A Book Can't Be Judged By The Cover

Chapter 84: Attendance

Since Hajime was already in his fourth year, he could feel a sense of nostalgia coming to him as he roamed around the hallways of the school building. To think that last year, he was living his mundane yet comfortable life... just for it to take a turn for the worse. He felt like a boxer, standing on the last round of a match before he suddenly let his guard down and got his living daylights beaten out of him.

’Such was life, I guess.’ Hajime craned his neck to look at each classroom sign before walking forward. He had done two patrols around the second and third floors of the school so he decided to head back to the front entrance.

Before he got to the staircase, however, he saw Akamine-sensei, humming cheerfully as she mimicked a graceful dance from who knows what movie. She waved her hands around while moving her feet on as slowly as she could in a sweeping manner. If she had been wearing dance clothes, it would’ve looked much better. Right now she just looked foolish— or at least to Hajime she was.

To say the least, Hajime was surprised and his mouth let out a chuckle before he realized it.

"Pfft," His eyes widened as his reaction caught him off guard.

"..."

There was a pause. Akamine-sensei stopped her dance midway and glanced in Hajime’s direction, her jaw dropping to the ground in surprise. She couldn’t believe that there was really someone in the school building... and as luck would have it, it was none other than Hajime— one of the few students whom she didn’t want to show her embarrassing side.

"Hajime?! W-w-what are you— " She stuttered just as Hajime tipped his head forward and walked out of the way.

"Don’t pretend you didn’t see that!" Akamine-sensei finally lost it.

.....

A couple of minutes later.

"Whahahah~!" Akamine-sensei, this time, was the one teasing Hajime as she patted him on the back. "So that happens to you too huh, getting overexcited with a school trip and all!"

Hajime bit his lips in frustration. ’Even though you did the same thing.’ He thought in his mind as he stared forward.

Teacher and student, sitting by the stairs that led to the front entrance of the school. It was a peaceful time of day and the two of them thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though Akamine-sensei was met with embarrassment a moment ago, she was glad that she wasn’t the only one waiting for time to pass.

Also, she was glad to escape her duties, now that Hajime was there. fгeewebnovёl.com

"Here," Akamine-sensei didn’t dilly-dally handing Hajime a piece of paper with all his classmates’ names on it.

"What is this, sensei?"

Akamine-sensei smirked and twirled her thumbs. "That’s... that’s the attendance sheet, what else?"

"Eh?"

.....

A few minutes later, the bus which was going to take the entire senior class to Kyoto arrived, rolling through the front gates and stopping by the staircase wherein Akamine-sensei and Hajime sat and chatted, For the second time, Akamine-sensei patted Hajime on the back, urging him to stand by the door of the bus as they waited for everyone in their class.

Four other buses arrived shortly after— for the other classes, of course. But to Hajime’s surprise, no one stood in front of the bus entrance to take attendance. A couple more minutes later, Hajime soon saw that it was the teachers who were standing by. As for Akamine-sensei, she was by the front seat of the bus, fanning her face with her palms as she enjoyed the air-conditioned place.

"Thank you so much, Hajime, I’m feeling better now," Akamine-sensei said massaging her neck before she gave Hajime a huge thumbs up.

"Isn’t this... more of a punishment than a— well, never mind," Hajime said to himself.

Fortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy so Hajime didn’t have to worry about sweating buckets before going into the air-conditioned bus. The last thing he wanted was to get a headache before the school trip even started. ’I even received a bundle of cash from Megumi’s dad... I do have to send him an invoice later on but either way, I have money to spend. I can’t afford to get sick right now.’ Hajime heaved a sigh, blocking his face from the sun that shone through the huge gaps in between the clouds.

When the time for the meet-up was due, flocks of students started making their way through the front gates. Natsumi was the first one to greet Hajime, handing him a bento as usual and going away before Hajime could reject it. "Eat that, okay?" She said before going to their bus where she started talking to a guy with a crew cut.

"H-Hajime... is that you?" Megumi squinted her eyes as she teased Hajime. "Why are you taking the attendance instead of me? Cut it out with the ’changed man’ energy hahha~" Megumi continued before slapping him on the back.

"Megumi, present," Hajime muttered, checking her name on the list.

"You’re going to sit with your groups, please find your seat. If you’re not sure where to sit, you can ask me... or just refer to Hajime’s list." Akamine-sensei added.

One by one, the students started coming in, and Akamine-sensei repeated her instructions as they did. As for Hajime, he continued ticking off everyone’s name, hoping that it will all end soon so he could finally taste the good taste of freedom— in other words, comfortable air conditioning for that matter.

"Look who’s here," Kanai Kichiro called out before stepping into the bus. "I thought you’d ditch our group but you’re the earliest one to arrive, huh,"

"I thought I’d save the best seats for you... but turns out you can only have one. And it’s on the back too." Hajime continued, jerking his thumb towards the last row of the bus where Kichiro was assigned the middle seat.

"Tsk~" Kichiro clicked his tongue in frustration. He wasn’t expecting Hajime to respond so flippantly like that.

’Sigh~ this is going to be a long day, all right.’ Hajime inwardly thought as the last student to enter the bus.