The Hamburger Hill of Art
“C’mon, c’mon! Gather round, everyone!” Kagurazaka Eri shouted to her students through her bullhorn. She was a woman in her midtwenties with black hair styled in a bob. She was wearing a checkered blouse and stonewashed jeans.
The young people, drawing boards in hand, gathered around her at a leisurely pace amid the sun-dappled greenery. They were about 160 in total and came from her own class—2-4—plus the three preceding classes.
Jindai High ran its life drawing classes in a fairly unusual way: four classes participated each day while the rest went about their usual routine. They cycled in and out for a week until all students had participated.
“All right! Good morning, everyone,” Ms. Kagurazaka continued. “Today is life drawing class. I know that being outside might incline you to lower your standards for behavior, but please keep everything in moderation and conduct yourselves as representatives of Jindai High School.” With this, she turned her eyes to one particular student: Sagara Sousuke.
A sullen expression and tight frown, a piercing gaze, and a total awareness of his surroundings—this infamous problem child, who’d been brought up in war-torn regions, had been listening carefully and quietly to everything Ms. Kagurazaka was saying. Nevertheless, she still felt uneasy enough to ask, “Do you understand, Sagara-kun?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sousuke, standing at attention like a soldier receiving a briefing. “I will use the skills I’ve honed to protect my mother school.”
“Really, just relax... Moderation is the keyword today, all right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Even if force of arms is required, I shall endeavor to keep it minimal.”
“Force of arms will not be required for drawing!” She’d started raising her voice, then caught herself, remembering that other students were watching. “Ah, ahem,” she coughed. “Now, please give your attention to Mr. Mizuhoshi from the art department.” Ms. Kagurazaka handed the megaphone to the art teacher standing behind her.
Mr. Mizuhoshi had the long hair and stubble vaguely reminiscent of a musician. “Our theme today is ‘nature and humanity,’” he began. “Ah, environmental issues have been at the top of our minds for a long time. The employment of your youthful sensibilities to astutely—and with great diversity of experience—transplant humanity’s relationship with nature to the picture frame is a highly significant act of civic service. Need I cite the example of Mondriaan, who...” he droned on for a while, “...but rather exploring harmony with the whole, conveying a kind of true wisdom to the observer. There is no better way for us, the generation that has witnessed the third atomic bomb, to demonstrate...” Mr. Mizuhoshi went on and on, and nobody understood him in the slightest.
“Er... Mr. Mizuhoshi...” Ms. Kagurazaka tried to interject.
“A great man once said, ‘No one likes to admit to the follies that spring from their youth,’ but I want you to strike back with the iron fist of ‘I’ll correct adults like you!’... Ah, what is it, Ms. Kagurazaka?”
“Could you please tell the students, concretely, what it is that they’re supposed to be drawing?”
Mr. Mizuhoshi fell silent for about five seconds, his brow furrowed, and looked around aimlessly. Then he slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, right. The theme is ‘nature and humanity.’ Environmental issues have been heartily debated for a long time, and the employment of your youthful sensibilities to depict what humanity has lost—” Apparently, he’d just looped back around to the start.
Ms. Kagurazaka let out a sigh.
After about thirty minutes of lecture, they were told to be on their way.
“So we’re supposed to draw the model and the scenery together, right?” Chidori Kaname asked. She wore her black hair long and was, as per usual, dressed in her school uniform. Today she carried an old drawing board under her arm, which had the words, “Grape Class, Chidori Kamamme,” inscribed on one corner in a childish hand.
“And we’re supposed to choose someone in the class to be our model, right?” she asked again, looking out over the members of Class 2-4. Kaname was the vice president of the student council and also their class representative. Looking over the paper titled, “1998 Jindai High Life Drawing Class Rules,” she said, “‘Whoever chooses to serve as model will receive a grade ranging from C minus to A plus based on the rest of the class’s drawings.’ Huh. Well, that’s unreasonable...”
“Well, you know Mizuhoshi. He’s a real jerk,” one of the boys said.
“Anyway, let’s pick the model. Any volunteers?” Kaname asked, and the students of her class shared an uneasy glance.
“I don’t want to get a C based on someone else’s drawing...”
“And you have to stand the whole time, right?”
“Being a model is boring. You’re not allowed to move.”
Nobody seemed eager to volunteer.
