Author's Note: Like the Evillious Chronicles, this story gives (almost) everyone new names. Unlike that series of stories, the characters also look very different from their canon representations, with hair and eye colours changed to something more realistic. Since this may make it very difficult to tell who's supposed to be whom, I'll provide a cheat sheet at the end of each chapter with MaT-to-Vocaloid translations. Consider this an AU of sorts.
Rated Mature for swearing, mature themes and content, and possibly sexual content in later chapters. You have been warned.
Tuesday morning dawned bright, blue, and clear; the buzz of the last few summer cicadas provided background music for the muted voices of students returning to Ichinomatsu High after their summer break. More than a few students yawned as they approached the front gate, one so wide that it looked like he might swallow the hand that tried, and failed, to cover his mouth.
"What's the matter, Yuuma-kun, you stay up late doing your summer homework?"
The young man left his mouth wide open as he cracked open one hazel eye, glaring balefully at the tall girl with long reddish-brown hair leaning next to the gate, who just favoured him with a wry smirk. A shorter girl with the same colour hair bent over giggling at the wisecrack, a stubborn cowlick bobbing with every shake of her small body. With a sigh, he rubbed his forehead with the heel of his lifted hand, grumbling under his breath.
"For your information, Matsuru-san, I already finished most of it by the time last night rolled around."
The girl to Yuuma's left, silent until now, chimed in knowingly. "I didn't know 'most' meant 'half', onii-chan."
"Aw, not you too, Mizuki…" Yuuma slumped, defeated by having his own sister turn on him; the three girls broke into gales of laughter, leaving the poor boy to pull his beanie off his head and sulk, revealing short brown hair that matched Mizuki's longer hair in shade. As the laughter died down, though, he looked up, an odd sound catching his attention. "Huh? Is that a…?"
As the girls looked around for the source of Yuuma's distraction, a high-pitched buzz started to build, coming from the direction of the street; they turned to look, and spied a vivid green shape speeding towards them. As it approached the gates of the school, the shape resolved into a moped and its rider; the small sleek bike shone in the light of early morning, and slowed to a stop no more than ten feet from the gate. The rider was clad in a tight-fitting racing suit as green as the bike itself, and as the others watched with varying amounts surprise and envy, she reached up and pulled off her helmet, shaking wavy black hair out of her bright green eyes.
"Made it! Plenty of time to spare, too." She grinned broadly for a moment, before realizing she had an audience. Yuuma was the first to move, stepping eagerly towards the rider and her bike.
"Whoa… that's a real sweet ride," he said without preamble. "Wish I could afford something like that."
"Mom wouldn't stand for it, Yuuma," Mizuki said, catching up to him with a wary glance. She looked at the black-haired girl and met her green eyes with her own hazel, prompting a sheepish, nervous smile from the boy's sister. "Ah… is there something we can help you with, miss?"
"Miss?" The black-haired girl snickered slightly, shaking her head. "I don't look that old, do I? Uh, where do students park their bicycles? This is my first time on school grounds, so I'm not sure where to go."
Yuuma and Mizuki blinked at each other for a moment; against the wall, the girl Yuuma had called Matsuru-san was equally stunned by the question. She didn't react until the girl with the cowlick next to her piped up eagerly. "Oh, I know! You're a teacher, right? Why not just park in the parking lot?"
"A teacher?! Wow… now I really feel old." The black-haired girl seemed a bit anxious at that, rubbing the back of her head. "Um, I'm a transfer student, just starting today. That's all."
"EHHH?!" The girl with the cowlick stared at the biker in shock until the taller girl, fed up with the smaller girl's rudeness, smacked her in the back of the head. "OW! That really hurt, Kuru-chan!"
"You hurt her feelings, Mi-chan," Kuru said matter-of-factly. She turned to the black-haired girl and bowed apologetically. "Sorry for her rudeness; Michi-san's mouth isn't connected to her brain most of the time."
"Mou!" Michi crossed her arms and sulked, turning away from the taller girl, prompting a soft chuckle from the black-haired girl. That seemed to be a good sign to the others; they relaxed a bit, and Yuuma turned back to the girl then, smiling helpfully.
