Part 5
Thursday morning, on the way to school…
Even though spring was approaching, today seemed colder than usual.
“Good morning! Good morning! It’s so chilly~”
Behind me, I could hear a cheerful, energetic voice.
I didn’t think they were calling out to me, but when I ignored it and continued walking, they became flustered and called out once more.
“W-wait a minute!? Ayanok?ji-kun?”
Apparently, the greeting from earlier had been addressed to me after all.
I turned around to see Hoshinomiya-sensei, Class B’s homeroom teacher.
“Wait up already~”
Her cold hand took hold of my own.
I found myself wondering what kind of female teacher just casually takes a male student’s hand like this.
“My apologies. I didn’t realize you were talking to me. Is something the matter?”
“Do I need a reason to say hi to you?”
With my hand still in hers, she looked up at me with upturned eyes.
Only someone who knew just how cute they were would act like this.
Perhaps I was beginning to catch on to this type of behavior because I had made a habit of watching Kushida’s every move.
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
With a little force, I pulled my hand away and shook free from her grip.
For some reason, she grinned with a wicked smile upon seeing my reaction.
“Hey, hey. At least you’ve gotten yourself a girlfriend, right?”
“Nope. I’m not sure I’ll even be able to.”
“Huh? Really? Even though you’ve been blessed with such a perfect environment? What a waste.”
I had no idea what she was getting at.
“Aiya~ You don’t understand, do you?”
Hoshinomiya-sensei leaned in closer and whispered ‘That’s no fun.’ straight into my ear.
“The students here are in like, suuuch a good, romantic environment, you know?”
“Why is that?”
When I asked this, Hoshinomiya-sensei jolted back just a little.
“You really don’t understand?”
“Yes. Not in the least.”
After I spoke, she patted me on the shoulder a few times as if to console me.
“Ya know, in a different light, you do look kinda adorable.”
At this point, I had no idea what she was trying to get at. Not in the slightest.
“Lemme first let you in on a little secret… I’m not a fan of how things are these days. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but I think it’s problematic to let boys and girls stay in the same dorm.”
“Is that so?”
The individual rooms are separated, so I didn’t really see any problems with it. I put some distance between us, trying to escape from having to hear her each and every breath. Or at least I tried to, as Hoshinomiya-sensei simply shortened it once again.
“Here’s what I heard from a friend of mine. Apparently there’s a tradition at a certain company where new hires undergo a two-month long training session in a company dormitory. Two people per room, separated by gender, of course.”
“Huh.”
Every time I tried to distance myself, she would come back even closer, so I decided to give up and just listen to her talk.
“But, there’s bound to be trouble when two people live in the same room. There was one guy who really hated natto. Like, not only did he hate the smell of the stuff, he hated the thought of even looking at it. So, the first thing he said to the guy he was rooming with was ‘don’t you dare eat natto in front of me.’ But the thing was, his roommate LOVED natto. The roommate figured that, even though the guy said he hated natto, it wasn’t like he was gonna be forced to eat it or anything. So on their first day living together, he ate some natto right in front of his roommate, and as a result, the guy who hated natto got pissed and stormed out of the dorm.”
What in the world was she trying to say? It didn’t sound like it had very much to do with boys and girls living in the same dorm.
“I know you think I’ve gone off on a tangent, but this is important.”
With that, Hoshinomiya-sensei continued.
“The company caught wind of the incident and abolished the room-sharing system that year. Starting that next year, every new hire would get their own one-person room, just like the dorms here at this school. But as a result, something changed drastically that year compared to the year before. Can you guess what?”
“Is it the problem with boys and girls you were talking about?”
“Yup. With the room-sharing system, there would only be at most one or two couples. But when they switched to having one room per person, there ended up being more like seven or eight. When you share a room, even if you invited your crush over to hang out, your roommate would always be someone getting in the way of things, no? After all, it would be really easy for strange rumors to spread, so everyone was kinda on-guard and love never really had a chance to develop. However-”
With single-person rooms, boys and girls would feel less apprehensive about meeting up in secret.
“The change caused romantic developments to happen like, way more often.”
This appeared to be the reason why she was so surprised that I still didn’t have a girlfriend.
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