Author's Note: Brace yourselves. Huge landslide of info dump ahead. Most of it is from Yakumo's POV.

Chapter 7:

The walking festival was over.

It had only been 2 days but it felt like many many things had happened during that short span. They would not forget those fateful days for a long time, especially Yakumo. All the special memories that she so cherished, etching them in her heart even if others had already forgotten them. She could always go back to that time when she was so happy.

The longest weekend they had ever had was over, and now they were back in that same old routine of going to and from school. The new school year was just beginning but there were already clear changes. For the most part, there were now three of them going to school together.

A few weeks back it had been a rather chaotic first day when they were all seen walking together. The most famed delinquent was being hemmed in by arguably the holiest student in the school - Sarah Adiemus and also the school's "Sleeping Goddess," otherwise known as Yakumo Tsukamoto.

It was quite a sight. Each one of them carried a vibe that kept other students at a distance; two out of reverence while the other was dread.

Witnessing this unlikely combination was bizarre. People would be in awe at the two girls together, and at the same time be unwittingly trembling from Harima's overbearing aura. It was obvious in their flummoxed expressions how they wondered what on earth had happened for this to result. Gossip and murmurings instantly sprung forth but no one wanted to approach them for an explanation so early in the day.

This impenetrable bubble only vanished when they were separated going to their respective rooms. Needless to say, after their relatively quiet entrance, they were bombarded by questions and accusations from all over the school.

Yakumo and Sarah were able to explain the situation with tact and calm but it was not the same for Harima. He was much too prone to being given the bad end of the stick. What would they expect? That a former delinquent was staying with two young women under the same roof? His motives were definitely going to be questioned and given Harima's reputation, he was treated with prejudice.

Once, when Yakumo had visited his classroom because they somehow switched their lunches, with Harima having less food than hers, she saw Hanai furiously grabbing Harima's shirt and hoisting him upwards. The raging Aikido expert was shouting assumptions and threats, demanding to know how in God's green earth was Harima staying with her, and it was him who had paid the price for the delinquent's admittance. Harima didn't deserve such a privilege and it was too much for Hanai to let this injustice continue.

They were going to make a ruckus in the room but granted this was always the case when these two clashed, their classmates simply watched as they made a fool of themselves yet again.

One thing they didn't expect was Harima not playing the same game as Hanai.

Confronting Harima usually required a ton of courage and gall since he often reacted with hostility and a great deal of bodily harm. Instead of retaliating, Harima was plain stoic and wore a blank expression. He said in a very serious voice that he was not doing anything wrong and told Hanai to have faith in Yakumo's judgment if he didn't believe his words. If he ever did anything disgraceful, he would commit suicide in the most gruesome manner as punishment to appease him. With no sunglasses to hide his eyes anymore, his piercing stare tore through the whole class. His morbid words and deadly stare finally took effect on Hanai. Hanai put him down and said no more. The class was dumbstruck seeing Hanai being put in his place and by how Harima handled the situation.

Yakumo was there to witness it all. She wondered if it was the same Harima who was sitting there. Of course, Harima meant what he had said but she wished he hadn't added that grisly part since it wouldn't come to that. He would never do anything to sully his honor that much was certain to her. She had waited for the bell to ring (and for Hanai to leave) and approached him when he was leaving the classroom. Only when he was being approached by Sarah or Yakumo would he then show his kind side.

Also, the news about Harima's engagement to Eri was one gossip magnet. Harima was in 3-C but Eri was in 3-A. They were in separate rooms so the issue died down fast with people who were in the know explaining how it came to be. Yakumo wasn't sure if she should be happy about it because whenever she crossed paths with Eri there was this tension she could feel forming between them. Why she was still treating Yakumo as an enemy was beyond her. Was it because she slapped her last year? More than she could admit, Eri had deserved it. But they were this way before that incident. Was it because of Harima? As much as it had pained her, she had even told the man himself that Eri liked him, in order to resolve this dilemma. And yet, Eri still harbors resentment towards her.

