Kageyama Ritsuko was perfectly ordinary.
She got up every morning and got ready for another perfectly ordinary day of school. She made her perfectly ordinary bed, put on her perfectly ordinary uniform, slid her perfectly ordinary student council armband on, and got ready for her perfectly ordinary day. She closed her perfectly ordinary bedroom door, walked down her perfectly ordinary hallway, and carried her perfectly ordinary hairbrush to the bathroom.
The bathroom her perfectly extraordinary sister hogged every single morning.
"Shigeko." Said Ritsu as she stood in the doorway of their perfectly ordinary bathroom. Brown door, white tile, white bathmat, and weird white shaggy toilet seat covers and toilet rugs that Mom insisted made the bathroom look 'live able'. To match the white shower curtain, probably. The bathroom was a perfectly ordinary shade of white, Mom had called it summer eggshell, which made her perfectly extraordinary sister's shed hair stand out even more.
Every morning with this.
"Good morning, Ritsuko." Said Shigeko, her hands falling from her braids. They kept on braiding themselves, of course. For anyone else it would have been amazing but for Ritsuko this was just another Tuesday morning. She got up, got dressed, and tried to share the only bathroom in the house with her older sister who she loved very much…
Despite the fact that she always left her hair all over the sink.
"Mom's going to kill you if you leave your hair all over the sink again." Said Ritsuko as she stood next to Shigeko and started brushing her hair. Shigeko's hair was long and thick, it fell like a curtain all shiny and straight. Ritsuko's hair, on the other hand, seemed to have a mind of it's own. It always stood up on it's own no matter how much brushing she did.
"Oh, right! Sorry!" said Shigeko before all the remaining hair on the sink rolled it's self into a ball and threw it's self into the wastebasket. Ritsuko didn't react, there was nothing to react too. She had been Shigeko's sister for her entire life, she couldn't even remember a time before Shigeko had powers. This was normal for her.
She didn't care. Not anymore.
There had been a time when she had cared, when she had been little. When she had wondered when she'd be able to make things float. When she worried about when she'd be able to see ghosts. When she hoped that one day she'd wake up and be able to make herself fly. Then she and Shigeko would have been the same. Games would have been equal between the two of them, for one thing. Everything would have been equal. Fair.
Life wasn't fair.
"Thanks for warning me, I can't have Mom mad at me again." Said Shigeko
"Why? It's not like she punishes you." said Ritsuko. Mom got mad, sure, and sometimes she turned the wifi off or hid the cable box, but she never actually came out and punished them. Ritsuko never did anything wrong and Shigeko…Mom knew better than to make Shigeko mad.
"I know but there's a first time for everything." Said Shigeko
"What would she even do to you?" asked Ritsuko as she found a particularly stubborn knot. She tried to work it out with her fingers. She hated her hair so much. Shigeko was so lucky.
"I don't know, the normal stuff mom's do when the punish you. Like ground you and stuff." Said Shigeko as she put her brush down and turned to face Ritsuko. Ritsuko sighed and leaned down.
"You don't go anywhere…neither of us do." Said Ritsuko as Shigeko worked the knots in her hair out with her powers. She tried not to tense up. This was fine, it wasn't like she had anything to be afraid of. She hadn't mad Shigeko mad or scared or anything. This was…this was normal. Ordinary.
Just an ordinary morning.
"You go places! You go to school and student council and, well we both go to school, but student council is it's own thing." Said Shigeko as she tugged at Ritsuko's hair a little too hard. She reminded herself that Shigeko wasn't doing it on purpose. She wasn't mad or anything, she was just trying her best. She was just trying to be nice. That was what Shigeko was, after all, nice.
They were both nice. They had to be.
"And I go places too, I mean Master Reigen and I go places sometimes." Said Shigeko as she finished working with Ritsuko's hair. She stood up straight and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was still sticking up in all directions but at least the knots were gone. Still, it had hurt…but she wasn't going to say anything. Not about her hair or about all the other things that Shigeko did.
Nothing good came of making Shigeko upset.
"Right, I forgot about Reigen." Said Ritsuko as she brushed her bangs down. She turned completely away from Shigeko. If Shigeko had been better able to read the atmosphere she would have known that Reigen Aratka was not someone that Ritsuko liked discussing.
"I don't know how you could had, he's-" said Shigkeo
"Loud? Obnoxious? A liar?" said Ritsuko before she could stop herself. She had been too busy focusing on these stupid bangs. They didn't sit like Shigkeo's, like a heavy curtain. Ritsuko's looked like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket or something. Did her best with what she had. She had to cover that scar. It wasn't as bad as it had been when it had been knew but it was still there…and she knew that she didn't want another one, either.
She needed to learn to keep her mouth shut.
"Ritsuko!" said Shigeko, the brush on the counter in front of her jumping up and hitting the mirror. It took a second for the crack to form but it was there, thin but visible. Ritsuko didn't let herself react.
