Chapter 81: Chapter 80 - The Locked Classroom Incident

Minami Asakura was someone who considered herself a competent adult. However, reality was not on her side.

It all began on Thursday.

School had let out, and the majority of students were now home, the remaining teachers were completing work, and the janitorial staff was going through the halls.

Minami’s assignment was simple.

Very simple.

Get old tests from the 3rd floor storage room.

That was it.

Nothing hard.

Nothing risky.

And certainly nothing that would go wrong.

But of course everything went wrong.

When Minami opened the storage room door, it wasn’t just old tests that were stored there. It was filled with tons of old textbooks, classroom supplies, sports equipment, and enough paperwork to cover the entire nation.

Minami entered with a clipboard and was now planning on checking different shelves to find the tests she needed.

After about 15 minutes, she finally found the old tests.

"Yes! I found them!" she called out.

This was the first time she finally felt good about accomplishing something.

She allowed herself to smile very slightly.

Then she went to the door, only to realize she couldn’t pull the handle.

She blinked.

She tried to pull it again. No change.

She then pulled the handle a third time, still no change. Silence.

Reality started to sink in. The door was locked.

From the other side.

Minami was staring at the handle, and then at the handle again.

Maybe it was a defective handle.

That could probably happen.

So Minami pulled on the handle harder. No luck.

She pushed at the closed door. Nothing. She jiggled the lock. Nothing. The door stayed shut. Very tightly shut. Painfully tightly shut.

Slowly, Minami lowered her head. "Seriously?" the storage was without any help.

For several minutes, she attempted numerous different ways to open the door. Most failed instantly.

One was trying to force the door open, one was looking for a spare key, and one was just to look at the lock aggressively.

None of them had worked. Perhaps the hardest part was that Minami’s phone died earlier that day. She couldn’t call anyone.

She wouldn’t be able to message anyone. And wouldn’t even be able to pretend she had options.

Minami sat down on a chair that was nearby. She was completely embarrassed. Completely humiliated.

If any of the other teachers found her stuck in the storeroom, she would never recover. Her reputation would completely die immediately.

The students think of her as a perfect & intimidating teacher. That is how she plans to keep it going.

An hour passed, and another hour passed. The school was getting quieter.

The sunlight faded through the small window outside. The building was empty. Minami checked the door again. Still locked.

Of course, still locked! Minami sighed heavily. Surely, someone will notice I am missing soon. Surely, someone. Most likely, someone. Possibly, someone.

While all this was happening, Kuro was busy finishing up some student council paperwork, oblivious to the chaos that was occurring above him.

One of the teachers asked him to help organize some materials for the school festival, an offer which he accepted because it took too much effort to turn down.

This task took Kuro longer than he expected and when he was done with it, very few students and teachers were left in the building.

As he was putting everything away in his bag, he remembered that one of the teachers had asked him earlier for the attendance sheets.

That was on the third floor, which was also where all of the storage is located.

Kuro let out a small sigh and changed direction to head to the third floor.

Kuro eventually made it to the third-floor hallway, which was eerily quiet.

Almost all of the lights were off.

As he walked by one of the storage rooms, he heard a noise, quieter than anything he’d ever heard before, which drew his attention.

This is when he stopped and listened.

He heard the sound again, but even quieter than before, and even more suspicious than before.

Kuro then thought about possibly being haunted by ghosts for just a moment before shaking that idea out of his head.

There were no ghosts at the school!

He walked up to the storage room door.

"Hello?" he said.

There was nothing but silence coming from inside the storage room.

Then he heard, "....Kuro?"

The familiar voice was enough to make him blink again.

Wait a minute!

He knew that voice!

"Asakura-sensei?"

There was then an awkward silence until she answered.

"Yes."

There was a small pause before Kuro continued with his question.

"Why are you in a storage room?"

It was a dreadful silence that hung.

Minami was now blindfolded.

Out of all people.

Of everybody in the world.

Why Kuro Kurogane?

It must be the world’s worst possible outcome.

Absolutely the worst outcome.

Then Kuro spoke.

"...You locked the room?"

"No."

"...You Mean No?"

"...Yeah."

About three seconds of lies.

Finally Minami broke.

"Yes."

Blushing face- but who would know? .

"The lock’s on the door." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

"Oh."

The response was calm.

An almost suspiciously calm response.

There should have been more surprise.

Or laughter.

Or something - instead Kuro simply asked.

"For how long?"

"...two hours."

"...That is impressive."

Minami wished she could just sink into the floor.

Luckily Kuro managed to find an employee to help them.

After about five minutes a janitor showed up with the master key.

The door was finally unlocked.

Minami immediately stepped outside.

Trying hard to be dignified.

Trying even harder to forget his existence.

Unfortunately Kuro was still there.

And witnessed everything.

And had witnessed her humiliation.

Kuro’s eyes had witnessed her humiliation.

Their eyes locked together.

Minami adjusted her glasses. And This is now a defensive habit.

" Thanks! "

Kuro’s nod was so quiet. It was so sincere that it made Minami feel a bit better as she watched him walk to the stairs.

The entire situation seemed straightforward, typical and rational.

But it was an inopportune time for Minami’s brain to betray her.

Just as she was watching Kuro leave, a different and troubling thought occurred to her — he didn’t laugh at her, he didn’t embarrass her in front of the other students, and he didn’t tell the others what had happened.

On the contrary, he helped her out again.

Just like the little boy who was lost, just like the old woman, and just like all of the other bizarre incidents she had witnessed recently.

Whenever a pattern continues to be repeated, it becomes more challenging to defend your original theory.

The following day, Minami came into the classroom as she always did: cold, positioned perfectly, professional looking, everything was normal.

At least externally. Internally, she felt uncertain of everything around her.

She very briefly looked at Kuro, whose normal position in the class was so normal that it almost seemed he was pretending to be normal.

Then Akari chose that moment to lean over Kuro’s desk, and Aoi began talking with them, followed a few moments later by Mina, and then by Rika, once again, practically everyone had surrounded Kuro.

Minami’s eyes narrowed.

Nope.

One incident would not cause her to lose sight of what had actually taken place.

Evidence was still out there.

Suspicion was still out there.

Girls were still out there.

And everything was incredibly questionable.

Incredibly questionable.

And unbelievably questionable.

However once Minami sat down to begin class she ended up thinking about something.

Not the embarrassing thing.

Not the storage room.

Not what she could have done.

But rather how Kuro had dealt with it.

Totally nonjudgmentally.

No teasing at all.

And absolutely no expectation that she would reciprocate.

It was surprisingly mature.

And comforting to an extent.

And honestly it has made him that much more of a challenge for Minami.

Each day, Kuro Kurogane became less and less easy to categorize.

Less and less easy to interpret.

And increasingly more interesting.

And that was an epiphany that Minami refused to even contemplate.

For the moment.

----------------------

After Minami free from storage room and Kuro left to home -

Upon arriving back to the faculty office, Minami sat at her desk in silence, staring at the papers she was responsible for grading. Generally, she doesn’t have any trouble concentrating on her work.

But today was different.

Her mind kept wandering back to the incident that took place in the storeroom. More specifically, her mind kept going back to Kuro’s reaction.

Most students would have laughed. Some of them would have told their friends.

Akari would have told everyone over the school intercom if she could have.

However, Kuro didn’t do any of these things; he just helped her and then went back to what he was doing as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

This realization frustrated her for reasons she couldn’t quite place.

Each time she tried to find evidence against him, it just led her to another reason to believe that he was someone who others would naturally trust.