Behind the lectern, the numbers kept falling.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
He counted them off one by one, neither hurried nor forceful. His tone was the same as before.
The count pressed down from the front row to the last. No one answered it, and no one dodged it.
No one in the room moved.
Every eye faced the lectern, and not even their clothes rustled.
They kept their breathing faint.
Someone forcibly swallowed a cough that had risen into their throat.
Sweat clung to the lashes of those with their eyes shut.
Someone clenched a fist until the knuckles stood out.
Everything on the desks stayed where it was, pens resting and papers spread out. Since the first number, no hand had touched them. Daylight shrank into the upper pane of the window, and the room grew another shade darker. Darkness crept from the foot of the walls over the desk legs, climbed the edges of the papers, and swallowed everyone's hands. With each descending number, the weight on their backs grew heavier.
Across the aisle, Naruto's hand had never loosened around his pen.
His knuckles were white, the pallor reaching the edge of his palm. Sweat on the pen shaft seeped down through the web of his thumb.
Kiyoshi's fist was still tucked beneath the edge of his desk, clenched.
The wooden edge pressed a white line into the side of his hand.
His pen lay beside his paper, its tip pointing toward him.
A drop of sweat slid over his wrist and fell onto the desk, spreading into a small dark spot. No one wiped it away.
Kiyoshi slowed his breathing until it matched the count.
Seven.
Six.
As five fell, a pen on some desk up front rolled half a turn.
Fingers pinned it down at once.