"Oh no! Do you think that Mom and Dad are going to notice?!" asked Shigeko. Ritsuko wanted to tell her sister that, yes, obviously their parents were going to notice the massive crack down the center of the bathroom mirror. Shigeko was already close to a meltdown, though, Ritsuko could tell. The hair on the back of her neck was starting to stand up, a slight pink glow was coming off of her sister, and Shigeko was even starting to shake in place. None of these were good signs, not at all.
"No, it's thin. In the right light it's probably invisible." Said Ritsuko quickly.
"Good, good, I was worried…and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that." Said Shigeko
"I know, Sister, I know." said Ritsuko
"Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?" asked Shigeko. Ritsuko shook her head quickly.
"No, I'm fine. It was my fault. I shouldn't have said those things about Reigen. I know you like…I know he's your friend." Said Ritsuko. Something else she knew better than to bring up. Shigeko was pretty obvious if you knew how to read her.
"He could be your friend, too. We're going to this tunnel later to exorcise it and you can come too. I mean you're not a psychic like he and I are but you can still come and…um….supervise!" said Shigeko. Ritsuko looked away and rolled her eyes.
"I'll pass." Said Ritsuko. Supervise. She had been in student council for long enough to know what 'supervise' meant. It meant watch everyone else do all the work while you patted yourself on the back for their job well done. Tokugawa did it all the time even if Kamuro didn't ask him to…not that he needed to. Ritsuko knew how to do her job.
"Are you sure? I think that you'd have fun, we get ramen afterwards. I bet that Master Reigen would even let you get some of that pork you like, too." Said Shigeko
"I can't, I'm busy with student council." Said Ritsuko
"Oh, right. Sorry, sometimes I forget that it's more like a job than a club." Said Shigeko
"It's alright, Sister." Said Ritsuko before getting back to her hair. Ritsu did her best to brush her hair into something resembling her sister's. It had never laid flat, not even when she had been a baby. Sometimes she wondered why she still tried. She put her brush down and reached into the basket on the sink with their hair ties. Elastics for her and ribbons for Shigeko…
Or at least the elastics were supposed to be for her.
She reached into the basket and felt around. Nothing but ribbons…she should have had at least one black elastic in there. If not her black one then the dark blue, which she knew was against dress code but nobody was inspecting her ponytail for long enough to notice the color of her elastic, and if not her dark blue then one of the other 'scandalous' colors she owned. But she found nothing. No black, no blue, no brown, no white…nothing.
Just. Ribbons.
"Did you use my elastics?" asked Ritsuko as she put her brush down. A little less than gently, sure, than she should have but given the circumstances it was appropriate.
"I may have used…some of them." said Shigeko
"For what? You have all of these ribbons." Said Ritsuko motioning to the box of ribbons. Shigeko's ribbons. The ribbons that she knew were hers, for her hair, that she was supposed to use to tie her hair up. The ribbons that she should have been wearing instead of…Ritsuko's dark blue elastics…that she was wearing right now.
"I was trying something new." Said Shigeko quickly as she pushed her braids behind her back. Ritsuko took a deep breath. She was not going to get upset…she wasn't. She was, calmly, going to handle this in a calm way. The same way she was supposed to handle everything. They were not going to fight. Other sisters had the luxury of being able to fight. They weren't like other sisters.
Shigeko wasn't like other sisters.
"Why did you use all of my elastics? I mean…you used them all, every last one. I get wanting to try something new but did you have to use all of them?" asked Ritsuko, pressing both palms flat on the bathroom counter. She was calm…she was not going to lose it over hair ties of all things.
"I tried tying them by hand but I'm so used to ribbons that I couldn't figure it out so I used my powers and they kept on snapping and I didn't want to give up, because Master Reigen says to never give up and also because I overheard Tsubomi telling her friends about how her mom made her put her hair in ribbons for their family picture, so I kept on trying and it took a long time to get them right….sorry." said Shigkeo. Ritsuko watched herself in the mirror. Shigeko was staring right at her. Ritsuko may have been good at reading her sister but she still wasn't the best at it. Shigeko could have been sad or pissed off or…or literally anything.
Shigeko could have been anything, which meant that Ritsuko had to be nothing.
"It's alright, it's just hair things. Mind if I use one of your ribbons?" asked Ritsuko as she pasted a smile on. It looked fake but Shigeko wouldn't notice. She never noticed.
"Sure! You can use them all!" said Shigeko
"I just need the one." Said Ritsuko before she took a ribbon from the basket and attempted to tie her hair back with it. She tried her best but it kept on slipping. She debated just going to school with her hair down…no, that was a bad idea. It would only stick up worse as the day went on, especially after gym class. No, she had to tie it back.
As best as she could.
She wasn't used to ribbons. They had always been Shigeko's thing. She had never been able to keep them in her hair, not when she had been little and not now. Shigeko was the one with the perfect hair, not her. Mom had even said so. Ritsuko tried her best to get it to stay in but it just kept on slipping-
She felt a tug at her hair.
"Here, let me help you, little sister." Said Shigeko. Ritsuko stopped moving and let Shigeko try. She did everything that Ritsuko had just done, tied a knot and then a bow, but for some reason her's stayed in place. She shook her head. It didn't even move.
