THIS FANFICTION IS CURRENTLY BEING REWRITTEN AND UPDATED.
THINGS HAVE BEEN CHANGED AND I WOULD RECOMMEND REREADING THIS TITLE IF YOU HAVEN'T IN A WHILE.
THANK YOU FOR READING x
[START]
Define 'Normal'
Chapter 21:
The evening was unexpectedly muggy, Monika almost angrily dragging the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. Fanning herself with her other hand as she tried to readjust her sticky, sweat slicken uniform.
The fear and apprehension of the morning had faded to a distant whisper, leaving Monika to lose herself in thought about a certain class member.
Only to be distracted…
"Can I ask why you've been following me?" Clipped. Spilling out alongside a sigh. At a volume she hoped they would hear.
Monika spun about, her target near instantly freezing in place. A baggy eyed girl with a head of dark, frizzy curls that fell over her shoulders and face haphazardly. She wondered if the girl could even see her, hiding around the corner as she was. Pale hands trembling as they clutched the pale wall.
Monika's usually sunny smile morphed into an irritated scowl; the girl advancing quickly on her target. Bearing down on her before she could flee, snatching up a pale arm in a vice grip,
"Ah, uh, I erm…" she was spluttering, forced to look up at the taller girl in fright. Monika immediately felt a bit guilty.
Monika recognised her. Ruto Oka from class 1-B. She knew this girl was a bit of loner, not too dissimilar to Harry's friend Yuri, likely not used to this much attention. Those thoughts got Monika to loosen her grip somewhat but not let her go,
"I'm not going to hurt you, just please explain yourself." It was the days of stalking that added an edge to her voice, but her own underlying patience that stopped her from snapping at her. The girl taking deep but steady gulps of air and making a visible effort to steady herself. When she did speak, her voice was low, and Monika's ears strained to catch her explanation,
"I first thought that it was perhaps to do with their similarity with Potter-san, for his and yours are of a similar colour and HE is magical. So, I thought maybe you were also, but alas that is not true." She shook her head and looked almost mournful at that declaration, "Then I realised you must have seen some magic and that was why you looked and felt the way you do."
Monika froze like ice,
"M-Magic? I don't-"
"DON'T DENY IT!" She screamed, dark eyes blazing to life in an instant. Harsh breathing, grinding teeth and a stare like spears accompanied her roar. Monika let go, staggering without letting the incensed girl out of her sight. The fury vanished as quickly as it came. A small 'eep' ripping past her lips before she hid her face in her hands and muttered through them, "You d-don't have to, I know it's real. I've known all my life."
Oka seemed to take her captors wide eyes and deathly silence as license to continue,
"My mother, before she died, told me that magic runs in the blood of our family. She told me that her mother and father and sister could all do fantastical things just by waving a wand and uttering an incantation and they lived in a world that normal people can't see."
Her gaze was distant, and her words delivered wistfully, evidently lost in the memory of days since past.
Then her expression turned sour,
"But she was born without it."
Monika felt cold, there was loathing in her eyes. A deep and a cold loathing that actually called Monika to pull further away,
"She told me that they tried to treat her the same as her sister, but it was 'too much for them', and they abandoned her. Leaving her with the knowledge of wizards and witches and all sorts of monsters and creatures, but no way to prove their existence or ever see them again."
There was a heat in Oka's expression, hatred left to fester for years on end. She didn't seem the type beforehand, but there was no mistaking it.
Magic. Oka's words were confirmation. Had this been a week prior, she likely would have dismissed the girl offhand as mad or living in a fantasy.
But seeing was believing after all. And Monika had seen magic. She'd seen wizards. She'd seen that there was more to this world than what she had assumed prior. This intrigue had grown into a fascination, a fascination that she levelled at the still smiling and joking Harry. He was her first glimpse into it and all, how could she not?
She had tried to put it all out of her mind, avoiding Harry as much as was reasonable whilst trying not to rouse his suspicions. What she'd seen was… scary. He'd brought an inanimate object to life and, it had attacked a man. Its glowing fangs haunted her dreams and the sadistic smile on Harry's face couldn't be unseen.
But… there was an odd thrill beneath her skin. That thrill dragging her to the boy in question earlier as if they were magnetised.
