Chapter 9

I walked into the club room, sitting myself down on the farthest seat from the door. I closed my eyes, allowing the serene silence to consume my thoughts. For a moment, I deduced that these moments alone were unlikely to trigger my peculiar sensations in any way, shape, or form.

I was wrong.

I overheard a fly buzzing in the left corner of the room. Abruptly, I let out that firm, durable webbing, narrowly missing the bug's body.

Shocked, the creature made a dash for the window. I pounced before it got there, making sure it couldn't get out. Panicking, it made its way towards the other door.

"You're not getting away from me…"
The implications of my thoughts were very very disturbing. That was really the only way I could think of saying it at the time.

"Yo, Hotaru, you there..?" His words slipped into nothingness. As the fly zipped outside, I noticed myself begin to calm down. I retreated from the lurching position I'd thrown myself into. "That's an interesting take on Survival of the Fittest."
I collapsed myself onto the front chair, watching him as he took his seat. "Can you really make it though the rest of the semester like this? Much less life?"
"The sooner I learn to live with it, the easier it'll be."
"Yeah, right. There's no way you can be so kosher about this. At this rate, you'll be living in a hole in the ground, spinning a web in front of your door as you wait for prey to knock on your doorstep. Ha, that would be pretty funny now that I think about it."
"Is Chitanda coming?"
"Yeah, she'll be here any minute now." He leaned his head back casually against his seat. Still, I detected an odd amount of control revealing itself through his words. "She's worried about you,"
"Not likely…"
"She is. Really, she cares about you." He shifted himself closer to my direction. "We all do. It may just be an annoyance now, but how do we know it's not gonna get worse?"
"If it wasn't for your tone, I'd assume you were joking."
"I'm not; there's gotta be a way to stop this."
"It's not that big a deal."
"Okay, look at it this way," His eyes eerily focused on me. "What if you start having these urges more and more? What if because you can't keep in it control, what if someone gets hurt?"
"What if Chitanda gets hurt because of this?"
His words stabbed right through my chest, causing sweat to burst out of the pores in my head. My eyes winced, informing him of how deep a cut he'd just made.

"I… I wouldn't let that happen. It's not as bad as you think."
"You saw what happened to me, right? What if you did something like that when you weren't ready, while you were walking down the stairs, or opening a door? With your strength, you could cause a lot of damage." His fierce demeanor was gone. He gazed through the window, watching dust settle on the table. The sunset cast dark shadows over his face, enunciating each and every one of his words. "You know I'm right."
"I do,"
"What do you think we should do?"
"What can I do?" My attitude was hopeless. Not a single plan formed in my head, no matter how hard I tried to figure something out. "There's no way I can know exactly how these powers work. And if I let the doctors know about my powers, I'd probably be getting more than just physical therapy."
The door knob twisted, and Chitanda quietly shuffled inside the clubroom.

"Hotaru..?" Her eyes glanced my way as I felt a tired gasp of air I held in while conversing with Satoshi escaped me.

"I'm not sure what I can do." I tapped my right foot, successfully releasing fiercer emotions that had crept up inside of me. "Except try to understand what's going on."
She dusted off her skirt, and plainly put herself in the chair next to me. She eyed me curiously, her violet eyes forcing me to contain my embarrassment from showing itself on my face. "There's nothing more we can do?"
"I'm afraid not,"
"I wish I could help…"
"There's no reason you should feel that way. These phases are an inconvenience, nothing more."
"But," Her body moved towards me, her face shyly staring down at her knees. Satoshi could have let his jaw drop, and his surprise wouldn't have been any more obvious. His eyes told the story well enough on their own. "I don't remember us ever feeling that way about a case before."
"This is a bit different than a normal case."
"I don't want anything to happen to you just because of this." She straightened her hair, subtle red colors blooming in the middle of her cheeks. "It's just… It's just not fair,"
"Some things can't be prevented. You know that,"
My words sounded matter-of-fact, maybe even cruel, but I didn't want her to lose her composure. Not now; she'd feel horrible just thinking about it afterwards.

"I don't know if I…" Her face went down again. She wasn't sure what to say. She didn't want to acknowledge I was right; she didn't want me to know she was also on the verge of giving up. Tears were welling in her eyes.

Gently, I lifted her face upwards. I wiped the tears away from her eyes, her cheeks flushing wildly. Not that I blamed her, of course.

"One way or another, I'll make it through. Don't worry," As I reassured her, I started to relate to the concern she felt at my position. I couldn't stand her being like this, especially since I didn't think this reaction was warranted. However, these practical reasons weren't why I comforted her like I did.

I did it because I cared.

Doing my best to appear natural, I gave her a smile.

I froze where I was, passionate emotions taking over my body once again. During that time, Satoshi offered a small smile, his eyes turned towards the window.

Our eyes met once again, her eyes brilliantly illuminating the light from the nearby window. Her pupils bounced every other second, sorely tempted to retreat from my gaze.

"Th…Thank you,"

I didn't relax my smile.

Instead, without a second thought, I said exactly what I wanted to say.

"You'd do the same for me, it's the least I can do."
She giggled, her eyes darting away from mine. Although Satoshi's face hadn't changed, I sensed a greater acceptance of the events that transpired than he appeared to have before.

"I'm sorry, Fukube-san," Chitanda addressed him. "I didn't mean to…"
"Oh, no, it's fine. I don't mind," He adjusted his chair, sweeping his hand once through his hair. "But, I was thinking of something interesting that happened earlier today…"
His words, on a normal day, would have angered me. But this wasn't really a normal day, and I wasn't exactly in an ordinary mood.
"What was it?" Her eyes locked on to his as they had several times before, but they didn't contain the same interest she'd shown in the past.

"Well, then again, we could start reading classical literature for a change…"
"No, really, what did you find out?" Her enthusiasm and energy was slowly starting to return.

"Alright," He rubbed his hands together. "Shortly after lunch, I overheard a teacher talking to a few students. I didn't wanna eavesdrop; she looked like the kinda teacher who'd whack me with a ruler if she caught me. But I did catch an interesting bit of information. She seemed to be looking for another student; someone who'd caused trouble in the cafeteria, or something like that."
Her eyes followed even his tiniest movements. Even I found the gesture somewhat unnerving. "Do you know who it is?"
"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't had any success yet." Having little interest in the proposed case, I glanced the other way as Chitanda nodded.

"We should look into it. It's our responsibility to help the teachers whenever we can."
"Alright! Let's go!"
Satoshi merrily pranced down the hallway. Chitanda, however, didn't follow him immediately.

Instead, she looked back at me. I'd glued my eyes to the wall in a desperate attempt to look like I was otherwise occupied.

At that, she left a soft giggle. I glanced her way, silently pleading my case to her.

She shook her head, grabbing my arm as she once again prepared to drag me down the hallways after Satoshi. Still, it didn't feel monotonous.

Instead, I was just happy to know that despite everything that had happened to me over the past few days, nothing had changed.