"We can take you to the bike park, sure, but you'll have to walk the cycle. I gotta say, though, I don't know if there's a spot big enough for your moped."
The black-haired girl shrugged and dismounted, hooking her helmet over the back rack where her schoolbag and a small duffel bag were stored. "I'm used to squeezing into weird spaces; as long as I can get it under cover, it'll be fine. Thanks for the help, seriously; I should have come sooner to take a look, but we moved late and I was too busy helping with the move to take the time to come here early."
"Don't worry about it," Yuuma said cheerfully as the black-haired girl steered her bike, walking alongside the rest of them; Kuru and Michi joined him, Mizuki, and the new student as they cut their way across campus. "You must live pretty far from the train station if you're taking a motorbike to school, though." He caught sight of Kuru gesturing angrily to him; after a moment, he smacked his forehead and gave the black-haired girl a sheepish grin. "Ah, geez, sorry… you're probably gonna get buried in questions today already, and I'm not helping. Transfers in autumn are pretty rare, y'know."
"Yeah, I know," the black-haired girl said, her expression turning sad for a moment before she shook it off. "Ah, sorry, I should introduce myself. Hishi Tsugumi, second year. How about you guys?"
"Hishi-san, huh? Nice to meet you. I'm Hanba Yuuma, third year; this here's my sister, Mizuki," Yuuma said, pointing at the girl next to him with his thumb. Tsugumi took a quick glance; there was definitely a family resemblance there. "These are Matsuru Kuru and Asafuri Michi, Mizuki's friends; they're all in second year, class 2-C."
"2-C? How lucky, that's the one I was told I was joining." Tsugumi looks sheepishly at the three girls and bows her head as low as she can, given that she was busy walking a moped. "Please look after me from now on."
"You're really in second year, onee-chan?" Michi said with a cheerful tone. "You look so mature! How come you're still back with us?"
Kuru smacked Michi on the back of the head again, though a little less hard than she had before, not wanting a repeat of her earlier whining. "You're just saying that because you act like a middle school student all the time, Mi-chan."
Tsugumi chuckled again as the small girl fumed at her taller companion; she looked up when Mizuki cleared her throat delicately. "We're here," the brown-haired girl said needlessly, as they clearly were; there wasn't a lot of room left for a bike the size of Tsugumi's, but there was a corner of the shed where she was able to squeeze her moped in without much trouble. "Did you wear your uniform under that suit?"
"No, so I'd better find the change rooms, hadn't I?" Tsugumi gave a good-natured smile to Mizuki, who returned the smile slowly; Yuuma grinned broadly and leaned over Mizuki's shoulder to whisper in her ear.
"Be friends, Mizuki! She's not going to bite you, now is she?" Mizuki flushed with embarrassment, and flailed at Yuuma as the older boy backpedaled quickly, heading inside. "I'll see you guys at lunch!" he called back, leaving the girls alone with their new classmate. After a moment, Mizuki relaxed and turned back to the black-haired girl, trying to put a smile on her face.
"So… the change rooms, right? Over this way."
"Alright, Hishi-san, you can take the open desk by the window." Torako-sensei gestured to one of the few empty seats at the back; Tsugumi could only nod to the teacher with the short brown bob and brown eyes and make her way back, feeling a bit self-conscious of all the eyes on her.
She really didn't have anything to be worried about; now that she was clad in a proper school uniform, she didn't look much different than anyone else, though perhaps just a bit older. Despite the summer dress code still being in effect, she'd worn the full kit just to be on the safe side; the brown blazer over her white shirt, rather than the tan sweater or just the shirt by itself, was quite warm but striking in its clean newness. Her red neckerchief was tied just right, her black leggings were brand new and her shoes were freshly polished.
Still, she was nervous. She glanced up a few times as she made her way to the open desk, one row from the back; Mizuki, Kuru, and Michi all caught her eyes as she did so, and each of them gave her a smile that encouraged her - Mizuki timid, Kuru firm, and Michi gleeful.
