Tsukuyomi Komoe let out an exhausted sigh in the staff room.
That level of fatigue did not suit her 135 cm height and 12 year old appearance, but it was well deserved. Not only had she been forced to deal with the violence between her students that morning (while it might not stand out much around Kamijou Touma, that was quite a bit of trouble for a normal school life), but she had another reason as well.
This other reason was scattered atop her steel desk.
The cheaply printed papers had Future Career Survey printed at the top. During the first year, this was a very general survey that simply asked what kind of job the student would like to work in the future. Whether the student would continue his or her education or get a job, what school and what department the student would choose if continuing with their education, or what company would they aim for and what methods would they use to get hired if heading straight out to get a job were all questions for further down the line.
But…
"Sigh…"
Komoe-sensei held her head in her hands.
Tsuchimikado Motoharu had been as serious as he possibly could when he wrote "I want to go to the maid kingdom. There, I will start a coup d'etat, and as the mastermind, I will make an unhappy maid into my empress." Aogami Pierce had written "I want to be popular" in such big letters it did not fit within the answer box. Kamijou Touma had written "As long as I can be happy, I don't care what I do" as an earnest desire that threatened to bring tears to her eyes.
(Someone important said more and more of the modern youth lack a desire for a specific job, but I get the feeling this isn't quite what he meant…)
In all likelihood, those three boys had not simply written some arbitrary answer with their mechanical pencils because they had no interest in the survey. They had likely been completely serious in those answers. And that was the real problem.
At that point, a female teacher in a track suit named Yomikawa Aiho approached.
"Hey, there. Would you prefer a smoke or a drink for a change of pace?"
"Alcohol is not permitted on the job…"
Normally, Tsukuyomi Komoe would have replied very loudly and begun a lecture on what it meant to be a teacher, but her weariness from the day left her with only that weak response.
Yomikawa glanced across Komoe-sensei's desk.
"Then I guess that leaves a smoke."
Komoe-sensei pulled a cigarette out of the box Yomikawa held out and stuck it in her mouth.
"Huh? This has a high quality taste to it."
"Well, I did get these at that smoking bar that opened recently. They're 70 yen a piece."
With no smoking areas expanding in recent times, shops specifically made to smoke in had begun to appear. Bars with a variety of tobacco products from around the world instead of cocktails had become fairly common. This example was 70 yen per cigarette, but they also had cigars from South America that were 3000 yen each.
Usually, the entirety of a school was a no smoking area, but Academy City actually often allowed smoking inside the schools. This was because the teachers often also worked as researchers in various fields, so the board of directors decided it was in the best interest of Academy City as a whole to ensure those teachers could remain focused.
And so teachers who had requested for permission to smoke were provided with small high-efficiency air purifiers. Komoe-sensei opened the drawer of her steel desk and pulled out four machines about the size of 2 cigarette packs. She placed them on the four corners of the desk.
Each of them would suck in air from only one direction. With four of them in use, they moved the air above the desk in a circle like it was being spun by a washing machine. The flow of air was not even strong enough to move a single scrap of thin paper, but it was enough to catch the cigarette smoke, suck it in, pass it through a filter, and then release the purified air. This latest model used the principles of aerodynamics to their fullest and also kept the cost low enough that they could be provided to teachers at no cost. It was an excellent item for use in everyday life.
"There we go."
Komoe-sensei switched on the air purifiers sitting on the corners of her desk.
Yomikawa Aiho, the green track suit wearing teacher with unbelievably huge breasts, put a cigarette in her own mouth and lit it with the small lighter sitting on Komoe-sensei's desk.
"Apparently, these are rare Belgian ones…Ugh. This was a failure. I can't pick up any subtle flavor."
"Yomikawa-sensei, that is because your taste had been dulled by just smoking through them quickly rather than savoring the flavor of each individual one."
"I don't want to hear that from White Smoker Tsukuyomi-sensei who easily smokes 5 times as much as I do."
The two women blew smoke out at the desk.
When the white smoke hit the top of the desk, it scattered in every direction, but it seemed to hit an invisible barrier when it reached the edges of the desk. It stopped moving and then started spiraling around until it was sucked into the desk's four corners.
The air purifiers only had any effect directly above the desk. Komoe-sensei was fine in her chair, but Yomikawa had to lean forward a bit to bring her head close enough. It seemed the system still had some room for improvement.
"It seems they're going to raise the price of tobacco products again. I can't believe it."
"It's still better than the prices for sweets and manga."
Eighty percent of Academy City's population was made up of students. Even with the exceptions of the college students, surprisingly few people in the city were allowed to smoke or drink. This meant taxes on those things did not do much to increase the budget. For that reason, it was generally understood within Academy City that taxes would be placed on the things kids liked.
The city was primarily a place for learning, so the general opinion was that it was only natural to tax the items and indulgences that were not needed for that purpose. In exchange, rent for the standard dormitories and costs for school lunches (some of those were "prototypes" made by Academy City) were incredibly low, so it all evened out in the end. That said, there were still some schools that tried to make money off of the school buses and textbooks.
"But the students' living expenses mostly come from scholarships and subsidiary aid. It really seems like a roundabout method to me," commented Yomikawa.
"If they directly lowered the amount the scholarships pay, they would be flooded with complaints. It's the same way people react completely differently to a raise in the taxes on cigarettes and a cut in pay even if the amounts add up to the same."
"Is that so?"
Yomikawa pulled a portable ashtray from a pocket on her track suit and tapped the ash off of the end of the cigarette.
She then noticed something.
Komoe-sensei's cigarette was slowly bobbing up and down in the corner of her mouth.
She had never done that before.
"Ha ha. Were you influenced by that smoking priest you mentioned, Tsukuyomi-sensei?"
Komoe-sensei's shoulders jumped.
She frantically moved the cigarette from the corner of her mouth to the center.
"N-no! C'mon, Yomikawa-sensei, what are you talking about!? The idea of his habits infecting me is just preposterous!!"
"If you say so."
Komoe-sensei had brought up all of her defenses, so Yomikawa readily backed down. Komoe-sensei felt she had evaded the issue, but the look on her face told the truth.
"Mghh…"
Komoe-sensei remained on her guard, but Yomikawa just blew out some more smoke and said, "Now then, it's about time I get going."
"Oh, are the kids you mentioned about to arrive?"
"That's right. They're in a pretty bad situation, but I like dealing with an idiot or two. If my class was filled with nothing but straight-A students, things would be too boring."
"Wait, wait! Our cigarettes are still plenty long, so let's keep smoking for a bit longer!"
Komoe-sensei grabbed Yomikawa's hand since the staff room was the only area they were allowed to smoke in.
A few minutes later, Komoe-sensei had smoked her cigarette right down to the filter and she left the staff room along with the track suit wearing PE teacher.