Meeting the President

(Akane's PoV)

—

The first bell had already rung, and the corridor was empty except for the hum of the fluorescent lights.

Behind the bathroom door, Izumi was still crying.

'No... I still can't feel a damn thing. That's pretty scary.' I thought while making my way to the class. 'Why do I actually feel good about this...?' I shook my head, and then walked even faster without realizing it.

When I arrived, I slid the door open as quietly as combat boots allow, and the ultra-boring Takaneda-sensei looked up from the board, a piece of chalk still raised in his hand.

"Takanashi-san. You're late." His tone bored as usual. "That's unusual."

"I deeply apologize, Takaneda-sensei." I bowed my head. "I wasn't feeling well."

He studied me for a moment.

Three years of perfect attendance and perfect marks actually buy you a surprising amount of mercy.

"Okay, understood," he said, nodding toward my seat. "Sit down, please. The lesson has already started."

And I did, in silence, while everyone's gaze was on me.

Without caring, my gaze landed on Kurone's chair. It was still empty, obviously, with someone's bag leaning against one of its legs.

With a small sigh, I took out my notebook, opened it to a blank page, and spent the next forty minutes listening.

The whispers had changed since yesterday.

New subject. Same hunger.

"...no, it's fake. My cousin does edits. You can tell from the shadows..."

"It was Yamashiro. I've seen her walk like that."

"I heard Sakurai did it. Because she dumped him or something."

"Seriously? That's low."

"He looked like a ghost this morning. And the way he reacted when she tried to convince him? He's guilty. 100%."

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. Those loud ones always go weird."

My pen kept moving across the page without leaving anything useful behind.

'Those loud ones always go weird.'

The girl two seats away had said it while flipping her hair, with the same interest she might have shown the weather.

Shin had warned me.

We'd been standing inside Hoshiko's studio, surrounded by neon, when he'd looked at me with his fists clenched and said, 'After that phone call yesterday, you seriously think she won't try to blame him?'

Well, I had actually told her I was the 'culprit', but nothing would stop her from blaming Daiki. 

'Damn. I was so focused on humiliating her that I forgot... Well—'

My phone suddenly buzzed against my thigh when the bell rang for break.

Sora:Student council room. Please come now. Alone, possibly.

I read it twice. No emoji, so she was really serious.

That was unusual, especially from her.

Then I closed my notebook and, before putting my phone away, sent a message to Shin.

"Akane: 'Darling, I'm going to meet the Idol President. I'll tell you everything later, okay? Love you.'"

His reply came almost instantly.

"Shin: 'Yeah, I know. Sora already texted me. See you later, love you."

My grip on the phone tightened after reading her name, but I tried to ignore all the malicious feelings. 

I took a deep breath and then put my phone away before leaving the class.

During my walk, something 'funny' happened.

I ran into Izumi's fuckboy on the east stairwell.

He was coming up while I was going down, his jacket zipped all the way to his throat. His shoulders were hunched, and his eyes stayed glued to the steps.

The bad boy was gone. He looked like someone trying very hard to become part of the staircase.

For a second, I thought he might look up, and the corner of my mouth started to rise for some reason, but he kept staring at the steps and went past me with his head down.

I let him. 

When I reached the student council room, I knocked once.

"Come in," Sora said.

"Pardon the intrusion," I said, stepping inside.

She was alone. The long table had been cleared except for a laptop, a stack of folders aligned perfectly with the edge, and a plain brown envelope in the center.

In the corner, on its little wheeled stand, sat the paper shredder.

That was probably the nicest machine in the entire school.

"Close the door, please."

I did.

Then she stood from behind the table and went to the window. For a few seconds she stayed there with her back to me, one hand resting on the sill.

There were shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there yesterday.

"Tanaka-sensei sent me a message, asking for a report by the end of the day," she said. "Everything about the photographs. Who put them up, how they were put up, and what the council intends to do about it."

"I'm sure you'll write a very good one." I smiled.

"I'm going to." She turned. "That's why I asked you here."

Sora returned to the table, opened the envelope, and slid out the two photographs.