She froze as she neared the back, however, beneath an intense blue gaze she found directed at her. The eyes that were fixed on her were the colour of a hot summer sky, and they seemed to burn right through her, making her feel exposed. It took her a few moments for the rest of the student's features to register with her rattled mind; the owner of those eyes was male, with unkempt dark brown hair, just long enough in back to sport a bare inch of a ponytail. He wore glasses with a yellow wire underframe, an odd choice but one that suited him, and a judgmental frown that chilled her to the bone. His wardrobe was as rumpled as his hair; he wore his shirt sleeves long, rather than rolling them up as many of the other male students in class did, and his red tie, though spotless, was slightly askew. She didn't dare look to see if his pants were wrinkled, but his shoes looked slightly scuffed.
Their eyes met after that brief once-over, which she didn't doubt he'd done to her as well; Tsugumi found herself caught in that intense gaze longer than she wanted to be, and as moments turned to seconds, his eyes narrowed slightly, freeing her from their spell. She didn't stumble, but she did feel staggered as she wrenched her eyes away from his and took her seat, letting out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. He was sitting one desk ahead and to the right of her, just ahead of Kuru, and for a moment she thought his eyes had followed her when she sat down… but when she glanced to the side to check, he was staring straight forward, focused on the teacher.
Instead, Tsugumi caught Kuru's eyes; the long-haired girl glanced at the boy ahead of her, nodded once, and mimed eating something; the meaning was clear to Tsugumi, anyway. I'll explain at lunch.
Suddenly, Tsugumi wasn't very interested in her lessons.
"Tsu-chan! Let's eat lunch together!"
It had been a struggle for Tsugumi to focus on classes after that early encounter, but somehow she managed. After Torako-sensei took the roll call, she left the room to the tender mercies of Hiyata-sensei, a math teacher with a positively sadistic streak; he seemed to delight in picking on the new student, and did so regularly. Fortunately, she'd managed to impress him with her remembered lessons, and it hadn't hurt her reputation with the rest of the class either. She caught the boy sitting in front of Kuru glancing at her again after a particularly tough question, and she had to suppress a shudder at the uneasy fell his gaze had given her.
The next class, with Kyoujin-sensei, was much easier to bear; Kyoujin Kaido was the science teacher, and he was absolutely passionate about that topic. He was also something of a goofball, wearing a long plaid scarf and an old hat into class and making frequent comparisons to obscure science-fiction television shows. Keeping up with his rapid speech was exhausting, so she found herself almost nodding off by the time lessons were over.
Fortunately, Michi's excitement was infectious, and startled awake after having another desk shoved loudly against hers, she couldn't help but be eager to have people to talk to over lunch already. She hadn't expected it this soon… or at all, really.
Kuru and Mizuki joined them; the quieter girl pulled up a fifth chair. "Onii-chan sometimes eats with us," she explained, "because most of his friends have lunch-time meetings with club members. We have to take the train to get here, though, so we can't spare the time to join a club."
Kuru nodded. "I just don't care about clubs; not my thing. I hope you weren't expecting to be able to join one, by the way; most of the clubs are full this time of year, and those which aren't are pretty lame."
Tsugumi shrugged, unwrapping a curry bun she'd brought for lunch. "I'd rather head home early anyway. It's still a long ride from home to get here in time for classes, and my brother gets home from work even later than me." She took a bite of her curry bun hungrily, fumbling with a juice box with her free hand.
Mizuki raised an eyebrow at that, but her question was taken out of her mouth by Kuru. "Wait a second. Just where do you live, anyway? I mean, Mizuki-chan and her brother live pretty far, but they take the train; you can't?"
"Er, well… I could, but I prefer not to." Tsugumi tried to explain as best she could by scrawling a poor map on a piece of notebook paper. "See, we live over here-"
"On the waterfront?!" Michi cut in, nearly upsetting her cup ramen all over Kuru, who moved so quickly to dodge that Tsugumi suspected it had happened before.
"Yeah. The trains run all around, but it's a lot quicker to just take a straight shot north… except that even on foot it's not much faster. So I take my bike. Gakuya-kun takes the train, though, and he ends up leaving before me and getting home after me."
Kuru whistled softly, but Mizuki looked slightly distraught. "Um, Tsugumi-san… the way you're talking, it sounds like you don't have any parents." She ducked her head with shame, having asked the rude question, but Tsugumi just smiled and waved it off.
