*
Stop interfering!
You know I've prepared myself for this.
Yes…I realize you're trying to be my friend.
Sorry.
I don't need you anymore.
I've made up my mind.
*
I ran all the way home. The sky was almost saturated with clouds by the time I arrived at my apartment building. Thunder rumbled from somewhere close by as I turned the key in the lock. The room was dark when I was slipping off my shoes and remained that way as I threw myself across the tatami mat floor.
It began to rain in the next ten minutes or so, first sporadically and then in even, heavy sheets of cold water. I had to drag myself up and close the window, which had been open for the sake of fresh breathing air.
I watched the dark city for a while, the tiled rooftops becoming visible only when lightning splashed across the sky. This storm was a bad one. I thought of my mother: was she indoors?
I looked at the clock hanging on the wall. 4:38. Mom wouldn't be leaving work for over an hour. She should be all right, I decided; a storm couldn't stay that violent for too long.
Still, realizing that I wouldn't be seeing Mom for so long reawakened the loneliness inside. I grabbed a Hello Kitty™ pillow from my shelf and hugged it against my chest. Riku didn't remember me. Yuffie didn't remember me. How many more old friends would I stumble upon that would only offer me blank stares when I tried to reminisce about old times?
But then…I had a thought.
Sora.
I would meet Sora in this world, and he would know me. There was no way he could forget. Our hearts were connected. Even if his memories had been locked away somewhere, my presence would surely set them free. He would know me—perhaps not with his mind, but definitely with his heart.
Sora, I thought.
Sora was sure to remember.
Somewhat contented, I unloaded my schoolbag and began my homework.
*
I had been overly optimistic about the rain. It let up now and then, but not with any pattern or frequency, and, when I awoke the next day, it was still pouring and Mom was intently watching the weather report on television.
To be frank, I hadn't quite figured out the television yet and was making a habit of staying away from it. I went in the bathroom to get ready, leaving the door open a crack so I could hear what the weather forecaster was saying (that was another mystery to me: how people could know ahead of time what the weather would be). If I could only hear, then it was like the radio, and I didn't mind the radio so much. The television, with its miniature people, bright colors, strange animations…yes, it frightened me a little.
Apparently there was an out-of-season typhoon approaching Tokyo Bay. My mother kept saying, "It's April, why such a big typhoon?" I couldn't answer her, and the weatherman couldn't either. She clicked the television off. Her face was set in a deep frown when I emerged from the bathroom.
"I'm just glad I bought another umbrella on my way home yesterday," Mom said as she surveyed my consumption of breakfast. "Or else we would've had just one for this morning." She came over to me and straightened my collar a little once I'd finished. "You'd better leave now. It'll take you a while to get to school in this rain."
I gathered up my lunch and books and stacked them neatly together in my schoolbag. "I'm leaving now!" I called, slipping on my shoes and picking up one of the two big black umbrellas by the door.
"Take care," Mom said.
*
I arrived at school very early. In the entrance room, I slipped of my outdoor shoes and sat down on the step to replace them with my dry indoor shoes. As I stood up to place my soggy shoes next to my umbrella in the long cubbyhole, I heard someone calling to me.
"Hey there, Kairi."
I shut the small door of the wooden cubbyhole. "Yuffie-sempai, you're here early today."
"My dad gave me a ride before work," she explained. I had noticed she was mostly dry, even though her socks looked a little damp.
"I walked," I said, to point out the obvious. I was absolutely soaked from my waist down, and pretty wet everywhere else.
"Here, there should be some towels in the girls' locker room. Wanna come with?" She began to lead me once I nodded. She stopped in the middle of the deserted main hallway. "Hey, it's still like half an hour before class. We could probably grab some hot showers real quick—whaddya say?"
I nodded again. A hot shower sounded good. I was grateful for one, and to dry off completely with the big white towels. My uniform was still damp when I put it back on, but the skin underneath was no longer covered in goose bumps. I was very thankful to my new friend.
Yuffie and I slipped quietly out of the gymnasium area, since we hadn't actually asked permission to use the showers. She told me it would be 'our little secret' and we could do it again anytime there was a 'stupid typhoon.' This she whispered to me on the way up to the third story, where her classroom was. Her homeroom was 2-F.
I felt strange to stand by her desk as upperclassmen filed in. I didn't recognize any of them. I lowered my head a little to each one who so much as looked in my direction, nervous they had the right to chastise me if I didn't show the proper respect.
Yuffie just grinned at me, throwing her feet over the top of her desk. She would have been one of those girls with their jackets off at the entrance ceremony, I realized. Why had I been put off by those other girls, then? I felt like I owed them an apology, even though I knew they couldn't read minds. I was silly.
I sighed at myself.