"You look so pretty, Ritsuko. I mean you always look pretty but now you look especially nice." Said Shigeko as she brushed Ritsuko's bangs back into place. Ritsuko looked at herself in the mirror. The ribbon was dark blue, not black. She was breaking dress code. The last thing she needed was to get dress coded. She had managed to make it this far into her middle school career without so much as a warning about running in the halls. She had never really gotten in trouble before, not even in grade school. It might have thrown the world out of balance if she got in trouble.
Pigs flying. Sky raining burning ice. Kageyama Ritsuko getting dress coded at school. Truly the end was near.
"Thanks, but-" said Ritsuko
"Shige! Ritsuko! You girls can't possibly still be getting ready! You're going to be late for school!" shouted Mom, her voice carrying up the stairs and down the hall. Ritsuko shrugged. Well, it looked like this was just going to be like this for today. She could live with that.
Shigeko wasn't upset, that was what was most important.
"Coming!" shouted Ritsuko as she picked her brush back up. She tossed it back into her room on her way downstairs. If she left it in the bathroom Shigeko was likely to use it 'accidentally' even though she had her own hairbrush. She had her own hair ribbons, too, but that didn't stop her from borrowing without asking and-
-and that was alright.
Nobody had gotten hurt. Mildly annoyed, yes, but not hurt. If Shigeko had been anyone else, if they had been ordinary sisters, then she could have said something. They probably would have fought, or at least shouted at each other, and then made up later like ordinary sisters did. Or at least she assumed ordinary sisters did.
It wasn't like she had much to go off of besides what she saw on TV.
The light hit her eyes as she walked down the stairs. The sun was glinting off of Tsubomi's house, probably the trophies she had on the shelf right in front of her bedroom window. Though she might have changed her room around, it had been a while since she'd had Ritsuko and Shigeko over. They hadn't been friends in a while. Not since they were really little. It wasn't much of a loss. Tsubomi could be kind of self-absorbed, and she was really terrible at playing hide and seek, and a person could only serve so many tennis balls before they wanted a turn with the racket…a turn that would never come. It had gotten easier, eventually, to just play with Shigeko…and then, eventually, to just play by herself.
But she had been ten then, a little too old to still be playing.
"Breakfast is on the table, girls, eat up before it gets cold." Said mom as she walked past, arms half in her coat and her briefcase balanced on her arm. Ritsuko knew better than to get underfoot while Mom was on her way out the door, Mom didn't like being bothered. Shigeko, despite having known Mom for a full year longer than Shigeko had, still hadn't gotten the message.
"Here Mom, let me help you." said Shigeko as Mom's briefcase started to float away….and then came open mid air. The briefcase may have stayed floating but the papers inside all fluttered to the ground.
"Shige! How many times-" said Mom before she looked down at Shigeko. She instantly closed her mouth and shook her head.
"Shige, be more careful. That briefcase has a cheap…cheap clasp." Said Mom as she plastered a smile onto her face. She made eye contact with Ritsuko. She smiled too. Message received.
"Sorry Mom, I didn't mean to make a mess. Here, I can clean it up." said Shigeko
"No! No, it's alright. Now why don't you girls just eat your breakfast and then head off to school. I made that porridge you like, with the sprinkles." Said Mom. Ritsuko didn't say anything, she just took Shigeko by the hand and led her to the table. There were two bowls of porridge in front of them, both with sprinkles. Ritsuko had nothing against the color pink, and she had nothing against Hello Kitty, but she did have something against Hello Kitty porridge. Sure, it had been nice when they had been little, but that had been ten years ago. They were too old for this.
It tasted like pure sugar now.
But Ritsuko knew that Mom wasn't going to make two separate breakfasts so she kept her mouth shut. If she told Mom that she wanted the normal kind of porridge, maybe with fruit in it, Mom might have ended up making that and then Shigeko wouldn't have had the breakfast she liked and then she might have gotten upset. The last thing she needed to do was to upset her sister, especially over something as stupid as porridge.
Or milk.
There was a glass of strawberry milk in front of her. That was the best kind, according to Shigeko. She liked most kinds of milk, but not soy milk which even Ritsuko could understand. She had nothing against milk, nothing at all, she just may have wanted something different to drink for breakfast. But again she knew better than to open her mouth.
She knew what happened when Shigeko got upset.
She pressed her bangs down over her scar and ate her breakfast, drank her milk, and went off to school. Shigeko following beside her the whole way. Last year had been nice, she had been able to walk by herself, but she didn't mind walking with her sister. There was nothing to mind about it. They were going to the same place so it would have made no sense to tell Shigeko to walk faster or slower or to take a different route.
Besides, the walk didn't take that long, anyway, and they always separated at the door.
Ritsuko to the first year's shoe lockers and Shigeko to the second year's side. There wasn't much dividing them, just a thin strip of hallway, but to Ritsuko it might as well have been a vast crevasse. Something that neither of them could cross. Something that she didn't want to cross. something that gave her enough room to breathe and just be…there.
Even if there was in front of her shoe locker.
