Chapter One
With a mouthful of tamagoyaki or rolled omelet, Maeda Miwa dashed out the front steps with a fervency that would have impressed an arrancar. 'I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late!' She choked as she cursed under her breath with a full mouth. 'Of all days to oversleep... why didn't okaa-san wake me up?' She could already imagine the chastising scolding of her sensei and the victorious smirks of her friends.
Then she saw it. The flash of a yellow school bus—her ride to school. With seemingly inhuman speed, she propelled herself down the hill, practically flying. As if daunting her, the bus accelerated and swerved over a curb.
"WAIT!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, to no avail. She huffed adamantly, running towards the corner where the bus disappeared. But there was no trace of it anywhere. 'You... can't be serious.' Her parents had already left for work, and she was mostly definitely going to be late.
Miwa considered the weight of a tardy on her perfect record. Perhaps she could fake being severely ill, or getting into an accident. Instead of getting scolded, she may get sympathy instead. But how could she fake a miraculous recovery the next day? Sighing, she accepted defeat and started strolling to school.
Her perfect day had been ruined. Today was supposed to be her inauguration of becoming freshman president in the student council. If she didn't rush, the ceremony might end before she even arrived. The situation called for extreme measures.
She knew a shortcut to school, but it meant cutting through a public park and some private property. She prayed she wouldn't get lost.
The sky glowed a radiant, deep blue and the temperature was perfect. Periodically, gusts would toy with her hair and the branches would swish. It was nice, sometimes, to escape the metropolitan center and stop to smell the roses, as they would say.
That is, as long as you knew where you were going.
Miwa wanted to slap herself for her stupidity. She was always hopeless at navigation, and now she had gotten herself, not surprisingly, hopelessly lost.
"Geez, why does every bench, tree and shrub have to look the same?" Her face twitched as she approached the same white rock for the third time. Her patience was fading quickly. If anyone saw the oh so great class president in this embarrassing situation, she would have melted from chagrin.
Then she noticed a dull roar of a waterfall and some strange sounds interrupting the water's flow. As she started walking towards it, the sound grew louder. 'This presence... it feels familiar somehow.'
To her immense surprise, she saw her rival, Ishida Uryu, holding some kind of white glove gingerly, clad in something that looked straight out of a superhero comic book. Her eyebrows twitched. The sight was so peculiar that she almost failed to believe it. She eyed him greedily behind a tree, wondering what in the world he was doing and why he was not at school. Surely the great genius could not be skipping? 'Why should I care? It's none of my business.' She observed him curiously from afar, wondering if he had lost his sanity. She weighed her options. Was her pride really too much to bend, if he knew the way the school? 'I hope I don't appear like some kind of stalker.'
Reluctantly, she plucked up her courage and shuffled some steps towards him and the waterfall. As the roar deafened her ears, there was an unsettling energy in the air that made her tense.
"Excuse me, Ishida-kun?" He gave no sign of hearing her. A vein popped on her forehead. Perhaps he hadn't heard her. She repeated it again, louder. For a second, he seemed to jolt and turned around, hiding his hand behind him.
"Maeda-san?" 'Hallelujah. He knows my name.' She cleared her throat to speak, but she was paralyzed for a moment. His dark blue eyes, behind gray frames, seemed to hypnotize her because of their unprecedented concentration and intensity. "Is there something wrong, Maeda-san?"
"U-uh, I was wondering..." she stuttered, quickly flushing a bright pink. No matter what she did, she couldn't stop stuttering and coming off as a complete idiot. Then she realized that this was the first conversation they had even spoken with each other. "I got lost on my way to school. Do you know how to get there?" His eyes betrayed slight surprise, and he almost seemed relieved.
"You'll never get there in time for the ceremony," he replied collectedly.
"I realize that, but..." Miwa sighed gloomily.
"The route is pretty complicated, but it shouldn't take more than half an hour. Come on," he gestured, walking back to the bench.
"W-wait, you're coming with me?" She asked, surprise filling her eyes.
"If you got lost this far out, I think it'd be best for me to accompany you," he replied politely. She glared at him from his jab at her ego. 'What is this guy implying?'
"T-thank you," she stuttered and fell in step with him. Curiosity was burning a whole in her chest, and she opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, but she closed it again. If she knew one thing about him, at least he had common sense, so she trusted that he knew what she was doing. She stole a furtive glance at him, and she was alarmed by his contemplative concentration. 'What is this heavy atmosphere? Doesn't this guy know how to laugh?' "I'm really sorry to bother you. Truth is, I've always wanted to talk to you, but who knows I would meet you at a place like this."
She eyed his every movement, but he simply nodded politely in reply. 'Huh. This guy is really gregarious.' She wasn't surprised by how fast he was walking either. He had his own business to attend to, and he was always an elite athlete, and it intrigued her why he never joined a school sport. 'Doesn't get along with other people, I suppose.'
To her amazement, she found herself grinning from ear to ear. Perhaps it was the irony of the situation, or maybe it was purely out of humiliation. But for some reason, she was enjoying herself immensely. The spiritual energy in the air, so strong that it was almost tangible, made her nerves giddy. Underneath that reserved demeanor, she realized that he was actually quite kind-hearted. Any other of her friends would have just left her with instructions and a sarcastic good-luck.
