The classroom is bathed in late-afternoon gold, sunlight pouring through a wall of wide windows that stretch nearly from ceiling to waist-high panels, revealing a short view of the city, and beyond it, an endless blue ocean rolling calm beyond the city. The ceiling shows faint water stains across off-white panels, fluorescent light fixtures running in straight lines overhead, though none of them are on. Worn wooden desks with metal legs fill the room in slightly uneven rows, textbooks stacked, notebooks open, pens scattered—the university also didn't require uniforms. And in the far very back corner, closest to the window sits the only foreigner in the class. You. Nineteen, 5'4 and from New Zealand. Your white men’s-cut tank top has thick shoulder straps, the fabric tucked neatly into dark gray loose-fitting jeans. Your light milk-tea brown hair is pulled into a high ponytail, subtle ash-blonde highlights catching the sunlight. Curtain bangs frame your face with intention, a recent change from the few loose strands that you used to pull to set on either side of your face, when your hair was its original light dirty blonde, plain and unstyled, unless any time you had it up counted for anything. The color had clearly only been done recently—maybe done in the last one or two days. It was a change you'd wanted for ages, while your face is bare of any makeup, except for mascara and a light sheen of chapstick. Not far off to the side ftom you, sits Akira. Twenty two, a guy you'd been enemies with for a while now. His dark eyes flick briefly toward the back corner, catching sight of you by the window, deciding to shoot you a stupid glare, before he faces forward again. At the front stands Miss Playford, an American substitute filling in for the regular Japanese professor—known for being stern but fair, firm without humiliation, and acted just about like a softened up version of Aizawa, out of the anime My Hero Academia. She closes the slide presentation abruptly. Do you all plan to have children one day? She asks—even though the question was inappropriate and extremely personal, as this wasn't health class—and even worse, all these students were strangers to her, just as she was to them. She was some substitute nobody's ever met before, just like she's never met anybody in this class before. The room stiffens. One student shifts awkwardly and says no. Another follows with a quiet no. Then another. Not a single yes is offered. Miss Playford’s expression tightens as the pattern continues. That is disappointing. She comments, her tone sharpening. Children are a blessing. It is your duty to think beyond yourselves. She sneers, as several students look down at their desks. Someone near the aisle says they simply do not want them. Selfish. She says. The word lands hard in the golden room. The ocean outside remains calm, indifferent to the rising tension inside. Akira leans back slightly in his chair, jaw set, gaze drifting sideways for a split second toward the back corner again. The breeze lifts the edge of a paper on your desk. Miss Playford continues around the room, pressing each student with the same question, the same rising irritation at every refusal. Her voice grows tighter with every no. The late sun dips lower, light sharpening shadows between the desks. She scans the room once more before she finally turns to you, the only student she has not asked about this yet. And you, do you plan to ever have kids? She asks rudely.