She opened the little locker door and three letters came tumbling out. They fluttered to the ground and rested at her feet. She stared at them. She knew what they probably said. More confessions of love from boys she barely even knew. She kicked one with her foot. Why even bother opening them? They all just said the same thing. Something about loving her from afar, adoring her, then a few lines about how beautiful she was.
Pointless.
"God, again?" muttered Ritsuko as she picked the letters up. She didn't care who they were from, it wasn't like there were any guys she liked right now. She hadn't gotten close enough to anyone to like them, and besides, the boys in her class were all the same. They told the same gross jokes when they thought the teacher wasn't listening, they said the same gross stuff about girls when they thought nobody was paying attention, and they did the same stupid stuff in the hallways that she then had to write them up for thus adding more to her workload. Why would she have wanted to be with any of them? She barely knew them.
And they barely knew her.
It wasn't like she had any long conversations with boys, or any kinds of them. Most boys only talked to her if they needed help with their school work, to ask her out because they knew she was good looking and literally nothing else about her, or to ask about Shigeko's powers. She didn't hide them but she didn't go around telling people about them either. She just sort of…had them.
Ritsuko looked across the hall.
Shigeko picked up her shoes with her powers and closed her locker door with them, too. She hardly used them and when she did it was never for anything interesting. Shigeko had once said that having powers was kind of like having extra hands. Sure it was nice to be able to pick a lot of things up at once but she rarely needed to. If Ritsuko had her powers she would have…it didn't matter what she would have done. She didn't have powers. What she had were good grades and boys she didn't even know stuffing her shoe locker with love letters. She tucked the ones she had into her bag. She'd recycle them later, when she was sure Shigeko wouldn't notice. She always got excited when Ritsuko got a love letter probably because boys never sent her any.
It wasn't that great.
Shigeko always got way too excited. She always talking about how great it would be for Ritsuko, that she could have a boyfriend, even though it made no sense. Boys at their school were gross at worst and boring at best. Besides, it wasn't like Mom and Dad needed to worry about things like that. Parents never wanted their daughters to have boyfriends, she noticed, until they got older and then they started asking about grandkids. Ritsuko wouldn't worry her parents, not now or ever, they just didn't have space in their heads to be worrying like that. Not when they had to worry about Shigeko. She was older, she was the one with powers, and she was the one that they had to worry about.
She was the one who took up the most space.
Even now that they were apart she was taking up all the space. Ritsuko shook her head and slipped her indoor shoes on. They had parted ways at the door like they did every day. First they'd part ways, then they'd change their shoes, and then they'd go to their separate classrooms on their separate floors and sit through their separate classes before eating their separate lunched and then just being…separate. She knew that if there had been a way for Shigeko to go to class with her, and eat with her, and then even sit in on student council meetings with her then she would have. Because she had no friends.
Because they were sisters and they were supposed to be friends.
That was what Mom and Dad had been telling her for her entire life. She was Shigeko's sister and they had to be friends. Even if it wasn't fair that Shigeko could do things that she couldn't, amazing things, things like moving their toys around without touching them and making frogs fly. She had her own talents, Mom and Dad had spent their whole lives telling her that she had her own talents, but compared to Shigeko what could she do?
Besides get good grades.
She made it to her classroom and sat down at her desk. Around her people were talking. She didn't know what about. Not that many people talked to her, not unless it was for help with school or because of Shigeko. It had always been that way since she'd started school. Probably because she and Shigeko had always gone to the same school. They could have gone to different schools, Ritsuko had tested into the best school in the city, but that would have meant going all the way to the Saffron district every day. Much too far from Shigeko.
It wasn't safe to leave Shigeko alone, for Shigeko herself and for everyone around her, not after what had happened.
But Ritsuko would make sure that nobody ever bothered her big sister again. That was why they went to the same school and why she had joined the student council, too. That way she had actual power to keep people from teasing Shigeko. Thankfully it wasn't too bad. People said things but not to her face, kind of like how it had been when they had been in elementary school. It had been a relief, really. She had expected middle school to be a lot harder than elementary school.
Socially and academically.
"Alright class, settle down. Before we do anything I'd like to go over the results of yesterday's assessment. Some of you will be surprised. Others…well, you know what you're doing wrong." Said her teacher as the bell rang. She liked this part better than elementary school, right to business, even if that business was kind of boring.
She didn't need to het her test back. She already knew how she had done.
So, she sat at her desk hands folded and eyes forward, just like a student council member and all around good girl should have sat. She didn't do anything, not even fidget. Mom and Dad didn't need a bad report from school, not on her account. Shigeko was enough for them to worry about so she never gave them any reason to worry. Not that she even knew what she would have done.
Fail a test on purpose?
"And it looks like Kageyama's got the highest score in class again. Good work." Said her teacher. Ritsuko nodded as a test landed on her desk, a perfect score right there in bright red ink. As the teacher passed her the glares began, but that was normal too. She just shrugged. Sure, she got good grades. She just did her homework and studied. If everyone else did the homework and studied then they'd get good grades too and then they wouldn't have had anything to glare at. Besides, it was only middle school.
It wasn't like it was hard.
