Protection
A Higurashi no Naku Koro ni fan fiction by Draugur
1. A Jack and Two Queens
Shouwa 58 (1983)
Keiichi holds his cards firmly, like he's afraid someone might take them away forcefully. "Alright ... here comes my come-from-behind victory!"
Looking at the sweat trickling down his forehead, Rena snickers. She likes to watch Keiichi when he's all fired up, talking in excitement and making a lot of noise. It's always fun to watch someone who's doing something with all his passion.
"Let's see what you've got, Rena!"
The girl smiles joyously. "All right, Keiichi-kun, but don't complain to me afterwards ..."
"No way!" Keiichi's eyes are lit by sparks of tension. "Come on!"
"I've got this ..." Rena draws one card from her hand and reveals it to the others. Rika and Satoko are watching. They folded some time ago, not trusting their hands of cards. While Satoko looks at the cards intently, Rika is just relaxing, leaning against the back of her chair. Rena puts the card on top of the desk, which turns out to be the jack of hearts.
"Come on, Rena, why don't you bare it all?"
"Haoo, Keiichi-kun, that's not a proper thing to ask an innocent girl ..."
"What? Your hand of cards is the only thing I'm interested in at the moment." Keiichi puts the queen of hearts on the desk, placing it opposite Rena's jack of hearts.
"What a romantic showdown," Rika says. "I wonder what will happen next."
"Rika-chan ... when I'm winning, there's no time for romance!" Keiichi grins toward Rika, stroking her head. "What do you think of this, Rena?"
"Looks nice, Keiichi-kun ... but here's some unexpected company for these two lovebirds." She takes another card from her hand and reveals it. It's the queen of diamonds.
"What? That's nothing ..." Keiichi frowns. "I had expected something more spectacular, considering the way you were acting mysteriously before."
"You don't know the danger of another lady interfering with a loving couple, do you?" Rena grins mischievously.
"Well, what loving couple did you interfere with, as you seem to know something about that?"
"What? I didn't do such a thing ... I never did ..." Rena blushes. Keiichi and Satoko start laughing. Only Rika looks at Rena in a serious way.
"Never mind, Rena." Rika approaches Rena, who is looking down at the desk, and strokes her wrist.
Keiichi frowns. "Sorry. Did I say something wrong? I was only joking."
"It's no problem, Keiichi. Let's finish this. Satoko and I have to go home." Keiichi wonders why Rika answered instead of Rena.
Hesitantly, Keiichi continues revealing his hand. "So look at this, Rena! One, two, three!" With a confident expression, he puts down three aces next to his queen of hearts.
"Wow, Keiichi-san, that's great! I didn't expect that!" Satoko stares at the desk. "Look, Rika! Keiichi-san has got himself a threesome!"
"Mi- ... Satoko, that's not the right term." Rika grins widely, while Keiichi tries to restrain his laughter.
"Hey! What are you sneering at? Are you making fun of me? Rena-san ..." Within a few seconds, tears form in Satoko's eyes. She scurries to Rena like a frightened animal. "They're being mean to me ..."
"Haooo, Satoko-chan's crying! How dare you treat her like that! So cute, I'm gonna take her home!" It seems like a flash of lightning hits the classroom. A few seconds later, Keiichi and Rika are lying outstretched on the floor, while Rena is clutching Satoko tightly.
"Ow, thanks, you can stop now, Rena-san!" Satoko is gasping.
"No, I'll never let you go, Satoko-chan!" Rena presses her cheek against Satoko's in ecstasy.
Holding his head and moaning, Keiichi stands up and sits down at the desk. "Alright, Rena ... Can you beat this hand of mine?"
"Can I beat that hand, can I? Rena will show you, haoo!" She lets go of Satoko, who is panting for air. Then she takes her cards and places the rest of her hand next to her queen of diamonds and her jack of hearts. "Ten, nine, eight. That's a straight, Keiichi-kun." She sits back, smirking innocently.
"But Keiichi-san's ... sorry, what is it called?"
"Three of a kind", Rika whispers from below.
"... Keiichi-san's three of a kind is still better, isn't it?"
"No, Satoko. A straight is better than three of a kind."
"Are you sure, Rika-chan?" Keiichi also thinks his hand is better. "I'm going to ask my dad about it. I bet he knows very much about poker."
"If only ..." Rena looks away from the desk, at some distant spot in the classroom. Keiichi follows the direction of her glance. It seems as if she's staring at one of the lockers.
