Chapter Five

They were sitting quietly at a café with her looking down at the table and him stirring his coffee absently. The creamer had long since dissolved in the liquid, and the action was more idle hands at play than anything else. He coughed a little after a moment in the hope of catching her attention. Slowly the girl raised her brown eyes to meet his, tilting her head so that long blonde bangs fell off to one side. He smiled, a soft, boyish expression filled with his own particular brand of confused fondness for her. The boy cradled his cup in his hands, enjoying the warmth it lent his fingers for a minute before finally venturing to speak.

"Are you ever going to tell me why you called me out here, Asuka?" he used no formalities, no honorifics when talking to her. She was a year older, his now-graduated upperclassman, but at least for today they were equals. Her lips parted in a girlish laugh, eyes closing for a brilliant smile that would have captured the heart and rendered the mind of any lesser man useless. Luckily for him, though, he had long been immune to her feminine charms. "I mean, I didn't even know that you still had my number; I've known you for almost two years and this is the first time you've used it."

"I'm glad that you don't change cell phones often," she commented, sipping her own drink – a chai tea latte with extra cream, if he recalled correctly – as innocently as she could. He chuckled a bit, all too aware of her attempt to change the subject. The boy raised his brow questioningly at her antics, and Asuka blushed, squirming in her seat slightly. It was odd to see her so nervous. "I guess I just never realized that we lived in the same city before and—"

"Asuka, please. Enough of this," he sighed, setting his coffee aside and making emphatic gestures with his hands as he spoke. "I live three districts away, on the far side of Tokyo. That's an hour and a half on the subway. It's hardly the 'same city.' Now, are you going to tell me what was so damn important that you had to call me the day after we got home, and why you absolutely had to see me? Maybe once we were good friends, Asuka, but we were never close, and no one. Has ever. Called me during a break. I'm missing baseball practice for this, you know."

He had come off too impatient, too rude. Misawa suppressed an inward scowl but said nothing. It was true that it had been a long time since they had really considered one another to be comrades, in the truest sense, although he still carried the flame of friendship within him. It left him wondering how he was supposed to interact with her, and he worried that the signals he was sending were too mixed for her to make out the original message. He was just tired of stepping lightly around every subject.

"Misawa-kun. . ." she began, trailing off with a small sound of frustration. He was not exaggerating, of course; none of his friends from Duel Academy had ever called him before. It seemed like no one could be bothered to remember him when he was not physically present, and the problem had only gotten worse with time. Early in his freshman year the two of them had gotten along surprisingly well in the few classes they shared, thanks to his advanced placement. He remembered how she had teasingly mentioned that there were rumors floating around campus about them, and that she was hearing no end of complaints from Junko and Momoe about 'taking one of the cutest freshman boys' of that year 'off the market,' whatever that meant. For a brief period of time people seemed to believe those baseless conjectures, and even Marufuji-sempai used to make offhand comments regarding the matter, as if he were suspicious of foul play.

But somewhere along the way, after dealing with the Seven Stars and his realization that there were quite a few things at Duel Academy that his logic and carefully grounded assertions could not account for, they had grown apart. Maybe the change had come about from his relaxation; at about the time that he no longer hid behind his scientific explanations, they had stopped talking in private. By the time that she was beginning to open up to the rest of the group and smile more easily – by the time that her brother had returned and finally woken up from his deathlike coma – there was no longer any strategic banter between them on the sidelines of the other duelists' games, and they had ceased to be study partners for Japanese literature and physics. It crossed his mind then that he had never bothered to ask why that was, and he wondered if her science grade had suffered the same way that his literature grade had.

"Whatever it is, it doesn't do anyone any good until you give it some air," he tried to prompt her gently when it did not seem like she would continue.

"What do you remember about the White Order?" she asked in a rush, her cheeks burning and eyes downcast. He made an odd hitching noise in the back of his throat, grip tightening on his coffee cup. She did not meet his startled gaze but kept her head bowed, her hands moving beneath the table. It seemed as if she was holding her breath, waiting for his answer.

". . . You mean, the Society of Light?" Misawa asked cautiously, lifting the cup up to his lips then and taking an experimental sip. It was warm and good, but he had used too much cream. He should have known better, but it had been a long time since he had had any coffee. It would have tasted better if he had taken it straight, he decided as he took another drink. Asuka shook her head, inhaling deeply before finally raising her gaze. Their eyes met, and she chewed her lower lip hesitantly before replying.

"No. I mean the White Order."

Misawa was silent for a long moment, weighing her words against his better judgment. This was not the conversation he had been hoping for, and his mind did not want to focus long enough to work out the mental calculations needed to deal with this issue. He closed his eyes and sighed, bringing a hand up to rub against his temples. He did not see Asuka tilt her head to the side questioningly, nor did he notice when she opened her mouth again, perhaps to ask him what was wrong. He stopped her by speaking first.

"Everything," Misawa said softly, opening his eyes to look at her with a slight frown tugging at his mouth. Asuka seemed taken aback by his honesty. He continued in low tones, his vision never straying from her face. "I remember everything, Asuka, because I wasn't brainwashed and I was never a mindless cultist. I followed Saiou because he told me that that there would be a place for me at his side, and at the time it was what I wanted. I joined the Society and the Order for my own selfish, childish reasons, and I take full responsibility for my actions."