It was then that one of her classmates, Tokiwa Kyoko—a girl with braids and coke-bottle glasses—said, “How about Sagara-kun? He’s really good at standing still.” Kaname turned to Sousuke, who was standing quietly at the back of the crowd. And it was true that he was the only person in the class who regularly engaged in what he referred to as ‘ambush and surveillance’ missions...
“I don’t entirely understand, but I’m happy to be of assistance,” Sousuke said.
“Wow, nice. Shall we say it’s Sousuke, then?” Kaname asked.
Some complained about having to draw a guy, but as nobody else was willing to volunteer, the group agreed in the end.
“Next is the location,” she continued. “Where should we go?”
The drawing site was a municipal campground located about five kilometers from the school. It was a park made up of mainly virgin forest and hills. There were lots of ups and downs, as if it were a hiking course in the country.
“Hmm... How about here?” she suggested. They were standing in a circular clearing in the middle of the campground, surrounded by forest.
“I think there’s a place with a nice view on the east side,” Kyoko put in, “but Class 2 ran to claim it right away.”
“Okay. Let’s stay here, then,” Kaname decided.
Since nobody objected to this either, the forty students immediately began to get their art supplies out. The birdsong around them was pleasant; the noisy streets of the city weren’t far away, but at least in this area it was all lush greenery and no houses. When Kaname had been in elementary school, she’d frequently ridden her bike to play at this campground. She remembered there being a small river nearby, which came from a natural spring, where she’d frequently caught crayfish with the boys.
Kaname was recalled to the present when she saw Sousuke sharpening a pencil with a combat knife. “Hey, Sousuke, what are you doing?”
“Preparing to draw. Is there an issue?”
“But you’re the model,” she pointed out.
“The model doesn’t require a pencil?”
“You won’t need art supplies or paper,” she told him. “You just stand there.”
“But I can’t draw like this,” he protested.
“Of course not! Anyway, just wait there for now.” And with that, Kaname went back to her own preparations.
Sousuke stared down in confusion at the new drawing board he’d brought with him. He’d never drawn anything but battleground diagrams in his life, and he’d never even seen artistic paints before. I’m an art model, he thought, but I won’t be making any art to model. What in the world does it mean?
At last, the forty-student class finished their preparations and—completely ignoring Sousuke’s confusion—began to discuss what pose the model should take. Everyone seemed to have their own ideas, and didn’t seem likely to come to any quick agreements.
“He can’t do a handstand all day!”
“What about a headstand backbend?”
“No circus stuff!”
“What if he acted like a twintail?”
“What are you even talking about?”
About three-quarters of the students continued arguing in just that manner, while those who remained—i.e., the “don’t give a damn” faction—continued chatting normally. Meanwhile, Sousuke just stood there.
“So, you’re going to draw here?” came the voice of Mr. Mizuhoshi, the arriving art teacher.
“It does appear so,” said Sousuke.
Then Kaname noticed the teacher and said, “Oh, sir. He’ll be the model. Report finished.” And with that, she went back to the debate.
Sousuke stood next to Mr. Mizuhoshi, watching as the others continued their discussion. “Sir,” he began. “I was assigned the role of model, but I don’t understand what it consists of.”
“Hmm. What is a model, you mean? That’s a very good question,” Mr. Mizuhoshi mused. “It takes an extraordinary student to ask a question like that.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Ah, it’s wonderful,” said Mr. Mizuhoshi, who appeared to have taken a liking to Sousuke. He looked up at the sky, eyes narrowed. “Given today’s theme, the title ‘model’ might not be entirely appropriate for your role,” he advised. “You actually have a far more important job.”
“What do you mean?” Sousuke asked.
“It’s difficult to describe: words can be so limited. The disappointment that such realization inspires in me is like the stagnant air of ancient ruins, which...” Mr. Mizuhoshi proceeded to pontificate for a while before returning to the subject at hand with, “...and regarding those things around which words fail, we have no choice but to be silent. But to come right to the point, you should be like the antithesis of the artists, blending in with the depths of the rich green...” He went on a while longer, and eventually rambled, “...rejecting absolutes, simultaneously a beast fighting for the existence of nature, and at the same time, helpless prey—”
His words were as difficult for Sousuke to understand as they would be for anyone. But, realizing that his role would prove a far weightier one than he’d initially expected, Sousuke asked, “So, what do I do?” He was openly nervous.
