Report 7

Plot
As Ryō walks over to Arata to find his seat in the list, Arata is anxious to find out what he is doing there. Ryō reminds him that in the classroom they have to be careful to keep up the appearance of having no prior connection in order to keep the experiment a secret.

After the start of the semester speech assembly with several students coughing in the audience, which Arata found nostalgic, the class meets in the homeroom for introductions. The homeroom teacher, Kokoro Amatsu, begins by telling it is her first time leading a class, and Arata notes that she is probably younger than him. Ryō is the first 'student' to give his introduction, from which Arata finds out that Ryō was actually in the same class the previous year as well.

Later in the round of introductions, Arata finds out that the girl whose seat he took by mistake earlier is named Chizuru Hishiro, and that she too was in the same class the previous year. He hears other students whispering that she has been consistently ranked the best-performing student in their year, and notes that she really does give out a clever atmosphere. This makes him remember his own school days, thinking that every generation seems to have its prodigies.

Trivia

 * Towards the end of the chapter, Arata thought to himself "Even though times have changed, those smart types of students still exist" as in "somethings never change". The title of this chapter literally translates to "different times", which derives from parts of the above train of thought, and is not so much about "generation gap" (which gets explored in later chapters).
 * The events in this chapter took place on April 8th, 2013.