Mio Mochizuki, a new school support worker, is assigned to a local public elementary school. Shizuma Kuse, the homeroom teacher of Class 3-2, is the ideal educator—never raises his voice, adored by students, trusted absolutely by parents. But there is one strange child in his classroom: a girl whose face goes blank only in his presence.
His roll calls are always by number. "Number 5, answer." No one minds. But in the support records, the children's photos line up with expressionless faces—as if
Mr. Shizuma's Attendance Book - A house for a solo work assignment
On a morning in late April, no one was in the support staff room of Minamo Municipal Third Elementary School yet.
Outside the window, the cherry blossoms in the schoolyard had finished falling, and the young leaves shone white in the morning light. This room on the north side of the first floor received no sunlight in the morning. Only the white light of the fluorescent lamps illuminated the document shelves lined up against the wall and the two desks.
Mochizuki Mio sat in front of one of them, the desk assigned to her. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tied tightly back this morning. It wasn't that she hadn't had time to fix her bedhead. Today, she was going to talk to someone. And not just anyone—someone she had to face properly.
(I have to tell them. Properly.)
She clenched both hands on her lap. Beneath the sleeve on her right wrist were three old scars. Scars she had carved herself in the winter of her second year of high school. An indelible punishment for the self that had looked away back then.
About two weeks had passed since she'd been assigned as a support staff member.
The homeroom teacher of Class 2, Year 3—a teacher named Kuze Shizuma—she now saw almost every day. He was gentle, never raised his voice, and was loved by both the children and their parents. His classroom was always orderly, the atmosphere quiet, time flowing with regularity.
But.
(What is that, really?)
Mochizuki was turning two things over in her mind.
One was about Tsumura Yui.
That girl only erased her expression in front of Kuze. From a face laughing with friends, the emotion would slip away, leaving a doll-like blankness. Even in the photos kept in the support records, Yui's smile had disappeared starting from October of last year.
The other was the way Kuze called on students.
He didn't call the children by name. "Number five, answer." "Number seventeen, what do you think?" He pointed to each one by attendance number, orderly and precise. Other teachers had, before anyone noticed, begun imitating that method. Inside the classroom, names were gradually falling out of use.
(It might be my imagination.)
(But it might not be.)
Mochizuki went back and forth between the two thoughts, again and again.
Last night, she had written in her support journal: "No particular issues today." After writing it, she'd wanted to erase it. But she couldn't. There was no evidence. No certainty. She lacked the courage to trust her own senses.
(So today—)
She had put a small resolve into this day.
Not to carry it alone. To tell someone. To put what she had seen into words and convey it to the school's administration.
That was the best single step she could take right now.
There was a knock on the support staff room door.
"Excuse me. Mochizuki-san, are you in?"
The door opened along with the voice.
The person who entered was a short, middle-aged man with thinning hair carefully combed into a neat seven-to-three part. Sweat had seeped into the collar of his white dress shirt, and a white handkerchief was clutched in his right hand. Iguchi Manabu, vice principal of Minamo Third Elementary. Forty-eight years old. His small, half-moon-shaped eyes always looked as though they were smiling, but his pupils were somehow hard to read.
"Ah, good morning."
Mochizuki hurriedly stood and bowed.
"Good morning. Ah, sorry to bother you so early in the day. Thank you for making time."
Iguchi pressed the handkerchief to his forehead as he spoke rapidly. He always seemed busy somehow. Always checking the clock, always wiping sweat. His speaking pace was fast too, with a kind of pressure that tried to bring the conversation to an end quickly.
"No, I'm the one who should apologize for taking up your time."
"No, no. I have to properly listen to what a newly appointed teacher has to say. It's my job, after all."
Iguchi lowered himself into the chair across from her.
Mochizuki slowly sat back down as well. Her heart was pounding like a bell inside her chest. Would she be able to speak well? Would she come across as strange?
"So, was there something? Something troubling you, perhaps?"
Iguchi turned his half-moon eyes toward Mochizuki. They looked like they were smiling, but they were appraising her, probing her expression.
"Um... there's something that's been on my mind a little."
Mochizuki laced her fingers on her lap and began to speak.
"It's about a student in Class 2, Year 3—a girl named Tsumura Yui."
"Tsumura-san. Yes."
"That girl, when she's in front of Kuze-sensei, somehow... her expression disappears. When she's talking with friends she laughs normally, but when Kuze-sensei comes near, she suddenly goes blank. That's been really bothering me."
Put into words, it did sound terribly unreliable.
(Her expression disappears? What does that even mean?)
(He's going to think I'm strange after all.)
Mochizuki felt her words dissolving into the air.
Iguchi tilted his head just slightly.
"Hmm... her expression disappears. And specifically, when does that happen?"
"Like during the morning meeting, when Kuze-sensei comes into the classroom, or when she's called on during class. She'll be laughing, and then the moment she sees Kuze-sensei's face, it just—vanishes."
"Hmm."
Iguchi wiped his mouth with the handkerchief.
"And I also looked at the support record photos. Tsumura-san's photos suddenly became expressionless starting from October of last year. Before that, they were all photos of her smiling."
"Photos, huh."
Iguchi's voice dropped just slightly.
"Also, Kuze-sensei's... way of calling on students has been bothering me a little. He calls the children by attendance number instead of by name, doesn't he? That also feels somehow strange to me."
"Calling by number isn't particularly unusual, you know. It's efficient, after all."