Asuka's mouth moved silently, as though her mind were racing for something to say. Misawa glanced back to his cup, swirling the contents thoughtfully as he went on, adding:

"I've never denied my awareness. I left because I realized that he was wrong, and I didn't need the Light to feel worthwhile. What's your excuse, Asuka?"

"I. . . I. . ." she faltered for one critical moment under that somber, logical tone before squaring her shoulders resolutely. Misawa thought that the action would have been more meaningful if she could stop trembling. Her voice was too quiet when she spoke next, tiny and almost powerless. "You don't understand anything outside of classrooms and textbooks, do you, Misawa-kun? I. . . I thought that you, of all people, would hear me out first, would wait to hear the facts, but I guess I was wrong. I'm sorry I wasted your time asking you to come here."

". . . That's it? That's why you called me out here?" Misawa asked incredulously, rising slowly to his feet and settling his palms down on the table as he leaned forward. He could feel his anger boiling up from deep inside, fed by neglect and disbelief, and realized that there was the distinct possibility that he was overreacting. "What, did you want to reminisce about it? Talk about the 'good old days' when Manjoume-kun gave religious speeches and we all pretended to care about God and Saiou's plans for the future?"

"Don't say things like that," something crossed her face, some cold anger that was quickly hidden as she turned her head away to look out the café window. "I don't. . . I don't ever want to hear his name again. I'll never forgive him for what he did to us."

"Who do you mean? Do you mean Saiou?"

"No. No, I don't."

Misawa opened his mouth to say something, but shut it quickly when he realized that he had no response for that. He sat back down and finished his coffee in silence, thinking over the implications of her last comment.

"This. . . this could be a very serious problem," the art and literature teacher, Kabayama, noted unhappily. He pushed aside the document he had been eying for some time now, the long list of names leaving his careful hands like a burden being shed. The math teacher seated beside him at the table picked it up next, grimacing slightly as she glanced over it. While Sameshima had not been expecting either of them to be thrilled about receiving the new dorm roster for Ra Yellow, he certainly was not prepared for these gloomy expressions. He steadied Kabayama with a curious and concerned look, at which point the mild-mannered man elaborated on the matter. "There are a lot of new freshman that tested into my dorm, but Yellow is crowded enough as it is, even with the recent graduates."

"Well, technically there's room in Blue—" Miss Emi began, but was rather rudely interrupted by her fellow dorm head.

"Ravioli dolci!" Professor Chronos coughed slightly, as though momentarily embarrassed by his outburst, before regaining his composure and waving off the suggestion like an offensive smell in the air. "Ahem. What Miss Emi means to say is that while we would be more than happy to help, monseignur, there's really no room in our dorm for any of your students. Very unfortunate, but you understand that Obelisk Blue is meant to be for the elite, the top, la crème de la crème! Only the best and brightest students should be placed there, and no one is moving up without significantly improved scores—" he paused for a moment at a glare from some of the other teachers, and quickly grumbled an additive "—Or, at the very least, better rounded ones."

"Just what are you trying to say, Professor?" Kabayama asked, his voice racked with dismay. Professor Chronos only shrugged.

"I'm afraid that the academic students in Yellow are just out of luck this year. Perhaps there's room in Red?"

"Oh, anything but that!" Miss Fujiwara, the current head of the Osiris Red dorms, cried out. Her eyes were welling up with unspent tears at the mere insinuation of moving more students into Osiris Red. She had been growing gradually more emotional as the year went on; the other staff members were starting to wonder just how much the stress of her position was getting to her. Miss Fujiwara clasped her hands in front of her, pleading. "Please, don't drop anyone else into Red who didn't test there! With Yuki Juudai's duel grade, and Manjoume Jun's test scores, no one from my dorm can move up, either! Everyone is stuck behind those two!"

Fubuki placed a hand on her shoulder, perhaps trying to offer the poor woman some comfort. She shrugged it off and slammed her hand down on the table, her imploring attitude soon replaced by anger. Sameshima shook his head, knowing what was coming next. Of course Miss Fujiwara was stressed and overworked; originally, she was only supposed to have been in charge of the drama department and the Osiris Red girls' dorm. However, after Daitokuji's mysterious disappearance at the end of last year, Sameshima had personally requested that she act as the advisor for the boys' dorm and stand in as the geology teacher as well. It was supposed to have been temporary; he was supposed to have found Daitokuji's replacement over that last summer. But things never seemed to work out the way they were supposed to, and he did not have the heart to tell her it was starting to look like she would be stuck with Daitokuji's job for yet another year.

"It certainly doesn't help that I have to take care of two packed dorms, and that certain boys from Yellow keep usurping valuable room space, too!" here, she glared at Kabayama, as if his inability to rein in his own students were the cause of all her troubles. "If this keeps up, there are going to be a record number of seniors in Red who won't be graduating this upcoming year, either because they can't move up or they won't. That's a much more serious problem than just Ra Yellow being a little overcrowded!"

