Mandatory disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom. If I did Nagikae, Karmanami, and Chibahaya would all have happened.
"… Ryuunosuke Chiba. Stop rejecting my calls. This is the ninth time today. Pick up the phone, or so help me-"
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Ryuunosuke Chiba was sitting perched in a tree in the woods, on the top of the mountain. Ryuunosuke Chiba, who had been dodging the enumerable texts and calls from his (understandably) concerned family. Ryuunosuke Chiba, who along with his partner Rinka Hayami had been known as the best sharpshooters in Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High, the Assassination Classroom.
Had been known.
It was like a dam burst at that exact second. There was no chance on earth that he could hold back the tears. He held his face, though there was no one around to witness his breakdown. Not right now, at this very moment.
He felt bad ignoring his family, after all they did for him. But he really just didn't want to talk to anyone right now. It was less than 24 hours after Koro-sensei's death. What Chiba wanted was to be alone.
He liked the solitude. The tranquility the mountain offered. The mountain was barricaded off by the government. They seriously thought that that would stop E Class from getting in.
Amidst the storm of tears, Chiba cracked a smirk. Those silly government agents. Chiba was quiet and observant. He would hear one of them approaching from a hundred feet away and either climb further up the tree or make a quick, silent escape. And if any one of his classmates was here, they'd do the same. A full year of training to be an assassin pays off.
"… Hey." One of his classmates indeed was here. He knew who she was just by her voice, though he hadn't heard it as much as he would have liked to. He didn't even need to look down. He heard hands brushing against tree bark, light breathing, then found himself with a companion.
Rinka Hayami. His aforementioned partner. The only person in the class arguably more stoic than he. But it was perhaps because of that that Chiba found himself drawn to her. She wasn't driven by emotion like Kayano, she wasn't consistently the center of attention like Kanzaki, and she didn't tease like Nakamura. She was a constant in his universe.
The tears ceased to be. Not because he was embarrassed at crying in front of Hayami- he was fine with that- but because he didn't feel the need to cry anymore.
Over these past months, he felt that they had come to a mutual understanding of each other. So he could tell without so much as throwing a glance at her that she was apprehensive. It was obvious by her breathing, the way he felt her sway on the branch. It was ever so slightly, to avoid the risk of falling off, but in a mood that was 'normal' for her she wouldn't be moving at all.
They sat for… Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? An hour? Neither was sure exactly how much time had passed until one said something.
"You wanted the peacefulness too."
Chiba wanted to slap himself. That was the dumbest thing he said all month! Maybe all year. He knew her well. He knew she liked the stillness, the silence just as much as he did. He need not even ask why she was here.
"Uh-huh." She nodded in the dark. It came out as more of a guttural sound than a word.
Chiba distracted himself with the moon. It looked almost yellow tonight. The crescent shape would soon crumble, or so the news said. Stars danced around it. Chiba racked his head for what Koro-sensei had taught them. How many stars were in the universe, again? 100 billion in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Yet their problems seemed bigger than that.
Chiba broke the silence by gasping aloud. Hayami reacted in kind, shocked that he would have an interjection like that at this time (not shocked it was wordless, that was par for the course).
The sniper pointed towards the eastern sky. His finger trembled. "L-Look at that." It was a whisper, barely audible.
The teenaged girl trembled when she saw what he pointed to. A constellation that she never saw before. It looked like Koro-sensei. His head in a shaky oval, two wavy lines on either side of it, like his tentacles. A big smile. And two stars for his beady eyes.
It looked like a messy drawing of their teacher, one a child might have created with fingerpaints. And both of the sniper duo were sure that their classmates had noticed it, if not will notice it soon. And furthermore, they were sure that no one but E Class could see it.
It was then that Hayami started to cry. She hid her face too. Even her cries were soundless. Chiba only knew she was crying because he felt her pain. He wanted to wipe away her tears.
Finally revealing her face, she switched to playing with her hair to give her hands something to do. Her green eyes sparkled with a slight dampness that was only seen out of the corner of her friend's vision.
"Do you…"
Her friend was lost in his own thoughts. How long had that constellation been there? Did he just not notice it for a while? After all, he didn't spend much time just staring at the sky. Would it stay? How long would it stay?
It was quite a while before he actually realized that Hayami had spoken to him. "Hmm?"
"Do you think.." She changed the task used to occupy her hands, they now grasped the hemline of her jeans. "Do you think that he's watching over us? Is that why the stars appeared?"
"I don't know." He let it out as sigh. After a pause, he added "I always got better grades in math than anything that involved analyzing symbols."
"I remember that time you got a D on that quiz on Fahrenheit 451. And you wouldn't talk to Koro-sensei for a week." She giggled for the first time in a long time, and her red face was no longer wet.
