Chapter 7: That Day I Woke Up Without You
…
Where there was supposed to be orange or gray, there was searing, white sunrays. This was the first time in years Kayoko saw white light cross window blinds and shatter onto a wall. Having just stirred from slumber, she had the notion that if she moved even a bit, the pale streaks would escape, as if it were some cryptid who had exposed itself to the public eye and was wont to slink back into society's collective blind spot. Yet, her whims got the best of her. She lazily raised her hand from the couch and caught the plasma-ivory in her hand, appreciating the borders of warm red between the point of contact and the opposite side of her hand. She smiled, turning her hand over and back again until an occluding cloud returned the notion of time.
Kayoko jolted up, then nearly laid back down in a fit of dizziness. White rays – it's late! She tore the blanket off of her in a rush to frantically scavenge for her things, only to remember that she was not in her own apartment.
Dashes of red, black, and yellow flickered in her mind. Kayoko bit the inside of her cheek.
Maybe Gehenna won't notice today… It was somewhat of an unspoken agreement between her and the academy administration that if she at least stayed in the academy, they would tolerate her skipping classes. It was enough for them at this point to know that she wasn't outside committing crimes. Getting her grades up was the job of the counselors.
Kayoko scanned the room. Am I alone? she thought. She felt that she could hear the sound of a feather falling if she dropped it. In that moment, something she had read a long time ago bubbled up into her mind. It was about how college students in the past would make barricades in the middle of their academies to protest one thing or the other, and inside the barricade emerged a different space-time. Like a caterpillar going through a metamorphosis, the students changed. Having erected the barriers, for a couple of days they shed everything they were on the outside. Nobody left the same as they went in – like repossessing old bodies with old obligations and old chains.
This was a different space-time, one where anything could happen. Kayoko felt as if she floated. Could she reach out and tug fate? In silence so thick she could cut it, she could just as quickly balance scales, and by pushing down one side, change her lot in life.
She laid down, gazing up at the ceiling. The fan slowly turned. Kayoko imagined the soft tick-tock of time going by. She closed her eyes, covering them with the back of her hand, and stayed that way for a while until she let go and let the heat under her eyes flow over.
She wanted to stay – she wanted to stay so, so bad.
Warm tears ran down her cheeks, slow then fast. Her breath turned into sniffles and sobs. Kayoko turned to face the back of the couch she had slept on and curled up, as though if she could extinguish the outside world from her thoughts it would afford her a few moments longer.
Sensei…
That name came easily then echoed in her mind, like a sun which at the slightest glance adjusted your eyes to it and darkened the rest of the world in comparison.
I want to be queen of the barricade…
A/N: Sorry for the long hiatus. College started back up again, so I've been busy. Here is a short chapter in the meantime. I will probably get another, longer chapter before the holidays are over. I find that this is a hard story to write because I have to think deeper about how the elements of the plot affix to each other in an emotionally different way than, say, a comedic fanfic I wrote a few months ago, so please bear with me, and thanks to the new follows and favorites.
