
Sorano angrily tells Hara that he needs to care more about his own happiness they kiss, but mutually decide not to pursue a relationship for the time being. Satoshi is dating Hibiki Sano, a student, and Hara intervenes to reconcile their relationship.

Satoshi Arisaka, a teacher Hara once kissed as a student, is hired as a substitute teacher at Touichikou. Sora sets up a date between Hara and Sajō after learning about their history, and Hara achieves a sense of closure on his pursuit of Sajō. In this spin-off series, Hara has an encounter with Aoto "Sora" Sorano at a bar in Ni-chōme, but rebuffs him upon discovering he is a student at Touichikou. Sajō confesses his love for Kusakabe, and they have sex Kusakabe proposes they marry when they turn twenty, which Sajō accepts. At graduation, Sajō and Kusakabe visit the classroom where they met, where they confront their divergent plans for their respective futures.

Kusakabe intends to stay in Tokyo to pursue a career in music, and performs at a music festival in Nîmes that forces him to leave Japan until immediately before graduation. In their final year of high school, Sajō is accepted to study pharmacology at Kyoto University when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, he introduces Kusakabe to her as his boyfriend. Sajō takes the exam with encouragement from Kusakabe, and the two affirm their desire to remain together. On the day of his mock college entrance exam, Sajō suffers a panic attack, and reveals that his transfer to Touichikou was prompted by low test scores caused by his anxiety. They begin dating after Kusakabe impulsively kisses Sajō, and grow closer over the course of the year Kusakabe rebuffs a romantic advance on Sajō by music teacher Manabu Hara, and Sajō attends a concert where Kusakabe performs as a guitarist. Rihito Sajō is a quiet and intelligent student at Touichikou High School, an unexceptional all-boys high school, where he is tutored for the school's choir by classmate Hikaru Kusakabe. An anime film adaption of the first volume of the series, Doukyusei: Classmates, was produced by A-1 Pictures and released in February 2016.

First published in the manga magazine Opera in July 2006, Classmates has spawned multiple sequels and spinoffs: Sotsu Gyo Sei – Winter ( Graduate – Winter), Sotsu Gyo Sei – Spring ( Graduate – Spring), Sora and Hara, O.B., Blanc, Home, and Sajō Rihito no Chichi to Sono Buka. The series follows the relationship between students Rihito Sajō and Hikaru Kusakabe, who meet while attending an all-boys high school. Classmates, also known as Doukyusei ( Japanese: 同級生, Hepburn: Dōkyūsei ), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Asumiko Nakamura.
