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Let’s talk about the children who climbed a mountain each morning to receive their education because they were shunned by society.
Let’s talk about the children who were given guns and knives, and became responsible for the fate of their planet.
Let’s talk about the children who were taught that they mattered by a man labeled as a monster.
Let’s talk about the children that, at no more than fifteen years of age, pinned down their beloved teacher and watched him die by their hands.
Let’s talk about the children who lost the only person that believed they had any worth in them.
Let’s talk about the children of Class 3-E.
Karma Akabane lies in bed and reflects on the irony of his situation. His greatest desire, once upon a time, had been to kill a teacher. And he got what he wanted. He doesn’t regret it—as an assassin, it was a job well done. Yet he finds himself thinking, Then why did he need to be such a damn good teacher?
Yuma Isogai gets his younger siblings to stay at a bench with the promise of ice-cream. He walks up to the shrine and drops a few coins into the offering box. He tugs firmly on the rope to ring the bell, then bows and claps twice. With his hands clasped in front of him, he prays for him and his classmates to have the strength to move on. He bows again and opens his eyes, feeling just a little lighter.
Taiga Okajima picks up a camera and documents the little things. A dandelion in the shade, a stray cat with white paws, a purple sunset. He tapes the pictures into a notebook and writes the dates beneath them. He, like the rest of his class, knows that nothing can last forever. But he also knows, from the photos in their yearbook, that moments can be captured, frozen in time and always ready to be relived.
Hinata Okano spends her days doing sit-ups and handsprings until her muscles jellify. She imagines all her feelings pouring out of her body in the form of sweat. When she’s finished, her head’s a little clearer. As she does her cooldown stretches, she remembers her advice book: Don’t forget to drink plenty of fluids when you exercise! She drops to the ground, her head in her hands, and she laughs as her eyes grow wet.
Manami Okuda cries all the tears she has and then begins to write down all the words she wants to say. She can’t quite get them to flow the way she wants them to, and maybe she never will, but she fills page after page after page. She ends up with a twenty-something page letter she won’t get to send. It’s awkward and choppy at best, but it hurts a tiny bit less, now that her feelings are somewhere. She thinks he would be proud to know how she’s still learning what words could do.
Meg Kataoka walks up the well-worn mountain path with a broom, a spray bottle, and rags. She spends the morning sweeping away the fine bits of dust in each room of the school building and scrubbing each desk squeaky-clean. She takes special care with the teacher’s podium up front, and her eyes prick when she notices a tiny octopus carved into it.
Kaede Kayano curls up in bed and doesn’t move. Loss isn’t something new to her, but that didn’t make it ache any less. The back of her neck tingles, and she thinks of how much it used to hurt and why it doesn’t now. She would cry if she weren’t so, so tired. She falls asleep in her sister’s old T-shirt and a torn necktie in her fist.
Yukiko Kanzaki sits on the floor of her bedroom, staring out the window with her advice book open in her lap. There are barely any stars out, thanks to light pollution, but she thinks that the one at the base of the crescent moon is shining particularly bright. She whispers quietly to it, “Thank you.” She hopes he can hear.
Justice Kimura runs laps at the park. He thinks if he pushes himself hard enough, he can run away from everything in his head—he was supposed to represent justice. Was what they did really the right thing to do? Could they have saved him? Was this really justice? Once, he had wanted the ten billion yen reward. Now, he just wants his teacher back.
Hinano Kurahashi wakes up with her pillow damp. Her dream was filled with golden light and a soft voice saying, “Goodbye.” Her expression crumples when she remembers that night, and she covers her mouth with her hands to muffle her sobs. She feels selfish to cry this much, but she can’t help it, not when they lost the only teacher who cared enough to stop and help them.
Nagisa Shiota visits a small sushi place with both his parents and laughs under his breath when he recognizes which one it is. He takes a seat and remembers who had once sat here, inviting him to a New Year’s festival. He glances next to him, where his mother and father awkwardly make small talk. Maybe they will never be the same, but they were nudged to try, and for that, he’s forever grateful.
Sosuke Sugaya picks up a brush, closes his eyes, and pulls from his memory an image of a wide smile and yellow tentacles. He opens his eyes and begins to paint. Wet droplets fall onto his canvas, and he turns them into glowing pearls, drifting up into a night sky. When he finishes, he takes a step back to examine the portrait. He ruefully smiles, knowing the subject would object to the lack of a jawline.
Tomohito Sugino thumbs through his advice book, marveling at the sheer length of it. When he reaches the end of it, his eyes widen in shock. He pulls out an autograph from the pro-pitcher Arita. Throat thick with emotion, he remembers how his teacher had gotten it in the first place. He mouths his thanks through his laughter.
Ryouma Terasaka sits by the edge of a pool on a mountain, chucking pebbles into the water and watching them sink. He remembers how once, he’d almost killed his classmates. He remembers the time when everyone nearly drowned right here because of him, and how they didn’t. Now, they don’t have anyone to save them, but then again, they don’t need saving anymore.