“You must become nature itself. You must blend in with the trees and deceive the eyes of the artists. Recognize that you cannot disappear from them entirely, yet you must effectively become something that their eye does not perceive... This is my concept. After all...” Mr. Mizuhoshi spoke passionately, continuing on and on until he finished with, “...more or less. Do you understand?”
Sousuke knew that he definitely didn’t, but replied earnestly enough. “I won’t be perfect, but I’ll do the best I can.”
Mr. Mizuhoshi took out a notepad and a pen. “What was your name again?”
“Sagara Sousuke.”
“Hmm. Class 4, model Sagara. There. Well, give it your best today.”
“Sir. I shall endeavor to blend in with nature.” Sousuke responded at attention, then watched as Mr. Mizuhoshi walked away.
If only Kaname had been present to witness this conversation, trouble might have been averted. Unfortunately, she was too busy giving a heated lecture about Sadaharu Oh’s “flamingo” batting stance.
“Okay, so we’ll just have him sitting under that tree, right?” They’d eventually grown tired of debating special poses and gone with a safer route. “So, Sousuke, sit over— Huh?” When Kaname turned around, she found that Sousuke was gone. But he was standing there with his bag just a minute ago, she thought exasperatedly. Out loud, she said, “Hey, where’s Sousuke?”
“Dunno. Hey, yeah, haven’t seen him in a while...” The other students of Class 4 looked around for Sousuke, but saw no sign of him.
“He was talking to Mr. Mizuhoshi earlier.”
“Think he went to pee?”
“Yeah, that’s possible.”
They decided to wait for him to come back, but even thirty minutes later he was still nowhere to be seen.
“Guess he’s not coming back,” Kyoko grumbled.
“Yeah,” Kaname agreed. “Let’s see if my Pitch works here...” She looked at her PHS’s LCD screen. “Oh, it does. Huh.” Impressed, she manipulated the digital dials and brought up Sousuke’s number.
After a pleasant ringtone, Sousuke answered brusquely. “Speaking.”
“Sousuke, what are you doing?” she asked incredulously. “We’re all waiting for you. Come back, okay?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Huh?”
“I am the model,” he told her solemnly. “I need to blend in with nature and deceive the artists’ eyes. If I came out where you could see me, I would fail to achieve my mission.”
Deceive the artists’ eyes? she wondered. There had clearly been some kind of misunderstanding.
“Cut the crap and get back here already,” Kaname told him. “We can’t draw without you.”
“I am here, although you cannot see me. I am meant to blend in with the rich green until the last moment... similar to an anti-tank missile.”
“You’re a model! That’s all!”
“Incorrect,” he responded. “I am more than a model. I’m playing the crucial role of rejecting you with absolute chaos... similar to an electromagnetic jamming pod.”
“For the love of...”
“I have informed you of my parameters. Now, draw. I will watch over you from here.”
“Excuse me?”
Sousuke hung up on her. She called again, but he didn’t pick up this time. He said he was watching, she figured. So he can’t be far...
“What should we do?”
“I’m not sure...” said Kaname, trailing off. “Sheesh, this sucks. I guess there’s no choice: we’ll need to pick a new model.”
“But who?”
The forty students looked around passively, and Kaname sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it. Heaven’s sake...”
Class 4 gave her a hearty round of applause. But when she and a few others went to report the change to Mr. Mizuhoshi...
“No! No! Absolutely no change of models!” he told them, angry enough that a vein popped out on his forehead.
“But what do we do?” Kaname protested. “Sagara-kun’s gone missing.”
“No! No excuses! I taught him the heart and soul of modeling, and he accepted my passionate plea!” Mr. Mizuhoshi declared. “Trying to remove him now... What exactly are you plotting?!”
“We’re not plotting! We’re just—”
“Just what?! Oh, how typical of the great unwashed! You have no true artistic convictions, instead pursuing whatever cheap and vulgar...” Mr. Mizuhoshi ranted vehemently for a few minutes. “...And that’s what’s wrong with you! Capitalists!”
“You can’t talk to your students that way!” Kaname told him angrily.
But Mr. Mizuhoshi seemed more than a little off-kilter, because he raised his fists resolutely and shouted, “My point is, if you can’t draw him accurately, your class receives a C-minus! You won’t get your art credit! Prepare to be held back a year!”
“What?!”
“What the hell?!”
“Then shut up and draw him! Stop being picky about your subject matter, understand?!” Then Mr. Mizuhoshi strode off, still muttering with anger. There was clearly no room for compromise on the matter.