She didn't know what everyone always got so stressed about when it came to school. It wasn't like it was hard, they told you everything that you needed to know, you just had to pay attention. If there was something that you needed to practice they gave you homework. If there was something that needed to be clarified they told you what to study. It wasn't like they made you figure anything out on your own. It wasn't like it took any real talent to get good grades.
She folded her test up. She had nothing to review.
She stayed still, though, and kept on looking forward. When the review started she acted like it was the most interesting thing that she had ever heard. She even took notes…well, to anyone watching it looked like she was taking notes. This, however, wasn't her note taking notebook. This was the notebook that she wrote in. Mostly her thoughts, how she felt, or just random little stories. Things to pass the time. Things that were only her own.
Things that she didn't have to share with anyone.
She wrote about how bored she was. She wrote about how boring everyone else was. She wrote about how annoyed she had been that morning. She wrote about how annoying life in general was. She even wrote about how annoyed with herself she was. She didn't know what was with her, sometimes it felt like everything in the world was designed to annoy her somehow. Probably because she couldn't change anything, she just had to go with it. Sometimes it felt like she was in the middle of a river and the current was just dragging her away. She could either fight it and exhaust herself, making everything worse, or she could save her strength and see where it was that this river actually went.
She went with the river.
And for that day the river told her to pay attention when she needed to, half pay attention when she mostly knew what was going on, and zone out while looking like she was paying attention when they got to something that she already knew. Math class was the easiest for that. Once she saw one example she knew what to do. She didn't know why people needed things explained to them a million times. If they just paid attention things could have gone a lot smoother. Or maybe she was just gifted, like Mom had always insisted.
She knew Mom had just been trying to make her feel better about herself.
Shigeko was gifted. Ritsuko was just another normal person. She knew that she should have been grateful. She had seen Shigeko lose control before, even been in the middle of it, she knew that she should have been happy that she didn't have to carry a burden like that with her. That she just got to have a normal life, the kind of life that a lot of people would have killed for. She had parents who loved her, an older sister who loved her, she was good at school, and she was the only first year on the student council. She had a lot to be happy for, to be grateful for, but she just…wasn't.
Mainly because a lot of it just felt like work.
Being the pretty one meant that she couldn't ever just be comfortable, even at home. Being the smart one meant that she couldn't ever get less than a perfect score, she dreaded what would happen when school wasn't easy anymore. Being on the student council may have granted her power, yes, but it also meant that she had a lot of work to do. Paperwork to file, halls to patrol, and endless meetings to attend.
She kind of saw what Mom and Dad were always complaining about when it came to meetings.
While the school day had gone by quickly student council seemed to drag on. It felt like the times when she and Shigeko would race garden snails. It just kept going and going and going but she had to see how it ended. She sat with a pencil in one hand, the other holding the notebook in front of her, and her eyes on President Kamuro. He did kind of go on and on, he certainly liked holding everyone's attention, but this wasn't the kind of thing she could just phone in. This wasn't class, this was her job, and if she messed up and lost her job then what would Shigeko do?
Probably get picked on like she had when they had been really little…and Ritsuko couldn't have that.
"…and now I'll open the floor to new business." Said President Kamuro. Everyone tried not to sigh. Even Tokugawa looked bored. His head was slumped to the side and his hair was in danger of slipping out of place. Ritsuko made sure not to look as happy as she felt.
This was only the halfway point, after all.
"Again, any new business? Or should we review the old business again?" asked Kamuro. Ritsuko nearly flinched. There was no way she was sitting through another recap of the old business. She needed new business…but what? She couldn't think of anything…there were the first years she had caught littering…but that wasn't news…something else….she had busted some third years for making out on the roof…
That could have counted.
"I have new business, President Kamuro." Said Ritsuko as she raised her hand.
"The chair recognizes Council Member Kageyama." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko saw Tokugawa put his hand over his mouth. It barely masked the snickering. Barely. So what if Kamuro liked to act like they were parliament, they pretty much were. They were the highest power in their school unless they were counting the teachers.
"Thank you, President Kamuro." Said Ritsuko as she stood, maybe putting a little more emphasis than necessary on his title. She waited until she was sure she had everyone's attention, even Tokugawa's.
"Recently I noticed an uptick in students entering the access stairwell and taking it to the roof." Said Ritsuko
"Yes, I noticed too. You've been good about catching them, Miss Kageyama, keep up the good work." Said Kamuro
"Thank you, but I didn't bring this up for the praise. I brought this up because I think we may need to…" said Ritsuko. Right, she had to come up with a solution, otherwise what was the point of bringing it up. She didn't need Kamuro to tell her that she was doing a good job, she already knew that she was, but everyone else wouldn't see it that way. She had to think something up, and fast…some way to stop them from getting in…through the door.
Oh. Right.
"We need to requisition funds to put a lock on the access stairwell. I propose filling out a funds requisition form today and bringing it straight to the headmaster. It's very serious issue, a student safety issue that we should have addressed weeks ago." Said Ritsuko
"We already have a lock, Kageyama." Said Tokugawa. Ritsuko didn't even bother looking at him. Of course they'd had a lock at some point but obviously something had happened to it otherwise people wouldn't have been able to get in.