Kotaro Takebayashi pulls open the files he has downloaded on his laptop. He rereads the statistics and data and checks all the numbers and facts. Less than one percent. They had all the calculations right. So why did it end up like this? For a brief moment, he thinks maybe it’s because they’re the End Class, and that they’re doomed to fail everything they try to do. He instantly stops that train of thought—they’d succeeded in their mission. It should be enough.
Ryunosuke Chiba stares up at the ceiling and thinks about the concept of invincibility. In the end, what did Mach 20 speed and superpowers matter if you still got killed in the end? No one is invincible, and anyone who thought otherwise is simply naive. He shakes his head and lets out a breathless laugh, somewhat bitterly. They were all a little young and dumb, then, and he the most foolish of all.
Rio Nakamura spends her reward money for the first time at a barber shop. She asks for her hair to get cut to her shoulders, and then re-dyed. The bright yellow locks tumbling to the ground look like severed tentacles. She closes her eyes until the hairdresser is finished. She picks a dirty blonde color not unlike her natural hair. For now, she doesn’t want any more reminders of her last year of junior high.
Kirara Hazama hides herself in books and doesn’t resurface for days and days. She drowns out the feelings in words and jumpscares. She can handle fear and madness, specializes in them even. What she cannot do, however, is manage grief. Sadness is a different type of chaos, whirling in and twisting apart your insides. It shreds everything without warning and when it has made itself at home, it seems it’ll never leave. She hates it.
Rinka Hayami turns her gun in her hands, hovering her finger over the trigger but not pressing down. She remembers the time she’d missed her shot by zero-point-five seconds, giving their target—their teacher—nearly seven months more to live. She wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t missed. It would hurt less, she thinks, if they’d managed to kill him before they learned to love him so much.
Sumire Hara bakes dozens and dozens of cookies, carefully icing them. It takes her nearly three full days, but she’s satisfied when she sees all the yellow faces smiling up at her. She places several into each of the twenty-seven boxes and carefully seals them, complete with a handwritten note. The day after is spent delivering them to her classmates’ homes. They aren’t okay right now, but they will be in time. And she will be too.
Yuzuki Fuwa chews on the back of her pencil and wonders why it didn’t end the way it was supposed to. She knows how the tale goes—the main character loses their mentor, but moves on to honor the teachings that have been passed down to them. They don’t grieve, but instead continue the legacy and story. So what is she doing wrong? Why can’t she stop missing him?
Hiroto Maehara does his best not to think about what he’s dubbed That Night. He doesn’t want to have to cry over it anymore; once was enough. What happened has happened, and nothing can change it. He repeats this to himself daily, hoping it’ll stick. He still gels his hair and flirts relentlessly and juggles multiple dates in a day, but now he’s trying to hide a sadness in his eyes as well.
Koki Mimura revisits the film he made last summer. He laughs at the sheer absurdity of some of the shenanigans, but sobers a little when he thinks about how this film will be the only thing that holds the truth. They did not kill a monster. They killed their target. Their teacher. He hates that everyone will remember their class as saviors of the world when there was nothing it needed saving from.
Takuya Muramatsu hides in the kitchen. In spices and aromas. He tries to recreate memories to the best of his abilities. Creamy vanilla puddings, earthy noodle soups, crispy takoyaki. He tweaks the recipes and shows them to his parents when he’s finished. Pride flickers in him when the new dishes go on their menu; the customers don’t know, but each bite they take is a carefully crafted representation of his time with a most peculiar teacher.
Toka Yada tries to run from her thoughts. She’s scared of who she may lose next. Of who else will slip through her fingers. And she’s most terrified of all when she sits by a white bedside, holding a small hand in her own. When she sleeps, she sees her brother, face pale and body skinny, fade into light and join the moon. She wakes up with tear-stained cheeks.
Taisei Yoshida throws his textbooks against the wall. He screams when no one is around to hear him. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair. He hates the God of Death, he hates Shiro, he hates their government, he hates himself, he hates the world. Why did they need to kill him? He had been harmless, they'd loved him, why? He doesn’t know if he can ever forgive this.
Autonomously Intelligent Fixed Artillery (Ritsu) attempts to understand what she’s feeling. She combs through extensive dictionaries online, reads articles and magazines, listens to interviews. She resurfaces from her research with one word: grief. It’s different from the other emotions she’s acquired. Unlike joy and compassion, grief weighs her down, suffocates her. She doesn’t know what to do with it.
Itona Horibe twists a purple bandana in his hands, feeling the delicate fabric. He thinks about strength. He thinks about the story of a man who had no one and lost the only person who showed him love. How that man braved the pain and shared the love with twenty-eight lost children. That’s a different kind of strength from the one he used to hunger for, but it’s the one he wants now.
Together, they laughed, they cried, they clashed, they studied, they won, they failed. They visited the moon, they were kidnapped, they tasted blood. They killed.
They grieved, and they healed. They made sure not one of them would ever have to be alone again. They held the lessons of their teacher and didn’t let go. They graduated middle school with the knowledge of biology and Japanese literature, but also the value of teamwork, the power of creativity, and the strength of perseverance. They grew up to be politicians and technicians and gymnasts and librarians.
These are the children of the assassination classroom.
These are the students of Korosensei.