“That’s ridiculous!” the other students shouted after receiving Kaname’s report. Everyone began voicing their complaints.
“Seriously! What a tyrant!”
“Dammit... I’ll kill that Mizuhoshi bastard!”
“But you won’t just get held back a year, then—you’ll get expelled.”
Kaname made a megaphone with her hands. “Calm down, everyone! Let’s think up a plan. Let’s see... What if we use a male model who looks like Sousuke? You can just do the face from memory.”
All forty students simultaneously clapped in realization.
“Oh, great idea!”
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re taking photographs! He might never know it’s not Sagara-kun!”
“But...” Tokiwa Kyoko said limply. “We’re supposed to spend all day drawing, right? What if Mr. Mizuhoshi comes back around before we’re done? When he sees Sagara-kun’s not here, he’ll know.”
“Ahh...” all forty students sighed in unison.
“Geh... In that case, let’s get searching for Sousuke. Sounds like he hasn’t gone far,” Kaname offered.
“Yeah...” said one of her classmates.
“There’s enough of us. It can’t take too long,” another agreed.
“Let’s get to it, then. If you don’t have a phone or a pager, team up with someone who does. When you find Sousuke, call my Pitch.” Kaname swiftly gave instructions. “Also, Sousuke’s great at hiding. Keep your eyes peeled up in the trees and down by your feet, too.”
“Huh?!”
“Okay, dismissed!”
Four boys walked together up a path surrounded by tall grass.
“Here they are...” Sousuke whispered. He’d just finished laying his traps. He was hoping to prove a point to anyone who might interfere with his responsibilities as a model. But to spend the day undiscovered by forty people was a considerable challenge, even for someone with his battlefield experience.
Art is a truly harsh mistress, he philosophized to himself.
Van Gogh was an impressive man. Sousuke had heard he’d lost an ear, surely from a wound sustained in combat. Klimt, Renoir, and more—all of them storied veterans. The dangers inherent to the artistic profession must have been why so many painters died young.
His classmates approached in complete ignorance of his presence. Their footsteps were loud and their movements were uncoordinated. They haven’t even assigned roles like PM, TL, RTO, and TG. They’d fall into even an amateur’s trap. The fools.
“That should do it for this route,” he whispered, then disappeared into the forest once more.
The boy leading the group of four suddenly pitched over with a scream.
“What is it?!”
“Ah, stepped in a hole...” His right leg was down to the shin in a small sinkhole cleverly hidden in the brush. “What’s this little hole even doing—” But as he tried to pull his foot out, he failed. “It’s not coming out. Ugh, what is this crap?!”
The hole seemed to be filled with a viscous liquid that was hardening by the second.
“Is this glue? What the hell?” No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t get the mysterious resin to budge.
“Sagara’s behind this! C’mon, let’s go! He must be right ahead!”
“Wait! Hey, Sakata!”
The student named Sakata cruelly left his trapped friend behind. “We’ll come back for you later. First— Wugh?!” This time it was Sakata who succumbed to an identical pit trap. “I-It’s not coming out! Dammit!”
“Hah, serves you right for leaving me behind!”
The remaining two boys looked slightly disturbed. “This path seems a little dangerous, huh?”
“Yeah. Let’s leave them behind and take a detour,” one said, then began to back into the underbrush to get off the path. As he did, his foot caught on a wire. A log from a dead tree swung at him like a pendulum!
“Wagh!” One of the boys was knocked down and the other ended up pinned to a tree. To add insult to injury, this tree seemed to be covered in the same mysterious resin.
“H-Help!”
“Who goes to these kinds of lengths?!”
“Call Chidori! Sagara must be at the top of the hill!”
“You think we can get reception here?!”
“Help! Help! Help!” All four wept and cried in a panic.
“Huh?! What did you say? I can’t hear you!”
“I’m sa— gara se— raps— elp!”
“Ugh, whatever. Just come on back.” Kaname hung up on them. She was standing in the clearing where the students had stored their things, acting as operations commander. She was surrounded by three girls who were shouting at their front line squadrons, effectively serving as comms officers.
This was the fourth team now rendered immobile by some kind of trap.
“Ah, that idiot,” she grumbled. “I bet he thinks he’s home free.”
It seemed Sousuke was hiding in the underbrush on the hill just ahead, as evidenced by the fact that anyone heading in that direction seemed to end up in trouble.