"The chair reminds Counsel Member Tokugawa that Miss Kageyama, er, Counsel Member Kageyama has the floor." Said President Kamuro. He glared at Tokugawa. Ritsuko didn't blame him. He was always breaking meeting protocol, probably because he was still upset that he wasn't the one who got to set the protocol. It had been months since the election, several months, at some point Tokugawa was going to have to come to terms with the fact that he had lost and Kamuro had won. There was no point in sitting there trying to change the hand that you had been dealt, you just had to make the best of it, and he was lucky that he had even been allowed on the student counsel with that pompous attitude of his.
"Then I would like to remind the floor that there is, in fact, a lock on the door and that this pertains to some old business we've already discussed; the loss and possible theft of the master key." Said Tokugawa
"The floor is aware of the loss and possible theft of the master key, yes, but as this matter has been taken out of our hands by the teachers I propose that we requisition funds and solve a problem that is in our hands. If we don't do something about this our government will look weak and we'll lose the respect of the people." Said Ritsuko. She didn't care that much about the roof but she did care about her job, keeping it, and making sure that everyone knew that she knew what she was doing. She had to keep Kamuro on her side. She knew what to appeal to.
If there was one thing he liked it was being respected.
"Permission to requisition funds granted. Now, is there any other new business?" asked Kamuro. Tokugawa stood up before Ritsuko finished sitting down. She knew that the rules, these parliamentary style rules, weren't that important but part of her kind of wanted to-she buried those feelings. She folded them up as she folded her hands in front of her. She had said her piece, the meeting was moving along finally, and now that she had accomplished her mission she could wait out the rest of this meeting, go through her rounds, and then head home.
"Yes, I have some new business." Said Tokugawa
"The Chair recognizes Tokugawa." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko wasn't sure but he actually sounded a little short there…well, that made sense. Tokugawa was an annoying and pompous…she didn't dare finish that sentence, not even in her heard. Ritsuko wasn't supposed to even know those types of words let alone say them.
"I, Counsel Member Tokugawa, would like permission to add the telepathy club to the list of banned clubs." Said Tokugawa
"Request denied." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko blinked. That had been fast.
"Appeal requested." Said Tokugawa
"Appeal will be heard. Make your case." Said Kamuro
"The Telepathy Club has brought nothing to Salt Middle School since it's inception three years ago. They contribute nothing to the cultural festival, since the librarians sudden retirement last month are without a faculty advisor, and are in danger of losing a member which would bring them down to four members. That's one below the required five member minimum." Said Tokugawa
"Yes Counsel Member Tokugawa, we can all do basic math." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko couldn't help but smile, which was an improvement over a full on laugh, but still too much. She had even managed to get Kamuro's attention. She quickly but her serious and studious face back on.
"Yes, I am aware. Just as all of your are aware of the Telepathy Club president and her-" said Tokugawa
"We are all well acquainted with Miss Kurata and her eccentricities, thank you. Is that all?" asked Kamuro. Ritsuko wasn't but she knew when to keep her mouth shut. The last thing she wanted to do was open her mouth and make this go on for any longer than it had to. Besides, it looked like Tokugawa already had that covered. He sputtered and even ran a hand through his hair, ruining his trademark perfectly straight part.
"Is that…that should be suffice enough reason to dissolve and ban their club! They contribute nothing, Kurata is just using the clubroom as her personal lounge space, and another club needs the space. Need I remind the chair that space is at a premium, especially since the literature club fractured into the classical literature club, the contemporary literature club, the classic manga club, and the contemporary manga club…and that's not even getting into the ridiculous schism the anime club went through last month." Said Tokugawa. Ritsuko didn't think that it was so ridiculous. Evangelion and Gundam could not be compared and, really, it was better just to break off into two different clubs rather than keep that argument up. There was no comparing the rebuilds to the original series, either, so it made sense to further split the club up. She didn't know what the Gundam club had split up over, she had always liked Eva better, but she knew that as long as they had five or more members and actually did something productive with their time then there was no reason to come after them.
"That's not reason enough to dissolve the club. Now, if there's no other knew business we'll adjourn for today." Said Kamuro
"How is that not reason enough? I've given you so many reasons and, anyway, the body improvement club-" said Tokugawa
"-will have to wait until the Telepathy Club loses it's fifth member. Then we can absorb them into the greater paranormal studies club or remove them from the master list of clubs. Now, if there's no other new business we'll adjourn." Said Kamuro. Tokugawa glared at him, he glared back. The rest of them watched this happen. Ritsuko had the urge to roll her eyes.
Boys could be so ridiculous sometimes.
"…no. I have no other new business." Said Tokugawa as he sat down.
"Then we are adjourned." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko exhaled slowly. That had been close, it could have easily turned into the sort of fight that ate up an entire afternoon and held the rest of them as a captive audience. She had no idea what they were so competitive about, the election was over and if Tokugawa wanted to be president so badly there was always high school. She didn't know what that vendetta he had against the telepathy club was about either. She hadn't even heard of the telepathy club before today but that was a good thing. It wasn't like they were talking about the pick up artist club, the leg shaving club, or the Tsubomi fan club. From what she'd heard it was just a bunch of people hanging out in a clubroom. If people had nothing better to do afterschool than hang out in the building she didn't care so long as they didn't make more work for her.
