’s called Kamizakura High School. What a lovely name.”

“The high school I went to had such a tacky name. Sunflower High! Sunflower! Can you believe there’s actually a high school called Sunflower? Honestly, it sounds like a kindergarten.”

Jinguuji’s mouth fell slightly open. He had no idea what to do.

Although her appearance had not changed in the slightest, both her manner of speaking and her expressions were completely different from those of the female teacher in Jinguuji’s memories.

That woman had been the one who threw chalk at his head during class and secretly tugged on his ears.

How had she suddenly become this kind of person?

Jinguuji could not help feeling a trace of panic. Unable to suppress the fear in his heart, he was terrified that this was his fault—that uninstalling the system had caused this female teacher to become an entirely different person.

“Um, Miss Aoyama…”

“Huh? How do you know my name is Aoyama? Did I tell you?”

Jinguuji’s voice caught in his throat.

His mind was too shaken to think clearly. After calming his breathing a little, the boy pointed to the name tag pinned to the chest of her uniform.

She immediately gave an embarrassed smile.

“Miss Aoyama, do you have a sister who looks just like you?”

For the first time, Jinguuji began to doubt whether his photographic memory was real.

“I’m an only child.”

“…All right.”

“And you don’t have to call me Miss. We’re probably around the same age.”

“What?”

She gave him a plain, innocent smile.

“My name is Aoi Aoyama. My mental age is seventeen. Nice to meet you.”

“Your… mental age?”

“Hmm… It’s a little complicated to explain. I think it was because of an accident. I can’t remember anything after high school. Here, look.”

She suddenly swept back the bangs from her forehead, revealing a shocking flesh-colored scar.

The boy stared at her forehead, stunned, unable to say a word for a long time.

End of chapter

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