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It was nearing the end of their first International Baccalaureate year, and according to their school’s schedule, that meant starting to prepare their Theory of Knowledge essay and presentations.
Atsumu had just finished his Business Management class on the third floor, and was now walking towards the Theory of Knowledge classroom a floor below. On his way there, he saw Sakusa Kiyoomi, his boyfriend, and called out to him.
“Omi!”
The raven-haired stopped and turned around. “‘Tsumu,” he smiled. “How did business go?” Kiyoomi asked the shorter male before placing a gentle kiss on the latter’s forehead.
The blond hummed, “it was alright, I guess. Deguchi-sensei spent almost half of the lesson talking about her daughter again. It’s not like we care, and it’s pretty obvious in our faces that we don’t and that we just want to learn about business, but she just—” Atsumu sighed. “Forget it, what about you Omi? How did Maths HL go?”
Kiyoomi took Atsumu’s hand into his and started walking. “We covered how to prove by using induction with Ishikawa-sensei,” the taller said. “It was okay, he said it was like a recipe and we wrote down the steps we have to do and how we should answer the question.”
“Induction?”
Kiyoomi hummed in approval.
“What’s that?”
“I’d explain it to you but you’ll just call me a nerd if I do,” he smiled.
The older pouted, “will we do that in Standard Level too? Or is it just a Higher Level thing?”
“I’m pretty sure you guys won’t cover induction in Standard.”
“Thank goodness, it sounds hard.”
“It is, but at the same time it isn’t really,” the younger said. Atsumu mumbled a quick “ HL students ,” to which Kiyoomi chuckled.
“You’re such a baby, love.”
Whoever was watching them from a third-party’s perspective could clearly see how fondly Kiyoomi looked at Atsumu.
“It’s just, I know you’re smart smart, you don’t have to rub it on my face,” the shorter said, puting again.
“How am I doing so, love?” Amused, Kiyoomi asked.
Atsumu just frowned at him and dropped the topic, just as they were entering the classroom.
They sat besides each other at their usual table, alongside Osamu and Rintarou. They talked amongst them and waited for their teacher to arrive.
Once their teacher arrived, he announced what they would be doing during the lesson.
“As you all know, a year from now you will have completed your TOK essay and presentations, therefore during today’s lesson and the remaining lessons before your mock exams start in March, we will be practicing how to defend your arguments,” Nagata-sensei, who was both their Theory of Knowledge and Chemistry teacher, said. “And of course, what better way to practice this than doing a debate?”
A series of groans were heard, “don’t be like that guys, we have to do this. Or would you rather doing mock TOK presentations?” Some students shook their heads no, others stayed silent. Their teacher hummed, “thought so. Now, I will choose three people to be for the motion and another three against. Because we are 30 in this classroom, we will do five debates in total. I will tell you the topics once we make the groups.”
Once all the students were sorted into groups of three, their teacher spoke again.
“Today we will start with two debates, the debate topics are not really serious topics, but you need to learn how to argue even if you are not supporting your side of the motion, or you find argument about the topic stupid.” Nagata-sensei said, amused. “I will randomly choose the groups that will go against each other- does each group remember their number?” Students nodded. “Okay. First debate’s for the motion team will be… group 6. Now, the first debate’s against the motion team will be… group 10.”
“Hence, the first debate will be: Semi Eita, Miya Osamu and Suna Rintarou against Shirabu Kenjirou, Iwaizumi Hajime and Kozume Kenma,” their teacher started. “Your topic will be ‘what came first? The chicken or the egg?’”
Atsumu started laughing at that, Kiyoomi elbowed to make him stop.
With half an hour of lesson remaining, the groups had five minutes each to give their arguments.
The first debate ended pretty quickly, gaining silent snickers and giggles from the students watching the groups debate against each other. The teacher then announced that group six won, courtesy of one Semi Eita, who made Shirabu Kenjirou flustered by shamelessly flirting with him in the middle of the latter’s argument speech.
It was now another two teams’ turn to debate, everyone was curious as to what topic the second debate teams would have to talk about.
“Okay, I will now choose the next two groups.” The teacher then removed groups 6 and 10 from the roulette he was using to randomly select groups, and spun it again. “The group who will be for the motion will be… group 3, Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Tetsurou and Miya Atsumu. Next, the group that will debate against them will be… group 4, Sakusa Kiyoomi, Oikawa Tooru and Daishou Suguru.”
Kiyoomi and Atsumu looked at each other. “Whoever wins gets a reward,” the older said, smirking, whilst the younger just sighed in exasperation. “Fine.”
“The topic of the second debate will be: Is the earth flat?”
Atsumu looked temporarily shocked, before sighing. It’s okay, we can work with this , he thought.
