Ditching and Culprit Hunting

I saw Uchi on the way to school the next morning, but he was headed toward a park away from school. At first, I had this urge to just ignore him, but I couldn't help following him. He walked over to a cluster of bushes that concealed him from everyone else. I heard soft whimpering and saw a small cardboard box from which a small puppy crawled out. Uchi smiled as he fed it some pieces of sandwich meat.

"How cute~" two elementary school girls exclaimed when they spotted the puppy as they walked by. "Can we pet it please?"

"Okay," Uchi relented. When he looked up, he saw me standing there. He stared for a moment before looking away.

"So. Is this why you're ditching school?" I asked casually.

"It's a lot more complicated than that!" he said angrily. I sat down by him and smirked.

"Well, I don't know. Feeding a stray puppy seems like a good reason to ditch."

Uchi just stared at me, trying to decide whether I was serious or just messing with him. He gave up and sighed, leaning against the tree behind him. The two girls went on their way, saying they'd come back to see the puppy. It now crawled onto Uchi's lap, trying to find a comfortable spot.

"Look, I've got all the time you need, if you're going to talk to me," I said, sitting on the grass beside him.

"Aren't you mad at me?" he asked me, turning his head to look at me.

"I am. But it's not fair for me to say that you're not a good friend if I don't try to be a good friend to you."

His mouth twitched as he contemplated this. Then he began to speak.

"I live with my mom, and we're not that well off. Last month, my mom collapsed at work from fatigue, and that's slowed down her work. I feel like all she works for is for me, and I'm done freeloading off of her struggles. So I…I want to quit school and get a job."

I closed my eyes, just listening to him. Uchi really was a good person, and I felt bad for thinking otherwise.

"All that for your mom?" I asked.

"She's better off without me anyway," he said, plucking absentmindedly at the grass.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

He looked down at the puppy, not meeting my eyes. "Leaving school was something that I had been thinking about ever since my mom got hurt and even more when Yankumi passed out that paper about our futures…I guess I thought it'd be weird to tell you when you just started at Shirokin and I'm thinking about leaving. And I'd already made my decision, so I didn't want people to try to convince me to stay."

Suddenly, my cell phone rang, and we both were startled by the sound.

"You with Uchi?" Sawada asked when I picked up.

"Yeah," I answered. 'Sa-wa-da,' I mouthed to Uchi, who looked hesitant.

"…Is he okay?" Sawada asked.

"We're fine."

"Look, Yamaguchi has this weird plan to catch the culprit, so meet us after school, same place as yesterday?" he said.

"Sure," I said. At least Yankumi seemed to be serious about this, which was more than what I could say about the rest of the guys.

I hung up and smiled at Uchi. "Seems like I'm ditching with you." I reached forward to caress the puppy's soft fur. It licked my hand, nuzzling its cold wet nose against my palm.

For the rest of the morning, Uchi and I took care of the puppy and asking each other questions.

"Why did you come to Shirokin anyway?" he asked me.

"…I made a promise with my parents that I would at least graduate from high school. But I guess after getting expelled twice, there aren't a whole lot of schools eager to take me."

"And they're okay with you going to an all boys' school?" Uchi asked, brows raised.

"Kind of," I said, trying to be as vague as possible. "Anyway, what kind of job are you looking for?"

"At this point, I'm trying not to be picky," he said. "But being from Shirokin isn't doing me any favors right now. They judge me already based on that. That…and my hair."

"…You could always cut it," I said slowly, but hesitated to say it. I knew hair could be a touchy subject for guys, or at least the ones I lived with.

"I know…" he said miserably.

"It's okay. I've been wanting to dye my hair but…"

"Your parents are against that and not against you going to an all boys' school?" Uchi asked incredulously.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. When he put it that way, it did seem silly. Even though it wasn't my parents against it, but he didn't need to know that.

"Where do you live?" he asked me, changing the subject.

"That's a secret," I said, and he laughed. "What?"

He just shook his head in amusement. "Alright then. Guess we won't be going over anytime soon."

"Yes, please don't," I replied. The chaos that would occur if they came over…

"I'm going to buy us some lunch. Takoyaki* okay?" he asked me, standing up. I nodded.

"We'll split," I said, passing him some bills.

When he came back, he kept glancing over his shoulder.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"Oh nothing. Just the guys at the takoyaki stand are sort of strange. They told me to always listen to what my teachers say even though they look like gangsters."

Okay…

"So what do you think of Yankumi?" I asked him as we ate the takoyaki.

"She's…interesting, I guess," he answered. "but she's different than the other teachers. She saved Kuma's butt when she first got here."

