Chapter Text
Iwatobi Middle School, Class 3-2
April 1984
It never fails. Nanase Haruka shows up for the first day of school and by second period he has already 1) been addressed as a girl by the new homeroom teacher, twice, 2) been assigned a seat in the back corner of the room closest to the window, and 3) resigned himself to another year without friends. Iwatobi is a small town with a long memory; one class trip incident in third grade involving stripping and jumping into a tank at the aquarium and Haruka is forever labeled the ‘weird water maniac’ with a popularity rating roughly equivalent to tuberculosis. It’s a guarantee that no girl will ever talk to him more than would be required to pass grade 3, that he’s the last one chosen for any team sports in PE (swimming skill doesn’t translate to land), and that he always walks home alone. Even the Art Club gave up on him last year, his talent doesn’t outweigh his lack of social skills and general disinterest in others. Nanase drifts like water, a nonconformist in a society that accepts nothing but rigorous harmonic sameness.
And homeroom teacher Amakata Miho decides to make him her new project. Or, rather, to involve him in the class project in a special way. The cherry trees outside are still dropping their petals to float in the wind when she announces it two weeks into the term, Haruka’s attention as always out the window.
“We have a very special class project this year. Mitaka High School outside of Tokyo is going to be our partner and we’re matching up their students and ours as penpals. Each of you will write at least two letters per month to your partner. To work on our interpersonal skills, your partner will be someone of the opposite sex. Boys will be paired with a girl partner, girls will be paired with a boy partner. We hope to learn more about differences in communication, as well as share knowledge about how our parts of Japan are both similar and different.”
The classroom springs up with questions. “Does it have to be a boy?” “Can we send only letters or are gifts all right?” “How long will it last?” Amakata waves her tiny hands in front of her, signaling for the class to settle back down. Haruka lifts the top of his desk just enough for a longing look at his Walkman; he’d much rather immerse himself in English-language music than write to a stranger. What would he even say? And to a girl at that? Way, way too much effort.
“The project will run until graduation, so it will last the entire school year. Don’t worry, the content of your letters will remain private, but twice a month letters will be posted to and from our schools as a group. You are welcome to exchange addresses with your partner and correspond with him or her beyond the scope of the project. It will be letters only for the project itself, but you may send gifts on your own if you choose. To encourage communication on an equal level, all letters are to be written using ‘watashi’ as your pronoun.” Amakata’s heels click on the classroom floor as she hands papers to the first student in each row to be passed back. “Please fill out these short surveys; we will try to match you based on common interests or hobbies if at all possible.”
There is no one in the seat in front of him, and the girl two seats ahead drops the page on the empty desk without handing it back. Haruka grits his teeth in annoyance, sliding just enough out of his seat to crouch in the aisle. He doesn’t want to attract any attention, but the giggles from the next row are unmistakable. He’s used to them, though, and gives no outward reaction as he reaches forward to grab the paper, never rising above his height when seated. He slides back into his seat unseen by Amakata-sensei, turning the page right side up.
When is your birthday? June 30th, Haruka writes.
What are your hobbies? Swimming, cooking, art. This isn’t as hard as he thought.
What are your interests? Swimming. The ocean. Foreign music.
Haruka sneaks another peek inside his desk, Prince’s “1999” album making seductive eyes at him through the Walkman’s window. Haruka’s father works for Sony, and even though Prince’s label is Warner Brothers he didn’t hesitate to bring it and several others back from the US. Haruka thinks all the time his father spends out of Japan is warping his sense of brand loyalty, but if it means lots of music for him he will not complain. It doesn’t tend to reflect in his English exams (translating ‘Baby, you’re much too fast’ to Japanese hasn’t shown up on a test yet), but Haruka understands the language far better than most of his class. Lyrics are a window into the wider world beyond provincial Iwatobi, beyond the borders of Japan; he’s learning about nuclear war, political strife, religious suppression of ideas - all from foreign music (and a lot of trips to the library coupled with much dictionary-diving).
What is your dream for the future? Haruka hesitates, not quite sure how to put it into words. There’s so much he wants to do: he wants to see and understand the things he hears about in music; he wants to swim in waters everywhere; he wants to find a small spot of his own apart from a culture that withholds its validation unless he’s like everyone else.
I want, he writes at last, to be free.
Amakata collects the papers and dismisses the class for lunch. Haruka gathers up his bento and the Walkman, hurrying out for the quiet and solitude of the roof to share his mackerel with a Little Red Corvette. The teacher watches him go, moving his survey to the top of the stack. She sorts it to one side, beginning to divide the remainder of them into boys and girls to clip together and mark before mailing them to the school in Mitaka.
“Amakata-sensei!” Tanaka-sensei bellows from class 3-1 and she hastens away, mindlessly placing Nanase Haruka’s survey in the girls’ stack while stifling the unkind thought about whether Tanaka-sensei is drinking again.
At almost the same time, almost seven hundred kilometers away, Nonohara-sensei in class 3-3 at Mitaka Middle School mistakenly shuffles Tachibana Makoto’s page in with the girls for the exchange, the small note attached to it stating that Makoto-san will be a good match for one of Miho’s difficult students. Both send their surveys without ever realizing their mutual mistake.