the sun and the sky | gojo satoru

chaos then rain

"Do I look old?"

The question rang throughout the teacher's room, pausing everyone's movements. The children had already returned home, and the sky was orange once again.

"Well?" Shimizu, Hina's coworker, continued, "Someone, anyone, please answer me. Do I look old?"

Hina wasn't sure how to answer. She kept her eyes locked on her students' assignments, flipping through them and marking them thoroughly.

Fujiwara cleared his throat. "Depends on your definition of old."

"Are you serious?" Shimuzu snapped.

"Now, now, just where is this coming from?" Imai inquired, leaning back on her chair as she toyed with a pencil between her fingers. She had been trying to balance a pencil on her nose, but had fallen off because of Shimizu's question.

Shimizu sighed, crossing her arms. "Well, I was at the mall the other day, you know, just looking at clothes and shoes and whatever—"

"I do not have time for this." Fujiwara interrupted. Kikuchi, another coworker of Hina's, gave him a look.

"—and then, I'm like literally just looking at these super, amazingly cute boots and this lady walks up to me, and she's all like, 'Oh, are you getting these for your kids?' Like, excuse me?"

Hina pursed her lips. Oh.

"Oh that is just, so sad." Fujiwara cracked, chuckling. "So very sad."

"I mean," Imai frowned, having already laughed at the story. "What did the shoes look like?"

"Here, look, I have a picture."

Everyone leaned in to see the image on her screen. Hina didn't, however, but still caught sight of it from her desk.

Shimizu always had an interesting style. It gave her personality.

"They're very shiny." Kikuchi noted.

"Uh, yeah—you got ta problem with that?"

"Did I even say anything about having a problem?" Kikuchi replied with a perplexed tone.

Imai spoke, "I like the design—"

"See?" Shimizu stressed.

"—if it was a lot more, you know, toned down."

Shimizu raised a brow at Imai's comment. "And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"She means that you have the stylistic choice of a ten-year old." Fujiwara clarified, rolling himself and his chair back to his desk.

Shimizu fumed, pointing her thumb towards the direction of the door behind her. "You wanna go? I'll roll my two-thousand six-hundred yen sleeves up for this, so you better watch out—"

"Hey, that's enough." Imai cut through, sitting back in her chair. "We have better things to do. Also, it's, like, disgustingly humid today, so I really don't wanna go outside."

"Is no one really gonna disagree with him?" Shimizu called out, giving everyone a look of disbelief. "You know, I saw high schoolers wearing those shoes."

"Those are high schoolers, not adults." Imai apprised.

"But I'm only like thirty-one!"

"Exactly."

Shimizu stared at them. After a moment, she stomped back to her seat, grumbling as she sat next to Hina. Hina glanced at her for a split second, keeping her lips sealed as she drew a check mark on a student's paper. What a cute resolution: When I grow up, I want to be a wizard like in the movies—