"Eh? What's the matter?" Yuffie wanted to know. I don't know how she managed it, but she simultaneously had her legs over the top of the desk and was fishing around in it, pulling out some food. I could smell whatever was in the box: chocolate. I was fairly sure I had never inhaled the wonderful scent before, but now I recognized it and my full stomach of a minute earlier was ready to wrap itself around the sugary treat.
"Want some?" Yuffie asked, her voice somewhat distorted as she was also chewing something. A long stick of cookie and chocolate was protruding from her lip. Pocky™!
"Okay…" I reached out for the box cautiously.
"Kisaragi!" There was a bang on the front desk, the teacher's desk, as the deep male voice rumbled through the classroom. Those around us stopped in their chatter. They froze immediately and their eyes turned to Yuffie and me.
I nervously lifted my gaze. At the large metal desk in the very front and center of the room, there stood a man in his early twenties. He was dressed in a black suit, and standing very straight. His brown hair was much shorter than I remembered, but his cold gaze hadn't been altered one bit.
"Get your feet off the desk and save your snacks for lunchtime!"
"Oy, Leonheart-sensei," groaned Yuffie, swinging her long legs around and planting her feet on the floor with a thump. "Why'd you gotta be such a stickler?"
"It's my job," he replied coolly. "Class is about to begin, so I suggest your friend be on her way."
"He's so grumpy," Yuffie whispered up to me, making a face.
"I can see that, Kisaragi."
Yuffie continued making her face, adding to it by sticking out her tongue and scrunching her eyes up even more. I was bowing my way out the door by this time. I waved meekly at Yuffie, and then skittered back to my own homeroom a floor below.
Squall! Squall's here too! I thought, my excitement overshadowed only by my disappointment about not getting any chocolate.
*
After lunch we had a free period to study. I had already completed my assignments for that day, so I took out the homework we had received that morning. I sat quietly at my desk and began to work, but only a couple minutes later someone was tapping me on the shoulder.
"Excuse me, Suzuki-san?"
A girl from my class was standing there timidly, clutching at her math book. "Could you help me go over today's lesson? The teacher explained it too fast for me to understand."
I agreed, motioning for her to pull up a chair. "I took a lot of notes, but I didn't get it all either. If we talk about it, maybe we could understand it better."
She looked a little relieved. She couldn't have been more so than I; at last, someone in my class was speaking to me! I was overjoyed.
Some other girls came over not too long after that, and we soon had a big group discussion going on the math lesson. We moved onto history and English, too, and then the bell rang and we had to straighten the desks for our next class. I was disappointed again; I had been having a pretty good time. Better yet, I had finally relaxed around my peers.
I felt lucky that most of the school subjects came to me easily. I had fretted about not knowing how to do anything, but when I had to do a math problem I found I could do it. The more I studied, the more I 'remembered'. I had even been able to help the other girls with their homework.
Yes, I felt very, very lucky.
*
The school day went all right, especially after the study session, but as soon as the final bell rang and everyone scrambled out to get home before the rain renewed itself in full force (it had let up for the time being), I realized that it was only Tuesday and I had a whole week of after school with Riku.
I didn't want to see him. I had avoided looking at him through every lesson and lunch, even though I had had to eat in the classroom because of the rain. I didn't know if he looked at me ever; I wasn't about to check.
The classroom had been really messy that day. I started cleaning the chalk boards right away, then hurried about picking up wrappers, pieces of paper, and the occasional pen or pencil, which went into a lost and found bin on the teacher's desk.
"Want to avoid the rain?" Riku's voice cut through the empty room as I crouched over a wrinkled love note.
"Huh?"
"That's why you're hurrying, isn't it?"
He wasn't that dumb. He was joking with me.
"I guess so," I replied, snatching up the love note and depositing it in the trashcan on the far side of the room. I didn't look at him once. I knew he was probably smirking at me. It was the same smirk I had seen so many times growing up…after he beat Sora at a race, or he pretended not to be affected by some prank Selphie and Wakka pulled on him. It was his all-purpose mask.
Come to think of it… How do I know he isn't hiding something right now?
"That stuff yesterday," I said. "I would be happy if you forgot all about it. It was just a stupid joke."
"Okay," he replied somewhat cautiously.
I felt a weight leave my chest. All right. So I couldn't bring up the past with Riku. I resigned myself to be happy that he was breathing, and overjoyed that he was doing so anywhere near me. I was with my old friend again.
That should have been enough.
"But…you're going to have to forget about beating the rain."
"Eh?" I looked up. Riku was standing at the window, facing it with his body but his head swiveled slightly to give me a helpless look. My eyes ventured past him. The rain was as bad as it had been the night before.
