Chiba Municipal Ryoma Highschool consists of the three, four-story buildings, each connected via bridge on the second and third floor.

The first building was where all the offices and freshmen classrooms were placed. It was the most grand-looking building out of all the three for some reason. Most plausible explanation for that would be because of its location in front of the main road. I guess trying to show off looks doesn’t only apply to people alone. Talk about condescending.

The second building was aligned perpendicularly from the first. It was where the second and third year’s classrooms were at. There wasn’t anything special about the building itself, aside from the fact that it had a roof top unlike the other two. But sadly, even though it had its very own roof top, it was most of the time closed and wasn’t accessible to students. Seems like a good waste of tax money to me.

And the last building was no other than the so-called special building. It was aligned perpendicularly from the second one, and was facing the first one up front. Ironically, there wasn’t really anything special about the building like its name suggests. They didn’t have any special facilities that would help you become the hokage, nor were there lesson that would help you find the one piece. In short, it was indeed your average, normal-looking high school building. It couldn’t live up to its name sadly.

The only reason why it had ‘special’ in its name was because of the classes that took place inside of it. It was where all the special subjects were held. Notable classes would be cooking class inside the cooking facility, music class inside the music room, and special film-viewings inside the AV room. Now that I think about it, the name 'AV' sounds a bit too fishy to be the name of a room inside the school, so they should probably change it some time soon.

Since my classroom was situated at the second building's third floor, and we took a left upon exiting the room, I could confidently say that we were headed for the special building and nowhere else.

On the way to the special building, the youthful sounds of the sports clubs outside continued to play in the background as we continued to progress, and there were no other people around beside me and sensei in the hall.

At this time of day, the students from the go-home club would have already left the school and started doing club activities, while the normal population of the student body that had a real club would be in their respective clubs, doing real club work by now.

It was indeed your typical, after-school scene. Everything didn’t seem to be out of the ordinary, except for the fact that we were headed for the wrong direction.

Usually, when a teacher tells you to meet them after school, that basically meant you had to go to the faculty room after class to meet them there. It was an unspoken rule. So I find it weird that we were headed for the special building, rather than the first building where the faculty room was at.

They say that the road less taken was where true happiness could be found. But if they knew for a fact that that path was the wrong way to take, then I wonder if they’d continue to walk despite being aware, or if they’d stop mid-way and raise the white flag.

Between the two, I’d probably choose the practical one and choose to do the latter. An abstract thing such as happiness wasn’t too big of a compelling force to drive me to go on anyway. But even though I wanted to stop and go the other way around, I wasn’t in any position to take lead. I’m basically a convict being dragged against his will here. So I’m left with no other option but to ask the person in-charge in regards to all this.

“Umm…sensei,” I prompted. “Aren’t we heading towards the wrong direction? The faculty room’s the other way.”

At that, sensei stopped in her tracks, turning to me with a slight turn of the head.

“Hiraoka,” She paused. “Since when were you under the impression that we were headed for the faculty room?”

As those words were spouted at that very instance, I felt anguish and despair being thrown my way.

Idly standing there for a good two seconds or so, deep inside, it hit me. The aforementioned student that sensei had to talk to wasn't real, and there was no appointment that had been filed before hand. It was merely a story that sensei came up with to lure me into her evil scheme that seemed to have been planned for a very long time.

This wasn’t good. I could already take a wild guess to what all this was about.

At this point, there was no other way to escape this predicament aside from that. Yes, the only correct course of action to take was that and no other. The risk was high, but so was the return. There’s no time to think about it now, it’s now or never.

With whole-hearted resolve and a fool-proof plan, I crouched my back ever-so-carefully, placing my hand on my deeply crouched back.

“A-Ahhh..m-my back, my back! My arthritis’ acting up!”

Then, for a slight moment, the air was still. A tranquil silence fell over the surroundings for a decent amount of time. Around three seconds or so.

“Huh.” Far from my expectation, a cold murmured slipped through sensei’s mouth, turning my way with a completely puzzled expression. “What arthritis are you talking about, arthritis acts up on your joint, not the back.” Sensei said, looking my way with eyes filled with pity. “Also, you’re too young to have arthritis.”

Uwaahhh…so I just threw my pride out of the window for nothing, is that it? Good thing there wasn’t anyone around aside from us, or else I might have died of embarrassment on the spot.

“Uhh..well, how do I say this..” I paused, crouching my back a bit more. “I..I might have gotten the name wrong, but my back seriously hurts sensei..”

“Ohh..” Sensei raised an ominous fist up, transforming her weapon of choice from a fully-packed fist, to a deadly karate-chopping hand. “Want me to fix it for you then?”

“A-ahh! I-I think I'm all better now..!" I quickly fixed my posture and swiftly looked away.

Sensei let out a resigned sigh in response, brushing one side of her hair up, vexingly. “What the hell was that crap about. Care to explain?”

“Uhh..well, I may not look like it but I’m not capable of carrying a grand piano around. I’m also not good at handling fragile stuff so I might end up having to pay for broken lab equipment if I ever drop them…”

“Huuuuh?” Sensei boisterously exclaimed. “Who in the world told you that I was going to make you do manual labor? Didn’t I already tell you I had an appointment with another student, were you even listening? It feels like my words just entered one ear and left the other.”

…I don’t want to hear that from you.

“Umm, but we’re headed for the special building…”

“What about it.”

“I thought you said you were going to talk to another student?”

“I did,” Sensei nodded. “What about it.”

Hearing sensei’s vague replies, a silent sigh found its way in-between my lips. “If you’re really going to talk to another student, wouldn’t you do it inside the faculty room like a normal teacher would?”

“Heh- Well that's because I’m not your average, normal teacher,” Sensei paused. “I’m a special one!” She added, breaking into this victoriously huge smile as she held up this peace sign, a smug expression playing on her face.

“Gehh..” Even though a small part of me felt a bit of astonishment toward this brave warrior’s display of shamelessness, the majority of me felt a hell lotta cringe, to the point that an unwanted murmur slipped through my lips.

“A-ahem!” And in response, the brave and shameless warrior sheepishly coughed, trying her best to look me straight in the eyes with a slightly flushed face. I’d actually like to say sensei looked kinda cute just now, but I don’t see myself taking that route any time soon. “A-anyway, just shut up and follow my lead.”

“Ohh..”

And with that, sensei turned around in a whim. And though it seemed like she was about to get a move on, instead, she dug her face deep on the palm of her hands, a faint “That was embarrassing!” resounded through the long hallway of the building’s third floor.

It’s alright sensei, don’t mind!