After leaving Hoshinomiya's place, Yukio took the elevator down—only to awkwardly discover that some faculty got up even earlier than he did. One of them was already in the first-floor lounge, sipping a hot coffee.
You had to admit, the staff dorms at ANHS were nice: a self-grinding coffee machine on the ground floor, several large bookshelves, two rows of computers and tablets for faculty use. It wasn't uncommon to see teachers downstairs chatting over coffee. Hoshinomiya had mentioned as much, which was why Yukio had planned to leave early—so he wouldn't run into any teachers on his way out.
And yet he still did. Class D's homeroom teacher, Chabashira , sat there looking pensive, hands folded like a model student—left over right, right elbow on the low table—staring at the steam rising from her cup as her mind wandered. She looked like she was reliving past mistakes, or thinking through how to make them right.
Only when Yukio's gaze fell on her did Chabashira, alerted by the elevator doors opening, glance over. Their eyes met.
A beat of silence, and Yukio spoke first—twisting the facts without blinking. "Oh, Chabashira-sensei, so you're here."
"Hmm?" Chabashira blinked, then seemed to put it together. "You… came to see me?"
"Of course." Unhurried, unreadable, Yukio walked over as if he were at home. He picked a bean option on one of the machines, ground himself a cup, and sat down across from her with it in hand.
That brief, calm sequence gave him plenty of time to string together a neat, logical explanation for why he was coming down from the upper floors at this hour. He didn't need it—Chabashira supplied one herself.
"I just stepped out for a walk and came back for coffee," she said. "You probably came by while I was out. We must've just missed each other."
"I see." Yukio didn't agree blindly; he noticed the faint, darker patches on her black office suit—morning dew, by the look of it, not accidental splashes. That confirmed she wasn't lying or probing him; she really had gone out for a walk. He adopted a suitably enlightened look and picked up the thread. "No wonder no one answered when I knocked."
"I thought you just weren't up yet, Chabashira-sensei."
Chabashira sensed nothing amiss. Ever since seeing Yukio, her thoughts had been circling him—or more precisely, circling the issue he'd once put to her. "You're here to hear where I stand, aren't you? About how I treated the previous two Class D—or, in other words, about how I tried to atone for one mistake and kept making more along the way."
"That's right." Yukio hadn't come for anything of the sort; he'd simply spent the night keeping Hoshinomiya company, and ran into Chabashira on his way out. But since she'd framed it that way, it was better to go with it than raise her suspicions.
"Hah…" She exhaled heavily—enough to scatter some of the steam from her cup—her expression growing hazy with sorrow. Maybe she'd been bottling this up, and meeting the student who had named the problem made her want to speak; or maybe she felt he was the only student who could really understand. Either way, she stopped forcing herself to swallow it and began.
"I've thought about it," she said. "Whether putting my whole heart into leading this current Class D would count as atonement—whether it could make up for everything."
"If I could fight to raise this Class D to Class A, that would make up for my first mistake; and if I properly taught my students now, that would make up for what I failed to do for the previous two classes."
"Like this time, in the Project Selection Exam—I explained everything I could, even to the point the school warned me. I still told them the ins and outs."
"The results were very good—excellent, even. They beat Ichinose's class and won the exam. But… does that really make amends?"
"Later I thought it through: even if they do keep winning under my guidance, or even if I keep pouring myself into teaching the next class—what does that mean to the students from the previous two years?"
"No matter how well I lead the current class, for those who already left ANHS, it means nothing."
Yukio nodded repeatedly. The recognition was correct. You can "make amends" for the later group, but how does that actually compensate those who were harmed before? Her line of thought showed she was truly reflecting, truly searching for a way to atone to those two earlier Class D cohorts—not just intoxicated by the easy logic of "do well this time and it wipes out last time."
"In that case," he asked after a sip of coffee, "you've thought so far, and the thinking is sound—have you decided what to do?"
Right thought still has to meet reality—can it be done? So many things are 'right'; very few are feasible.
Chabashira nodded… then shook her head, as if she both could and could not. "I thought about pulling their files," she said softly. "I wanted to know how those earlier students are doing now."
"Then I could better make amends—for example, by giving them some social resources, or financial help. That's about all I can do at present."
"But even if I can access certain records here at school, it's very hard to find people. It's been years—I can't tell where they ended up."
That was normal. At the end of the day, Chabashira was only faculty, not upper administration. She didn't have the power to trace every graduate's path. And the school's isolation from the outside world wasn't just for students; it applied to staff, too. To go out freely, you needed someone at Principal's level. Worse, in those two earlier years she hadn't fulfilled her duties; who knew how many students had withdrawn mid-program?
Just her "wrong test scope before midterms" stunt alone—who knew how many Class D students that had knocked out? At ANHS, a single failing mark on the midterms in any subject meant expulsion. Tracking down those who dropped out? That would be the hardest of all.
....
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