After School Activities
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It had been a week since her patience had finally broken and Shizuru had barely caught sight of the other after, occasionally, almost like a ghost conjured by wishful thinking, a flash of dark hair flutters at the corner of her eye and disappears before she could begin to turn her head.
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In this part of town, the wind blows cold in summer and Shizuru buries her hands into her blazer pockets, red tipped ears slipping back into her mind like a warm day dream.
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"Have you thought about what club you'd like to join, Fujino-san? You were in tea ceremony last year before it was dissolved weren't you?"
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Kikuwa-san, a quiet girl in class seems to be making rounds, she was part of the Student Council, maybe looking for people who could help out, the elections after all, were right around the corner.
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"Yes, " Shizuru lied, "I've got something in mind".
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"Oh, then once you've filled out your form please give it to me, form submissions end on friday" she had said this not unkindly but her curtness gives Shizuru the impression she was partly disappointed, tapping the thin stack she had already collected before turning towards another group of girls in the corner, possibly to find better luck there.
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Truthfully, Shizuru would rather not be bothered by club activities, that was the point of joining tea ceremony her first year, they hardly actually did anything because kimonos, flowers and green tea every after school meeting would both be impractical and financially improbable, so they simply met up and discussed the history and theories of it and almost blasphemously drank black tea made from an electric teapot with a side of sembei, 'an informal gathering of strangers' she had once thought while there, tea wasn't particularly a topic of conversation that could last the whole three hours, so they'd talk about current events and sometimes things of a mildly personal nature before separating with more familiarity but very little true friendship.
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Shizuru was a good student, absolutely, but diligence had never come easy, it is, in her opinion, a stroke of simple good fortune that she had most likely been born with a natural ease for comprehension and an equally strong memory, one that may or may not be a blessing at this moment dropping her head onto folded arms, hoping to rid her mind of the girl who's smile had made the entire week of not seeing it a miserable set.
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A name was all she wanted, and maybe a chance for actual conversation.
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Because truthfully, every time that girl looked her way, that girl whose eyes seem vacant and far away, she felt special, and the thought of occupying some part of her day fills her with an unusual thrill she'd never had before, and like anyone who'd had a taste of something wonderful, greedily she was beginning to want more.
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"Fujino-san, someone from Class D wants to see you" Masashi calls from the door.
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From behind Masashi, a boy she'd never seen before stood waiting, shoulders squared rigid, like a man waiting for a death sentence.
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"I'll be right there" she returns, thinking literature might be a good alternative to tea ceremony, surely it was a club without much legwork.
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She pencils it down onto her form, folding it with a mental note to go and observe them tomorrow just to be sure.
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TBC
Sachii: I actually intended the first chapter to be a preview and the rest to be of a more moderate length but shorter chapters may help me get this updated more often as I tend to write these in-between work and other things. Hope that's alright to whoever had found this interesting! and to answer Tera from the comments section, I haven't given up on that story yet but as it does require more time and effort than my other more willfully written works, I'm still waiting for real life to slow down, but thank you for sticking with me after all these years!