Hello, again! I apologize for the wait; I didn't have much inspiration for this chapter, even though I'd planned most of the events that occur in it out. But, despite that, it's here… I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed this fic; I really enjoyed reading your comments, and took them into consideration while writing this. I'm sure you know who you are. Just an outlook for the future: I'm thinking that this story will be five chapters long, making two more to go after this one. So, without further ado, here it is. Enjoy!
Chapter Three: Bonkura Unite!
Kurosawa Minamo pulled open the door to the faculty room, cup of InstaRamen in hand. After a long, exhausting morning—she did teach gym, after all—she was ready to start her lunch break and planned to savor every moment of it with her best friend in the entire world, Tanizaki Yukari.
In fact, said friend was already there, looking out a window with a bored look on her face. When she heard the door open, the English teacher's gaze slid Minamo's way, and she croaked, "I'm hungry. Can I borrow a few hundred yen for lunch?"
Minamo felt a vein bulge on her forehead. Yukari's definition of "borrow" alternated between "take and conveniently forget to give back" or "steal due to an unfair bet". But, hey, what were friends for? And best friends, no less. "Sure," Minamo said with a smile as she produced her wallet from a pocket, "How much do you need?"
Yukari tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I was thinking about getting fukahire, so… figure about nine hundred yen?"
The P.E. teacher sighed, promptly putting her wallet away and out of her friend's greedy reach. "Can you really buy shark's fin in a school cafeteria?"
"It was worth a try," she responded, shrugging. "So, what's up?"
"Not a whole lot, actually," Minamo said, sitting down across from her colleague and opening her ramen cup. "Though, come to think of it, some of the students in your class were acting strangely in gym today."
"How's that news to you?"
Minamo chose to ignore this interjection and continued, "I decided earlier that, since it's been so nice out lately, I'd take the class outside to play volleyball. As soon as we got out there, Tomo picked up a ball and started chasing Chiyo-chan around with it, trying to… well, I think she wanted to hit her over the head with it or something. Any ideas why?"
"No clue," Yukari said, shifting her brown eyes back to the window, "Thought it may have something to do with the fact that Chiyo-chan lost her memory earlier…"
Minamo nearly choked on her mouthful of noodles. "What was that?"
"She got hit in the head with a bucket and got amnesia," Yukari stated impassively, "Nothing to lose your lunch over."
"Are you kidding?" Miss Kurosawa asked, wiping her mouth on a sleeve, "That's head trauma right there! Chiyo-chan could have gotten a concussion or… or something far worse! She could be in big trouble right now! And you let her stay in school!"
"'Course I did!" Yukari exclaimed. "She's a genius; she'll pull through."
"A genius! If she's lost her memory, doesn't that mean that the shrewd part of her brain's been completely wiped?"
"How should I know? Do I look like a doctor?"
"Of course you don't! That's why the girl needs medical attention right now!"
Yukari blinked. "You're so uptight, Nyamo; you should relax more. Chiyo-chan's been entirely herself in class, so I'm sure she'll pull through in the end; she always does. And, besides, with the help of her friends behind her, I'm sure that'll happen all the faster."
Nyamo's eyes widened, shocked at her friend's speech. "Do you really think so?" she asked, her former agitation forgotten.
"Nah, Tomo's probably going to screw it all up somehow and the world will go to hell," Yukari said with a flippant wave of her hand. Miss Kurosawa groaned, wondering briefly why she'd befriended such a moron, before glancing over at a wall phone not ten feet away. She could—no, should—call a doctor right now and try to get him or her to treat Chiyo. While she had, according to Yukari, been acting normally, there was probably some brain disease out there with a really long name that lay dormant in its victim for a few days before it activated itself and struck them dead on. But, somehow, for some reason, she didn't. Yukari had been too persuasive before. Sighing, Minamo folded her arms. One day, she thought, I'll give Chiyo-chan one day. If nothing substantial happens, I'll call a specialist. And yet…
…somehow, I think this whole issue will be resolved before then.
"So… that's how I split them?" Chiyo asked, peering down at the waribashi chopsticks on her lunch tray.
"Yup, that's all ya hafta do!" Osaka said, picking up her own eating utensils. Having finally figured out that memory was not a material object that could simply be found or replaced, the Osakan had taken it upon herself to instruct Chiyo how to do properly pull apart her chopsticks—after all, if she wanted to be a teacher someday, she'd need all the practice she could get.
"Just grab them at the ends," Osaka counseled, performing the task along with her, "And slooooowly pull apart."
"Slooooowly…" the pig-tailed girl repeated, almost as though she was in a trance, as she separated the chopsticks fiber by fiber. "Slooooowly…. slooooowly… slooooowly…"
"OH MY GOD!" Tomo cried, jumping up from her seat. Chiyo jerked at the sudden volume, causing her chopsticks to break unevenly, clearly—to all on-lookers, at least—the outcome Tomo had desired. Looking upon them, the twelve-year-old felt tears well up in her eyes. "I didn't do it right…"
"Aw, Chiyo-chan, don't worry, we love ya anyway!" Tomo bubbled, smacking her shoulder comfortingly—and, in all honesty, painfully. After taking a moment to roll her eyes in her friends' direction, Yomi turned back to the remaining members in her posse and said, "So we still haven't decided our course of action; how do we get Chiyo-chan's memory back?"
