Afternoons were when it was easiest to lose focus.
Once the warmth after lunch set in, the air in the classroom seemed softened by the sun. Cicadas droned outside at an unhurried pace, and even the rustle of turning pages sounded sluggish. Kiyo had been seated for less than fifteen minutes when his eyelids were already about to greet his desk. Morita Yu poked him with the shaft of his pen. "Don't fall asleep. Later you'll say you didn't hear it again."
"I'm only closing my eyes a little."
"Then stop closing them a little."
Che set his cup back at the corner of his desk, feeling a little sleepy himself. Afternoon classes were tiring enough already, yet Yamashiro Takuma stepped in today without writing anything or handing out any practice sheets. He merely placed the class roster on the podium.
"We'll practice roll call this afternoon."
Kiyo immediately woke up a little. "Don't we do roll call every day?"
Yamashiro Takuma looked at him. "Every day, someone answers like they've been dragged out of a dream."
The classroom laughed. Kiyo rubbed his nose and said no more.
Che looked at the roster, his attention sharpening by a degree. To him, the most ordinary roll call at the Ninja Academy had never been merely about whether someone was present. A name was a position in itself. Who was remembered first, whose name was always buried beneath their clan name, who instinctively stiffened upon being called—those things revealed quite a lot.
And he himself had always been overly sensitive to names. The three words "Uchiha" seemed to carry an extra layer of volume in many situations. Whether others meant anything by it or not, the instant he heard them, his mind always reacted half a step before his body.
Yamashiro Takuma