It was then that Kaname heard her PHS ring again. “Yes? Speaking.”
“Chidori! We found Sagara!” This breathless announcement came from Onodera, a member of the basketball team. His group was made up primarily of athletes.
This sounds promising... she thought. “Excellent work, Ono-D! Catch him!”
“Got it. The four of us can—” Suddenly there was a pop, and powerful static washed over the call. And a moment later, from a distance... Ska-bam! The sound of an explosion reached the clearing, and they saw a flock of birds take flight from about halfway up the slope, followed by a plume of white smoke.
“A-An explosion?!” Kaname was just awestruck for a moment, but immediately snapped back to attention. “Hey, Ono-D! You alive? Answer me!”
“I stepped on... a mine. We’re wiped out.”
“Ah, that’s awful...”
Onodera responded weakly. “Listen, Chidori... Remember in first year when I asked you out? You turned me down then... but my feelings haven’t changed. Guh... hkk...”
“No, Ono-D! Don’t die!” Kaname shouted tearfully.
“Heh, happy to hear you say that... but if I come back alive, will you go out with me? If you do... I...”
“Ahh, that’s a different issue,” she said apologetically. “Hard pass.”
“So cruel... erk.” With that, Onodera had apparently died.
Kaname quickly hung up. “Sousuke... I’m going to make you pay for this. Just wait!” She glared at the top of the hill, shaking her fist.
“C’mon, Sagara. Help a guy out here?” Onodera, a.k.a. Ono-D, looked down at the black resin covering his entire body. He’d ended up stuck to a tree trunk with his cell phone to his ear. He and the other three caught in the explosion with him looked like adventurers being devoured by slime.
“I can’t free you just yet. But... impressive. It worked much better than I expected,” Sousuke whispered, staring at a mine the size of a beer can.
“What is that, anyway?”
“An anti-personnel adhesive mine. An arms dealer specializing in non-lethal weaponry sent me a sample. It explodes,” he explained, “dispersing a special kind of urethane foam that expands eight hundredfold upon exposure to air.”
“Ahh...”
“I should have brought more. This is the last of the adhesive cans...”
“C’mon, let me out,” Ono-D begged. “I’m tired.”
“Stay strong. This is all for the sake of art.” And with that, Sousuke disappeared back into the forest.
About twenty hale and hearty students remained in the clearing with Kaname. “It’s almost time for lunch,” she said to her remaining forces. “We need to catch him soon or we won’t even be able to do our sketching. If that happens, it’s all over.”
A disheartened air hung over those assembled.
“Sousuke is at the top of that hill,” she went on. “The paths leading up to it are full of dangerous traps. However!” She raised a decisive fist. “We must catch him, no matter what it takes! For our lost comrades! For our human dignity! And most importantly... for our class credit!”
“Yeah...” the group agreed. Her forceful speech had gotten energy percolating among the dejected students.
Kaname hearkened keenly to the mood and continued. “We are about to walk into hell! If you meet a man, slay him! If you meet a god, slay it! Without question! Without mercy! We must take the head of our mortal enemy, Sagara!”
“Y-Yeah!” Everyone, male and female alike, responded intensely. Had their class ever been so united before?!
Like the goddess of battle herself stood Kaname, beautiful and undaunted, hair streaming behind her as she gestured to the top of the hill with her brush. “You must rush forward or die trying!” she declared. “I’ll send you to Valhalla myself!”
“Yeah!!!”
“All forces, charge! And don’t stop until you get there!”
The twenty students under Kaname’s command charged the hill, trailing dust behind them.
Sousuke, watching the scene through his miniature telescope, whispered to no one in particular, “The fools...” He’d assiduously laid traps on every possible route. There was no way they could reach the summit where he was hiding, and a mere speech to raise morale wouldn’t change that. It would be easy for him to hide until evening at this rate. His mission was nearly complete.
And yet... he wondered. At what point will we actually be drawing?
“Stay strong! Keep going!” Kaname rushed up the treacherous slope, shouting to those around her.
A girl tripped over a wire and screamed as she was sent flying into the trees. A log came swinging in from the side, knocking away a boy beside her. A student stepped into a pit trap, taking out another behind him as he fell.
“Ignore the losses!” she hollered. “Charge! Charge!” Globs of mud rained down from overhead, but she dodged them with shocking spontaneity. One glob caught the comrade just behind her and sent him rolling back down the hill.