They had two minutes to think of arguments to give, and so whilst group four looked confident and only had to rely on already known facts, group three was at loss.
Or so everyone thought.
“Okay, time’s out, we shall now start the debate. For the motion team, please share your arguments.”
“Can we use props?” Koutarou asked.
“Of course, by all means.”
And then it started.
“Many of us here believe that the Earth is round because that’s what books and teachers taught us. But is it really?” Tetsurou now had the entire class’ attention. Koutarou, our first speaker, will explain why the earth is flat, followed by Atsumu, who will talk about why temperature varies in the different parts of the Earth, and then finally, I will cover the reason behind gravity.”
Everyone was shocked at how professional and convincing this sounded. If they didn’t know better, they would’ve already been persuaded to believe the Earth is flat.
“We believe that the Earth is flat, and shaped like a coin,” Koutarou started. “First of all, if the Earth isn’t flat, why are means of transport such as cars and buses’ structures straight? If we lived on a globe-shaped planet, then cars would look like concave-shaped functions, or boomerangs,” he paused.
Taking a coin out of his pocket, Koutarou spoke again. “Second, the only reason why our planet is depicted with a round shape is because our coin shaped planet spins on its own axis, forming then a full circle. To back-up our argument, we have the following mathematical formula from calculus.”
They totally didn’t expect this , Atsumu was thinking, feeling a strange sense of pride.
“The formula is pi multiplied by the definite integral, with limits a and b, of the distance between the function and it’s axis of rotation— in this case the y-axis— squared dx,” Koutarou said, leaving everyone both confused and amazed they even thought of this.
To prove their point, Koutarou spun the coin, and everyone saw that, indeed, the coin formed a sphere when it spins.
He then sat back down on his assigned seat, and Atsumu was the next one to speak.
Winking towards Kiyoomi, he started speaking. “After everything previously mentioned by my colleague, you must be wondering: why is it colder in the poles and warmer the closer one is to the equator? That’s quite simple, really. As Koutarou said before, our planet spins on its own y-axis, creating a sphere. This rotation does not cease and is really fast, therefore we have velocity. Now, what might velocity have to do with anything? Simple. Kinetic energy. The more kinetic energy, the more heat a body has.”
Atsumu was well aware this was only true for particles— atoms and molecules—, but they didn’t have to know that. He was also aware large bodies do convert their kinetic energy into thermal energy, but the temperature change doesn’t really even reach 0.005 degrees Celsius. But again, they didn’t have to know that.
“Now that you know this scientific fact, you can now understand that the radius of rotation, created in it’s spin at both the top and bottom part of the coin, is practically zero. Hence the freezing temperatures in both the North and South poles. Why is it warmer near the equator? Because the radius of rotation is much bigger compared to the poles. Temperatures gradually decrease the farther you are from the middle point.” Smugly, he ended his part and sat down beside Koutarou.
It was now Tetsurou’s turn.
“My colleagues have explained some of the reasons why we defend our motion, and now the biggest question everybody present must be asking themselves is: what about gravity? Is gravity a joke to you flat-earthers?” He asked, rhetorically, to their public.
“As both Koutarou and Atsumu said, our planet never stops spinning on its y-axis. By doing this, the Earth pushes us towards the ground. What do I mean by this? To make it somewhat more…” he struggled to find a word. “Understandable, I guess. Our planet basically spins so fast that us habitants are pushed towards the ground by the velocity it has. But Tetsurou, how come we aren’t accidentally propulsed into outer space?” He asked again.
He then continued, answering his own question. “Well, we are so small compared to the planet we live in, that our mass is practically as negligible as the mass of electrons, neutrons and protons to us.”
“Again, my colleagues explained why we think the Earth is flat and shaped like a coin, the reason behind the various temperatures the different regions or countries experience, and finally we explained what gravity really is. We would also like to add that: everything is not… what it seems,” he finalised their combined speech with a wink, looking at a specific long-haired student with eyes shaped like a cat’s.
Silence followed after that, everyone was astonished by how good their arguments were, even knowing they were defending the (very much scientifically) wrong side.
The team against the idea of a flat Earth then gave their speech, but ironically, it was nowhere near as convincing as group three’s arguments. Kiyoomi could only roll his eyes, admitting defeat.
“I did not expect this turn of events,” Nagata-sensei said. “I know that those defending the round Earth motion should technically win, but you guys, you managed to almost convince me that the Earth is really flat…”
“Because of that, I will give the win to the flat Earth motion team, group three. Very well done, guys!”
Atsumu then smirked, and walked towards their seats. “So, I want to claim my prize, Omi-omi.” He smiled, feigning innocence.
The taller looked at him, “what does His Highness Miya Atsumu want?”
Atsumu then laughed. “This,” he said before kissing Kiyoomi’s lips.