She placed them side by side.

I looked at the words.

'Look at me! I'm the heroine of this new story I'm writing! A cheater!'

They didn't seem nearly as funny under fluorescent lights on a conference table.

"I don't know your handwriting, Akane," Sora said. "I never had a reason to, and I don't need to."

I said nothing.

Her eyes were tired, steady, and somehow still kind.

"Yesterday, Sakurai-san told us what happened with Yamashiro-san on the roof. Then the four of us walked to my building together. He was fine, but today he looks like a corpse, and anyone looking at him could tell something had happened." She glanced at the photographs. "This morning these appear on the bulletin board, with a caption written by someone who is very, very angry." She paused. "I know exactly one person who gets that angry on behalf of other people."

"That's quite a theory." I smiled mischievously.

"You don't have to confirm it, Akane." She sighed.

I didn't.

Sora watched me, staying silent with a completely flat expression for a few seconds, then exhaled through her nose like someone finally setting down a heavy bag.

"Good," she said. "Because the question is useless."

I blinked. "Useless?"

"Who did it. Whether it was you."

She pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat, folding her hands in front of her.

"If I know, I have to act. If I act, there's a hearing. Then parents. Statements. The board of education." Her fingers tightened together. "And all of it lands on a boy who is already being looked at in the corridors like he's been caught stealing."

"The class," I said. "I heard them."

"The whole third year already thinks that Sakurai-san did it. That's the story going around." She said it without decoration. "If anyone investigates, his is the first name that comes up."

"Shin already told me that, you know?"

"Of course he did."

Something small crossed her mouth. Almost a smile.

There was half a second of softness in the way she said his name.

Of course I noticed, but I stayed silent.

Then Sora cleared her throat and pushed a sheet of paper across the table.

It was half typed, and the header read:

Official Minutes, Student Council, Friday.

"This is what I'm submitting," she said. "I'll read you the important part."

She cleared her throat.

"The photographs displayed on the central bulletin board on the morning of Friday do not depict any identifiable student at this school. The faces are obscured, and the context cannot be verified. The council has therefore classified the incident as a prank in poor taste and recommends no further investigation.'" She looked up. "In this way, nobody gets accused, nobody gets named, and nobody gets suspended, expelled, or dragged in front of a committee."

I stared at her.

"The blur was a nice idea, wasn't it?" I said.

"Whoever added it did me an enormous favor." She tapped the edge of one photograph. "If the faces were clear, I couldn't write that sentence." A pause. "Even I wouldn't believe it."

I thought of Hoshiko behind her counter, importing the pictures into her computer with her tongue caught between her teeth.

'Middle ground.'

Then Shin by the iron door of the studio, fists clenched.

'We can't go this far.'

'Daiki needs to heal on his own, and we need to be there for him.'

Both of them had stopped me from going further, sadly.

Their caution was now the only reason I wasn't sitting in front of Tanaka-sensei with my handwriting spread across his desk. Maybe yes, maybe not. Who knows.

The cold little weight beneath my ribs shifted, but I ignored it.

"One more thing," Sora said. "The frame."

"The bulletin board?"

"The glass was unlocked. I've been told that a first-year from the calligraphy club changed the notices Thursday afternoon and forgot to lock it. He came to me almost crying." She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I told him it was an easy mistake. And it also gives me an explanation I can use. A careless lapse. Someone taking advantage of it for a cruel joke. Nothing more."

"You're very good at this when you want, you know?" I teased.

"I'm terrible at this." She stood. "I've just had practice being terrible at it quietly."

She then gathered the photographs and squared their edges together.

"Come here."

I followed her into the corner.

The shredder waited on its little stand, and Sora switched it on.

The motor came alive with a soft mechanical purr.

She then held both photographs above the slot but didn't feed them in immediately.

"We have more important things to think about," she said, her back still to me. "If it becomes public that the photographs are real, the school's reputation will suffer, and with that, even the festival. Every family in the city hears about it, and half of them find a reason not to send their children here. And that can also be a reason why they will cover up this story." She looked down at the photos in her hands. "So we'll call it a joke."

