365 Days

3

The rest of the class gathers their things as the teacher begins erasing the numbers on the board.

"Everyone have a nice evening and a safe trip home." The teacher beams with a warm smile, then turns to the back of the room, glaring at Langa and Reki. "Everyone except Hasegawa-kun and Kyan-kun."

Langa and Reki quickly glance at the other students as they quickly leave the classroom, like the traitors they are. They turn to the front and watch their teacher walk around to the board and tap it twice, motioning them to come to the front of the room.

As Langa stands up, Reki begins to not-so-gracefully stumble out of his seat. Though he attempts to catch himself—Reki falls onto his knees, groaning in response. Langa widens his eyes at Reki's vocal response to the fall, feeling empty in his stomach.

"Reki, are you okay?" He kneels down.

"Be quick about it, you two." The teacher grumbles in an annoyed tone. Langa turns back to the teacher, sighing to himself.

Reki quickly steadies himself on the leg of his desk and pulls himself back on his feet, proceeding to walk up to the board with Langa. The teacher pulls out a bucket from behind his chair and slams it on the desk.

"Look inside. What do you see?" He says, pointing at the gray bucket. The boys lean over the desk to look inside and to their unsurprising displeasure, they finnd cleaning supplies.

"Rags and cleaning spray, sir." Reki answers. The teacher huffs in affirmation as he points at the clock. "Mhm, that's right. And what's that?"

"A clock?" Langa stammers, not knowing whether he'd pronounced it correctly.

"Indeed, it is. It's currently 2 o'clock and I intend to leave here by 3:30. So, you have one hour and a half to clean this classroom spotless." They both crane their heads forward in shock as they scan the classroom.

How are they expected to clean an entire classroom, with stains and dust spread all over the area in less than two hours?

As if the teacher read into their panicked minds, he steps out from behind his desk to his right, where Reki is planted at.

"Let this serve as a reminder/lesson(a/n: i couldn't decide on which one sounded better, please help) to never show up late to my class." He grunts, walking out of the classroom, with his heavy steps fading into the hallway.

Reki scowls took the cleaning tools out of the bucket. He handed Langa a rag and spray bottle.

"C'mon, let's just get this done and get outta here." Reki grits his teeth. Before Langa can say anything, the redhead begins walking away to window.

Still silence haunts the classroom as they clean, apart from the staccato squeals from the wiping and release of air from the sprays.

Five minutes pass, then ten, then twenty—eventually turning into an hour of tiresome wiping and before they know it, Reki and Langa are nearly finished, all without a single word being said.

Reki taps on Langa's shoulder, and as much as he desperately wants to say, "Yes?", he doesn't dare speak the first word in an hour.

Instead, he raises his eyebrows, as if to ask him what he needs. Reki points at the bottle of disinfectant on a desk next to Langa; Langa hands it to him, mildly disappointed that all Reki wanted was a cleaning tool. Granted, they are cleaning, but this much radio silence from Reki is becoming overwhelmingly stressful and in no way enjoyable.