"I heard somewhere that, if you eat a spicy-enough piece of food, it can help improve your short-term memory," Kagura suggested, her way-too-wide smile giving away that she wasn't taking the whole situation seriously. However, at this, Osaka's eyes had, taken on a strange gleam, much like that of a killer's in the middle of a crowd, or an evil villain's from a movie from the twenties… or, for that matter, Tomo's when she was thinking something devious. And, seeing as the Osakan's gaze kept flitting between Chiyo and Yomi's plate of curry—specially-ordered, seeing as no one but her could eat such zesty stuff—there certainly had to be some devious thoughts floating around in that occasionally-empty brain of hers…
Osaka's eyes remained glued to Chiyo as she picked up her chopsticks and groped about blindly for a piece of meat from Yomi's plate, calling, "Hey Chiyo-cha…!"
With lightning-quick reflexes, Kagura lashed out her arm and pinned Osaka's chopstick hand to the table where it squirmed under the athlete's tight grip. "You know… come to think of it, I think I read that in a… a tabloid at the supermarket, or something… 's not true…" Kagura mumbled, sheepishly scratching the back of her head with her free hand.
The space cadet looked longingly at the bowl of curry for another moment before saying, "Oh, well," and plopping back down in her seat, resuming her blank stare and deadpan façade. Giving her one last look, Yomi said, "Yeah… right… so back to the suggestions…"
Without warning, Osaka snapped her fingers and said, "Aha! I hit a homerun with this one!"
"Oh, Kami-sama, not the homeruns again," Yomi groaned, allowing her head to sink deeply into her hands. Very deeply.
Taking no notice of the bespectacled girl, Osaka continued, "I think that all Chiyo-chan has to do is drink water!"
"That's it?" Tomo asked.
"Yup; I think I read it in a tabloid somewhere."
"Uh… you want me to drink water?" Chiyo said, still a tad confused about what was going on. Eventually, though, she decided that water was water and nothing that bad could really come out of drinking it. Shrugging, the once-child-genius picked up the cup in front of her and downed the liquid inside in one go. Osaka, Tomo, and Kagura crowded around her expectantly as she set down the cannikin, eyes widened with anticipation. "Well…?" said Tomo.
"Uh… nothing's happening…" Chiyo responded.
"No, no, don't worry; I've got more!" Osaka piped up. "Okay, I think that, if she holds her breath for long enough, pretty soon the memories will all come flooding back!"
"Hold her breath?" Yomi echoed skeptically from her seat.
"Yeah, that's what the tabloid said, and tabloids don't lie!"
"Of course they do," Yomi retorted, though this was barely heard, as Osaka and the band of bonkuras' attentions had since returned to Chiyo. The little girl's face, in the past five seconds, had turned from her normal skin tone to a red that rivaled that of the school's winter uniform. After another ten, she let out the air in her oxygen-deprived lungs, gasping for the life-sustaining substance. "That was… I need… I still don't remember anything!" she managed, moisture returning to her eyes for the umpteenth time that day.
Waving her hands madly, Osaka said, "Hold up! There's more stuff we can do! We can… um… oh, yeah! Apply pressure to her eyes!"
This responsibility was immediately bestowed upon Tomo. By herself, yes, but, nonetheless, bestowed. As the hyperactive female pushed down on Chiyo's face as hard as she could, Sakaki quirked an eyebrow. Drink water? Hold her breath? Put pressure on her eyes? It all sounded familiar somehow…
"It didn't work again," Kagura observed, looking down at the even more traumatized Chiyo. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Yeah, there is!" Osaka declared. "Another way to get memory back is to punch the victim's stomach as hard as you can!"
Kagura shrugged. "'Kay." The dark-skinned athlete pulled back her fist and was just about to make contact with the quavering Chiyo when Yomi sprung up from her seat and caught her arm, immediately stopping her momentum. "That's quite enough of this, now!"
In the meantime, Sakaki had flashed back to a memory from two summers ago, thus figuring out what had been bothering her. "Osaka, the things you just said… those are cures for the hiccups, not for amnesia… though I'm not so sure about that punching one…"
"Oh," Osaka said, a little disappointed, "Sorry 'bout that. I tend to get things like that confused."
"So we've noticed," Yomi mumbled. Behind the titian-haired girl's body, Sakaki leaned forward in her seat to get a better look at Chiyo. Right now… she just looked so… lost. So helpless. So… so unsure…
Leaning back, the cat-loving girl crossed her arms and made herself comfortable, continuing to mull over her friend's dilemma. Amnesia, she mused, is a condition, not a disease that can be cured easily. Chiyo-chan's just going to have to remember her past on her own; that's all there is to it. Though…
…knowing her, there must be some other way, I'm sure of it. There must be some way that we can get her memories to resurface without the need of years of waiting or medical treatment. There has to be…
Suddenly standing, Sakaki found her mouth forming words though her brain hadn't fully pieced together the puzzle that was Chiyo's predicament. "I… I think I know a way to get Chiyo-chan's memory back."
The entire group of girls, even Chiyo herself, turned at this new discovery, their gaze all laying on one person. Though Sakaki shifted a bit under their intense stares, her voice held firm. "Meet me outside after school today; we'll cure Chiyo-chan's amnesia then. I just know that this is the answer…"
End chapter. Thanks for reading! Please don't forget to review!