Off To Class We Go

I was walking down the hallways again. Honoka was still skipping on ahead being all cheerful while saying good morning to everyone she passed. I had to walk briskly to keep pace with her.

Why did I have to keep pace? I had no idea. I could go and play around with any girl, but for some reason this Honoka girl intrigued me. Was it that cheerfulness? That energy? The amusingly self-deluded awakening? I didn’t know, that’s for sure.

Up ahead Honoka had slowed down enough as she began talking to three girls.

“Hideko, Fumiko, Mika, good morning.” She said before continuing on with her prance down the hallway, not waiting for their reply. “Today’s another beautiful day!”

It was difficult not to laugh a little. Ah, poor girl. So innocent.

The three girls she left behind in her wake looked much like how the nurse looked earlier, but times that by three.

“Maybe she’s finally gone crazy.” One of the girls said to the other two.

“I’m glad Honoka-chan is so cheerful, but…” One of the other girls started to say. To which the third girl finished with, “She seems to be confused…”

Yeah, no kidding.

I was past those three now, still following in Honoka’s foot steps down another hallway. I idly noted that those three were kinda cute too.

This time Honoka seemed to be talking to herself. Oh dear.

“Of course. There’s no way they’d suddenly decide to shut down the school…” She told herself, still in her cheerful state of mind until…

“Aaaah!” She suddenly stopped at one of the closure notice boards along the wall, slamming her hands on the biggest one and screamed in shock.

And here comes reality to save the day.

Once she had come to terms with the truth she moved away from the notice, her whole cheerful persona shattered, and walked dejectedly down the hall again. This time I could keep pace with her enough that we were side by side. I could see the frown on her face and had to hold in my laughter. Even a frown is cute on her.

Eventually she turned to one of the classrooms and slid the door open, frown firmly set in place.

From where I stood behind her I looked into the classroom and saw her two friends talking at one of the desks. They looked up when the door opened only to see Honoka’s frowning visage.

“H-Honoka-chan, are you okay?” Kotori asked hesitantly. Honoka just slunk past to get to her seat, giving a non-committal grunt. The poor girl looked like she just got her heart broken.

Once she sat down at her own desk next to Kotori’s she put her head in her hands and mumbled something repeatedly.

Uh-oh, that’s not a good sign. I came into the room fully and shut the door. Some of the girls present saw me and looked me up and down while blushing to themselves. Not knowing what to do now I just stood to one side to watch Honoka’s descent into madness.

“School’s closing, school’s closing…” Ah, that’s what she was mumbling.

“Honoka-chan is feeling really down.” Kotori said, worrying for her friend. “I had no idea she loved school so much…”

Umi turned back to Kotori saying, “You’re wrong. She is probably confused.”

Umi-chan, keeping it real.

“Confused?” Kotori repeated.

Honoka slammed her hands down on her desk and sat up straight before jumping out of her chair and grabbing onto Kotori’s desk.

“What am I going to do? I haven’t studied at all!” She cried out before crouching there on the spot, still clutching onto the desk. Huh? Studied? What was she on about now?

“What?” Seemed like Kotori was just as confused.

“If our school closes, I’ll have to go to another school, right?” Honoka asked, unshed tears at the corner of her eyes. “I’ll have to study for entrance exams and take a transfer test!”

During all this I decided to take a seat at the desk behind Kotori’s because I was getting tired. Plus, I wanted front row seats to the moment honoka hears the truth.

“I knew it…” Umi said with a sigh. A small smile at her lips.

“Honoka-chan, calm down—”

“—Kotori-chan and Umi-chan, you two must have it nice!” Honoka yelled like a child, finally letting go of the side of the desk. But once again she placed her head in her hands. “You’ve got pretty good grades! But I…”

It almost seemed like she was going to start weeping in despair. But for some reason it was just too funny. For a moment, I considered if perhaps I was a sadist. I have been laughing a lot at Honoka’s expense…

Nah. She’s just way too funny.

“I told you. Calm down! The school won’t close until after we graduate!” Umi sternly told Honoka.

“Huh?” Was all Honoka could say, looking up at Umi.

---

And now it was lunch time.

The three girls decided to eat outside on a bench that was wrapped around a fat ass tree. I was lying down on the grass nearby within earshot, moving my head back and forth, letting my gaze follow various skirts as they walked by.

“Even if the school does get shut down, it won’t be until all of the current students graduate, so it’ll be three years from now, at the earliest.” Kotori explained to Honoka.

“Oh, good!” Honoka said, back in cheerful mode as she chomped down on some bread. “This bread tastes delicious again today!”

Err, did she break again?

“You’re going to get fat…” Umi said tiredly.

“But if they do make the decision official, we won’t get any new first year students next year, and it’ll just be second and third years…” Kotori continued in a sad tone.

