“Moooorning, everyone!” Seeing a second-year on the fourth floor of the school, devoted entirely to the third-year population, is itself a rarity, but even then, they usually don't come marching into one of the classrooms and sidle up to the delinquents sitting at the back. Well, actually, it's just one delinquent - in the early morning, it's just Erimi, raising a lazy hand to greet the newspaper-wielding underclassman as he bounces his way over.

  “You're early today,” she comments idly. She rests her head on her bright red bag, itself perched upon her desk, like a barrier to the rest of the classroom in front. “What's that?”

  Kodaka grins. The seat in front would be Rocky's, but if he's not here yet, there's absolutely nothing stopping him from snagging it for himself, sitting in it backwards and shoving the paper in her face. “The news goes out tomorrow - first Saturday of April,” he hums excitedly, “read it, read it! I wrangled a huge feature on the Aka Manto situation last month, see what you think.”

  “And if I don't like it, you won't put it out?” Erimi raises an eyebrow incredulously, but she sits up (however reluctantly she makes it look), sets her bag under her chair, and takes the paper anyway. Emblazoned with pride of place on the first page, a photo: on the rooftop, against the afternoon sun (though, it is black and white…), three of them - and the knowledge of a fourth. “They're gonna find out we all skipped together, y'know.”

  “And? This is the perfect excuse,” Kodaka rolls his eyes, and Erimi rolls hers.

  “Most people don't believe in ghosts, y'know.”

  “Well, the article's already written, so…”

  “Yeah, knew it.”

  Lazily, Erimi keeps flicking, and makes a face somewhere around page three. “Grizzly issue this time,” she grimaces, “‘Teacher Killer Dies in Prison'...? Did they put you in charge of the editing?”

  “Oh, that guy? Damn. Deserved worse.”

  “Where the fuck did you come from?”

  His own chair apparently occupied, when Rocky finally turns up, dishevelled, he leans against his desk and peers over their shoulders. “Where do you think? Not my fault you weren't paying attnetion,” he scoffs, but that's definitely not his focus. “Izzat the paper?”

  He doesn't wait for a reply before he snatches the top sheet off, holds it against his half-crossed leg, and squints at it. “All this time, we've been wanting them to get his fucking ass, and he got his own, huh?”

  “D'you know this creep?” Erimi grabs the sheet back, putting it loosely back on top of the others. Rocky leans back, resting his hands against the desk, and nods his head.

  “Kinda. The lady he killed used to teach at my old school. She died the year before I got there, but…she ain't deserve that.”

  “You transferred from Asahigawa, then?” Kodaka perks up, “a rough place like that… Explains a lot.”

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  With a snort through his nose, Rocky flicks the back of Kodaka’s head with finger and thumb, and lets his grumbling be his backing track. “Yeah, yeah, say whatever. I'm just glad to hear that asshole carked it. ‘Least he won't be doing it again.” Sighing out loud, he finds himself scowling at the bastard's picture, pursing his lips. “...There's a real mean rumour about the teacher, though. Got to remember it today, actually.”

  Before Erimi can open her mouth to ask about it, Shiori’s cheery “morning!” has her interrupted. She’d have said a few weeks ago that talking to someone without being able to see them was the weirdest thing ever, but it's been thoroughly upstaged by now - besides that, she's getting used to it. She’s learned to follow the panning of her voice around the room, guessing when she's sat down by the simple fact that Rocky nudges her chair out from under her desk with his foot, and it's starting to feel like everything’s back to normal. She still gets to wave at her bestie, and she still gets to hear her sit down and ask, “what are we talking about?”

  “A stake-out at Asahigawa High,” Kodaka apparently decides, all by himself. The little oooh she hears from Shiori fills her with dread.

  “Why would we do that, exactly?” Erimi sighs. She kicks back on her chair, and throws one foot over the other. “Don't tell me you wanna investigate that weird rumour.”

  “It’s bullshit, anyway,” Rocky adds, tone firm and arms folded. Honestly, maybe even stranger than her best friend being a ghost is the fact that she's actually started to get along with the transfer student. The rest of the class were just as surprised - even more so, when she started taking back everything she said about him. Hasn't changed his loner behaviour, but she's guessing he's just an introvert; if he was gonna be an asshole, she figures, they’d have found something else to butt heads about by now, but more often than not, they find themselves agreeing. “Just a fucked-up ghost story about a teacher some shitheads didn't like.”

  “Yeah, but what if it's not just a rumour?” His eyes are shining, and, sure, they’ve only known him for a few weeks, but a few weeks is more than enough to know that that's never a good sign.

  “It is just a rumour.” A blunt counter from Rocky, trying to nip this one in the bud. A risky move.

  “Well, if that's the case, it’d be a simple debunk, then, right?” Kodaka’s decisive turnaround has Rocky wincing. He looks to Erimi and Shiori in turn, then groans into his hands.

  “I don't wanna add fuel to the fire. The woman's dead, let her rest.”

  “Um, but…what if she really is there?”

  Even the two who can actually see her look surprised when Shiori, of all people, pipes up. She clears her throat, and Erimi can just imagine the look on her face - the one she always has when she takes a second to collect her thoughts. “I mean,” she continues, finally, “if there is a ghost…then it’d be for the best if we could do something about it, right? And, if there isn't, then- then putting those rumours to rest would be the right thing to do, I think.” Shiori pauses for a second, and Erimi can hear her shuffling in her seat. “Other than that… Asahigawa High is by the river, isn't it…? I-...I need to go there, and, well…I can't leave the school by myself, so…”

  “Eh… Fuck it. Why not, right?” She considers it for all of a second before shrugging her shoulders and throwing her arms behind her head. “Sounds fun. All my other friends are still fucked up about the bathroom bullshit, anyway.”

  “Three against one,” Kodaka all but sings. If he wasn't an underclassman, Erimi thinks with some amusement, Rocky might have just decked him.

  “Fine, fine,” he finally sighs. The resignation in his voice is palpable. “If we don't find anything, though, you’re publishing a big debunk tomorrow.”

  “You drive a hard bargain…” The second-year throws his hands up, exaggerating an overdramatic shrug. “That's a tougher deadline than the president gives, y’know?” The look on Rocky’s face might as well be a written declaration of how little he cares, but Kodaka doesn't seem to be that upset, anyway.

  “For the sake of my journalistic integrity…I accept!”