A net made of vines streaked towards her. She quickly rolled forward to dodge it, but heard the sound of another loss behind her.
“K-Kana-chan!” came the cry.
“This... This is nothing!” she insisted, even as drum canisters came rolling noisily down the hill. “Hah!” Kaname vaulted these as well, and continued her dash for the peak. It was then that drops of black resin began to shower down on her.
“Hah, hah, hah!” She swatted them aside with her drawing board, undaunted. The resin immobilized comrade after comrade, yet Kaname continued her charge. She triggered a tripwire. Something launched into the sky overhead. A soft drink can? No, not a can—
Blam! The mine exploded two meters overhead. Before the black birdlime could rain down on her, Kaname crouched down and held up her drawing board as a shield. “You won’t stop me!” she cried, casting aside the drawing board (which was now sticky with resin) to continue her charge.
She was reaching the end of the green corridor. The light beyond—the white light of salvation—drew closer and closer. Almost there, she told herself, I’m almost...!
Rustle, crack, snap! The deafening bang of the final trap sounded out and then faded. Quiet returned to the hill.
Is it over? Sousuke, hiding at the summit, turned his eyes down the slope from the bush in which he was hiding. He couldn’t see from here, but it seemed safe to assume that his enemies were neutralized.
The last trap was a suspended ceiling hanging from a tree branch. It was covered with the quick-dry urethane foam, and the victim had likely ended up squashed like a hamburger between it and the ground.
“Art is truly cruel,” he whispered philosophically. Then he climbed down the hill to check the state of battle and found the place where he’d set the suspended ceiling trap. As he arrived, he scowled: the sprung trap was nowhere to be seen. All he could see on the ground was hardened urethane foam and scraps of cloth. Finding it suspicious, he looked around at the eerily silent trees around him and...
“Sousuke!!!” Kaname leaped out of the brush to his right. Her skirt and blouse were in shreds, her bare white skin visible here and there through her torn clothing. She inched towards him, tottering under the weight of the suspended ceiling stuck to her back.
Impossible, he thought. How can she still be moving?!
As he stood there in shock, she spoke to him. “Those are some pretty gnarly traps you set up, huh?” As she went on, one student after another from Class 2-4 appeared, their clothing similarly in tatters. Yet more were coming up the path from below.
“We meet at last.”
“You sure did slow us down...”
“You ready for what’s coming now?”
There were only about a dozen, but their eyes were narrowed, and a bloodthirsty air hung around them. Their intensity sent a chill up the spine of even the battle-hardened Sousuke.
They’re going to kill me, he realized. Sensing this imminent threat to his life, he took a few steps back, then turned around and ran like the wind.
“Don’t let him get away!” Kaname and the others took off, charging after him into the brush.
“Your tea, miss.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Eri Kagurazaka, gratefully accepting the steaming cup she’d been offered by an old woman in a samue coat. She was seated at the edge of the porch of an old traditional Japanese house. The teachers from Class 2-1 through 2-3 were with her, as was the art teacher Mr. Mizuhoshi. They were all calmly sipping their tea.
“Ahh, peace at last...” From the porch they could see a well-kept garden, a green hill towering beyond, and a cloudless blue sky above. The campground where the students would be busy drawing lay just beyond the hill, about a five-minute walk away.
“I can’t believe your house is so close to this place, Mr. Mizuhoshi,” she said admiringly.
“This is your first time here, isn’t it, Ms. Kagurazaka? This is the one thing I inherited from my father.”
“I see. It really is wonderful, like an urban oasis. Even the air feels fresher...”
“Ahh... I’ve poured my heart and soul into the layout of this garden for some time now,” he boasted. “Prioritization of organic curves, the balance between ‘stillness’ and ‘motion’...” he went on. “In other words...”
Ms. Kagurazaka smiled at him vaguely, nodding along with his words. He’d be very attractive if he didn’t talk quite so much, she thought, though she didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she subtly checked her watch. “Ah, I think it’s time to check on the students.”
“Is it? But I’m sure Class 2-4 is all right. The model was very enthusiastic, and I gave him quite a pep talk.”
“Oh?” she inquired. “Just who was the model?”
“A polite and serious young boy. His name was... ah, Sagara.”
“Sagara?!” Ms. Kagurazaka felt as if the blue sky overhead was suddenly covered in thunderclouds. It was hard to imagine what trouble he could cause on a simple day of drawing, but... but...
