"I didn't really think much about it at first," Naru admitted as she accepted the offer of a mint from the bowl on Miss Yamada's desk. "Just thought it was a crazy set of coincidences. After a while it started to all connect together into one big crazy conspiracy."
"I see," Miss Yamada said, nodding sagely. Naru looked up at her.
"Oh no, I don't mean I thought I was specifically being targeted... well, I kindof did at the time, but not anymore. I'll get to that." She sucked on the mint for a bit, before crunching it in her molars to finish it off quickly. She mulled things over for a bit. How much to actually tell the counsellor? She couldn't tell her everything, for obvious reasons. Still, a lot of it was more-or-less public knowledge by now...
"Do you remember the time Ms. Haruna had to get shuttled off to hospital straight from class?..."
"Good evening, and welcome back to Midnight Zero" Naru settled on the bed as the soft, romantic saxophone music began to play (made even softer by the fact that she had the volume down to avoid disturbing her parents). "Our last letter tonight comes to us all the way from Haruna of Juuban." Naru clutched her pillow closer as the show host J-Dite began to read out the love letter. He had the perfect voice for the role; silky-smooth, with an almost unearthly charm to it.
I wonder how long it'll be before someone sends a love letter addressed to him? Naru thought to herself. She'd considered doing that herself, but in the end she'd made the love letter more open ended. She was still searching for someone special after all. Well, not searching per se... she was a little too timid for that. She just didn't have anything going for her; she was plain old Naru Osaka. Just sitting here, experiencing romance vicariously through other women's love letters.
You could totally write a poem about that, Naru thought to herself as J-Dite moved on to the next letter. Maybe I could do that for my next letter if my latest one doesn't get on air.
"We're sharing everyone's love letters on this show. For those whose letters are read, we will send you a flower brooch that makes love come true. FM 10, Midnight Zero. We want your love to blossom. I'll be back tomorrow. This is J-Dite."
Naru sighed as the program finished. She wondered if her own letters would ever actually make it to air. Maybe one day, she told herself as she reached over to switch off the light.
Naru looked up as Usagi barreled into class, late as usual. She charged down the aisle, sliding into her chair with practised ease, panting as she tried to catch her breath. Naru gave her a minute to recover from what had no doubt been a sprint across town. She never seemed to learn, Usagi. Not that Naru could criticize, seeing as she was staying up to listen to a late-night radio show herself.
The bell for the start of class chimed. Naru frowned as she looked at the empty teacher's desk. Curious. Usagi seemed to think so too.
"Naru, where's Ms Haruna?"
"She seems to be late," Naru answered with a shrug.
"Lucky me!" Usagi said to herself, fist-pumping in self-congratulation.
"It's unusual for Ms Haruna to be this late." Umino observed with an air of authority. Before Naru had a chance to quip back at him however, the door opened, and Ms Haruna entered the class.
Well, 'entered' wasn't quite the right word. 'Staggered into' would have been more accurate. She seemed barely conscious. The entire class gasped as she tripped over the edge of the teacher's desk and almost fell face-first onto the floor, barely catching herself on the corner of the desk. Straightening up without skipping a beat, she turned to address the class. And then opened her mouth in a loud yawn.
This is... not like Ms Haruna at all, Naru thought to herself as the teacher pulled out the roll book.
"Let's see... I'll take roll call now." Ms. Haruna said, every word seeming to take great effort. She lifted the roll book up, only for it to slip from her hands and onto the desk. She looked at it for a few seconds, as if confused how it had got there. "...Actually, today will be self study," she announced vaguely. "Just... just study whatever you want. Today I'm just..." she stretched her arms and let out a long, groaning yawn. "So, so sleepy..." And with that, she curled up on the desk and fell asleep.
The class were all sitting there with dumbfounded expressions on their faces. True, Ms. Haruna might not always be the picture of professionality, but she'd never so much as nodded off in class before, let alone gone out like a light before class had even started.
"Usagi, what do you think's wrong with Ms. Haruna?" Umino asked.
"Don't ask me, how would I know?" Usagi retorted. Then, with a grin to herself. "Really lucky for me though!"
"Usagi," Naru chided, lightly clipping her on the back of the head. "This is serious. I think something's wrong with her." Naru stood up from the desk. "We need to call emergency services!" she announced to the class. "Someone run down to the teacher's office!"
The paramedics arrived within minutes, carrying Ms. Haruna out on a stretcher. The class watched in concern from the window as they brought her to the ambulance.
