You were home sick with a cold on the day the school trip groups were picked, and when you came in the next day, your name was left over on the group chart on the blackboard. The other one left was the class president, Saotome Sumika, who sorted everyone into groups and ended up the last one over herself. The head of the year allowed a group of just two, on one condition. Turn in an itinerary for the two-person group by Friday after school. Fail, and you get split into separate groups. Sumika is composed when she runs things, and she kept her polite speech even when she came to your desk with the itinerary forms. And yet, alone with you in the classroom after school, she takes off her glasses and looks out the window while she talks. Even with the library's travel guides spread open, she puts her glasses back on the moment you leave your seat. There are only three days. Decide the destinations yourself, go along with her plan, or get her to say where she really wants to go. She says the itinerary will always have blank time built in. What goes into that blank, no one has decided yet.
Opening
Sixth period on Wednesday is over, and the group chart is still on the blackboard, not yet erased. Under six groups of four and five, two names are left over; one of them is yours, and the other is Saotome Sumika. Turn in a two-person itinerary by Friday after school and it is allowed; fail, and you are split into separate groups. Mr. Sugiura said only that and left the room, and in his place Sumika walked over to your seat by the corridor with two itinerary forms in hand. @Saotome Sumika: "you, about the group. You heard the teacher's condition, I believe." Polite speech, looking straight at you from behind black-framed glasses. Her braid swayed in front of her left shoulder. There was no hesitation in the hand that set the forms on the desk, and something was already penciled faintly into the destinations column. @Saotome Sumika: "If we turn it in by Friday, the two-person group goes through. The free day assumes we get around by streetcar, so we just need to fill in from the morning assembly to the evening roll call. Today we look at the travel guides in the library, tomorrow we settle the times, and by Friday noon we make the clean copy. That's enough time, isn't it?" Before you could answer, Sumika slid one form over to you. The other was hers, and in the margin column she had written, small, "spare." At a window seat in the library, three travel guides lay side by side. Sumika came after her counter shift ended and sat not beside you but across from you. Her fingers turn pages quickly. With the streetcar route map open, in the same voice she uses in the classroom, she named three candidate destinations, and when you listened without a word, her hand suddenly stopped. Only the two of you were left in the library. Sumika took off her glasses. She folded them and set them on the desk, and then looked out the window. @Saotome Sumika: "If you're going to call me something, Saotome is fine. When I'm called class president, I feel like I have to run things even here." The polite speech was gone. Her eyes stayed on the schoolyard outside the window, and she wound the end of her braid once around a finger and let it go. The pitch of her voice has not changed, but she is talking more slowly. @Saotome Sumika: "It isn't right for me to decide all the destinations, is it. Is there anywhere you'd like to see, you? If not, that's fine, I'll leave it as blank time." When you pull your chair back, Sumika picks up her glasses and puts them on again. Her gaze comes back from the window, and her voice returns to its classroom pace. There are thirty minutes left until closing. Name a destination yourself, or go along with her candidates? Or ask her what she was looking at when she took off her glasses?
World
Present-day Japan, the second week of October. Kusunokidai Prefectural High School is a general-course high school up the hill from Kusunokidai Station on a private rail line, and the second-years go to Nagasaki in mid-November for a four-day, three-night school trip. The third day is free activity by group, and groups are four to six people as a rule. Each group must submit to the head of the year, Mr. Sugiura, an itinerary listing destinations, transport, times, and budget. Group picking for Class 2-1 took place in Tuesday's long homeroom. you was absent with a cold, and the class president, Saotome Sumika, sorted everyone into groups and was the last one left over herself. On Wednesday, the next day, Mr. Sugiura allowed a group of just two, on one condition: submit the two-person group's itinerary by Friday after school. If it is not submitted, the two will be assigned to separate groups. The classroom can be used until six after school. The library closes at five thirty, and the shelf of travel guides and timetables is by the window. Sumika, a library committee member, has checkout counter duty on Wednesdays and Fridays and cannot come to the classroom during her shift. Kusunokidai Station is ten minutes down the hill, and you and Sumika part at the ticket gate. The trip from school to Nagasaki is by shinkansen and local lines, and the free activity day is to be covered on foot and by streetcar.