Thank you for reading this fan fiction of mine up to this far.
And sorry, terribly sorry for having no updates of this until now. I was looking for motivation to type on my tablet...
Also, starting from this chapter, I won't be connecting the story with the timeline in the manga for most parts - it's getting a bit complicated to do so.
"Hareda Mayoi, please come here in front and show the class your computation."
"Hai, sensei." Seated in the back part of class 2-B, a short-haired girl stood up, on her hand an opened notebook, as she carefully directed herself to the chalkboard to answer the displayed equation.
The normally stern Fukuoka-sensei kept her eyes firmly on watching her student. Though Mayoi wrote her solution slower than her other students, it was still correct, and the 52-year old teacher did not mind the teenager's writing speed.
"That's correct. Take your seat."
With a faint 'hai', Mayoi returned to her seat in a gingerly manner, not seeing her old female teacher's soft smile. As the class went on, Mayoi kept her attention firmly on the chalkboard and to the aged instructor, not noticing a keen pair of sky blue orbs observing her from behind.
Isshiki Satoshi found himself walking through the streets of Tootsuki when a loud call of his name stopped him in his tracks.
"Satoshi-kun!"
"Rindou-senpai, what is it?"
The one who walked towards the brunette was Kobayashi Rindou, his senpai by a year and currently known as the Second Seat of the Tootsuki Ten. Her cheerful aura contrasted the somewhat serious air wrapping Satoshi.
"Nothing in particular actually. What brings you here?"
"Actually, same reason as you have. Though probably I'm here to just relax and temporarily free myself with the stress that's been building up lately." Rindou gave a smile to the lowerclassman, her head tilted sideways for that innocent effect.
"Oh. Is that it?."
"I guess so."
"The rules you set up is really interesting, you know that? It's really well thought-out." The sudden topic about his created rules regarding the Survivor's Purge put Satoshi a bit on the cautious side, which did not escape Rindou's keen observation.
"Come on, don't be all serious and agitated with me, Satoshi-kun. I'm just bringing up something to talk about. I don't have much to talk to you about other than Kinr-" Rindou suddenly cut her statement short, realizing she may have just stepped on a landmine. Satoshi's quick eye reflex went noticed by her, thus settling to keep her mouth shut. The brunette's eyelids slowly started to drape over halfway Satoshi's cyan blue orbs.
"Kinri-chan's birthday is just around the corner," Satoshi informed Rindou in a soft, low, almost whisper-like manner.
"S-Sorry for bringing her up, Satoshi-kun." The normally energetic Kobayashi Rindou seemed out of character as she lowered her head, her eyes threatening to eject tears.
"N-No, Rindou-senpai. I-It's not like that."
Satoshi quickly tried to dispell the forming melancholic feeling around them, waving his hands in front of the currently gloomy upperclassman. Rindou noticed how the brunette was trying to cheer her up and acted her part.
"S-Satoshi-kun?"
"If you're blaming yourself for what happened, don't. If there's to blame for all of this," Satoshi lowered his voice and continued in a somewhat guilt-hinted tone. "It's me."
"N-No! It's my fault as to why she left, and you should know that!" There was a forceful conviction in how Rindou rebutted.
She knew herself that ever since the overprotective girlfriend of Satoshi left, she played a major part in the cause of the other's sudden departure. Her emotions showed that she wasn't making it up - tears slowly crawling down her cheeks, hands balled tightly into fists with every word, and her inner self-shouting 'It's my fault' as if when given the chance to communicate with Satoshi telepathically, she'd shout it at him nonstop.
The man noticed how it was eating Rindou from the inside - and he thinks that he should be the one feeling the same, not her. After all, he was, and probably still is, Kinri's boyfriend. If there was anything that was bothering his lover, he should have been there to help her alleviate herself from her worries. But, he didn't notice them at all and just let Kinri face on them all by herself. 'What kind of a boyfriend is he to just let his partner deal with her problems without even lending a hand to the other,' he often asked himself.
"R-Rindou-senpai..."
"Sorry." Rindou slowly took a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and wiped her tears. "It's not like I'm heartless but I should be strong right now. After all, there's still my Central duties to take care of."
"Of course."
"Sorry, Satoshi-kun, but I think I'll go back to the office now. See ya."
"Bye, Rindou-senpai." And with that, Kobayashi Rindou slowly walked out of the brunette's sight.
"Kobayashi-senpai, by any chance, are you in contact with Kuga?"
Rindou was already inside the building where the offices of the Tootsuki Ten are located and was now walking leisurely towards her very own room when a green-haired lowerclassman called her out from behind. She playfully twirled around before she bent her legs for a surprise attack, licking her lips in anticipation.
"Nene-chan!" Kinokuni Nene was welcomed by Rindou's sudden attack, not escaping the other female's bear hug.
"R-Rindou-senpai! L-Let me go!"
The greenhead tried to struggle under her senpai but came out with nothing - Rindou just intensified her hug, squeezing oxygen out of poor Nene. Rindou pressed her cheeks onto the kouhai's, later noticing that it's turning blue. So, in a snap, Rindou let go of Nene who immediately bent down to her knees, gasping hard for air.
"You're doing your bear hugs a bit too tight, Kobayashi-senpai."
"So you mean I can continue hugging you if I loosen it up a bit?"
Rindou's eyes turned starry as they gazed on Nene, cringing upon her senpai's determination. "H-How did you come up with that conclusion?"
Rindou didn't reply, continuing her hopeful stares at the terrified lowerclassman.