"Have any of you thought about the possibility of rebuilding the Fourth Dorm?" the question came out slowly, quietly offered up amidst the heated tension of the staff meeting from the newest member of the faculty. The dorm heads paused, looking over to Fubuki with mixed expressions. But the young man only shrugged helplessly, and continued with an innocent smile. "I mean, it was after all originally built to combat overcrowding and an unfair grading curve. If we move the top echelon of Blue – the students who are setting the curve too steeply – then there will be more room for students from Yellow to move up, which will make room for the new freshman and some of the seniors from Red."

The other teachers and professors squirmed uncomfortably in their seats at this suggestion, some murmuring about how the situation was not quite that bad yet, and that perhaps they should hold off on such a rash decision. That nagging, instinctual voice of Sameshima's was back, crying out in his mind that this was why Fubuki had been so content to stay on the island. He pushed it back down with a shake of his head. Now was not the time for panic; it had only been a harmless little proposition, after all. Fubuki was simply trying to think of the best way to solve the Academy's state of affairs. He trusted that Fubuki was genuinely worried about this, and, despite his uneasy feelings, did not have any ulterior motives whatsoever.

No, really, he did.

"Well, it would be nice if it was that easy, Tenjoin-kun, but it wouldn't really help the Osiris problem—" Miss Fujiwara moved to offer a meek form of protest, but was not allowed to finish that sentence.

"And then there's the fiadone problem of appointing a new Dorm Advisor," Professor Chronos butted in, leaning his chair back on its hind legs nonchalantly. "It's not as though any of us can take on the job; I, for one, am far too busy to be—"

"I think I have a solution to both problems, Professor," Fubuki remarked with a sudden grin, watching as Chronos nearly toppled over at the unexpected interruption. The older man flailed for a moment, attempting to keep his balance, before thin hands slammed down on the table and the front legs found the floor again. He glared at the young new teacher as if daring the little upstart to explain, which Fubuki did happily. "In addition to moving the top students from Blue there, we can move Manjoume-kun to the new dorm, and Juudai-kun up to Yellow, where he and his scores belong. Also, I would be more than happy to act as the new dorm head! In fact—" Told you so, the little voice seemed to sneer at Sameshima from the corner of his mind "—I think that I may be the only one qualified to do so."

"Just what kind of an operation do you think we're running here, young man?" Napoleon exclaimed indignantly, his double chin wobbling with rage as he shook a pudgy finger at Fubuki menacingly. "Your little coup d'état won't get far, not while I'm around, ma baie pourrie."

"No, no, I think you're misunderstanding me here. . ." Fubuki's grin faltered and he raised his hands in a show of submissive surrender, rushing to his own defense. "It's just that, I think that I'm the only one who knows what to look for. Aren't you all worried about the Fourth Dorm's history repeating itself? I love people, don't get me wrong, but even I would be nervous about a new teacher coming to the island and taking on the job."

There were several nods of agreement from around the long table, as each staff member present conceded that it had to be a current teacher or professor.

"As much as I'd love to take on the role, I'm afraid I'll have to decline," the history professor, Satou, commented dryly. A wry glance from Napoleon was shot his way, and he drummed his fingers on the table's glossy surface. "On medical grounds, of course."

"Je crois pas cette bêtises-ci. . ." Napoleon grumbled, before raising his voice to put forth an alternative. "In that case, if there is no one else, I will take on the task!"

"Ah, no, I'm afraid that you won't," Sameshima finally spoke up, trying to soften the inescapable blow to Napoleon's pride by using a gentle tone as he reminded the portly man. "As head of the Morality Committee and acting Vice-Principal, your contract strictly forbids the holding of any other title or office on campus. As for deciding who would be in charge of a new dorm, in the event that one were to be built over the summer, that's not something we really have any power over. That kind of a decision is in the hands of the board of directors."

"Principal Sameshima, you don't actually mean that you're going to bring this up to them, do you?" Miss Emi seemed shocked when she asked, placing a well-manicured hand over her mouth as she finished the question. Sameshima did not like where this was going. He knew that he would have to bring this up to the board members and the founder of the Morality Committee at the next meeting, if only because they needed to know of anything Fubuki showed interest in and chose to champion. He could just imagine their reactions. They would be strongly against the idea of giving Fubuki that kind of power and influence, would question why the young man was seeking it. The founder of the Morality Committee would vehemently oppose the rebuilding of the Fourth Dorm. The man always had, and there was certainly no reason for his opinion on the matter to change now. Sameshima himself was not particularly fond of the idea of having another dorm on campus again, but at least he could assure himself that Fubuki would do whatever was necessary to ensure the well-being of the students under his care. Fubuki was a good boy, after all, if a little suspicious. But Sameshima only sighed, and stood from his seat.

"That will be all for this meeting. I'll present the proposition to the board of directors, and if they decide that another dorm will answer the overcrowding problem, then it will be built. We'll deal with coming up with tentative rosters and naming a new Dorm Advisor if and when it becomes necessary. Everyone, please have a safe and pleasant vacation, enjoy some peace and quiet while you can, and try not to worry too much about the current situation. It's out of our hands now."