Morishita Ai's Harassment

Another ordinary school day.

Sunlight spilled into the classroom from outside the window.

On the podium, the teacher was explaining the complex character relationships in a certain chapter of the textbook, his tone so slow and even it was almost hypnotic.

The warm air and monotonous narration formed a bed ripe for drowsiness.

Kazehara Tetsu propped his chin on one hand, his upper body's center of gravity resting on that arm, while his other hand absently twirled a pen.

His eyelids were half-lowered, his line of sight not focused on the book at all, but completely vacant.

His consciousness had long since slipped away from this classroom, drifting elsewhere.

Just then, he felt a light touch on the back of his neck, like a flying insect accidentally bumping into him.

He didn't care about it, only instinctively moving his neck.

A few seconds later, the same touch, in the same spot, came again.

This time, the force was a bit heavier, carrying a faint impact.

Kazehara Tetsu's pen-twirling motion paused for an instant.

He didn't turn his head.

His body posture didn't change in the slightest; he still maintained that drowsy, half-asleep look.

But beneath his half-lowered eyelids, his gaze sharpened, all traces of sleep vanishing.

He could clearly catch the extremely faint rustling sound behind him, and... the weak, taut noise of a rubber band being stretched.

"Pop."

The third one was more precise than the first two.

A small paper ball, accurately shot onto his earlobe, made a light, crisp sound, then fell onto his shoulder.

Kazehara Tetsu finally moved.

Slowly, at a speed almost like a movie in slow motion, he turned his head back.

His range of motion was small—he only tilted his face, using his peripheral vision to take in everything behind him.

Morishita Ai.

She was frozen in a hilariously awkward pose, leaning forward, one hand raised high with a rubber band stretched between two fingers, the other hand just about to pull another "ammunition" from her pencil case.

When her somewhat dazed big eyes met Kazehara Tetsu's line of sight, she, like a cartoon character hit with a pause button, instantly froze solid.

The air between them seemed to stand still for three seconds.

The next moment, Morishita Ai's reaction was surprisingly fast.

She whipped her hands back in a flash, her body shooting upright as she sat straight, hands folded neatly on her desk.

Her face immediately turned toward the window, and she even started whistling a tuneless, leaky tune, putting on an innocent act of "I'm looking at the scenery, nothing happened here."

The performance was so over-the-top that anyone with normal intelligence could see right through it.

Kazehara Tetsu watched her act for a few seconds with a blank expression, then slowly turned his head back.

He didn't pick up the fallen paper ball, nor did he pay any more attention to the commotion behind him.

He just propped his chin up again, half-lowering his eyelids, as if everything just now had been an illusion, and he had returned to being that person utterly uninterested in the class.

But Morishita Ai, sitting behind him, felt the temperature of the air around her seem to drop several degrees out of nowhere.

She cautiously glanced at Kazehara Tetsu's back, inexplicably feeling a pang of guilt.

She shrank her neck, finally settling down, and quietly stuffed the rubber band, that "weapon," deep into the farthest corner of her desk.

"Ding-ling-ling—"

The long class finally ended. The bell signaling the end of class rang, releasing the tense nerves in the classroom.

Students gathered in twos and threes, discussing where to go for lunch or where to hang out.

Kazehara Tetsu didn't move.

He still maintained his posture from class, until the voices around him gradually thinned out and most of the students had left the classroom. Only then did he slowly stretch, preparing to pack up his things.

"Kazehara Tetsu!"

A full, energetic voice rang out beside his desk.

He looked up and saw Morishita Ai standing with her hands behind her back, leaning forward slightly, her face very serious, right in front of him, her big eyes staring at him.

For some reason, as Kazehara Tetsu looked at Morishita Ai's face—clearly the type of mature, elegant beauty—but with that serious expression, he felt a strange sense of dissonance.

"During class just now, did you hear a really weird sound?"

She asked with a completely serious face, her expression as grave as if she were discussing an academic problem. "It was like... like an invisible woodpecker, constantly pecking at the classroom wall! 'Tap, tap, tap.' Do you think our school has some unknown strange tales or something?"

As she spoke, she even mimicked a woodpecker pecking wood with her fingers, acting it out vividly.

Kazehara Tetsu quietly watched her performance.

He didn't say a word, just bent down and picked up the paper ball that had fallen earlier from beside his chair leg.

He placed the crumpled paper on the desk, layer by layer unfolding it.

At the center of the paper were many black eraser shavings.

He pinched a shaving and held it up before Morishita Ai's eyes, level with her line of sight.

"Is this what you call the 'Invisible Woodpecker'?"

Morishita Ai stared at the shaving swaying before her eyes, the "evidence" of her crime.

Her brain seemed to stall for two seconds, then she suddenly clapped her hands, an exaggerated expression of realization spreading across her face.

"Ah! I remember now!"

Her voice shot up sharply, successfully drawing the attention of the few remaining students who hadn't yet left the classroom.

"Right, right! Kazehara Tetsu! I just happen to have a century-old puzzle I need to ask you about!"

Her words came out in a rapid-fire stream, giving Kazehara Tetsu no chance to interject or ask questions.

"Last night, I stayed up all night, pondering an ultimate question concerning human evolution and cosmic survival!"

She spread both arms wide, her expression solemn and grave. "Why do humans need to sleep? It's a massive design flaw! Think about it—if humans didn't need to sleep, we'd have an extra eight hours every day! Those eight hours could be used for studying, working, inventing, creating! Our civilization progress could at least double in speed!"

She got lost in her own grand vision, her eyes sparkling with boundless longing for the future.

Kazehara Tetsu looked at her like she was an alien creature.

"But!"

Morishita Ai's tone shifted again. She leaned in closer, lowering her voice. "After observing you, I discovered an anomaly enough to overturn modern science!"

"And that's you, Kazehara Tetsu!"

She extended her index finger, nearly poking his nose. "You clearly sleep in class too, yet you're the only one who gets a perfect score on the quiz! That completely violates the basic law of human society that 'Effort Yields Rewards'!"