Chiba blushed. "Something about what the sleeping pills represented. Hey don't laugh at me; I still have that picture of you at the pet shop."
"Fine." She abruptly grunted.
They returned to a noiseless night. The only soundtrack was their breathing, their hearts beating.
That was the wonderful thing about Hayami, Chiba thought. He could sit with her and not have to say a word, and she would understand. They could sit for hours like this, and it would be perfectly comfortable rather than awkward. Actually it was more likely to be awkward if they did speak.
And then Hayami spoke. "I think he is."
Chiba didn't expect that from her.
"Watching over us, I mean. You felt it when you woke up, didn't you?"
He gulped. "Yes, like there was another presence in my room. I didn't think it was him until you mentioned it, though."
"… But according to the group chat, most of the rest of the class didn't even sleep last night. So I guess it's something only we share."
Another pause.
"This may sound silly, but…" It was hard for Hayami to say, but it had to come off of her chest. She'd been thinking about it all day, all of yesterday. "It feels like Koro-sensei left us behind. I feel a little bit betrayed. He was smart, I'm sure he could have found a way out of the anti-tentacle barrier. But he left us. He let us go." She didn't cry this time, she just poured her heart out to her good friend. This was the only place she would do that.
He listened intently. Their conversation wasn't awkward or bumbling this time. It was therapeutic, freeing. Like getting to sleep after a long day of school.
"And who else will? If that can happen with Koro-sensei, who's to say it won't happen to anyone else!? And I'm not talking death- I mean what If I lose contact with someone else special. Yada or Kurahashi-"
The redhead was getting animated now. She stood up on the branch.
"Or… You." The sentence was finished with a whisper.
Chiba wasn't sure how to respond to that last part, but he had an idea. "Shout."
She blushed. "What?"
"Just let it all out. Scream. If you still have a voice after this, you did it wrong."
Hayami deeply inhaled, then let it all out. "I just can't believe this happened to me! To us! To everyone! The media tries to paint us as victims, and it's so… So wrong! I may have voted 'kill' a few months ago, but now I want Koro-sensei back! Give him back! Don't let us go, Koro-sensei!"
She shouted more loudly than she'd ever shouted anything before. She spent the next few moments catching her breath. Then she tumbled down and fell off the branch.
Panicking, Chiba scrambled to reach for her. Everything seemed to happen in slow-motion. There were bushes full of poison ivy all over this mountain! And some thorny plants. And sharp rocks. Who knew what was beneath them, what the darkness disguised?
At last, there was a connection. He felt her warm hand touch his. He didn't even have the self-awareness to blush right now. He simply focused on her breathing, her facial expressions that he could now see up close. His mouth unintentionally opened and his feelings escaped.
"… I won't ever let you go. Ever."
Hayami let all the tension in her body go as Chiba helped her up. Her other hand found its way to his.
Thank you. She tried to say, but she was too hoarse after that. I won't ever let you go either, she added in her thoughts.
"Hey! Who's over there!?" An unrecognizable voice called out, accompanied by a bright light that ruined the atmosphere that only 10 pm on a Monday could set. Oh crap. A government goon.
It was a matter of instinct, the sniper duo climbed the trees without even discussing the plan. They reached the very top, and kept an eye on their assailant.
"Where are you? It better not be one of those damn kids…" The goon waved his flashlight to the left, to the right, forwards, and back… But never above. The duo made eye contact, now they were illuminated by the stars. They smiled.
"Ugh, I must be hallucinating…" The government guy rubbed his head and sauntered off.
From where they were now, they got a much better view the sky. The schoolhouse was behind them. They couldn't look at it for too long, the nostalgia was too much. But their view to the front was breathtaking.
All of Kunugigaoka spread out in front of them. Lights everywhere, as businesses were open late during spring break. Their eyes were sharp enough to discern that people were moving through the streets. It could only be speculated who exactly they were, or where they were going. Maybe some of them were their classmates. Or maybe their classmates were also on the mountain. They could have asked Ritsu about that, but it seemed best to respect everyone's privacy right now.
Chiba gave Hayami the closest, most observant look he'd ever given her. The view from atop Mount Fuji couldn't possibly have been beautiful compared to what he saw now. He suppressed the urge to run his fingers through her hair, which flowed in orange locks today rather than her usual pigtails.
The moment was interrupted with a buzz. It was Chiba's mother again. He rejected the call for the tenth time today, but instead sent her a text.
Headed right home.
Having exhausted their vocabularies for the day, the pair climbed down the tree. They knew that it was now time to go home.
Chiba closely flanked Hayami, knowing that she'd correctly interpret this as I'll walk you home. She nodded. The pair cast one final, knowing look at the sky, hand in hand.
The stars shone cold and bright above them. The moon was the only witness to their night. The moon and Koro-sensei.