"Eh, it's complicated. My brother is in his mid-twenties, and he's more reliable than either of my parents, so I live with him."
The conversation died after that, and Tsugumi felt bad for putting a damper on things. She tried to restart the conversation by asking a question that was bothering her. "So… what's up with the seat behind me, Kuru-san? I noticed there were some scratches on the desk, and books inside it; was the occupant sick today?"
Mizuki looked quickly to one side, seemingly uncomfortable with the topic; Kuru pursed her lips thoughtfully, while Michi remained in her own little world, dutifully eating her ramen one noodle at a time. "… bad choice of topic?"
Kuru raised an eyebrow. "Not a fun one, but better that you learn about her now before she shows up in class. That's Sorasu Karin's seat. She's the class delinquent, and a bit of a trouble-maker. She shows up on test days, but otherwise, she skips everything unless she's got some reason to be in class besides lessons."
"Sorasu… isn't that the same last name as the boy who sits in front of you?" Tsugumi suppressed a shiver at the memory of the boy's gaze.
"Yes; Nolen is her twin brother." Mizuki answered for Kuru, keeping her voice low. "He only admits it grudgingly, though; those two don't get along at all."
"Wait, they're twins? You mean there's someone else with that gaze?" Tsugumi blurted out her question before she restrained herself, and covered her mouth at her gaffe. Mizuki only nodded, while Kuru grimaced.
"Creepy, isn't it? When those two glare at each other, you can start fires between them. Would you believe he's on the student council, too? He's actually in charge of student discipline. Of course his sister just ignores him whenever he tries to discipline her… and most of the teachers have given up, too."
Tsugumi just shook her head at Kuru's response, finding herself a bit worried. She looked up at Mizuki for a moment, and spied Yuuma slipping into the room past her head; she waved genially, and the older Hanba sibling returned the wave with a toothy grin, heading over to their table. "Hey sis, Matsuru-san, Michi-kun. So how are you settling in, Hishi-san?"
"I'm fine," Tsugumi answered with a wry smile, "though I hear our class has a problem child."
"Oh yeah, Sorasu-chan. I forgot she was in your class. Uh… better I give you guys warning, then… what's with that look?!"
Mizuki stared at Yuuma, a bit frightened. "How did she find out so fast?!" Kuru looked equally alarmed, and even Michi was looking up from her juice box. Tsugumi felt her heart plummet into her chest as she looked between the girls. "Did I miss something?"
Yuuma sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Well, it's not a big school; word gets around fast, and Sorasu-chan somehow finds things out even when she can't be found by the teachers. I heard from a classmate that she's planning on showing up this afternoon… and if she's in your class, then…"
"Then it's probably because of you, Tsugumi-san." Mizuki looked over at Tsugumi with a worried expression. "She's fascinated by new people; when my brother and I first transferred her at the beginning of the year, she followed me around for a week before getting bored of me."
"She's a stalker on top of everything else?" Tsugumi asked warily.
Mizuki shook her head. "Not exactly; she didn't follow us home, but she kept… pushing herself on me. It's hard to explain…" The brown-haired girl quieted quickly, and Tsugumi sensed that this was a sensitive topic; unwilling to push the girl for more information, she'd have to make do with what she'd already learned… which wasn't much.
On the other hand, Tsugumi thought to herself, I know how delinquents think. This might not be as bad for me as it was for Mizuki.
Barely an hour later, Tsugumi found herself regretting her overconfidence with passion.
Yowano-sensei was quiet and timid for a teacher; she seemed intimidated by the noisier students, but usually there were one or two others who were willing to tell the loud ones to shut up on her behalf. The prematurely-grey-haired teacher was already ten minutes into the history lesson when the classroom door slid open with a bang, prompting an alarmed shriek from her. She looked towards the door and froze in her tracks; Tsugumi, ignoring her bad feeling, turned her head along with most of the class to look on the interrupting person.
