The next day, a small note had been pasted beside the blank.
The paper was narrow, only wide enough for two or three lines. The moment Kiyo entered, he saw it and stopped in the doorway, as though a new mechanism had grown out of the wall.
"Teacher, why is there another piece of paper beside it?"
Teacher Mizuno pushed the chalk box farther onto the desk. "The wall isn't big enough."
"So the paper is helping?"
"So you write less."
Kiyo's expression immediately fell. Naruto stood in the doorway, staring at the note for a long time before quietly asking Che, "Is writing less hard?"
"It's pretty hard for both of you."
Kiyo immediately turned around. "Why am I included?"
Morita Yu set down his schoolbag. "Because you were already getting ready to ask a third question."
Kiyo looked down at his hands, as though questions might really slip out through the gaps between his fingers.
Class One's morning exercise was simple. Iruka placed yesterday's Shared Box, Pending Identification Box, water cup, and short pencil on the table, then had each of them choose just one thing that had to be kept from today. They were not to write down everything they saw, nor were they to write down whoever spoke the loudest.
Naruto chose the short pencil first. He said it had been put back into the box today. Iruka asked why it had to be kept. Naruto thought for a long time before finally saying, "Because I didn't take it away."
Kiyo murmured from the back row, "That's a very honest reason."
Sasuke chose the water cup. He only said, "Keep it farther from the paper."
Rina chose the rag because it had wiped up water yesterday and had dried by the window today. Saori chose the