He began to tell me of an incident between Kuma and Sawatari that occurred during Yankumi's first week teaching Class 3-D. Kuma had taken a bag from Sawatari as a joke, but that bag had contained a large sum of money. On the way home from school, however, some unruly gang had come across Kuma and had taken the money from him. When confronted by the teachers, Kuma lied and said that the bag he had been seen holding had contained donuts. Of course no one believed him. But Yankumi said that she did, and she went out of her way to search for the bag that he had supposedly thrown into the river. She searched for it all night in the litter-strewn riverbank so she could prove Kuma's innocence. When Kuma saw this, he confessed to her that he had taken the money. She then somehow replaced the money and returned it to Sawatari, saying that she had found the bag of money on the school grounds.

"Where did she get the money?" I asked.

"No one knows. I only heard about this from Shin recently so I didn't even know about it really back then. But anyways, after that, she promised to see our entire class graduate," Uchi said. "But I guess you can tell by now that it won't be easy. Most of us don't think we can or really want to graduate anyways."

"No offense to her, but she's sort of stupid. What kind of teacher would do all that for a student, especially people like us?" I said skeptically.

"I don't know," Uchi said with a shrug. "Shin told her that there's no way we would trust any teacher. Maybe she just wants to prove him wrong or something. Anyhow, it doesn't make a difference since I'm quitting school anyways."

We fell into silence. I wanted to tell him not to quit, that he would be sorely missed if he did. But this was his own decision. I had no right to tell him what to do, especially since he was doing this for a good reason.

Uchi left soon afterwards, saying that he had an interview for a job.

"Good luck," I said. "What should I do with the puppy?"

"Those girls will probably be back so he'll be okay," Uchi assured me. "…You won't tell the others?"

"No. It's not their business."

He nodded. "…Thanks, Kana."

He seemed a little unsure of himself so I cheered him up in the only way I knew how. I smacked his shoulder as hard as I could.

"Go get that job!"

He grinned, clutching his shoulder.

I played with the puppy for a little while longer. It was funny how all of us in 3-D had such a disregard for adults, and yet Uchi still managed to care that much about his mom, even though he didn't quite show it in the most obvious way. I wondered about what I would do if I were in his position. I didn't quite know what it was like to have such a loving relationship with one's parent.

I checked my watch and stood up. Time to meet Sawada and the others. Luckily, at the moment, the two elementary girls came back and I handed off the puppy to them.

"Hey guys," I greeted when I reached our meeting spot.

"Kana~, ditching school with Uchi now, are we?" Minami teased.

"Yeah, whatever," I said.

"No really," he insisted, "how was it?"

"How was what?" I asked, getting irritated.

"The DATE!" Minami, Noda, and Kuma chorused.

"They think you guys ditched to go out," Sawada explained monotonously.

"Did you get some romance going?" Noda prodded with a grin, and that did it.

"Shut the hell up. There was no date, so quit talking like we went on one," I said, glaring at them.

Sawada looked at me and smirked. What was up with that?

"It's just something they'd obviously assume," he said. I shot him a look. He didn't need to rub it in.

"Ya~ho~" a voice called, interrupting the conversation.

We looked over and her and did a double take. It was Yankumi…or not. She was wearing knee-high white boots, polka-dotted gray leggings, really short shorts, a tight shirt, and a blonde wig. It was like she had mismatched things from the last few decades. She did look pretty without her glasses though.

"I tried dressing up in the now-fashion," she said. "Cool, right? The culprit targets women with purses. I'm the perfect bait," Yankumi beamed, swinging a large purse.

"What the heck?!" Kuma exclaimed and I snickered.

"And why the heck are you wearing sneakers?!" Noda demanded.

"So I can run faster!"

"No one dresses like this nowadays!" Minami groaned. He was right. There was no way that anyone would target someone dressed like Yankumi. It would be too…weird.

"Sawada, how is it?" she asked.

He had been standing at a tree and looked as though he might be laughing but he turned and coolly gazed at her. "I guess it's okay."

"HUH?!" the rest of us exclaimed. THAT was okay?

"Yosh! Let's go!" Yankumi said.

Sometimes, I felt like I couldn't keep up with Sawada's thoughts. Or maybe it was all the time.

Two hours later, it was already dark and I was hungry. We had tried several locations with the "Yankumi bait" with no luck. Yankumi was now strutting on the overpass. Everyone else was bored, but I was mostly frustrated.

"The culprit hasn't shown up!" Kuma complained while eating his fifth pastry.

"How long are we supposed to wait?" Noda moaned, leaning back tiredly.

"No one's going to target some crazy person like her," Sawada said.

I stared at him. We knew that, but why then would he allow her to waste our time like that?

Before I could say anything, my phone rang.

"Chiba!" I said angrily in a bit of a panic. "You're not supposed to call me right now!"

The guys all stared at me, interested in my phone call.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," I said, and hung up.

"Who was that?" Noda asked, tilting his head at me.

"Umm…"

We suddenly heard a scream. "Help! Someone! I'm getting robbed!"