Irrelevantly, her first thought was that Karin's eyes were the same colour as her twin's - a deep sky blue. The girl's gaze was just as intense as her brother's as well. Besides that, there were similarities in their height and faces… but the similarities ended there. Karin's hair was longer in front, shorter in the back, and bleached as pale as cream; it was cut in a chin-length bob, with half-a-dozen black hairpins used to hold the front bangs out of her eyes, framing her face squarely. Her uniform was in the summer style, but where her brother's clothes were simply rumpled, her uniform was quite calculated in its state of dishevelment; the top two buttons of her blouse were cut off, leaving her underdeveloped chest slightly exposed. Her skirt had been quite obviously shortened, showing off more thigh than necessary, and rather than looping her kerchief through her collar, she wore it tied around her neck like a choker, with the ends sticking out stiffly behind her.
Most disturbing was the slightly crazed, cocky grin on Karin's face; the arrogance didn't quite reach her eyes, but that grin was the complete opposite of Nolen's frown. Where his expression had chilled her, Karin's was as hot as her gaze, and Tsugumi felt an uncomfortably familiar flutter in her gut at the look.
No way- Quickly Tsugumi ripped her eyes away, focusing on the textbook in front of her. She heard a chuckle as she looked away, and the quiet sound sent shivers down her spine. Unconsciously, she lifted a hand to move her bangs in front of her face, curtaining her hair to hide the girl from even her peripheral vision.
A loud clatter signalled the girl's arrival in her seat, followed by two loud thuds which shook the back of Tsugumi's chair. Anxiously, her head whipped around to find herself face to face with Karin's shoes; the girl had actually had the audacity to put her feet up on her desk! The delinquent girl was leaning her chair back, precariously balanced on two feet, legs crossed, with one hand dangling at her side and the other propped up behind her head. She caught Tsugumi's eyes and smirked broadly, arresting the black-haired girl before she could look away.
"Like what you see, new girl?"
Tsugumi felt her cheeks burn at the bald-faced flirt, and with an effort she spun back around, facing the front of the room and ignoring the chuckle coming from the harsh-voiced girl behind her. She knew, without even looking up, that she and Karin were subject to everyone else's eyes.
"Um… c-can we… resume the lesson, please?" Yowano-sensei smiled anxiously, and though it took a few moments, the attention faded from her. Mortified, Tsugumi all but stuck her face in her history book, trying not to notice the heated stare of the girl behind her. Unwillingly, a thought came to Tsugumi's mind.
She's… a LOT like Ririka-senpai was. What am I going to do? She felt, briefly, another glare focused on her for a moment, and her eyes lifted from her textbook just long enough to see Nolen looking back at her out of the corner of his eyes, his expression cold and angry. She sighed as he turned away, burying her nose even deeper in her textbook. And now HE's glaring at me. How much worse can things get?
Last class of the day was gym class; Tsugumi breathed a small sigh of relief, as she would at least spared Nolen's angry glares now. She still had to deal with Karin, however, and it quickly became obvious that the girl was fixated on her. Tsugumi's first thought was that Karin was trying to bully or intimidate her, but…
She's going about it in a funny way, Tsugumi thought, pulling uncomfortably at her gym shorts with one finger. In fact, Karin wasn't doing much of anything but staring at her with that same arrogant smirk as before, practically a leer. The blonde girl's attention wasn't on the teacher at all, even after several pointed reminders from Torako-sensei. After four tries, the teacher gave up, and barked at the girls to stop their stretches and line up. "Dodge ball time! Everyone on this side of Hanba-san is on one team, everyone else on the other!"
Tsugumi ignored the collective groan from the class, grateful for a variety of reasons - but not the least of which was that Karin was put on the opposing team, which meant she could keep the blonde girl in sight.
The more she looked at the girl, though, the less Tsugumi found herself unnerved by her; Karin's actions seemed just a bit overblown, as though she was putting on an act. Look at that swagger, that bravado, she found herself thinking. She WANTS people to notice her, to be afraid of her. She doesn't compare to Ririka-senpai at all.
"Alright, then, let's see some action!" Torako-sensei bellowed the command to start, and Tsugumi went on guard; she didn't have a ball to start with, but Karin did, and as she expected, she was an early target. The rest of the class clearly wanted to know how athletic she was.
Well, let's not disappoint them.