And this girl, Oka, was more information. Monika would NEVER feel bad for gleaning all she could from the shy little woman…
"What do you know about magic?" Monika asked, her tone was firm, almost ordering her to speak in its intensity.
"A… a lot…" Her timidity rose to the surface, drowning out her hatred.
"T-Then…" She stopped, her mind whirring and images of the green eyed… wizard? Her dear classmate.
She bowed in supplication at the waist to Oka and continued with her plea,
"Please… please teach me."
…
…
...
July struck Buraza town like a comet. Searing heat and the change of the seasons had the students move to summer uniforms (a novel experience for Harry).
Four gruelling days of end of term exams and they were unleashed onto the world for the summer…
A blaring alarm had Sayori grumbling and whining immediately, a hand snaking out from under two thick duvets to turn off the phone next to Sayori's pillow. The young lady casting a weary blue eye around her room, bathed in the muted light of the sun filtering through her blinds.
Her uniform still hung on the back of her desk chair, the desk itself buried under piles of half-finished poems, homework, books and pretty much every sock she owned. She spied the mug from her previous night's hot chocolate as well and was immediately hit by a wave of desire for another.
That's what got her out of bed…
Snatching the yellow mug from the desk (after the quick and customary greeting to Mr Cow at the bottom of her bed), she slipped out of her room and padded down the cold wooden stairs with nary a thought to her chilled feet. She scowled upon stepping on to the cool tiles of the kitchen and performed the quietest rummaging on earth for a new mug and hot chocolate mix. Finding a cupboard full of the former and absolutely none of the latter.
Her lips formed into a disappointed pout,
"Oh Sayori! You're up early." A voice from behind breaking her thought pattern as she decided to run to the shops.
Her head turned, pout evaporating into an easy smile,
"Morning papa!" She greeted cheerily, blue eyes falling on her father. Dressed up in a dark green shirt with darker trousers, he stood a full foot taller than her daughter and towered over most of the men and women he met with an easy smile on his stubbly, bearded face. Long dark hair tied back into a ponytail, his usual bottle green flat cap was already perched atop his head
"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked as he stepped around her to get to the bread and drop it in the toaster. His eyes never left his daughter for more than a second but he (in that time) did miss the slight tightness that marred her winning smile,
"Fine thank you." Her sweet reply.
Bittersweet was her father's concern. He loved her, and she loved him, he was always going out of his way to make try and make her happy and feel okay, in the very minuscule time he had with her these days. He seemed to be prioritising her happiness over the rest he should have been getting in that time.
Making the whole enterprise bittersweet.
"Have you had breakfast yet, sweetheart?"
"Not yet papa. But it's okay!" she was quick in her insistence as his mouth opened, "I want hot chocolate, so I'm going to run to the convenience store to get some first."
She was also quick to respond to his predicted offer for a lift, he was a taxi driver and his 'offices' were in the opposite direction. She would NOT be an inconvenience.
"Well, I've got to run sweetheart." He planted a kiss on his daughter's cheek and she giggled a little at the scratchy feeling of his short beard and wished him a heartfelt good day, moving to the door, "Have a good day and a good rest, you've worked hard at school and I'm super proud of you."
He smiled brightly and Sayori blushed a little. She waved as he closed the front door, leaving Sayori standing in the doorway with a soft smile,
"Hmm, he's off a lot sooner than usual." A musing from a bored feminine voice.
Sayori's head was turned again, this time upwards to the stairs where her mother stood watching.
She had gained her round face and blue eyes from her father most likely, but her hair was her mothers. They both wore it short, though her mother's shaped and cut far neater than Sayori's. Her face was more angular and made her appear almost aristocratic, with her defined cheekbones and dark ocean blue eyes. Tall, busty and carrying herself with poise and confidence even in her own home, where her only audience was her teen daughter,
"Good morning, Sayori-chan."
"M-morning Mum." she spoke in a low voice, almost surprising that her daughter could hear it.
Long legs carried the woman down the stairs,
"Have you got anything planned for today, Sayori-chan? Meeting some friends?" Her eyebrows arched as she asked her questions, but those eyebrows knitted closer a little before she spoke again with a firmer tone and a harder stare, "It won't help you to sit around all day."