"If only ... what, Rena?"
Rena smiles at Keiichi. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of somebody else who knows a lot about poker."
Keiichi looks at Rika, who is holding her forehead, carefully touching the bruise she got when Rena attacked her. "Rika-chan, it seems Rena knows dubious people who are involved in gambling. We must take care of this girl, lest she gets harmed by them."
"Mi-, when they try to harm her, she should just punch their faces," Rika replies, pouting.
When Rena looks at Rika's sulky face, she can't hold back any longer. She pulls Rika up from her chair and spins her around, saying she wants to take her home.
"No, you can't, Rena-san! It's Rika's turn for dinner tonight! If you take her home, I'll have to cook for myself ... that's not going to happen!"
Rena stops spinning around and takes a dizzy Rika back to her chair.
"Keiichi-kun ... you know, that person isn't dubious at all. You shouldn't say things like that unless you know who we're talking about."
"Forgive me, Rena. I'm sure he's a nice guy."
"No ... It's a girl. But I'm afraid she's far away from us now."
Keiichi looks puzzled. He never heard of that girl. "You mean ... she transferred schools?"
Rena is looking down at the desk, lost in thought. "I guess you can put it like that."
Suddenly a dark atmosphere fills the classroom. They are sitting at the desk in silence. No-one wants to say anything. The noise and the jokes of the club game have disappeared, leaving a sort of emptiness which swallows every possible word for a while.
"Let's go home, everybody," Rena finally says with a hushed voice.
Keiichi hopes Satoko will say anything normal, like she's hungry and wants Rika to cook dinner as soon as possible. Or maybe Rika could easen the mood with some sweet remark to make them all feel better. But there's nothing but an uncomfortable silence. Once again Keiichi thinks that he, the newcomer, thoughtlessly said something which hurt the others. But he doesn't know what was wrong with what he asked, and he's a bit upset because he thinks they shouldn't treat him like that only because of such a simple question. He feels as if they're leaving him out for some reason.
They put the deck of cards away and leave the classroom. When they're walking down the corridor towards the entrance, Keiichi notices he left something in his locker.
"Sorry, everybody! Could you wait a minute?"
"Keiichi-san ... my stomach feels empty. I think Rika and I are going to leave now."
"Fine, Satoko. What about you, Rena?"
"I'll wait here, Keiichi-kun. Hurry up so we can go home."
"Thank you!" He runs back to the classroom and opens his locker. While he's putting his things into his schoolbag, he remembers that moment when Rena looked at the end of the classroom where he's standing now. Since he has moved in, he has never paid much attention to the lockers. He feels sorry for Rena who is waiting in the corridor, but his curiousness wins and so he takes a look at the lockers. Most of them are labeled with names of students.
"Tomita ... Okamura ... Furude ... Houjou ..." After a few more lockers, he stops. Was he mistaken when he read that name before? "Houjou ... Houjou." There are two lockers labeled with the name "Houjou". He reads the given name. " ... Satoshi." He's never heard that name. But Rena also mentioned a girl, didn't she? Keiichi moves his eyes along the rows of lockers. Suddenly he finds another name he can't connect to anyone in his class. He looks at the first two kanji characters. "Sono ... zaki." He knows that name. The Sonozaki family is one of the wealthiest families around. Somebody even told him there's a yakuza clan of the same name in Shishibone city. But he doesn't know of a student called Sonozaki. "Mi ... on." Sonozaki Mion? Is she the one Rena mentioned before?
"Keiichi-kun?" When Keiichi turns around, he sees Rena standing near the entry. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I ... think so." Keiichi hesitates. Is she talking about the things he wanted to collect? Or did she guess that he wanted to check the lockers?
"Is something wrong? Is it?" Rena looks a bit worried.
"No, it's alright. Rena ... did I say something wrong before? You know ... about that girl you mentioned when we were playing poker?"
"It's not your fault. You're new here, so you couldn't have known about her." But Rena doesn't look as if she's going to tell him these things now.
Anyway, he decides not to ask her, so they spend the time during their way home peacefully. Though Keiichi can't forget the two names on the lockers. Maybe those two students really transferred schools. But the dark mood which was filling the classroom keeps haunting his mind until he falls asleep.
Author's Note: This is a story which I wrote some time ago. Recently I worked on it a little and here it is to celebrate Watanagashi in the year Heisei 27 (2015). Of course, my other story Yadonashi-hen will also be continued.