You’re a Real Treasure, the School Struck Gold Finding You

We arrived at the classroom and sat down at our usual four-person long table in the middle-back, boredly waiting for the teacher to arrive. The afternoon class was News Writing.

I saw Rei walk into the classroom, her twin-tails swinging as she smiled, looking as happy as if she’d just won the lottery. Her lively, big eyes immediately found me, and her smile widened into two crescent moons.

…What are you looking at me for? Even if you won the lottery, it’s got nothing to do with me!

Of course, that was all just joking and complaining in my head, not to be taken seriously. I knew very well that the reason Rei was so happy was that she could finally make me wear that wedding-gown-like Snow White dress.

My feelings were too complex to put into words. I wanted you to wear a wedding dress, and it turns out you wanted me to wear one too…

After everyone had settled down, a male teacher in his thirties or forties walked in just as the bell rang. He was our News Writing teacher, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses that gave him the air of a traditional journalist.

He stood at the podium, took out the attendance book from his bag, and began taking attendance in his usual swift manner.

He looked out at all of us students, cleared his throat, and said, “Ahem… students who are present, please raise your hands.”

We all obediently raised our hands.

The black-rimmed teacher pushed up his glasses and scanned the room. Seeing that everyone had their hand up, he nodded in satisfaction. “Good, everyone has their hand up. Looks like everyone’s here. Great, our class’s attendance rate is always one hundred percent.”

I was speechless. With this method of taking attendance, unless the entire class was absent, the attendance rate would have to be one hundred percent!

Actually, this News Writing teacher didn’t always take attendance this way. His original method was to say, “Students who are absent, please raise your hands!” After seeing that no one raised their hand, he would happily mark everyone as present in the attendance book.

This went on until one day, a school inspector came to observe his class and noticed the problem with his attendance method. After the class, the inspector found him and said, “Black-sensei, your lecture was great, but there’s a small issue. The way you take attendance, you can’t possibly find out which students are absent. Think about it, you ask the absent students to raise their hands. These students are clever. Even if they’re absent, they’re not going to raise their hand to let you know! So next time, you should ask the present students to raise their hands. Then you can just see who doesn’t have their hand up. It’ll be clear at a glance.”

Black-sensei thought this made a lot of sense, so he started taking attendance this way. And to his pleasant surprise, our class’s attendance rate was still one hundred percent.

We were truly the role models for the new generation of university students!

After taking attendance, Black-sensei happily put down the book and said to us, “Today, we’re going to talk about writing news headlines. I’ll start with an example… Kiriko, please stand up. You’re the class president.”

I obediently stood up, but emphasized, “Sensei, I’m not the class president anymore.”

“Oh? You’re not?” His eyes widened slightly behind his black-rimmed glasses. “No matter. Let’s say I’m a reporter, and I’m interviewing you for a story. If I ask you, ‘Why did you decide to become the class president in the first place?’, how would you answer?”

Without batting an eye, I answered truthfully, “For two reasons. First, to enjoy a fulfilling university life. And second, to contribute to my classmates.”

“Very good, please sit.” After I sat down, Black-sensei pushed up his glasses and said to the class, “You see, an interviewee’s answer is always so boring. If I were to just foolishly write the headline exactly as it was said, would anyone read the story? Of course not! So what should we do? We need to add some artistic flair! So the headline for this story should be something like this: ‘Rumor Has It This Beautiful University Student Ran for Class President to Dominate All the Women in Her Class, Including the Teacher! Now, She Steps Forward. Does She Plan to Clear Her Name? (Multiple Photos)’ You see, this headline doesn’t contain a single lie, so it doesn’t violate the principle of journalistic integrity, yet it becomes incredibly captivating. That is the art of the headline.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

…The fact that I ran for class president to dominate all the women had actually spread online? Not even sparing the teacher?!

I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve. I looked down and saw a small, snow-white hand, as delicate and fragile as a petal in winter. I looked at the face, and of course, it was Yukino.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered to me in her soft, snow-like voice. “The thing about you running for class president to dominate all the women never got out. Black-sensei was just making up an example. He just happened to hit the nail on the head.”

Hearing that, the massive weight in my heart finally lifted, but a new question quickly arose. I leaned close to Yukino’s delicate and delectable little ear and asked her, “Then how did you know that I ran for class president back then to dominate all the women?”

Yukino shot me a look, and it was devastatingly cute. “You were talking in your sleep every night back then, repeating that one sentence over and over. It got to the point where even when I was asleep, your voice would echo in my dreams like hypnosis. For a few days, I even started to think it was me who wanted to run for class president to dominate all the women.”

It all clicked. “No wonder you were trying to compete with me for the position at first, but then you gave up!”

“Let’s not talk about the past…” Yukino seemed quite embarrassed about being hypnotized. Her pretty face was slightly flushed. She changed the subject. “What I wanted to ask was, why is Black-sensei’s method for writing headlines so similar to the one the news club president used?”

“Because he is the news club’s faculty advisor,” I replied.

Thanks to our powerful and… eccentric… faculty, our school’s clubs were full of talent. For example, the airsoft club won the national airsoft competition. Then, because their replica guns were too realistic, the entire club was shut down by the government on the same afternoon they won the championship. Or take the student entrepreneurship club. They started a business, a fried chicken shop near the school called “Obama Fried Chicken.” Because the name touched on… you know… certain issues, it was also shut down. Now it’s called “Oliver Fried Chicken.”

Over the next few classes, Black-sensei taught us many more headlines that turned the mundane into the insane. I started to feel like I could just grab my backpack and go get a job at one of those clickbait news sites.

With a clear ring, the afternoon classes ended. Black-sensei said he hoped we could all continue to maintain our one hundred percent attendance rate and left with his bag. The classroom, which had only been half-full, suddenly erupted with noise.

I was just thinking about whether I should go get some Oliver Fried Chicken when Rei came bouncing over like a little rabbit, her twin-tails swinging. She planted her small hands on the table in front of me, her big eyes wide with Wexcitement.

“Come on, Kiriko,” she said in her sweet voice. “Let’s go try on the Snow White dress!”

At those words, a sudden hush fell over the classroom, which had been as noisy as a public bathhouse.