That wasn't bittersweet, that just stung. Her eyes were piercing and bore into Sayori without mercy, ignoring how her smile fell to her feet and she fidgeted. Her mother took this in with a sigh and a shake of the head, stepping past her daughter (ruffling her short hair as she passed) and busied herself in the kitchen with her coffee and breakfast,
"I… erm I'm going to the store. Would you like anything?"
Her mother sighed out tiredly as she hit the appropriate button on the coffee machine and settled herself down in front of a novel at the kitchen table,
"Nothing you can buy me at your age." She murmured and fished in her purse for a moment before sliding the notes across the table, "Get yourself some sweets or something as well as whatever you're getting, honey."
She offered her daughter a tired but sincere smile and Sayori's returning smile was just as fatigued if a little always means well, she didn't mean to hurt her.
Sayori hit herself at that thought, she worked so hard and did so much, it was not only disrespectful but morally wrong.
The front door clicked shut behind her about a half hour later; Sayori having to tear through her room for clean clothes, her wallet and phone. Stepping out at into the bright summer morning, breathing in the cool air and jogging past the front gate and out onto the street.
She drew up some cheer, genuine in the face of the sight, as she saw a friend loading a heaving plastic bag into his bin,
"Harry! Good morning!" She called, scurrying across the street hurriedly and relishing in the boy's response. Behind his round but flattering spectacles his green eyes widened then softened, lighting up as his face split into a grin. She enjoyed that, not just because it was him, she just adored making people smile. In all honesty, she indulged in it; the rainclouds seemed to dissipate for the briefest of seconds.
"Good morning, Sayori-chan?"
"Eh, 'chan'?"
"Oh, don't you-"
"Ehehehe! Thanks Harry, I'm glad you're not being so formal." She was, his politeness was something she liked about him but she liked it more that he seemed to be more comfortable around her, "To be honest, I was worried you were a bit stuffy."
She delivered her lines with a mock pout that dissolved into a string of giggles at his almost horrified gaze. He then chuckled and Sayori beamed in pride.
"Yeah, I'll obviously never get mistaken for a native, but I do want to fit in as best I can."
"You're Japanese is great! It's like you've spoken it your whole life." They both smiled a little bashfully, "How long did it take you? I've always found English tricky."
"Yeah, they are really different, so I did struggle a lot more with it than others." His words drifting off as he counted off on his fingers, "About six months, I think. Hehe, I remember I studied it in the locker rooms between matches."
"Matches- wait SIX MONTHS?!" Stupefied, "H-how?"
His smirk was transcendent…
"Magic."
It was almost insufferable, Sayori planting her hands onto her hips and pouting. Only, reluctantly, letting it go at the little snorts in between his laughs, that Sayori took to teasingly ribbing.
"Have you got much planned for the summer?" Sayori steered the conversation as Hary seemed a bit wistful during her tale about her extended family, "My mum is
"Erm, well, Najimi-san and Taro-san's family have a summer place down south that they're letting us stay in for a week or two. Do you wanna come with us?" He asked almost timidly as Sayori looked up at him in surprise, "We're currently going with Budo-san and Yuri too. I was supposed to ask you ages ago, but I got a bit busy."
"Oh, that's…"
"Y-You don't have to decide right now, a-actually here!" he rummaged around in the pockets of his jeans and produced a pen and a small notebook before scribbling away on a page and tearing away the paper to hand to her, "There's my number and email address, I can send you the pictures and stuff if you like and you can make up your mind after talking to your parents. Hell, you can invite Natsuki and Hiro-san if you like, the more the merrier."
He smiled winningly, she took the paper numbly with a slight nod before he rushed out more red cheeked goodbyes and slipped away. Speeding off and leaving Sayori speechless.
Then she was smiling.
Harry was a sweetheart, confident and outgoing one minute then a shy little bean the other, Sayori was certain (for better or worse) that he always wore his heart on his sleeve. Very much a sincere person who wanted to spend time with her outside of school with all his friends.
She'd never done a summer trip with friends, the idea both exciting and daunting. If they weren't against having her there, then why not spend a week or two with her lovely new friends from 1-A.
Sayori practically skipped through the streets towards the shops after that. The only raincloud a tiny one that wondered how she would convince her other two friends to come too…
[TO BE CONTINUED]
TO NEW READERS, WELCOME!
TO OLDER READERS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND CONTINUED SUPPORT!
AND TO EVERYONE, THANK YOU FOR READING x