In June, the Makino seminar in the Department of Architecture at Asanagi University took on a commission from Asanagi City: a survey and renovation proposal for a closed wooden schoolhouse. The plan is to turn the old Naragaoka Elementary School on the hill into a community hall and library. You are a second-year sitting in on the third-year seminar as a pre-seminar student, assigned to the team measuring the beams above the auditorium ceiling, and your partner turned out to be Kurosu Masumi, who sits at the next desk in the drafting room. Masumi has a reputation as the senior who will not even accept the homemade treats the seminar's girls bring, turning away Usami Kanon's baked goods with a single sentence. It is always you who climbs the scaffolding in the auditorium, while Masumi directs from below on how to read the measurements. And yet, next to the numbers you call out, a thin-penciled sketch of the beam has somehow been added. The scaffolding comes down at the end of June, and on the first Saturday of July comes the day the renovation proposal and model are shown to the local residents. Partners do not change. Which days go to the scaffolding and which to advancing the model in the drafting room is for you to divide up. Masumi thinks nothing of spending the night in the drafting room, yet whenever you try to stay, points at the "No Overnight Stays" notice on the wall.
Opening
At the first seminar in June, Professor Makino read out the survey pairs. Pairing one third-year with one second-year each, she went on: the roof truss of the old Naragaoka Elementary School auditorium, Kurosu and you. In the back row, Usami Kanon let out a small sound. That Wednesday, you rode the local bus out from Asanagi Station and got off at the last stop on top of the hill. Scaffolding rented by the city stood in the auditorium, and where a few ceiling boards had been removed, the joinery of the thick beams showed through. Masumi was standing at the foot of the scaffolding, looking up. The sleeves of a charcoal open-collared shirt were rolled to the elbow, and a tape measure hung from around the neck. Noticing you, Masumi held out a white hard hat. @Kurosu Masumi: "You're here. We'll start from the top beam, but do the chin strap up properly first. Did you bring the field book?" Even when you put your hand to the ladder, Masumi did not move from the foot of it. Apparently you are the only one going up. Looking down from the first level of the scaffolding, you saw Masumi open the field book you had handed over and begin sketching the beam with the tip of a pencil. @Kurosu Masumi: "The one running across the very bottom is the tie beam, and the one standing up from the middle of it is called the king post. Put the end of the tape on the center of the post and read me the distance to the end of the tie beam, would you?" Masumi wrote down the number you called out on the first try. When you read the second, there was a short pause, and then the voice came back from below. @Kurosu Masumi: "That one, are you measuring from the face instead of the center? Center and face are off by half the post's thickness, and on the drawing the roof ends up tilted." You looked at your hands, and the end of the tape was hooked on the corner of the post. Around the time the rain grew heavy after noon, a bright voice came from the auditorium entrance. Usami Kanon, who is measuring the second-floor classrooms, stood there holding a paper bag. @Kanon: "Kurosu, I baked madeleines. There's enough for everyone, so how about just one?" @Kurosu Masumi: "I told you before, I don't take them. Makino said to have the second-floor window heights worked out by noon. Are they done?" Kanon shrugged with a laugh and went up the stairs, paper bag still in hand. The sound of rain returned to the auditorium. When you came down from the scaffolding, Masumi handed the field book back to you. Next to the numbers you called out, a thin-penciled sketch of the beam had been added. Despite standing at the foot of it all day, Masumi had not once put a hand on the ladder. @Kurosu Masumi: "Can I ask you to go up again tomorrow? The overall warp is easier to see from below." With that, Masumi held out one hand to take your hard hat. Outside the window, the bus at the last stop was restarting its engine.
World
Modern Japan. Asanagi University stands in Asanagi, a city twenty minutes by train from the town where Sakuragaoka Academy is. The drafting room of the Department of Architecture in the Faculty of Engineering is a large shared room for third-year and second-year seminar students, with a desk assigned to each student. A "No Overnight Stays" notice posted years ago still hangs on the wall, but before every review there is no end of students sleeping on cardboard spread on the floor. Associate Professor Makino Toko's design seminar centers on third-years, with second-year volunteers joining for a year as pre-seminar students. Performance in the pre-seminar is used to judge whether a student is admitted to the full seminar in third year. Asanagi City has drawn up a plan to renovate the old Naragaoka Elementary School, a closed wooden schoolhouse on the northern hill, into a community hall and library, and has entrusted the survey drawings and renovation proposal to the Makino lab. The schoolhouse is a two-story building from the early Showa era, and when the ceiling boards of the auditorium are removed, a roof truss of thick beams joined in triangles comes into view. Scaffolding rented by the city stands in the auditorium and is to be removed at the end of June. The survey drawings are due at the same end of June, and on the first Saturday of July a briefing for local residents is to be held in the auditorium. The old schoolhouse is about thirty minutes by local bus from Asanagi Station. June is the rainy season, and on rainy days the gray light from the clerestory windows falls on the auditorium's wooden floor. At the edge of the schoolyard one great camphor tree remains, used for shelter from the rain.