Tsugumi didn't hold back; she dodged every shot that flew in her direction, ducking and weaving as she moved. Every time she got her hands on a ball, she held it until she had a certain shot, and let fly; pretty soon her kill count dwarfed everyone else on her team, helped by the fact that her side was losing people pretty quickly.
Karin's side wasn't much better, though, and inevitably it came down to just the two of them, standing off against each other. Karin had a ball in each hand, while Tsugumi only had one. Karin bounced one ball against the gymnasium floor, still smirking. "You're not bad, new girl," she said, grinning widely.
Tsugumi returned the smile with one of her own and a narrowed gaze, prompting a look of surprise in the blonde girl's eyes. "Thanks. You're not bad yourself, Sorasu-san. And my name is Hishi, not 'new girl'."
Karin's eyebrows disappeared into her hair, and her grin threatened to split her face. "Cheeky… we'll see if you're still smart-mouthed when I kick your ass."
Tsugumi just raised her free hand and beckoned, taunting Karin. The effect was exactly as she expected; the blonde girl immediately threw one ball at her, dodging to one side to set up a second shot. Tsugumi just sidestepped the first shot and held her ground, waiting for Karin's second attack.
The blonde girl hesitated, left unsure by Tsugumi's actions. The black-haired girl just spun her ball briefly on her fingers; that was enough to bring the second threatened shot, moving extremely fast but nowhere near the black-haired girl, as Karin ducked to one side, looking for another ball to fire off. Tsugumi didn't give her a chance; seeing where Karin was running, she aimed and threw a perfect shot, catching her in the back.
A spontaneous cheer went up from everyone else in the class, startling Tsugumi. Even Torako-sensei looked impressed and nodded to Tsugumi, which made her flush with the praise. She turned back to look towards Karin, and found her surprisingly close; belatedly, Tsugumi realized the girl must have started heading back right after getting knocked out.
Karin extended a hand to Tsugumi, an odd expression on her face. "Congrats. You're real good at this game, Hishi-san."
Tsugumi didn't so much as blink; she took the other girl's hand, intending to shake it. "You too, SoraSUUU-!" She stumbled at she felt herself being pulled towards Karin; she couldn't react quickly enough, and found herself pulled into a rough hold.
"Real good," Karin said again, the leer back on her face. "Makes me wonder what else you're good at." She shifted, and Tsugumi felt something on her backside. A spate of sudden gasps from behind her pretty much confirmed what just happened.
The response was instant; Tsugumi pushed Karin back with one hand, grabbing tightly onto the offending hand's wrist. She ignored the flush on her face and gave Karin a narrow killing glare, her expression tight and angry. Before the teacher could get near, she spoke under her breath… loud enough that she knew Karin would hear, but with luck, no one else.
"Touch me without permission again, and I'll break your hand. You got me?"
Karin's expression went blank for a moment, and Tsugumi thought for a moment that she saw fear in the blonde girl's eyes. Her blue eyes narrowed then, and her expression turned shrewd.
"Yeah," Karin said in a low voice. "Yeah, I got you."
Quickly, Tsugumi released her grip on the girl, just as Torako-sensei caught up to them and cuffed Karin on the back of the head. "The HELL do you think you're doing, Sorasu?!"
"Ease off, sensei, it's cool. No hard feelings, right, Hishi-san?" Karin gave Tsugumi a wary look, as though afraid that Tsugumi would make a bigger deal out of the grope; for her part, Tsugumi didn't care to.
"Yeah… it's okay, Torako-sensei," she said, looking up at the brown-haired teacher with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Torako-sensei frowned a little, but just shrugged and looked back over at the rest of the class. "Alright, laps now! Ten of 'em, and make 'em snappy!" There was a collective groan from the students, but Tsugumi didn't even care, joining the running crowd without breaking stride. She put the incident, and Karin, as far out of her mind as she could.
Not far enough, apparently, Tsugumi thought grimly as she walked alongside Kuru and Mizuki; Michi had blazed through the showers and vanished already, but Kuru and Mizuki seemed concerned about Tsugumi and hung around afterwards, waiting for the black-haired girl. "Are you alright?" Mizuki asked as soon as they were safely away from the rest of the students, headed for the front doors and the shoe lockers.