"I wonder what's wrong?" Umino mused out loud.
"She won't wake up, no matter what we do." Usagi turned to Naru. "Is it that exhausting to be a teacher?"
"Actually, I heard there's a disease going around just like this, where you don't ever wake up," Naru replied. She hadn't really given it much thought before, but now that she thought about it, that was almost certainly the explanation. I hope I'm wrong, Naru thought to herself. The idea of Ms. Haruna never waking up again was not a happy one.
Usagi seemed to think otherwise though.
"...ooh, so you get to sleep forever! Now nice." Umino and Naru both spluttered in shock at Usagi's statement.
"Why?!" Naru asked, eventually.
"Because you get to stay in your dreams forever... I bet that's a lot of fun." Naru looked at Usagi's happy daydream expression for a bit, before she and Umino exchanged identical expressions of confused exasperation. Typical Usagi, never knowing when to be serious.
"I wonder if it was Ms. Haruna who got her letter read out last night?" Naru wondered as she and Usagi walked home that afternoon.
"Oh, Naru, you listen to Midnight Zero too?" Usagi asked, eyes brightening. Naru smiled.
"Of course. I've sent them lots of love letters."
"Really? Who did you write them to?"
"It doesn't matter," Naru said, looking off dreamily into the air. "You can just write it to your future boyfriend." At least, that's what Naru had been doing. Who knew, maybe someone would hear her letters and be touched by them? She could but dream.
"Hey, that's a good idea," Usagi said, mulling it over. "I didn't think of that. My future boyfriend..." She was so wrapped up in thinking about it that she didn't see the young man walking towards them until they collided.
"Ow!" Usagi cried as she toppled back onto her rear. "Sorry, sorry, wasn't watching!" she said, getting up and bobbing like a wren at what she thought was the person she collided with. Naru wasn't sure how to tell her that she was apologizing to a telephone pole.
"Er, Usagi.." she said, tapping her on the shoulder. Usagi looked up. Then right. Then up again. The young man was quite tall. With an amused chuckle, he looked down at Usagi.
"Apologizing to the telephone pole? Nice one."
Naru blushed slightly as she noticed what a dashingly attractive figure the man cut, barely noticing Usagi starting to fume and seeth beside her.
"Might be a problem if the warm weather's affecting your head though," the man continued as he brushed past, laughing at his own joke.
"What did you say to me?!" Usagi shouted after him. Naru leaned over.
"Hey, do you know that guy? He's gorgeous."
"He is not!" Usagi snapped back, shaking her fists in the air. "He ticks me off! He's horrible, I hate him! IhatehimIhatehimIhatehim!
Naru was a little taken aback at Usagi's vehemence. "Er... what did he do?"
"What didn't he do, more like!" Usagi replied. "That jerk has been giving me grief for weeks!"
"Well, maybe you just got off on the wrong foot-"
"The first thing he ever did was insult me!" Usagi retorted. "Literally, first meeting, first sentence, he called me Dumpling Head!"
"Oh, how awful," Naru said consolingly. Although, that's actually kindof funny, she thought to herself. "So how do you know him?"
"I don't, that's the point! He just shows up! And then he makes fun of me! For no reason! He's just a big, fat, pompous jerk! If I never see him again it'll be too soon!"
"Uhuh... well, guess we'd better get going." Naru turned to continue walking down the street. "You coming Usagi?"
"Guess so," Usagi replied, nose still out of joint.
That night, Naru again tuned the radio in just before midnight.
"Good evening. it's time for Midnight Zero."
She gave a relaxed sigh as the familiar smooth saxaphone started up. Even if the chances of her letters getting selected were slim, she always got hopeful when that music played. It was like it was a tune just for her...
"The first letter we will read is from Naru, who lives in Jubangai."
Naru's heart skipped a beat. That... no, it couldn't be her, could it? Maybe it was a different Naru, maybe...
"It's nice to believe in fate."
Naru gave a muffled squeal of delight. It was! It was her letter! Settling down on the bed, pillow clutched tightly, she listened intently as J-Dite's satin tones read her heart to the airwaves.
"Fate says it has a plan. That you will find the one you love, somewhere, somehow. It can be scary to believe in chance, to believe that your true love might be walking past you in the street, and you'd never know. But what is fate, if not chance turned into a story? And what is chance, if not fate undiscovered? Come, let us take a chance together, and write our own fate. Our own story."
Naru beamed to herself as J-Dite read. It sounds even better than when I wrote it.