“Maybe I should see how they’re—” she managed, just before hearing voices in the distance. Angry voices, she realized. Shouting voices. They were coming closer.
“Get the hell back here, you...!”
That sounds like—
Suddenly, Sagara Sousuke appeared, vaulting the fence that surrounded the garden. He tore through the plants and trees on a beeline course for where the teachers were sitting.
“Sagara-kun?! What are you doing h—” Before she could protest, Ms. Kagurazaka saw a group of a dozen students appear behind Sousuke. They were charging like wild bulls, crashing right through the fence and trampling the greenery in the garden beyond. At the lead ran Chidori Kaname, dressed in a tattered school uniform. They didn’t seem conscious of anything but Sousuke.
“Hang on, you kids—”
Sousuke made it to the porch, ran past the shocked teachers, and dashed into the house with his shoes still on. Before any of them could scold him for his lack of manners, Kaname and her apparent posse followed him into the house, trampling on the pristine floors of the Japanese-style rooms.
“He went that way!”
“The hallway!”
“No, the kitchen!”
“Catch hi— Ah, dammit!”
“He’s headed for the baths!”
They busted through screens, overturned tatami mats, and knocked over dressers and tables. The once-tranquil house was now a flurry of chaos.
“S-Stop it, all of y— Wagh!” Mr. Mizuhoshi, bowled over by the frenzied students, fell off the porch and was knocked unconscious.
“Corner him! We’re almost there!”
After barely managing to avoid his pursuers and completing a full circuit around the house to his entry point, Sousuke reached for the old woman cowering next to Ms. Kagurazaka—Mr. Mizuhoshi’s mother.
“Eek!” the woman cried.
Sousuke turned to face his pursuers, holding the old woman in front of him like a shield with his combat knife pressed to her throat. “Don’t move, or the woman—”
That was as far as Sousuke got before Kaname scooped a teacup up from the floor and threw it at his head with unparalleled form. He released both knife and old woman as he flew backwards, crashing through a paper sliding door. Smash! The rest of the students were on him instantly, pinning him down.
“Say you’re sorry, asshole!”
“Kazama-kun, watch your hands!” shouted a girl.
“That’s my butt!” responded a guy.
Sousuke just lay there, staring up at Kaname, who stood astride him.
“We’ve got you at last, Sousuke.”
“J-Just kill me...” he choked out.
“Hah! Bold words indeed,” she scoffed. “But you do have a duty... And you’ll get to live until it’s served.” With the attitude of a heartless female commander, Kaname gave an order to the group. “Now, take him. We can start our sketches immediately!”
With that, they roughly began to drag Sousuke away.
It was then, at last, that Kaname seemed to realize that she was being watched. “Ah, sir, ma’am...” She looked around at the teachers, who were all watching her, mouths agape. “I’m sorry for all the trouble. Class 2-4 should be finished drawing by this evening. Everything is fine.” She apologized with a surprisingly aggressive tone, then left, looking quite satisfied with herself.
One week later...
A long bulletin board stood in the hall near the staff office. It was about fifteen meters from end to end and covered in watercolor paintings—the best three from each class.
“Truly wonderful!” Jindai High’s principal breathed appreciatively as she walked along, gazing at them each in turn. The vice principal and Mr. Mizuhoshi came along behind her. Each one lovingly depicted the class’s chosen model standing amid the greenery of nature. “Yes, truly wonderful,” she continued. “The delicacy of adolescence, the vigor of youth! I look forward to this every year.”
It was high praise indeed, but Mr. Mizuhoshi seemed glum. “Ah, well, thank you for that,” he said listlessly.
At last, the principal came to the Class 2-4 pictures. “Oh! Well, this is... er...” She clearly expected to praise them, but found herself struggling for words instead. “...What in the world is this?”
The three paintings chosen were every bit as technically proficient as those of the other classes. But, bizarrely, the paintings’ subject was tied up and suspended upside-down from a tree. The surrounding scenery was bright and cheerful though, lending a truly bizarre aura to the art.
“It... It appears they went with an avant-garde experiment,” said Mr. Mizuhoshi, improvising. “One can clearly see the influence of T. Ousler. Representing the emptiness of one stripped of all power, exemplifying the...”
“Ah-hah...” said the principal.
Incidentally, the titles of the three paintings were “Fruits of the Hunt,” “Crime and Punishment,” and “The Death of a Fool.”
〈The Hamburger Hill of Art — The End〉
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