“That would mean the current first years will never have juniors at school…” Umi, too, sounded sad as she said that.

“Right…” And Honoka’s cheerfulness had deflated too.

Man, it really did sound like a sad thing to happen to a school. I wish there was something that could be done.

The three school girls sat in silence for a moment until I heard footsteps approaching.

“Hey.”

I sat up from where I was lounging to take a look at the newcomer. It was a blonde girl with blue eyes standing in front of Honoka and Kotori. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe as she moved some of her blonde hair behind her left ear just as sunlight filtered down through the leaves onto her hair, making it seem like it was glowing. Damn, she was pretty.

To the right of her and slightly behind was a second girl with long dark hair in pigtails and green eyes. Her rack was huge!

“Do you have a minute?” The blonde asked in a somewhat regal manner. I’m betting gold that this is an Ojou-sama type.

At her question Honoka and the rest stood up in haste.

“Y-Yes!” They all said in unison.

Honoka turned to whisper to Umi, “Who is she?”

“She’s the student council president.” Umi whispered back.

“Minami-san.” Blonde president said.

“Yes!”

“You’re the director’s daughter, aren’t you?”

At this new piece of info I looked over at Kotori with new interest. Come to think of it, she really does resemble that woman from the assembly.

“Y-Yes.” Kotori answered hesitantly.

“Did the director say anything?” The student council president asked, looking determined.

“No. I found out today, too…” It seems that even the director’s daughter didn’t know.

“I see. Thank you.” And with that the blonde president started to walk away. The dark-haired pig-tailed girl said, “See you later,” before she too began to walk away.

“Excuse me!” Honoka called out, surprising me a little. “Is our school really going to be shut down?”

The president looked back at Honoka, not fully facing her, “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

She turned back and kept walking. Now, that seemed like a cold response to me. I guess being their sempai (judging by the different coloured ribbon) and the student council president afforded her some aloofness. But still, could’ve been nicer.

---

After that run in with the council president, Honoka and the others went back to class after finishing their lunch in relative silence.

I, not knowing what I wanted to do, just tagged along and sat in on their classes. I was lucky that their class had an empty seat. I was doubly lucky that the empty seat was the one right behind Honoka. Right at the back by the window, right where manga protagonists would conduct their cliché school life from. However, my school life was anything but cliché.

Maybe Honoka was the protagonist here. I looked up at the back of her head. Well, since she was staring out the window and not paying attention to the teacher at the front of the class, she was definitely fulfilling that particular cliché.

I started to look around at all the girls in class. It’s still so strange. Being in a place like this and no one’s shouting up a storm at me being here. My instincts were telling me to be as quiet as humanly possible while I try to escape. My mind, however, was having a field day. The strange mixture of excitement and dread was a little unnerving to be honest.

For some reason, I felt the need to check the normalities list on my phone to make sure I was absolutely not at risk of getting into trouble. Which was odd because one of the earrings would make sure I didn’t. But I brought my phone out anyway. Perhaps a part of my brain just wasn’t yet sold on it.

Taking a look in my notes app I saw the normalities I made this morning. The first one about my sister, the two about skipping and visiting schools and the last one about my bag. I went over these four, plus the rest from yesterday and came to the conclusion that I was worrying for nothing. With these normalities, even if I wasn’t wearing the earrings, I’d be safe. The girls might look at me with more interest because I made it so that they found me attractive, but other than that they wouldn’t bat an eye at me being here. Not even if I were to do something perverted.

But even so, I decided to keep the earrings in for the time being. I kinda just wanted to observe for now.

I closed my notes app but didn’t put my phone away. This was because I found myself looking at the camera app. And now a whole bunch of ideas were swimming in my head.

I tapped the camera icon and my screen turned into a viewfinder. Right now it was looking at my desk but I raised my phone a bit. Now I could see the class. I turned my phone horizontally to get as many girls in the shot as possible. I tapped the button on the screen to take the picture and I heard the shutter sound that the phone makes when taking pictures. That startled me a little but no one else seemed to care.

Now I had a picture of these girls on my phone. I took a look at it and saw that it was a good quality picture. Turns out the camera on my phone was pretty decent. I didn’t know because I hadn’t used it before.

Now, I had an incredible reason to use it. And use it I did. I spent the rest of the twenty-five minutes left in class taking pictures of all the girls from various angles. Head-shots, bust-shots, close-ups and profiles. I also focussed on the skirts, legs and up skirts. It would be no exaggeration to say that my boner was raging by the end of class.

It was amusing that I took special notice of Honoka though. I wondered if perhaps I had a thing for her. Regardless, she was a nice model what with her staring out the window instead of what everyone else was doing. She really seemed unique. Plus, I got to look at her white underwear.

