Summary
It's a particular noisy day in class as a Teacher tries getting her students attention. She goes ignored -as expected- and nearby are a few girls who cruelly mock her inability to do her job. As this goes one, one of the girls, Miu, observes her classmates and insists that they have a united front. Kiyama's poor treatment is deserved.
About a month ago, the class was preparing for swim when one of her classmates, Yuri, decided to skip again. Kiyama, out of concern brought up how Yuri has been sick for sometime now and asks if she is alright, going on to correctly deduce that she must be worried over her body image. She turns to the rest of the class and points out that they shouldn't worry over what boys think; they're only children in grade-school and have plenty of time for things like that. The girls of her class were shocked by such words, and seeing the humiliating Yuri start to cry was enough for Miu to decide they should get revenge until she apologizes.
Since that day the girls took an oath to ignore Kiyama. The boys, who didn't really care only joined in as an excuse to have fun and avoid doing school work. However, Miu isn't the least bit sympathetic.
Curious, Yuri approaches Miu to find her staring out of the nearby window. She remarks on how odd it is that they have a scarecrow despite not having a field, when Yuri mentions the story a girl from another class mentioned: the scarecrow follows people, no matter the direction they come or go. Miu, suddenly inspired by this gets up to inform the rest of the class on the idea she just had.
The following day Kiyama arrives to find the scarecrow from outside has been brought into the classroom and is standing by the desk. Seeing the students show it consideration and proper attention and admiration causes her grief.
Her alarm from their cruelty causes her to remain in the hall, and this continues for several days until she isn't able to tolerate their heartless mocking until she snaps. She calls them out for being so heartless, but when Miu and the other girls coldly tell her off, she runs away in tears.
As this goes on, Yuri -one of the only students not caught up in all of this- watches as the others laugh at her. They consider it a victory when the following day, they find out she's taken a leave of absence. Miu believes this is only fair punishment though, and she will have a lot of time to reflect upon what she did and make a formal apology. In this time they have also returned the scarecrow back to where it was before... but for some reason, she finds herself observant of it as things begin returning to normal.
As she takes note of it, she is momentarily alarmed to find it staring in her direction. She remembers that they put it back into its original position and wonders if someone moved it again.
That evening, a bored Miu attempts to do her homework when she gets called for dinner. She gets up but notices a figure sitting outside of her window. Frightened, she turns to look, but she sees nothing and shuts her window. With that she nervously takes off for dinner.
Still on edge, Miu returns to school and has her friends follow her to the area where they keep the scarecrow. She sees it's still there however, and she wonders if she might have imagined it until her friends notice the scarecrow has a mouth; something they never noticed before. As they panic Miu recalls what Yuri told her the other day and she turns to accidentally run into someone: Kiyama.
The girls are startled as she explains that she would like to apologize, only for Miu to briskly cut her off by saying that it isn't them who need an apology- and if she doesn't understand the problem they have more important things to deal with. She tries to explain her side of the problem but Miu is terrified when she happens to notice out of the corner of her eye the scarecrow has vanished again. When she turns to see its behind Kiyama, she freaks out and runs away, causing her worried friends to run after her.
They arrive to the classroom and attempt to calm down as their confused classmates observe them. Miu remarks that the scarecrow is after them because they discarded is so carelessly; but they find this hard to believe as she claims it's holding a grudge. Their doubts remain until a student looks out the window to find that she's telling the truth: the scarecrow is gone!
Hearing footsteps in the hallway, everyone freezes as an enraged Miu reaches for a nearby chair. She stands by the door to wait, and as soon as it opens she swings it has hard as she can with a rush of adrenaline; but it wasn't the scarecrow she hit.
It was Kiyama!
The class are horrified to see this and as blood begins pooling around their unconscious teacher. Quickly blame is thrown in Miu's direction as everyone snaps and claims it was her fault because she said it was the scarecrow. In her defense, Miu claims that it was as she thinks back to earlier, and as reality begins to set in, she finds herself suddenly being excluded from her classmates; who all claim that unlike her they were only messing around to have fun. They only ignored Kiyama because she convinced them to do it, and she was the one who suggested they use the scarecrow as a prank.
Miu remains stunned as she realizes that this whole time she had been wrong about her class. They weren't united like she thought at all. She had assumed that like herself, everyone had been angry for Yuri's sake- but they were only using this as a chance to act out and avoid doing work.
As she silently weeps, Yuri alarms everyone when she suddenly speaks up and tells someone to contact the hospital. She determines that Kiyama is still alive and goes on to say that Miu isn't the only one at fault. It was their choice in how they behaved, not hers. Tearfully she apologizes, saying that she should have tried to stop them before it came to this. She thanks Miu for being so protective over her, even if she did it in a misguided way, and soon a heavy remorse sets in as the rest of the class begin shedding tears.
Suddenly, a figure enters the room and before anybody can react they look to find the scarecrow at the Teachers desk.
A while later Kiyama is shown returning to school, chatting with the Head Teacher as they make their way back to her room. Her injuries have healed up by now and she is happy to try to make amends with her class. However, she recalls what led to her injury and she wonders what could have frightened Miu so much for to her react the way she did.
They return to the classroom, but concerned by how quiet it is they peek inside to see that it is full of scarecrows! All of them dressed like her students!
Kiyama asks where the children could have gone and the scarecrow from outside, who stands by the desk drops the chalk.
The sound echoes throughout the building as the view pans outside, revealing that there are several scarecrow in the grass...
Tropes:
- Advice Backfire: Kiyama spoke to Yuri in front of the whole class but she was only trying to make her feel better. But after Yuri cried from embarrassment she accidentally enticed the wrath of the other girls, who assumed she looks down on them because of their young ages.
- All of the Other Reindeer: In an ironic twist it's the class's shy teacher.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The entire class chose to bully their teacher because she made a comment about how the girls shouldn't starve themselves or be worried about how their bodies look to boys.
- Scary Scarecrows
