Promptober 2026 Day 10: Renegade
May 23, 3:15pm.
Rm 222
That’s what was written on the corner of her form, right under her name.
Room 222 was a classroom, but it was clear from the moment Taki opened the door that no actual teaching took place here. The not-unpleasant aroma of dust and chalk permeated the stale air. Two rows of desks faced the lectern and the chalkboard at the front of the room, but behind them, the space was wide open and littered with open boxes, disused chairs, stacks of textbooks and printer paper, and sheet music stands. Long grey blinds were pulled down over the windows, but the afternoon light streamed in through every gap and crinkle, casting shimmering patterns on the opposite wall.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. The moment that she crossed the threshold, she suddenly became aware of a hundred little sensations that every resident of the school spent their entire day filtering out - shoes squeaking on tile, the scrape of chairs against the floor, the distant wafting bready aroma of the canteen, the much closer astringent nostril-buzzing lemon smell of class 2-C mopping the hallway outside their classroom, the laughter of girls, the distant musical metallic crangk of a softball bat making contact with a ball.
She breathed in deeply. Goosebumps rippled up her arms under the sleeves of her cardigan.
The sensation passed, and Taki reached over and flicked on the lights.
Watanabe-sensei arrived five minutes late. A slender, knobbly man of about fifty, he wore a pair of large round rimless glasses that gave him the appearance of an owl. Taki knew him as the jazz orchestra instructor that had tried and failed to recruit her during her second week. Evidently, he was also the school’s career counselor. Watanabe-sensei always spoke quietly and at length, making conversations difficult to participate in.
“Good afternoon, good afternoon– oh, well, it’s Shiina-san. Well, well, yes, it’s your second year already, hmm? Of course it is.” He dropped a briefcase and a stack of folders on the lectern and removed one from the top, then pulled a chair around to sit across from Taki, murmuring the entire way. “What a pity you opted not to join the jazz orchestra, I’ve always thought– well, of course, Kanae-san is a perfectly talented drummer, but with college entrance exams on the horizon, she has less and less time to devote to the orchestra– well, at any rate, that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?” He chuckled, leafing through his folder.
“Er… yes,” Taki said.
“Of course, today is not the day for remediating my prior recruitment failures - though I daresay we would make a Joe Morello out of you yet, but never mind, never mind - but rather, today we’re starting the conversation that will serve as a pathway through the rest of your education at Hanasakigawa. Namely, of course, that is to say, your aspirations. Now, of course, you filled out your career survey, these were all gathered up, let’s see…” Watanabe pulled out a sheet from his folder, squinted at it for a moment or two, then returned it. “No– Yahata, of course, I’m speaking with her later this afternoon, let’s see– ah, yes.” His face lit up as he found the sheet he was looking for. “Shiina– yes, here you are. And for your top three, you put…”
Watanabe lapsed into silence as he read her form, during which time Taki said nothing.
Here we go, she thought.
Watanabe peered over the sheet at her.
“Am I interpreting this correctly?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Taki said.
“For your first choice, you wrote– ‘Nothing at all.’ I see.” He chuckled. “Most of the students don’t actually write ‘Nothing at all,’ you know, they just leave it blank– as you have done here, with your second and third choices.
“Yes, sir,” Taki said again.
“And I assume, bright as you are, that there was no confusion on your part as to the nature of the exercise here?”
“Yes.”
Watanabe leaned back in his chair, a bemused smile on his face. “Well,” he said. “Go ahead, Shiina-san. Your case, please.”
“...I’m in a band,” Taki said. “I’m going to play music with them professionally after school.”
“Many young ladies at this school are in a band,” Watanabe said. “As pleased as I am that you have an outlet for your creativity, I fear the music industry cannot support all of you graduating into immediate multi-platinum records. Do you have an agent?”
“No.”
“A manager?”
“No– well, me, I guess–”
“A producer?”
“I kind of… do that, too.”
Watanabe spread his hands.
“I know,” Taki said. “I know. I just–” She broke off. Her jaw was clenched, and she stared down at the desk. “I’m not doing a good job of explaining it. I know that it’s going to be hard. But if I work hard enough, if I devote all of myself to this–”
“The problem,” Watanabe said, “is not one of hard work.” He leaned forward in his chair. “It is not enough, I’m afraid, to be the person who works the hardest. Nor is it enough to be the most talented musician. Determination will carry you a short distance, but the x-factor is simply luck. My job, Shiina-san, is to make sure that if you are not lucky, you will have some kind of plan to fall back on, and be well-prepared for the eventuality.
“So - do me a favor,” he said, and handed Taki’s survey back to her. “Let us pretend, for the sake of this exercise, that you are not going to succeed. Your first choice has failed. You devoted your life and every waking moment to this band, and it was not enough. With the whole of your life ahead of you, then, what would you like to do? What would bring you comfort? What would make you successful? What would make you happy? And then, when you’ve thought it over, bring it back to me, and we’ll continue this conversation.”
After he left, she sat at the desk for almost twenty minutes.
She hadn’t really expected him to understand. The promise she had made to Tomori - to all of them - wasn’t something she could communicate with words. Not in a way that would make sense.
They were just going to have to do it, she thought.
They were going to have to make their own way. Whether they liked it or not.