"A-Anyway," They were going off-topic, and Nene noticed that so she again asked Rindou, who, this time, was paying close attention.
"Kuga-kun? Not recently. Why you ask?"
"Ever since the seminars and research societies are all being decommissioned by Central, Kuga hasn't been in contact with anyone. I thought he'd at least try to contact you, Rindou-senpai."
"Now that you mentioned it, I haven't seen him anywhere at all."
"If you find out anything, do inform me, okay, Rindou-senpai?"
"What is this?" Rindou found an opportunity to once again embarrass Nene, so she took her chances. "Why do you want to contact Kuga-kun that badly, Nene-chan? Are we longing for someone out there?"
"R-Rindou-senpai!" Now, Nene was all flustered - and pink. Rindou just laughed at the lowerclassman's blushing mess and left Nene on her own, waving her hands to the flabbergasted teen.
"Sure thing, Nene-chan."
As Rindou walked away from Nene, her mind became full of hypotheses - some plausible, considering Kuga's somewhat brash nature, others really contradicting the Chinese chef's personality.
'For Kuga-kun to be out of sight or of the radar of anyone, I can only think of two possible reasons.'
As she entered her office, she immediately locked the wooden door shut, and instantly headed to her table, withdrawing a cell phone out of one of its drawers.
'If this one is exactly it, you are so going to hear a lot from me, Kuga-kun!'
As a black car he's riding on raced through the national highway, a loud ringing shifted Kuga's attention from his gaming console into the phone inside his pocket.
"Who would be calling me at this time?"
Though reluctant, Kuga reached for the device, slightly shocked to see the name of the caller flashing on the screen. With a quick click on the answer button, Kuga answered.
"Rindou-senpai, w-what are you calling for?"
"Kuga-kun!" Apparently, Kobayashi Rindou was a tad impatient in her tone.
With the series of changing events in Tootsuki, even if she's not the Top of the Central, she is still someone in the inner circle. Of course, she'd show impatience. But, it seems that this tone did not rise from the academy's changes, but rather from something else.
"Where are you?"
"I'm on my way to Shizuoka right now."
"R-Really? W-What are you doing out there?" Kuga grew a bit irritated from the upperclassman's question, as to why, he doesn't know. Probably because every second he spends talking to her means he has less time to play his game. So with a hint of indifference, he warned the other line that he'd be hanging up.
"D-Don't hang up just yet, Kuga-kun!"
Rindou was a bit desperate at that attempt, not that she wanted the junior to notice it.
"I know, I know. You're on your way to see Kinri-chan, are you?"
Bull's eye. Kuga's mouth widened in shock. How could have Kobayashi Rindou found out about this? She wasn't informed of Kuga's progress, even if she was technically in it since the very beginning. Well, considering that she's currently an important asset in the Central, one wrong move about their plan would cause everything they'd work for be crushed in an instant. So, he had to keep it from Rindou, until he can find the perfect timing to tell her, that is.
Rindou, on the other hand, found Kuga's sudden silence a total giveaway. With that complete lack of immediate response, she just confirmed one of her two hypotheses.
"H-How did you-"
"Kuga-kun's such a meanie for not informing me such an important matter. I thought we're in this together." 'Although I didn't actually hear about any of this. It was just a guess.'
Kuga did not fail to notice the fake hurt Rindou tried to pull off and stayed firm.
"If I were to inform you about my progress, you'd end up acting all secret and whatnot. Nakiri Azami would find it suspicious and eventually figure out what you- we're doing, and you do know that that's the last thing we want to happen, right?"
"But you could have informed me before you set out..."
"And risk myself getting caught up there. Not a chance."
Kuga turned his head to the window, gazing at the fast-moving scenery before him, his hand still on the mobile device pressed on his ear.
"It's almost a year since she disappeared, huh."
"Yeah. Almost a year since that Shokugeki - I shouldn't have pressed on with that."
Rindou's voice cracked on the last part, trying to stop the tears forming in her eyes. The earlier conversation she had with Isshiki Satoshi was coming back to her, making her efforts to not cry close to futile. Kuga could imagine how the upperclassman was looking right now - using her arms to wipe off the pearly tears from her eyes before they try to fall down her cheeks. It's not that Kuga could not sympathize with Rindou, it's just that he doesn't know how to comfort her.
"R-Rindou senpai-"
"If I didn't push on with that Shokugeki to continue, if I just noticed the burdens that Kinri was hiding, she could still be here with us..."
"It's not as if she's dead or anything, you know." Kuga did not try to be insensitive to the crying Rindou, but he tried to make her face some facts. "She's still alive. She's still not six feet under. So stop crying."
Rindou was grateful that Kuga finally found Kinri after all these time, so grateful that the tears just can't stop flowing. But she had to stop, if people see her eyes red, they'd bombard her with questions and might end up being put on the hot seat. So, as per Kuga's request, she picked up her handkerchief placed inside her pocket and wiped her tears dry.
'Kobayashi Rindou. Are you in there?'
At that moment, Kuga noticed an unfamiliar voice on the other line, a bit faint but he was able to know that it wasn't someone who should know about Kinri's whereabouts. In a fit of a rush, Kuga tried to warn Rindou of the incoming danger. Of course, Rindou heard the approaching person so she immediately said her goodbye to Kuga and hid her phone and handkerchief into her drawer, closing them quickly.
Finally. Chapter Four complete.
For those who continued to follow this story, thank you so much... :D :D