The entire walk, even though it was completely silent, did not feel awkward or embarrassing. 'I wonder how I can make it up to him.' It was, after all, the first time a boy had walked her to school alone. If her friends discovered this, they would never stop teasing her about it. When she saw the familiar tip of the school building, she breathed a big sigh of relief.
"Congratulations on becoming freshmen president, Maeda-san. You deserve it. Have a nice day at school," he praised suddenly as he stopped.
"You're not coming with me?" She bit her lip as she watched him turn around. "I trust you know what you're doing."
He gave her a small smile. "I don't need you to worry about me."
"Good-bye," she whispered, although she doubted he heard her. "And thank you." She watched his figure disappear in the foliage, and then she sprinted to the front door, her spirits lifted. By then, she almost—almost—didn't regret oversleeping that morning.
"Sensei, thank you so much for letting me make up for being late this morning," she smiled broadly.
"It's not a problem, Maeda-san. Just make sure it doesn't happen again," he waved as she left.
"Ah, and thanks again!" She sprinted down the steps.
"Wait, Maeda-san, do you have a ride home?" her teacher shouted from the door.
"I'll be fine. See you tomorrow," she waved. 'I'm so happy Matsuda-sensei is so understanding. He moved the ceremony to tomorrow because I was late today!' So maybe her perfect day had a few unexpected quirks, but what could she say? Maybe her grandmother was right after all. Things had a tendency to turn out all right, if not for the better. Surprises were inevitable, and the smartest people used a disadvantage as an advantage. But now she encountered a different problem.
She had dropped her student I.D. on her way to school. She had it in her pocket the entire time, and when she went to school, poof, it had vanished. Her stroll broke into a light jog, as she retraced her steps from this morning. She had a folded-up map of her route in her pocket, to make sure that she would not make a fool of herself this time.
She scanned the ground of anything that might appear as her I.D., but to no avail. She determined that it was unlikely she had dropped it during her stroll with Ishida, because he would have probably noticed. 'It could it have been... when I was pursuing the crazy bus? Oh crap...'
The park was amazingly serene at sunset. The leaves glowed with a soft amber tint. Twilight made everything hazy, somehow. It also reminded her that if she didn't hurry home, she would miss dinner. She was breathing heavily now, and her backpack jolted up and down uncomfortably on her back, but she enjoyed this feeling, to feel the sweat on her bare skin and the pain that came with each movement. But it was a good sort of pain, a feeling that reminded she was human.
'So... it's time to sort out my feelings. Do I like him or do I not?' Nearby, she spotted a blooming white daisy. Smiling, she plucked it and regained her run.
She plucked off a thin petal. 'I like him.'
Her lips pouted. 'I like him not.'
She giggled when she realized how naïve she was acting. She had a crush on a guy that what—she had spoken three sentences to? She knew next to nothing about him, even though they've attended school together for years. So the urban myth actually was true. Liking somebody made one act strangely. She plucked off the last petal. 'I like him not.'
Annoyed at having her fantasies crushed when the atmosphere was so perfect, she stomped the rest of the flower under her sole as she rushed down the pavement. 'It's nice to feel like a normal teenager, I suppose. If they actually exist.' Even if her crush would only last for a few days or a few weeks, it was kind of fun. She giggled aloud when she imagined his face distorting in shock if she confessed.
She paused when she recognized the familiar roar of the waterfall. She picked up her pace as she reached it, gasping at the sight.
It was quite pretty, in lack of a better word. The idyllic sense of the cascading waters reflecting the amber sky soothed her. She closed her eyes, allowing the light warmth of the falling sun to envelope her.
But then her heart nearly stopped when she saw him. He was still there, the white glove in his hand, performing some kind of secret ritual she would never understand. 'Has he been here the entire day? Impossible.' She stared at him in shock and intrigue. He was certainly not the average teenager. When she realized she was acting far too much like a stalker, she backed away and returned on the way back home. Her mind was full of new thoughts now, about this baffling young man.
Her stomach rumbled, and it reminded that she would have to deal with her mother's scowl and punishment if she was late. 'Dinner. Did Ishida-kun even have lunch or dinner?' For some reason, she doubted it.
The bell rang, and her classmates jolted out of their seats, eager to go home. Their smiles and laughter became distant to Miwa, and somehow the depressing weight in her heart would not lift. In her hand was a bento, and she had spent hours preparing it the day before to prepare it. If she didn't eat it now, it would spoil.
But his desk was empty. The next day, and the next day again.
A small part of her knew that this would happen, but she still couldn't believe it. It was Friday. Ishida Uryu, the solitary genius, had missed an entire week of school?
'What could possibly be...'
She felt betrayed. Cheated, somehow. But she swore not to lose her calm. How could he possibly know about her covert feelings?
"Is there something wrong, Maede-san? You don't have to stay behind for president duties everyday," a gentle voice reminded.
"It's fine, Matsuda-sensei," she forced a smile. "I enjoy it."
"Funny," he snorted. "Well, if you don't go home now, your family will be worried."
"Yeah... say, Matsuda-sensei, I was thinking of giving him all the homework that's been missing."
"Him?" the teacher repeated.
"Oh, Ishida-kun. Since he's my number one rival, I can't forgive him for this."
"Well then, that's not a problem. The pile's a little heavy though."
"I don't mind. Thank you, sensei. I hate to ask you for another favor, but there's something else..."
Thank you, Satoshistar7 and White Alchemist Taya for reviewing. You guys are the best. xD
