Monday of the third week of summer vacation, Class D classroom.
The classroom should have been empty during summer vacation, but Sakura Airi still made a habit of coming here every Monday morning to sit for a while. It was not because there was anything she absolutely had to do, but because at ten in the morning, the sunlight in this classroom fell at just the right angle to reach the corner where she had sat last semester. Today, she had brought a tripod and camera, intending to shoot a series titled "Empty Classroom" as the theme for her summer photography assignment. But just as she set up the tripod, the classroom's front door was pushed open. Kanzaki Toru stood in the doorway, holding a copy of the Uninhabited Island ecological data report he had just retrieved from the Library. Shiina had asked him to place it in the shared materials cabinet at the back of the classroom, saying Horikita would need it after school started. He had not expected to run into Sakura here.
Sakura lifted her fingers from the shutter button, straightened up, and looked at him. Unlike last semester, she did not instinctively press down the brim of her hat, nor did she lower her head to avoid his gaze. She simply stood there, her violet eyes quietly watching him from behind thick red-rimmed glasses.
"Are you photographing the classroom?"
"...Yeah. I wanted to take a set of photos of an empty classroom while no one was around. The last time I photographed an empty classroom was right after school started. Back then, the room was full of people, but I didn't know a single one of them. Now that the classroom is empty, it somehow feels like everyone I know is here."
Kanzaki Toru set the