No way. Our plan had worked.

We all ran toward the woman who was screaming for help. The thief, seeing us coming, began to run away, and we were hindered slightly when a car pulled up in between us.

I ran around the car and sprinted after the guy, who was definitely not Uchi as far as I could tell. The guy ran into Yankumi at the other end of the tunnel, where she somehow managed to stop him.

"Yankumi, are you alright?" Minami shouted from behind me.

Although it seemed like she was holding down the culprit in a headlock, she began to wail,

"He's got a hold of my arm!"

I was confused because she looked perfectly fine, but I quickly pushed her out of the way while Sawada, Minami, and Noda came and tackled and dogpiled the culprit.

"AAHHH!" Kuma shouted, running towards us.

"No, Kuma, stop!" Yankumi said frantically, but he dove anyways, landing on top of the guys in a flying leap. I winced at the groans of the others underneath Kuma, glad to be standing instead of getting crushed by Kuma's weight.

When the dogpile managed to untangle itself, we stood in a ring around the thief. Yankumi slowly lifted off his mask and sunglasses to reveal an old bald guy.

"This guy isn't a student at our school…" Kuma said.

"He's not even young," Yankumi muttered, and we all sighed in exasperated relief.

"Ah, he's the arcade manager that Uchi bumped into," Sawada said. I stared at the unconscious man.

"This fool was framing Uchi," I growled. Sawada put out an arm to stop me.

"He's out cold. There's no need to beat him up even more. Come on, let's turn him in."

I lied and said I had a curfew so I had to go home. I was glad we caught the guy but there was no way in hell I was walking into a situation where police were involved. The others seemed to buy it so I left immediately.

When I walked into the house, Shun was still up.

"We got the guy," I said, going straight for the fridge for some water.

"I still don't like you jumping into dangerous situations like that," Shun said.

"Whatever," I replied, annoyed. Why couldn't he just be happy for me that we were able to clear a classmate's reputation?

The next day, the 5 of us were called into the teacher's lounge. I had vehemently resisted but the others had dragged me along.

Sawatari and the other teachers stared at us in disbelief as Shinohara, the on-site detective, read us a certificate of appreciation. Yankumi was beaming the entire time, as if she was being given the certificate. Noda had a hand over his heart, while Kuma kept nodding in agreement to what was being read. I honestly didn't want a certificate. As friends, it was what was expected of us to do. Instead, I kept staring at Shinohara, trying to avoid his line of sight. It wouldn't be good if he looked and remembered me for future reference.

"You should be proud of them, Vice Principal Sawatari," Shinohara said.

"Well, it is rare that they do anything good for the community," was the reply.

"I guess I'll take a picture then," Iwamoto, the gym teacher, said.

While Noda, Minami, and Kuma posed with the certificate, Yankumi barged into the picture, taking the center stage. I couldn't help smiling a little bit. No matter how halfhearted the original attempt at clearing Uchi's name had been to them, they still managed to make it fun.

I slipped out of the teacher's lounge as soon as I could and called Uchi on his cell phone.

"Hey, we caught the thief that was framing you," I said, describing as quickly as I could the events of the previous night.

"Yeah?" Uchi responded tiredly.

"…You okay?" I asked.

"No one will give me a chance…They keep saying that they don't hire students, especially one from Shirokin."

"Just keep at it. I'm sure someone will hire you," I said more confidently than I felt. "Hey listen, I have to go now. Class is starting, so yeah. Talk to you later?"

He mumbled a response and we hung up.

"Uchi…is he okay?" Sawada asked, suddenly appearing beside me.

I shrugged. It wasn't my place to tell.

"So Yankumi, what are you going to give us as a reward for catching the culprit, huh?" Noda asked.

"I'm going to treat you to lunch today!" she beamed.

"Really?!" Noda, Minami, and Kuma exclaimed.

By lunch, she meant the school cafeteria lunch.

"You really expect us to just accept this?" Noda demanded. "This is the school lunch!"

"When someone treats you, you don't complain," Yankumi said simply. "Let's eat!"

Only Kuma began to eat without any complaints.

As we ate, Yankumi suddenly said, "It's a good thing we cleared Uchi's name, right?"

I didn't want to say it, but Uchi's problems were far from over.

"Will you stop looking so expressionless?" Yankumi said to Sawada. "I can never tell what you're thinking." He ignored her, slurping his spaghetti.

Kawashima, the school nurse, suddenly burst into the cafeteria, running up to us. "Uchiyama's in the teacher's lounge. He's in trouble!"

I dropped everything and began to run. What had happened now, Uchi?

Author's Note:

*Takoyaki are bits of octopus cooked into batter and shaped into little balls

Thank you for reading and commenting! I'll try to answer to individual comments as much as I can! (: - Reisa