She had enough to do.
After this she had her rounds, then her paperwork, and then she could go home. Mom was making omurice today so she didn't want to be late. There were few things in this world grosser than cold omurice. She pushed away from the table and got up, her ribbon loosening as she moved. She sighed. It had been a miracle that it had lasted this long. Well, nothing to do but try and tighten it.
Now had had Shigeko done this…
"Miss Kageyama?" asked Kamuro. Ritsuko nearly yanked her hair out in surprise. She didn't, though, she simply tightened her hair ribbon and let her hands rest at her sides. She felt Tokugawa glaring at her. She didn't glare back. They were student counsel members, they were supposed to be more mature than that.
Besides, Kamuro was right there.
"Yes President Kamuro?" asked Ritsuko. She wondered if she had done something wrong…she went over that whole meeting. Nothing stuck out at her. There must have been something, though, if Kamuro was addressing her semi-privately.
"Your…your hair." Said Kamuro. Ritsuko blinked. What about it? It was the same as it had always been…oh, right.
"I know that the ribbon is supposed to be black. This was a careless oversight on my part. It won't happen again." Said Ritsuko quickly.
"No, I just meant that it looks different. That's all…carry on." Said Kamuro before he turned around and walked away. Ritsuko had no idea what that had been about. If he had wanted to dress code her he could have, even they weren't above the rules, but he didn't. He just said that her hair was different…she had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Or even a thing at all.
She decided to ignore it and get on with her day. She had things to do and not a lot of time to do them. Meetings always dragged on for so long. When she was president…if she was president then things would change. Not that she even could have been in the running, she was only a first year, and next year…being President was a lot of work. Sure there was power, and she could have used that power to protect her sister, but there was also a lot of responsibility that would take her away from her sister.
Just being on the student council was enough for her.
She had enough power, enough to keep Shigeko safe, anyway. Enough to keep people from making fun of her and setting her off…enough to keep it from happening again. She smoothed her bangs down over her forehead. The last thing that any of them needed was Shigeko losing control again. She couldn't let that happen again. She hadn't been able to protect her sister back then, on that day, but she could do it now.
Well, not 'now'.
Nothing was happening right now. Just the usual. Some clubs were being too loud, some people stayed behind to make out and mess around in the various corners of the school even though, she assumed, these people had homes. Honestly, who would have risked getting caught like that?
It was worse than getting dress coded.
Not that Ritsuko was ever going to have to worry about either. She followed the rules, all of them, and did her job well. The only things she had to worry about were paperwork and her rounds, all of which she finished with time to spare. She was never going to do anything to get in trouble…she was never going to get to do anything…
She got to go home, that was something.
"Shige, is that you?" shouted Mom from the kitchen.
"She's with Reigen again." Said Ritsuko as she slid her shoes off. She made sure to face them the right way, Mom hated it when Shigeko messed up. She never punished them, of course, how could she? But that didn't matter. She didn't want to upset Mom, she had enough to worry about as it was with Shigeko.
One of them had to be the good one.
"Did she say when she was coming back?" asked Mom, her voice carrying above the sounds of cooking. The clanking of pots and the jingle of the rice maker.
"No Mom, she just said that she and Reigen were going off to explore a haunted tunnel and then probably getting ramen afterwards." Said Ritsuko
"Again? Honestly, if you're going to feed someone else's child…" Mom's voice trailed off, drowned out by the sounds of cooking. Ritsuko had more to say about Reigen than just the fact that Shigeko had a second dinner with him sometimes. He rubbed her the wrong way. The lying, for one thing, and the fact that he hung out with Shigeko when he should have been hanging out with someone his own age. But Shigeko liked him and there was nothing that anyone could do to tell her otherwise.
Not with powers like hers.
Ritsuko went up to her room. It was best to get her homework done early, that way she'd have a whole night to do a whole lot of nothing before tomorrow happened. It was just the responsible thing to do, really, and that was who she was. The responsible one. She didn't know what else she would have been. Shigeko was the one who was allowed to mess up.
It wasn't like anyone could do anything to stop her.
So she got to go and explore tunnels and exorcise spirits while Ritsuko got to explore the boring world of algebra…she shook her head. She didn't know what was wrong with her sometimes. She should have been grateful that she had a sister who loved her, and one who didn't lord her powers over her family, and a family who loved her too. She should have been grateful for everything that she had, being good at school and being responsible and stuff. She even should have been grateful for the love notes she found stuffed in her shoe locker sometimes.
The ones that went right in the trash.
She tossed them right in her wastebasket the second she got to her room. She didn't like anyone and it wasn't like anyone knew her well enough to like her for real so these didn't matter. She tossed the notes off before she tossed off her uniform, allowing herself a moment of irresponsibility before hanging it up on her wardrobe before it wrinkled and Mom got mad. There, that was enough irresponsibility. Now it was time to get into her house clothes and get her homework done.
It didn't take long at all.