"Wow," I murmured, raising one hand to my lips. There was no way I could walk home in rain like that without drowning.
The tops of the umbrellas below, all differing in color and shape, moved faster and faster as globs of students ran for their homes or the train station. The rain continued to worsen.
"They should just come back to the school and wait it out," Riku scoffed, his arms crossed.
"Is that what we're gonna have to do?"
"Unless you want to drown," he told me. I must have looked nervous—or something—because next he smiled with sincerity and said, "It's okay. We can hang out with whoever else is stuck here. And I'll buy you something to drink from the vending machines downstairs."
"Okay," I agreed. Is he…trying to make up for yesterday?
"What're you giggling about?"
I noticed that I was laughing a little, and promptly stopped. "Nothing." I couldn't really explain that his personality seemed more agreeable now than I remembered. That maybe I was already starting to like this Riku more than the old one.
"…Okay…" His aqua eyes searched my face with a hint of suspicion. "Let's finish up. I'm thirsty."
It only took ten more minutes to have the room in good order. Riku and I picked up our bags and went down to the basement where the vacated lunch counter and the vending machines were. He fished a few hundred yen from his pocket and bought us each a sugary orange drink. I pointed out that maybe he could have asked what I might have liked first.
"You don't want it? I can drink both of 'em."
I took one of the cans from his hand. "This will be fine."
We returned to the staircase and sat down, popping the tabs on our beverages. I tried not to be frightened by the sudden fizzing sound, or, at the very least, not let Riku know that I was. I took a sip. The tingle on my tongue was strange at first, but I soon grew to like it.
Riku consumed his drink in one gulp. He set down the empty can and it bounced down the stairs until it hit the floor, where it began to roll. "Damn." He chased after it.
"I guess you weren't kidding about being thirsty," I said, resting my chin on my palms and my elbows on my knees.
"Kid? Why, I never kid," he replied. He snatched the can up and straightened, looking triumphant.
I heard a loud sneeze from down the corridor. "What was that?" I asked Riku.
"Dunno…" He peeked around the corner. "Looks like some kid who got caught in the rain."
Another sneeze arose, somewhat closer.
"Hey, are you all right?" Riku asked.
"Yeah, yeah," a nasally voice replied. There was a third and final sneeze. "Man, you got a towel or something? I could really use one."
I set my drink down on the side of the step I was on, then stood up and straightened out my skirt. "I can go get one," I announced.
"Ah, that would be great," the speaker replied, still a bit nasally, as he came around the corner. He had jagged brown hair glued to his face. His black uniform was clinging to a wiry frame, and a large puddle was forming beneath him. He looked up at me with vivid blue eyes.
And I…nearly fainted.
"Kairi, you okay?" Riku asked, leaping up the steps to catch me before I fell.
I held my head. It felt sort of warm…
"What's wrong with her?" the newcomer asked from below us.
I broke free of Riku. "Oh, yes, I'll get you a towel right away, Sora!" I called out over my shoulder as I ran for the gymnasium.
***
Lesson #4: A few Japanese customs. A simple lesson today. I'm just going to list off a few Japanese customs that I'm going to try to include in my story. The first two pertain to table manners. Before eating, Japanese people will say "itadakimasu" and, when they are through, say "gochisosama deshita" or just "gochisosama." The first is a humble form of the world "to receive" or "to eat," and it is used to express gratitude for the meal: to the chef, the fishermen and farmers, and nature as a whole. The second basically means "that was delicious." In some anime or Japanese drama (dorama) they will translate the two phrases as "I'm going to eat" and "I'm finished," which is understandable, since saying these phrases signifies those actions.
Btw… Did you know it is polite to slurp your soup or noodles in Japan? When my host family took me out for a lunch of soba (buckwheat noodles, served cold), everyone around me was slurping. I tried to in order to be polite, but I found I couldn't! I was so embarrassed… ;_;
Also, Japanese people will announce their comings and goings, even if there is no one else around to hear them. They use "Itte kimasu," which means "I'm going out" and "Tadai ma," which means "I'm home," and will be answered with "Okaeri" (welcome back).
It's just habit for Japanese people to use all these phrases. There were times when I wanted to say them with the Japanese hosts, but everyone talked so fast…!! Ay ay ay.
A note on the senpai/sempai thing… Look for Koorino Megumi's helpful review—she gives a great explanation. It should be spelled with an 'n' because of the way the Japanese language is (n is the only consonant that can stand alone), but I'm going to continue using 'sempai' since that's how I've always heard it said, and it's the way I think of the word…. I think it was Escaflowne that did it to me; "Sempai! Amano-sempai!" Can't get it outta my head…so…yeah…
And my plot is finally about to start…!! took long enough, huh? XD