"That's true, but..."
Mochizuki's voice grew smaller.
Iguchi leaned back in his chair and, after a brief pause, spoke.
"Mochizuki-san."
"Yes."
"I understand how you feel. In a new workplace, in an unfamiliar environment, there are all sorts of things that might concern you. But you know, Kuze-sensei is the face of our school."
Iguchi narrowed his already smiling-looking eyes even further.
"His reputation among the mothers is extremely good. The board of education rates him highly as well. Being able to entrust a class to that teacher is something the school is truly grateful for. Class 2, Year 3 is very calm right now. There are no problems. That's thanks to Kuze-sensei."
"But what I saw—"
"What you 'saw' is subjective, after all."
Iguchi's words were fast and smooth.
"Things like expressions disappearing, or photos, or whatever—those are quite difficult to explain objectively. Is there any evidence that Kuze-sensei has a problem?"
"Evidence, you say..."
Mochizuki was at a loss for words.
There was no evidence.
Only what she had seen. Only what she had felt.
"No."
"Right. Mochizuki-san, being earnest is a good thing. But overthinking is not. Most of what you're worried about is just a misunderstanding brought on by the change in environment, I think."
Iguchi stood up.
"I'll have a word with Kuze-sensei too, just in case. That you were concerned. But I won't make a big deal of it. I don't want to blow things up, you see—with this kind of thing."
"Blow things up..."
"Schools, you know—running them without making waves is the hardest thing. And the most important. You'll understand eventually too."
Iguchi wiped his forehead once more with the handkerchief in his right hand.
"Well then, I'll be going. If anything comes up, anytime."
"Um, Iguchi-sensei."
Mochizuki found herself calling after him.
"Am I really just imagining things?"
Iguchi, his hand on the doorknob, turned around.
"Whether it's your imagination or not isn't for you to decide. It's whether there's a problem as a school. At present, there is no problem."
With just that, Iguchi left.
The sound of the door closing echoed faintly.
Mochizuki was left alone in the support staff room.
(It didn't reach him.)
She felt her words sliding smoothly past Iguchi. He had listened earnestly. But he hadn't received them.
(Am I the strange one?)
She gently stroked the old scar on her right wrist with her left hand.
(It's the same as back then.)
In high school, she had watched a classmate go expressionless. She'd wavered about consulting a teacher, and couldn't. No evidence. She'd be told it was her imagination. If that was how it would go, staying silent was better.
(But this time I spoke.)
(I spoke, and it didn't reach him.)
Mochizuki let out a deep breath.
Outside the window, the young leaves in the schoolyard swayed in the wind.
Just then, her eyes caught for a moment on something beyond the chair where Iguchi had been sitting—on the vice principal's desk.
It was an old file.
A thin, light-brown cardboard file, with something printed on the cover. From a distance, she couldn't read the letters. But the file, left carelessly on the desk, bothered her just a little.
(What kind of file is that?)
But Mochizuki did not pick it up.
Peering at someone else's desk was not right.
She turned back to her own desk and began preparing today's support records.
The old file placed on Iguchi's desk.
It was the record of the Minamo Third Elementary disappearance case from five years ago.
A boy who had been in third grade at the time suddenly stopped coming to school, and the home visit records had scattered into nothing. It had been reported to the police as "a move due to family circumstances." Even now, the boy's whereabouts were unknown.
Mochizuki did not notice that file.
And even if she had, she had no way of knowing yet what it meant.
That same day, in the afternoon.
Iguchi Manabu was knocking on the door of the principal's office.
"Excuse me."
"Oh, Iguchi-sensei. Please, come in."
The principal, Saeki Kazuya, welcomed Iguchi with a soft smile. A gentle man around sixty, with salt-and-pepper hair. From the principal's office window, the schoolyard was visible, and beyond it, the embankment of the Minamo River.
"Ah, sorry to bother you. I have a small report to make."
Iguchi lowered himself onto the sofa of the reception set—his usual spot.
"A report? Did something happen?"
"It's nothing major. There's a new support staff member named Mochizuki-san, you see."
"Ah, the earnest-looking girl who joined in April."
"This Mochizuki-san came to consult with me this morning. Something about Tsumura-san in Class 2, Year 3 losing her expression in front of Kuze-sensei, or the support record photos, or the number-calling being strange—well, that sort of thing."
Iguchi wiped his palms with the handkerchief as he rattled on rapidly.
Saeki, without breaking his smile, looked out the window.
"The newly arrived support staff member is earnest, isn't she."
"Yes. Almost too earnest. But well, it's probably just a misunderstanding from an unfamiliar environment. I told her it was fine."
"I see. Thank you for your efforts."
Saeki nodded quietly.
Then, as if murmuring to himself, he said:
"We can't have anything happen with Kuze-sensei, after all."
"Yes. Truly. I don't want to blow things up."
Iguchi's voice had dropped just slightly.
Those words.
"I don't want to blow things up."
Five years ago, during that disappearance case as well, the same words had been repeated within this school.
Iguchi did not clearly remember that. No—perhaps he was pretending not to remember. But within him was an unshakable conviction that not making waves was justice itself.
It was not a cover-up.
To him, it was the natural action to protect the school.
He had always avoided stopping to think.
After school.
Mochizuki had finished entering her support records in the staff room and was preparing to leave.
She had observed Kuze's class all day, but Yui's behavior was unchanged. When Kuze came near, her expression vanished. When he moved away,
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