"Oh? You're lying for me." I said, leaning close and patting her back. "You're such a good friend, Sora, you know?"

"I-I'm lying for the school." She paused. "And for Sakurai-san."

Then she fed the photographs into the shredder, and the sound was almost disappointingly small.

Paper caught in the teeth and vanished a few centimeters at a time.

I watched the thumbtack hole disappear first. Then the handwriting.

Heroine.

Cheater.

All gone in thin white strips. 

A few seconds later, Sora's hands were empty.

The machine hummed, then stopped, and my chest somehow felt lighter.

Whether that was relief or guilt getting more comfortable, I couldn't tell. Possibly both.

Then Sora turned around and smoothed her skirt with both palms.

"Next time," she said, "come to me first, please. Our graduation is really close, and we can't risk anything."

"There won't be a next time, Sora. She has probably learned her lesson."

"That isn't what I asked." She sighed.

I looked at her, smiling.

Sora Fujimoto, the perfect student council president.

She had just falsified the official version of an incident and destroyed evidence because, out of several bad choices, she'd decided this one hurt the fewest people.

The shadows under her eyes suddenly made more sense.

"Fine," I said. "Next time, I'll come to you first."

She exhaled. "Thank you."

"Sora."

"Yes?"

"Our shopping trip is still up, right?" I asked before putting my hands into my pockets. "I'm asking because there's also a friend of mine who'll come with us. We'll go to her studio right after school to pick her up."

"Yeah," Her voice softened. "But what kind of studio?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's just us girls, I promise."

Sora stared at me as if I'd switched languages halfway through the sentence.

"Okay. But what kind of studio?" she asked again.

I sighed. "Tattoos. Piercings. Incense. Manga."

Her mouth curved.

"That sounds exactly like the kind of place my mother would forbid."

"Probably."

"Mmm..." She rubbed her chin. "I'd like to." She smiled.

"Good." I turned toward the door. "Bring snacks. Hoshiko will love you, and then she'll hug you before you're ready. Brace yourself."

She looked at me with a confused expression, but she still smiled.

My hand was already on the frame when Sora spoke again. Quieter this time.

"Akane."

I looked back.

"Yeah? What is it?" I asked.

"Please, don't do something like this again, even if you have all the reason to do so. Next time I won't be here to protect you again." A small pause. "Moreover, Yamashiro-san will surely come to us, I think."

For a moment I saw the bathroom again.

"She'll be fine, don't worry about someone like her," I said. "People like her always find a way to move on and ruin others somehow." A small smile appeared on my face. "And I'm pretty sure that she won't bother you, trust me." I gave her a thumbs up-

"Okay..." She sighed. "Take care..." 

"Thank you, Sora. I'll return the favor, I promise." I said before stepping out of the student council room.

"You don't need to thank me, Akane. You're my friend, and I know you did that in good faith, even if it's too much for me..." She smiled. "But because of that, I won't be able to come to the rooftop for lunch break. I'm sorry about that."

"Don't worry. We'll make it up later." I said. "See you later, you beautiful idol."

And then, I 'officially' walked away without glancing back.

During my walk back to the class, the corridors were empty. Nobody was doing stuff for the festival, and other than that, I felt something strange in my chest. The urge to go back to Izumi and humiliate her again was strong, but what scared me was the fact that I still felt no regret in what I did to her.

Instinctively, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Shin. 

Akane: 'Darling, everything went well. Guess we are safe now. By the way, are we gonna meet for lunch break?'

The reply came after two minutes. I counted them.

Shin: 'Uh, sure. Can Daiki come with us? He said he was feeling better, but I know that he's feeling like shit.'

Akane: 'Yeah. Let him come. I'll tell him what happened.'

Shin: 'Okay. See you later then. I love you.'

My heart skipped a beat. I still had to get used to the fact that Shin had officially said that he loved me.

Akane: 'I love you too. Bring food because I'm hungry, thanks.'

Shin: 'I will.'

Then, with a smile, I put my phone back in my pocket and walked to class.

'I wonder what is gonna happen now...'