Chapter 4: Vacant Throne

Chapter 4: Vacant Throne

Chapter 4:

Vacant Throne

A FEW DAYS HAD ALREADY passed since the start of the spring vacation. The zeal brought on by the End-of-Year Special Exam was nowhere to be seen, and many of the students, regardless of grade level or class, were likely enjoying their spring vacation to the fullest right about now. However, some classes had less to celebrate: Ichinose’s class, which had lost to Horikita’s class, and Sakayanagi’s class, which had lost to Ryuuen’s class.

With only one year remaining, the students from both of those classes would need to carefully prepare for the battles ahead, steeling themselves for the challenges awaiting them rather than spending their spring vacation aimlessly. If they didn’t, their future prospects would likely be bleak. This was a particularly big problem for Sakayanagi’s class, who had only just learned that their leader was going to be withdrawing from school voluntarily. Once that fact had become public knowledge, I decided to call on certain people to meet up so that I could get a grasp of the situation in Class A.

Those certain two people were Morishita and Yamamura. The appointed time was ten o’clock in the morning, and the meeting place was near the dormitory.

In other words, none other than this place, where I was standing right now. However, even after five, and then ten minutes of waiting, there was no sign of either of the people I was waiting for. I was sure that they hadn’t forgotten, as they had definitely read the message that I had sent them just after eight o’clock this morning. Even supposing that, hypothetically, something had happened, like one of them fell back asleep, it was hard to imagine that it would happen to both of them at the same time. I waited for another five minutes or so, but when neither showed, I tried calling Morishita. The phone rang, but she didn’t pick up.

“All right then. Guess I’ll try Yamamura,” I thought aloud.

I didn’t want to put too much mental strain on Yamamura, who was extremely shy, but I had no choice. I called her number even though I felt sorry for her. It started to ring, then I heard a panicked voice through the phone.

“U-um sorry we’re late!”

Before I could say anything, I could hear her talking to someone else.

“Huh? H-hang…the phone? B-but…time, it’s…late, so…um, I…”

Yamamura sounded flustered, her words choppy and scattered when I could hear them at all.

“Is Morishita with you, by any chance?” I asked.

“Y-yes. Um, well… Wait, come to the back side of the dormitory? Ah! My phone, don’t—”

The call suddenly cut off what sounded like a bit of a struggle.

“What in the world?” I wondered aloud.

I didn’t really understand what that was all about, but she said something about behind the dormitory. Since I had at least heard that, I figured I’d head over there. It was only a two- or three-minute walk away.

4.1

I ARRIVED AT THE BACK of the dormitory like Yamamura had mentioned. And when I did, I immediately spotted Yamamura looking flustered and panicking. Morishita was there too, down on the ground on all fours for some reason. The things she did were inexplicable, like that time at camp when she put her hand to a large tree and said something about the voice of the forest. Although that time, it was a lie, meant to tease me, so I couldn’t deny the possibility that this was just an extension of that kind of behavior. However, it was also true that Morishita was not a normal student…

I figured that the only way to find out for sure was to talk to them directly. As I approached, I saw that Yamamura’s mouth was flapping open and shut, like she wanted to call out to me, but no sound was coming out.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

At my question, Morishita whipped her head back toward me and glared fiercely.

“Shh! You’re too loud,” Morishita shushed me. “Please quiet down immediately. I am in the middle of observing insects.”

“…I said, what are you doing?” I repeated, asking her again more quietly so as not to make her angry.

“I told you, observing insects,” she replied. “Have you become hard of hearing in the brief time that we have been apart from each other? Perhaps, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, you are—”

What she said after that was so vile that it’s probably best only heard by myself and Yamamura, who was holding her head in her hands.

“It’s not that I didn’t hear you,” I corrected her. “It’s just that I couldn’t understand you.”

Yamamura silently and repeatedly bowed her head to me, apologizing. She was implicitly saying, “Sorry we’re late!” Well, no, actually, she was saying, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t meet up with you.”

I responded with a wave of my hand to tell her that it was Morishita’s fault no matter how you looked at it, so she shouldn’t worry. For the time being, I decided to wait until Morishita finished crawling on all fours.

As for Morishita, she didn’t seem to care at all about things like our scheduled appointment. She was too busy down on all fours to observe insects with her magnifying glass in hand. I had thought perhaps Morishita was just doing this as part of a gag, but she ended up making us wait for about ten minutes.

“Phew! Okay. That’s it for now,” declared Morishita as she stood up with a satisfied look, her casual clothes magnificently stained with dirt. She didn’t even try to wipe it off as she put her magnifying glass away.

“How long has she been at that?” I asked.

“For over thirty minutes now,” Yamamura sighed in response, without any of her usual hesitation, perhaps suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion.

What an incredible ordeal it must’ve been, accompanying Morishita.

“Am I not free to decide what I do with my own time?” huffed Morishita.

“Well, if you don’t have a commitment, then sure, it’s fine,” I replied. “But if you do, then don’t you think that you should do that another time?”

“What cumbersome phrasing. You should really study Japanese more,” answered Morishita, pointing a finger at me as though I was the one being inconsiderate. “I am quite fond of creatures.”