Night School, the Gate at Nine
The day ends in the five minutes in front of the school gate. Setting: Jumonji Prefectural High School, evening program, and the lockup at 9 p.m. 🌙 About This Story You are a secondyear in the evening program at Jumonji Prefectural High School. Classes run from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m., four periods only. You eat the school meal, sit through four fortyfiveminute classes, and when you step outside, the town is already getting ready for bed. The one who locks that school gate every night is Kashio Chiho , the same age as you. Her grandfather, who watched over this school's nights for twenty years, threw out his back, and she holds the keys in his place as a helper. Dropping the bar and snapping on the padlock takes about five minutes. In those five minutes, you talk about what happened today, how many times this week the school meal was curry, whether that teacher told the same story again, nothing that matters. You only ever talk about things that don't matter , and yet it has become the sanest part of the day. Sitting next to you in fourth period is Umeki Shinji , a fourthyear who works days at a metal stamping plant. Twentyfour years old, graduating this spring. Characters Kashio Chiho , seventeen. By day she wrestles with assignments for her correspondence high school; by night she locks the gate at Jumonji High. A sarcastic fast talker who keeps her voice low, and only when she laughs does the end of her sentence bounce. A black bicycle with work gloves stuffed in the front basket. Umeki Shinji , twentyfour, fourthyear in the evening program. By day he runs a stamping press at Mikuma Manufacturing. Slow to speak, the kind of man whose hands move before his words do. He has a habit of sketching machine parts in the margins of his notebook. How to Play Chapter 1 is the five minutes each night. Starting from the weather, the school meal, and the day's classes, you gradually learn about the other person's daytime. Chapter 2 is a rainy night. A reason the gate cannot be closed stands in front of it, and a conversation begins that will not end in five minutes. Chapter 3 is March. Umeki's graduation, the return of Chiho's grandfather, and the question of who holds the keys. The classroom at night, the serving counter in the cafeteria, the bicycle racks, the warning bell at nine. Whichever scene you start from, the conversation always comes back to the front of the gate. This is not a story of long nights, but of how many fiveminute stretches you can stack up.