Mom was still cooking, Shigeko still wasn't home, and she was still bored. She put her homework away and pulled out her notebook. She flipped it opened to where she had left off and started detailing what her afternoon had been like. There was something calming about the feel of her pencil against the page, the smell of the paper, being able to just sit and order her thoughts. A nice way to unwind after a long day of nothing.
Stressful nothing.
"…got in a weird argument with Tokugawa today but Kamuro took my side…" muttered Ritsuko as she wrote, a bad habit of hers. It wasn't, of course, like she was writing down some deep, dark secrets. She wasn't running around breaking the rules and making out with guys. She wasn't robbing people and setting fires. The worst thing she had ever done was wear the wrong color hair ribbon.
So exciting.
But also annoying. She could feel her ponytail slipping. She pulled the ribbon out of her hair and put it down on her desk. In this light it looked like black. You would have had to have been looking very closely to notice that it was anything other than black…she couldn't get away with anything, could she? She nearly got dress coded over a goddamned hair ribbon…
All thanks to Shigeko.
Ritsuko reminded herself that she hadn't done it on purpose, Shigeko just hadn't been thinking. She didn't have to do that all the time. She could just do things. She could just…Ritsuko got back to her notebook. Shigeko got to do whatever she wanted. That was the way that it had always been and…and that was the way that it always would be. But she was alright with that.
She was just happy to have a sister at all.
"Mom! Dad! Ritsuko! I'm home!" shouted Shigeko, her voice carrying over the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut. Ritsuko cringed. Mom was going to be so upset….
"Hey, guess who beat me!" shouted Dad. The door opened and closed again. Good, Dad was home. He always calmed Mom down. She clicked her phone on and checked the time…oh. Kamuro had sent her a copy of the minutes from their meeting. She quickly thanked him. Just a simple 'thank you'. She knew that she wouldn't have time for more. Any minute now Mom was going to call her down to dinner.
"Both of you stop shouting and wash up for dinner…and you too, Ritsuko. Ritsuko!" shouted Mom, right on time. Ritsuko put her phone down, closed her notebook, and made her way downstairs. Everyone was already at the table when she got there. Dad, Mom, and Shigeko.
Same as it ever was.
She took her place next to Shigeko. Her dinner was already there in front of her, omurice with salad on the side. a glass of milk was in front of her, strawberry milk, same as Shigeko. Strawberry milk and omurice…she didn't grimace. Even though those flavors didn't go together at all.
Shigeko liked it so that was what they were going to have.
"Thanks for the meal." They all said at once, everyone but Mom since she had made the meal, before they got to eating. Ritsuko did her best to avoid drinking anything, it just didn't go together, and she didn't know how well she could hide it. Not with how Shigeko was looking at her.
Why?
She didn't think that she had done anything. She never did anything, especially not to Shigeko. She went over their day together…did she want her ribbon back? She risked a glance at Shigeko and…oh. She wasn't really looking at her that much, it just felt like it. She was mostly looking down at her dinner. Her hair was floating a little bit, but her powers did that without her telling them to, Shigeko had said once. Her powers were just kind of there and they did their own thing…Ritsuko tried not to think about that too much. Or the way that the hair on the back of her arms was sticking up.
Or the way Shigeko's spoon bent.
"Shige! Honestly, you're still doing this? We aren't made of spoons you know, and look at the mess you made of the table cloth." said Mom
"Hana, come on now. Kids make messes sometimes, it's just what they do. Fish swim, dogs bark, and kids give us messes to clean up." said Dad
"Honestly Maro, you baby them too much." Said Mom with a sigh.
"I'm sorry, Mom, I was just thinking." Said Shigeko as she used her powers to clean the rice and egg up off of the table. She put it back onto her plate and straightened out her spoon. Ritsuko got the feeling that Shigeko had been looking at her the entire time.
That feeling, that static electricity feeling, was still there.
"What's on your mind?" asked Ritsuko, trying her best to sound nonchalant. Happy, even…and she should have been. She was fine. Shigeko was fine so, of course, she was fine.
"I got paid today and I got you some new hair elastics but I think that I got you the wrong ones. I know that they're supposed to be black and they looked black at the store but now that I really look at them they look blue…sorry." Said Shigeko as she reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a package of hair things…dark blue ones.
But that was alright.
"They look black to me, sister, thank you very much." Said Ritsuko. Shigeko had tried, that was what mattered, and that was enough. There was no need to upset Shigeko by telling her that she had gotten the wrong thing and no need to upset her parents by arguing with Shigeko. They just had to have a nice dinner, one that they had already been having, and one that they were going to keep on having.
That was Ritsuko's job.
She was the one who had to keep things nice, ordinary. She was the one who had to make sure that Shigeko didn't get upset. She was the one who had to keep Mom from getting upset. Dad…Dad never got upset. He was always being funny, even when things were bad, even when things had been really bad…but that was over now. It had been years ago, things were different now, normal. Ordinary. They were just an ordinary family having dinner….
A perfectly nice, ordinary, dinner. One that Ritsuko wasn't going to ruin. That wasn't the kind of person she was supposed to be.
