The next morning, the row of damp papers by the window still had not fully dried.
Their edges had curled slightly in the night wind, and the faint ink fire seals on their backs showed through the thin paper as gray shadows. The moment Kiyo entered the classroom, he spotted them. He dropped his schoolbag on his desk and ran to the window in a few steps.
"Is mine still there?"
Morita Yu trailed after him at an unhurried pace. "Didn't you say yesterday that you wanted to take it home?"
Kiyo reached into the row of papers. "The teacher said I couldn't take it until it dried. I think it's matured now."
Che set down his workbook and glanced toward the window. "Using 'matured' for wet paper sounds like the aftermath of a kitchen accident."
Kiyo turned back. "You said that yesterday too."
"That proves I'm consistent."
"It proves you're lazy," Morita Yu added.
Kiyo finally found his name on the third sheet. The fire seal on its back was slightly crooked, with fuzzy ink along the edges, like grass that had been drenched by rain and then forcibly dried in the sun. Kiyo looked perfectly pleased with it and reached out to touch it, only for Takuya to call out from the doorway.
"Don't touch it."
Kiyo's hand froze in midair before slowly withdrawing. "I was merely engaging in an emotional exchange."
Takuya placed the record book in his hand on the teacher's desk. "The paper isn't completely dry yet. When it hasn't dried through, looking stable doesn't mean it's stable inside."
The words settled over the classroom. Che lowered his head and looked at his palm.
The fuzzy edges on the back of yesterday's wet paper were still vivid in his memory. Get close, but don't destroy