Umi also had white underwear. Kotori on the other hand had pale green panties. The rest of the class had many different colours, however, white seemed to be the most common.

I even got a few pictures of the teacher, too.

---

After school, the Honoka trio went to the library. Well, Honoka dragged Umi and Kotori along.

Supposedly Honoka had a few ideas about the whole ‘school closure’ thing. So, I went along. Naturally.

However, Honoka’s journey didn’t end there. I found myself following them all over school. We went outside and visited the animal pens where, surprisingly they had llamas. Then the archery club and the swimming pool, which got me excited to visit when it was in use. The track and field was next, which gave me another opportunity to look up Honoka’s skirt when she mimed what it was like to get ready at the starting line. This girl…

We even visited an auditorium that was different from the gym used this morning. This one seemed like it was used for theatre or whatever. The chairs were fixed to their positions, each row was raised above the one in front of it. The three girls stood on the stage looking out at the empty chairs.

Next I followed them to a statue outside of some old guy in a funny pose. One fist raised up while the other was at his side, a resolute expression on his face. I laughed pretty hard when Honoka and Kotori mimicked the statue’s pose. Umi wasn’t impressed though and scolded them for their antics.

The whole time we were going around, I was taking pictures everywhere we went. Anytime there were girls at the places we stopped by, I would take a few pics. Lots of up skirts. Naturally.

After a while we were back in the classroom again.

Kotori was at her desk with Umi facing her and Honoka standing. Just like earlier. This time though I was leaning against Honoka’s desk, watching the proceedings.

“The announcement said they have to close the school because we have less than the number of required prospective students.” Honoka was saying to Umi and Kotori. “Doesn’t that mean the school won’t be closed if we get more prospective students? In other words, we have to show off the good side of our school and gather more students!” Honoka finished as if she discovered the obvious truth.

“Good side? Like what?” Umi interjected. Now, I could see this was probably going to stump Honoka, but she might surprise me, giving that she seems to like this school so much.

“Let’s see…,” She began. “Our school has a rich history!”

Okay, not so bad. Even Umi seemed to think so as she made an approving noise.

“What else?”

“What else?! Uh…” Hearing the slight panic in her voice at having to provide more than just "a rich history" made me smile. “Our school has a rich tradition!”

“That’s the same thing.” Umi said to shoot her down.

“What? Then, then…” Honoka hurriedly tried to come up with something else but failed. “Um… Kotori-chan?”

Turning to Kotori in desperation, huh. Oh, Honoka…

“Well, you could say…” Kotori began, seeming a bit distracted. “The school has been around for a while…”

Uh, yeah, they’ve been over that already…

Even the other two looked exasperated.

“Kotori, have you been listening to our conversation?” Umi asked.

“Actually, I just did some research,” Kotori said suddenly perking up. “And I did find something good in our club activities.”

“Really?” Honoka exclaimed.

Kotori lifted up some pieces of paper with her supposed research on them.

“Yes, but nothing particularly stood out. Recently, our school’s most prominent clubs have been…” Kotori allowed Honoka to take a look at her research before listing off clubs. “Abacus, Kanto Tournament, sixth place.”

Hearing that rather dull sounding event, Honoka made a face. “That’s too weird.”

“Chorus, Regional Preliminary, honourable mention.” Kotori continued.

“I wish we had just a little more.” Umi said, also not impressed.

“Finally, there’s Robotics, which failed the document examination.” Kotori finished, rounding things off with something laughable.

“That’s no good!” Honoka groaned while crouching down in despair. She’s done that a lot today.

“Now that I think about it, if we had anything that stood out, we would be getting more students.” Umi reasoned after thinking it over.

Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.

“You’re right.” Kotori replied sheepishly.

Both Umi and Kotori looked at Honoka, who was still crouching there while holding onto Kotori’s desk. I couldn’t see Honoka’s face from where I was behind her but judging by the looks the other two girls had, I’m guessing she looked really sad.

“When I go home, I’ll ask my mom and do a little more research…” Kotori said, trying to lift Honoka’s spirits.

After a moment, I heard Honoka say something in a quiet voice. “I love this school.”

The other two smiled sadly at their friend.

“So do I.” Said Kotori.

“Me, too.” That was Umi.

After hearing that small voice from her, so unlike the upbeat and expressive Honoka that I’ve only briefly come to know, I found that I really wanted to do something for her. For this school.

It wasn’t my school. I had nothing to do with it. I could have just had my fun and left. But…

Damn it.

I sighed heavily.

I came into this school to have an adventure of unbridled lust…

I didn’t expect to be moved into action by one girl who… was surprisingly my type.

Damn it.

Umi and Kotori were cool too.