"Yeah," Tsugumi said, temporizing; she wasn't, not really, but for reasons that she didn't want to talk about with her new friends just yet. "It's not like it's the first time it's happened to me. Just didn't expect it to happen on my first day, is all."
"Mm. You'll really have to watch out for Karin-san, then." Kuru was wearing a frown on her face, and examined her fingers for a moment, as though avoiding Tsugumi's gaze. "It's pretty obvious she's interested in you, and beating her at dodge ball probably sealed it. She'll be pursuing you like she did Mizuki-chan."
"Kuru-chan, I didn't want you to bring that up…" Mizuki flushed with embarrassment, but Tsugumi could only shake her head, needing clarification.
"That's what you meant before? Geez, I'm sorry Mizuki-san… she's like that, then?"
Kuru just shrugged as Mizuki looked down, red-faced. "Kind of," the auburn-haired girl said, patting Mizuki on the back comfortingly. "On top of everything else - that outfit, skipping classes, and disrespecting the teachers - rumour has it she gets up to even worse outside of school. Drinking, smoking, sleeping around, that sort of thing. I've seen her hit on both guys and girls, but no one seems to sustain her interest for more than a couple of weeks."
Tsugumi's eyes went wide for a moment. "Rumours, though, right? I mean… it might be an exaggeration."
Kuru shrugged again. "Maybe; I'm not asking Karin-san for clarification, and she's the only one who knows for sure. At least she's not in a gang; we don't have any trouble with them around here, so that's one less thing to worry about."
Mizuki nodded fiercely in agreement. "Thank goodness… I don't know what I'd do if she was in a gang too."
Tsugumi could only shake her head, stopping as their path took them past her shoe locker. "I'd better head home right away; we still need to unpack some things. I'll see you two tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure thing, Tsugumi-san. Be careful, okay?" Mizuki smiled wearily at Tsugumi; Kuru just waved in farewell, but she could tell that she'd made a good impression on them today. With a low sigh of relief, she opened her shoe locker and swapped out her indoor shoes for her outdoor ones. Slipping the cooler shoes onto her feet, she closed the locker door…
… and jumped as she came face to face with Sorasu Nolen, his cold face a mere two feet from hers.
"AAH! Please, don't do that! You scared me half to death." Tsugumi touched a hand to her breast, willing her heart to calm quickly. She wasn't sure why the student council disciplinarian was here to see here, but-
"I heard you had a run-in with my sister in your last class." Nolen's voice was higher than she expected, and oddly similar to Karin's… but cold and emotionless. A chill ran down her spine as she heard it, and she felt herself swallowing slowly.
"Y-yes, I did. … I'm not in trouble, am I?"
Nolen raised one eyebrow, but otherwise his neutral expression didn't change a whit. "Not yet. Just confirming what happened. While I'm here, though, let me give you a piece of advice."
Tsugumi found herself backed against the lockers, eerily disturbed by the young man's cold voice and demeanour. She could only hold still as Nolen leaned in until he was mere inches from her face. What- what is he- is he going to- Her thoughts were whipped into a tempest, whirling about out of control.
"Stay as far away from my sister as you can. She's poison. She ruins everyone she touches. … you don't want that. You understand?" Nolen's voice didn't change a bit, but Tsugumi could tell he was being deadly serious.
"I… I understand." What else could she answer?
Nolen nodded once, curtly, and stepped back. He gave her a sketchy sort of salute before walking away, not looking back. Tsugumi could only lean against the lockers, trying to catch her breath; the close encounter had stolen hers away.
When she could think straight again, there was only one thought on the black-haired girl's mind.
They're BOTH crazy.
Name Guide:
Hishi Tsugumi = GUMI Megpoid
Sorasu Karin = Kagamine Rin
Sorasu Nolen = Kagamine Len
Hanba Mizuki = VY1
Hanba Yuuma = VY2 66
Asafuri Michi = SF-A2 Miki
Matsuru Kuru = CUL
Torako Meika = MEIKO
Yowano Hakana = Yowane Haku
Hiyata Kiyone = Hiyama Kiyoteru
Kyoujin Kaido = KAITO
Matsuba Ririka = Lily