Silence

"Alright everyone, today, we're going to be doing a simple science experiment to review some of the lessons from last semester..."

Mr. Iguchi had barely started explaining the project before the students were already raising their hands and talking amongst themselves.

"Class, settle down. Save your questions until the end, please. We're going to be working in groups of two..."

And with that, everyone's hands came down.

"...according to a random selection based on the seating chart..."

And with that, the entire class groaned.

Mr. Iguchi reached into a small jar, pulling out small slips of paper.

"Kaidou and... Kuboyasu. Hairo and... Kawashima..."

Mr. Iguchi continued to read off the names, until only a handful of students were left- including Saiki and Teruhashi.

God, please let me and Saiki-kun get paired up together!

God, please don't let me and Teruhashi-san get paired up together.

"Teruhashi and... Takahashi."

No!

Yes!

"Saiki and... Akechi."

Saiki looked over at Akechi, who had a big, dorky grin on his face.

Good grief. Not this again.

Akechi glanced over at Saiki, who was currently glancing over at him, and partially hid his face in his arms.

Oh my goodness, he saw me, didn't he? I'm too obvious with these things. Or maybe he could've been paying attention to something else. He can probably hear me... I wonder what kind of experiment we're going to be doing. This reminds me of that one class in fourth grade...

You got over that fast.

Saiki was used to Akechi's awkward thoughts at this point, considering he'd been acting strangely for a while.

One thing that definitely stood out to him was the deafening silence whenever they'd interact.

Distracted by his thoughts, Saiki didn't stand up from his seat until he saw that everyone else was already starting. The only ones who hadn't yet were himself and Akechi, who was waiting patiently at his desk.

...

'What are you waiting for?'

"Oh! Kusuo-kun! I was... waiting for you. We should, um... we should get our things out."

He nodded and joined Akechi over at the table they had been assigned.

"Hey, new kid?"

Akechi saw Kuboyasu holding a testing tube in his hand.

"Were you talking to me? I can't imagine who else you'd be referring to, since the last transfer student before me transferred almost a year ago. Although, I'm certainly not a new transfer student either. I think I've been here long enough to-"

"Okay, okay! Stop it! I wanted to ask you what this liquid was, because the label was scratched, and I had a bet with Shun," he said, pointing to Kaidou. "He says it's a thing called something sulfur? I'm not sure, but I said that I think it was a different color."

"I think what you're holding is iron sulfide. It's made when you mix iron and sulfur. Judging on the materials provided for this experiment, I see that you already mixed the two, and that you've forgotten about the nail. I think we've been provided with these iron nails to be able to identify a displacement reaction with the iron sulfide and the copper. You see, when a highly reactive substance displaces a less reactive one, the atoms of each substance come together to form the new material, pulling the copper away from the nail and sort of taking its place. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure why we were assigned such a simple experiment, but I suppose since it's only a review, I'll overlook it. Did you know that the copper collected around the nail actually-"