A/N: Written for the 30_heartbeats challenge on lj, using prompt table 2. This one isn't posted on lj because the community's looking pretty dead, and I've already got a few on my account in the same situation. So just enjoy it on here. :)

And excuse any spelling errors; I wrote this on scrap paper so small I could barely read it. And that does *sarcastic* wonders for my typing.


Skittles


001. Intermission

Shimizu Chiaki was popular, but few people really liked her and therefore it was an unexpected but welcome break for class 1-D when she was suddenly absent one Monday morning. Orimoto Izumi was the most ecstatic; it was a well known fact that the pair were at ends since the beginning of elementary school. Even during their first year of senior high, their rivalry had not simmered down to tolerable levels and usually innocent bystanders – normally a handful of other students from their class – wound up paying the price.

Then there was Chiaki's little following: students, mostly boys, but there were a few girls who looked up to her…but all of them from a distance. And then there were the select few students which didn't give her, or many people in most cases, the time of day.

Kimura Kouichi was one such person; he was kind and friendly enough, if rather shy, but he was like that with everybody and he had no relationship with any one classmate that really stood out. Some of the boys claimed it to be unnatural, but most girls dismissed that as petty jealousy. After all, despite his timidness he was a high achiever and consistently ranked at the top in every test. He was never arrogant about it though; in fact, it seemed to only prompt him to study more.

Kagami Teruo was one of those who felt it unnatural. Part of him admittedly was jealous – even if it was as plain as day the other worked hard for his marks. He was a high achiever himself, and it was increasingly maddening to place second at his very best. The childish half of him wished some misfortune would befall the other and break the studious behaviour so he could have a more playable chance at the top. The more mature part of him rebuked that, partially because it was wrong from a moral viewpoint. He prided himself on being perceptive though, and therefore the refrain was deeper. He saw there something forced in that behaviour, and he wondered why.

But on that Monday morning, he, like the others in class 1-D, wondered as to Chiaki's absence. Because that actress wasn't one to grant an intermission…or rather, miss basking in the attention she always received.

Izumi was the only one who was however downright glad of the absence. For her, it was one less headache she had to nurse through the day and one less argument to refrain from.


002. Breathe Again

Chiaki looked at her reflection in the mirror, then quickly turned her head. The ugly bruise still marred her image, and the pale skin and dark circles under her eyes only worsened it.

She had always been pale, but this pallor was different. There was no shine in it, no youthful glow. It was like she had aged years in an afternoon and bleached of all colour in the hour she had spent in the hospital.

Her long hair covered the abrasion to her head and the bandage had been removed, but if one looked closely enough they would be able to see the small lump.

There were other wounds too, but they were beneath her clothes. Some beneath her skin. But they were – would – heal slowly.

She was still alive after all, and her mother said that repeatedly as she wrapped her into an embrace, obscuring the mirror's vain reflection. She was alive, and still breathing. Hurt, but still able to recover.

'My sweet little baby…'

Except she wasn't so innocent anymore.


003. Memory

Nobody present remembered the room ever being more silent than when Chiaki entered one late Thursday morning.

The math teacher who had turned at the sound of the opening door with a reprimand on her lips, simply stood with mouth slightly open and chalk uselessly dangling from limp fingers.

The students, with mixed feelings, were openly staring. There were a few exceptions of course; Izumi, after recognising the entrant, had defiantly turned her attention elsewhere. A couple of boys appeared torn at that reaction, eyes flicking between the two girls always in rivalry with each other. And Kouichi hadn't raised his head. Until the teacher began explaining the lesson – and she hadn't before the interruption – he was working on review questions on a different text, exploring the topic they would be tested on later that week.

There was also Teruo, who after the initial shock was scrutinising the apparent disinterest.

But all was silent until the teacher spoke, and when she did, even those whose attentions had wavered returned to look at the pale girl standing in the doorway.


004. Silence

For perhaps the first time since second grade, Chiaki wished that somebody – anybody – else was in the spotlight. That everybody would look anywhere else except her face, her body –

She swallowed, attempting to ignore the tremor that crawled through her body and fighting the instinct to flee. Her body trembled under the weight of combined gases. She regretted coming back. She shouldn't have –

But at the same time, she couldn't just stay at home. Her mother was kind and gentle and her father firmly reassuring, but shadows lurked around every corner of the silent and still rooms. At school at least, there was never a moment away from the light, never a moment alone.

However, with everybody's gazes upon her, that pressure pushing her, she half wondered if she really had chosen the lesser of two evils.

But then she, as requested, took her seat near the back of the classroom and the class mostly fell back into its natural rhythm. Slowly, attention was sucked away from her and she began to mechanically copy the explanation on the board, trying to lose herself in the jumble of numbers and wishing, this time, that she had afforded a little more effort into her academics so she wasn't literally lost in them.


005. Questioning

Lunch break gave way to the interrogation. Questions came at her from left and right and Chiaki found herself the victim of another first that day. But she couldn't speed up time, so she simply threw away the lunch that had become sand in her mouth and escaped to the library where, hopefully, she could hide behind the magazines until classes resumed.

And there she stayed, tears welling up in her eyes as she stared at the flawless faces and confident expressions, unaware of the fire she had fed behind her.