Despite the late night, Naru was up early and eager the next morning. Even before she'd had breakfast, she nipped downstairs to the shop front, going through the morning mail until she found a square, heavy envelope, neatly giftwrapped with a ribbon on one corner. Excitedly, she slipped it into her bag, dashing back inside for toast. I'll wait until I get to school, she thought to herself. I'll show everyone then.
"Naru!" Kuri said, coming up and hugging on to Naru's arm. "You got your letter read on Midnight Zero last night!"
"Yep," Naru replied, grinning.
"So did you... y'know, get it yet?"
"Right here." All Naru's friends were clustering round, as impatient as she was for the big reveal. She reached into her bag, holding the gift-wrapped envelope in front of her with pride.
"So that's the flower brooch, huh?" Yumiko asked.
"Yeah, it arrived this morning."
"Naru, hurry up and open it!" Usagi said, hands gripping the desk in anticipation.
"Okay then." Naru stripped the paper away, slipping the brooch out of the thick cardstock onto her hand. It was exquisite; a deep purple flower, with just a hint of blue. The light glimmered off the curves of the petals, and it weighed heavy in her palm.
"Wow, it's so pretty," Kuri exclaimed.
"Hey!" Usagi said suddenly. "That's the same as the flower Ms. Haruna was wearing yesterday!" Everyone looked at her in surprise, as they realized she was right.
"So the letter that was from the Haruna in love was... the teacher?" Kuri wondered out loud.
"How bizarre," Usagi said, clearly unable to fathom the idea of a teacher looking for romance.
I'll need to explain that to her at some point, Naru thought to herself as she affixed the brooch to her collar, getting it nestled nice and tidily. Ms. Haruna really isn't that much older than...
Naru's eyes flickered open. She stared at the ceiling of her bedroom for a while, not quite comprehending what she was seeing. Hang on, had she had one of those "got up and went to school" dreams? She sat up, giving a wide yawn. Wow, she felt sluggish. She looked around the room. It was nighttime. More than that, it was evening, as a quick look at her alarm clock showed. What on earth?...
"Hello?" she called out. "Anyone home?"
There was a sudden pounding of feet, and her mother burst through the door, a look of mingled shock and relief on her face.
"Are you alright?" she asked, sweeping up to Naru and pressing her hand against Naru's forehead. "No wooziness? Headaches?"
"Uhh, I'm feeling a bit groggy but I think I'm fine... Mum, what happened? I was just at school this morning and then..."
"You fainted in class," her mother explained, holding Naru's face in her hands. "The doctors said it was that sleeping sickness that's been going around. Oh, you gave me such a fright!"
"Hnrk!" Naru gasped as her mother hugged her tightly. "How long have I been out?"
"Just a day, thank goodness." Her mother relaxed her grip a little, allowing Naru to suck in a much-needed breath of air. "Most of the other patients recovered earlier this afternoon, but you were taking longer. They were wanting to keep you at the hospital overnight, but I was just... I mean, what if you woke up in the middle of the night? And I wasn't there?"
"Love you too, Mum." Naru said, awkwardly patting her on the shoulderblades. Then remembering what she'd been doing before she woke up, "Mum, was I wearing a flower brooch when I came into the hospital?"
"Oh, they took that away," her mother explained. "They worked out the flower brooches were the common factor in all the cases. I think the current theory is that there was some kind of unsafe chemical residue on the brooches from the manufacturing process. They took all of them away for testing in any case. Strangest thing though - they tried to get in contact with FM 10 to find out where the brooches came from, but they're claiming they don't know anything about it. Apparently no-one there was actually running that Midnight Zero program."
"That's.. weird," Naru said. And worrying, she added to herself. That's twice now a company's just disappeared after something weird happened. If that's a coincidence, it's a crazy one... Maybe it was just the disorientation of suddenly losing twelve hours, but Naru felt a brief thrill of fear run down her back. That train of thought got interrupted though, as she realized something else. "Hang on... Mum, how do you know about Midnight Zero?"
Mrs Osaka shrugged defensively. "Well, it's not like I was sending any letters to them, but y'know... I can enjoy a little romantic poetry, right?"
"Were you... listening to it last night?" Naru asked, cheeks beginning to burn.
"I might have been," Mrs Osaka said evasively, before giving Naru a conspiratorial wink. Naru curled up on the bed, covering her head with her pillow as her cheeks flushed bright red.
"I'm just gonna sit here and be hideously embarrased now"
"Well, have fun with that dear."
"Mhm."
"Dinner in half an hour."
"Mhm."
