Kept-in-the-dark (adj): notawareorconscious (of);
All of their desks were empty, as was the norm. She shouldn't have been surprised – they were barely in school these days and all her other friends didn't seem to mind that much – but something tugging insistently in her chest told a different story.
"Emina, Miharu," the teacher's crisp voice called out, bringing the school girl from her thoughts.
"Present," she mumbled half-heartedly. Her eyes drifted to the four empty desks once more, imagining the occupants that usually filled them.
Each one came to mind easily enough: Chad with his tall, brooding look, Orihime with her easy, airy smile, Rukia with her determined scowl, and Ichigo with his –
A blurred moving out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned her gaze quickly to spot the strange movement and was surprised to see a familiar head of orange disappearing from sight. She jumped from her seat and moved over to the window, aware of the strange stares she was receiving. She faintly heard the teacher's disapproving shout but ignored it and focused intently on the figure with the outstanding orange hair.
"Ichigo." The words slipped from her lips in a whisper. She pressed her palms closer to the window, intent on burning his figure in her mind's eye.
His back was turned to her but there was no mistaking that it was her long time friend, his blazing orange hair evidence enough. He was dressed differently, his normal attire replaced by a strange black robe.
"Ichigo." The boy surprisingly turned to look up at the window the girl was staring out of, as if hearing her voice. Their eyes connected for a breathtaking moment before the girl was staring dazedly at the ground on which the boy previously stood.
"Ms. Emina, return to your seat now or else I will have to ask you to leave!"
Moving as if in a daze, the girl turned from the window and made her way back to her seat, ignoring the loud whispers of her classmates. She tried to listen to the lesson that the teacher returned to (after giving her a glare) but her mind was miles away.
Her eyes drifted to the window once again as the teacher's voice faded into the background and the classroom noises drifted to the back of her mind. She couldn't get the picture of the boy's odd appearance or the fact that he disappeared into the thin air out of her head.
She sighed softly. "Ichigo."
purposely left out of a situation