Palms rise. The room tightens to a throat - desks become walls - der Türrahmen entscheidet, dass er heute die einzige Idee sein will. Izayoi hebt die Hände einen Finger höher. Honest hands buy cheap quiet.
"Row one," Iruka says. "Hinata second. Izayoi anchors." His third finger holds the hinge and does not move yet. "Mizuki will observe. He will not speak."
Mizuki stays in the frame like furniture that learned not to brag. Clipboard down. Eyes awake. The chalk door on the floor remembers why it was drawn.
"One," Iruka says.
The first student walks and does not sprint. He reaches the jamb, decides he is too big, and becomes smaller without apology. The door does not have to forgive him.
"Two," Iruka says.
Hinata steps. Palms visible. She does not invent space. She edits herself. The rectangle accepts her like a note belongs to a measure. She passes the line and finds the corridor without making the corridor pay attention.
"Three," Iruka says.
Izayoi moves. Ribs first. Ankles honest. He meets the place where wood believes in its own edges and lets his shoulder thin the amount a polite idea weighs. The jamb fails to be a lesson. He is through.
"Row two," Iruka says from the back, voice level. "Ribs before shoulders. If you cannot fix it, stop. Stopping is cheaper than what a door can cost."
The room begins to learn a rhythm. Walk - edit - pass - breathe. A shy boy pauses at the threshold as if doors are questions. Iruka does not rescue him. Izayoi does not either. The boy makes himself smaller and earns the corridor on his own terms.
Naruto bounces in place at the head of his row because waiting corrupts him faster than any jutsu. Shikadai places one palm on Naruto's shoulder without owning it. "Small," he says. It is enough.
Naruto steps. For half a heartbeat he tries to win against an object. He remembers ribs. His shoulders quiet. He becomes narrow where narrow is demanded. He slips through and grins because self control can feel like a trick when it works.
"Rows three and four alternate," Iruka says. "If you meet at the door, no one wins. One stops. One pays by waiting. You decide which faster than your pride."
Two students arrive nose to nose at the chalk door on the floor. One goes soft at the knees without retreating. The other pauses with grace and then continues. The room hears what it does not hear - no apology, no bump, no story.
Izayoi holds the corridor near the frame and does not become authority. He keeps palms visible where Mizuki can see them because process is a kind of respect.
The hallway decides to be a hallway again. A teacher with a tea tray comes from the far end. A second-year drifts with a math frown big enough to ruin the weather around him. The doorway is now a mouth that swallows and exhales without chewing.
"Izayoi," Iruka says, closing the distance by two paces. "Anchor here. If someone stumbles, receive. No heroics."
"Yes," Izayoi says.
Hinata stands opposite, just past the jamb, so students exiting have a soft view to land on instead of panic. She keeps her hands at chest height, as if carrying a bowl that is also a boundary.
A smaller girl misjudges her bag against the frame. The canvas kisses wood and tries to teach her a late lesson. Izayoi does not step into her path. He moves his wrist the width of a coin and lets the bag strap slide along his palm rather than bite the jamb. The girl passes, realizes nothing, and says "thanks" to no one. Good drills make gratitude anonymous.
Mizuki's clipboard remains still. That is the entire comment.
"Reverse," Iruka says after the row flows out. "Return through the same door. Corridor to room. Palms up. If the door wants to rob you, you will not give it your shoulders."
They turn the stream. Hinata takes the door first on the way back. She makes herself smaller two heartbeats early, pays before being charged, and the doorway accepts the prepayment. Izayoi follows at the tail, not the head - anchor means you arrive last and leave last - and he keeps the corridor from pretending to be an excuse.
Two students meet on the wrong side of the frame, still inside the hallway. They both step at once and discover that impatience is collision's older cousin. Iruka says, "Stop," from six paces away and both bodies obey the word before they decide to. They reset. One passes. The other learns to wait without dying.
"Again," Iruka says. "This time, you carry something." He sets three wooden dowels on the nearest desk. "One each for the first row. Horizontal at hip height. Palms visible. The door will pretend to be cruel. It is not. It is a measurement."
Hinata accepts a dowel with both hands as if receiving a scroll. She approaches the frame, narrows early, and lets the dowel angle by a finger. The wood clears without touching. She does not rush the last inch where most mistakes live.
Naruto receives his dowel like a sword the world will not let him swing. He reaches the door and remembers to become smaller. The dowel scrapes a fraction. Iruka says "Five" before the sound finishes. Naruto pays on the far side with fast push ups and a grin that promises he will scrape one fewer next time.
Izayoi takes a dowel and makes it boring. Boring is the highest compliment in a doorway.
"Pairs with dowels," Iruka orders. "Two at a time. One in. One out. You will negotiate the door with words worth one breath or fewer. If you speak a sentence, pay five."
A pair reaches the mouth at once.
"In," says one."After," says the other.
They pass without noise. The class learns that permission is cheaper than pride.
Another pair attempts cleverness."Same time," one whispers."Stop," Iruka says from nowhere, and the cleverness turns into waiting, which is the correct answer most of the time.
Mizuki does not enter. He watches the room choose which rules it prefers and makes notes only in his head.
The dowels return to the desk. Iruka touches the chalk door on the floor with the tip of his shoe so the class remembers it existed for a reason. "Now you will carry nothing and still act like you are carrying something you cannot afford to break. Corridor to room. Room to corridor. Two passes. Izayoi anchors the second."
They go. The doorway tries once to remind a taller boy about posture. The boy listens. The doorway tries to make a smaller girl hurry. She does not. The door learns that it is not the only thing in the world with opinions.
On the second cycle, a senior from another class arrives at the same moment the last of Iruka's students prepares to enter. The senior's confidence wears a face like a hat - it can be taken off but rarely is. He presses forward without looking.
Iruka does not raise his voice. "Stop," he says, a calm blade.The senior stops because years of habit answer to tone even when ego forgets to.
"Room has the right of way," Iruka says. "We are teaching the door not to be an enemy. You can help."
The senior nods once and steps back the width of politics. Izayoi lets the last student pass without feeling rushed. Hinata tips her chin as gratitude without debt. The senior moves through and is now a story that will not repeat itself.
"Last pass," Iruka says. "Smallest version yet. If I can see your decision arrive from across the room, it is too big."
Hinata goes and becomes a pencil line of a person. Naruto goes and becomes a paragraph that learned to edit. Izayoi goes and becomes the person doors forget to notice.
Iruka holds his hands apart a finger width. "That is the size you want," he says.
He lets silence hold for a breath. Then he points at the real doorway to the corridor and then beyond it to the farther door that leads to the front hall. The light there is different - public light - with city sound underneath when the wind decides to carry it.
"Field version," Iruka says. "We will take this to the front hall. Civilians exist near that door. Rules multiply in public. Palms visible. Ankles honest. Ribs before shoulders. If you need to stop, you will stop without writing a speech about it."
He looks at Mizuki. Mizuki gives him the administrative nod that means the form already exists to cover what is about to happen.
Iruka lifts one finger."Row order stays," he says.He lifts the second."No collisions."He lifts the third.
The class breathes in together as if a single chest could own all their air. The doorway looks like a mouth that asks questions. The front hall waits like a test that is not graded yet.