I’ve never been so grateful to work with children. Something about being immersed in their teeming world of germs and boogers and open-air coughing has fortified my immune system. Ever since Wednesday night I’ve been feeling out of sorts, but nothing like what the others must be feeling. Yoshino took her first sick day ever yesterday, and the other teachers are in various stages of cold and flu. I seem to be the only one unaffected, otherwise I’d say we’d been drugged. I do feel something though. Light-headed. Ever since salsa night I’ve been walking on the bottom of the ocean; a very relaxed state for the past forty-eight hours. I try to remember the last time I felt so at ease. Before I got mono, that’s for sure. It feels like a strange form of déjà vu.

There is more déjà vu waiting for me when the elevator doors slide closed on my Senior students. It is now eerily quiet for a Friday night at Zozo. No kids, no teachers, no light evening chit-chat with live human beings. Sadly, Lieko is the only sign of life I can see. Rather than bothering to make small talk with her, I head back to Room Five to tidy up my things. The only other teacher who isn’t sick from Wednesday night, Lieko is solely focused on typing away whatever report she has on the reception desk computer, with a look on her face like she’s been drinking vinegar. I think I know why she didn’t get sick: my hypothesis is it had something to do with that lotus-laden sangria, but that still doesn’t make sense. I drank it, and I was fine.

First I clean up my cards and Jenga pieces, then fold up the tables and push them up against the wall, leaving one table in the corner. It’s all I need to do to get the room ready for Hitomu. He didn’t show up for his makeup lesson yesterday, and after drilling Manager, despite his wicked hangover, I learned that I’d be getting a bonus for Hitomu coming in tonight. That’s all I’m going to keep telling myself to get through this last hour of the night.

To kill a little more time (and look busy), I retrieve the “窓” rag from the washroom and go around the school, cleaning up the viewing windows in each room. Still no students, no teachers in sight. Even Manager has disappeared somewhere. Déjà vu, indeed. If the lights weren’t on and Lieko wasn’t sitting on the other side of the reception desk, I’d grab my things and run home.

I pass through the silent lobby again. Lieko still doesn’t look up from the computer, but I’m out of things to do. “Where is everyone?” I finally ask.