It was jealousy, then. Eri started to become hostile when she learned Harima had been seeing Yakumo for reasons unknown to her. Most of the misunderstandings had been out of Yakumo's reach and she had tried the best she could to solve those problems. Now another explosive misunderstanding was underway. Yakumo was questioned on why she would allow an engaged man to stay with her.

Her answer to it was pretty simple and straightforward. It was Harima who needed her help. It was only a temporary solution until he found another place to stay. It was the truth and yet the truth hurt because she knew he was just staying for a short while. She didn't want to mention Eri's refusal when Harima went to her. If Eri found her answer not good enough then no words she could say would ever convince her.

For her second year, Yakumo was assigned to class 2-C. It was quite amusing when she first learned she was in the same room as her older sister the year before. Fortunately, Sarah, Miki, Haruna, and Satsuki were also in the same class. And it seemed fate still had more in store for her.

When the seating arrangements were being assigned by casting lots, she had randomly grabbed the number that was the same seat number as her sister's. If that wasn't enough, she was surrounded this time by her closest friends. Sarah was assigned to Harima's former seat; the always energetic Miki was in front of her; the short Satsuki was in the north-east, and behind Yakumo was the stoic Haruna. This year's seating arrangement was completely refreshing compared to the previous one's.

Last year she was placed smack dab in the middle of the room. She could always see the thoughts of her male classmates. Their juvenile attempts to make her notice them were tiring. Her mind-reading ability was always so active that she usually fell asleep in the middle of lessons, especially during Miss Sasakura's art class. Those days were the most dreadful for her. The boys' thoughts were particularly larger than usual and she didn't want to think why that was so.

Being able to read the minds of her male classmates all around her, it was taxing her mental state to the point where she fainted from exhaustion or dizziness. Her unusual ability was always active 24/7 and there was no way she knew of to "turn it off". Unbidden, the words would suddenly jump out at her from their heads and an insistent headache would take place.

For a time she had experimented mind-reading on animals, curious to know if it was only limited to people. After taming a cat that she would later name "Iori," she discovered she could actually see their thoughts. To her disappointment though, the words from those animals were only the sounds they would normally utter. It was plain undecipherable no matter how hard she tried to understand them, but the strange thing was she was not getting a headache from it. Animal minds were more "docile" and "simple" than human minds, it seemed.

On the same subject, some animals had the tendency to like her at first sight. She presumed telepathy must be a two-way street and so if she can read their minds, they could see her mind as well. However, it didn't mean every animal immediately got along with her. Yakumo became wary of dogs and some other animals since she found they were instinctively more aggressive. It was random what kind of animal she could read or not. As far as she knew, cats, giraffes and, surprisingly, whales were the only animals she could read.

Since reading an animal's mind was nearly useless, if not entirely useless, she learned to block it out at will. But this capability was significant. Could she do the same to people as well? She didn't know what the range of her strange power was but it would definitely be handy if she could control it.

It gave her hope that she might gain control of this skill one day and so she tried training by staring at people for a long time.

Much to her regret, it only made matters worse by accidentally enhancing it rather than repressing it. Being stared at by Yakumo just made them more flustered, thus making their thoughts much more revealing. Looking hard at those thoughts, she became aware there was something beneath it.

She could now "see" the emotions of people and not just plain thoughts. Every thinking mind had a feeling heart.

Combining their thoughts and feelings, the form or style of words changed depending on how sincere or malicious their intentions were. An aura was emitted around each person according to what they were thinking. Some she could see like simple round manga bubbles, suggesting plain adoration while others were jagged lines that portrayed evil or malicious intent. Also, the intensity of their infatuation affected the size of words. The bigger the words, the more infatuated the person was. It was easy to see the ones who liked her the most.

Obsessive adoration was the worst for her. It was like being rammed by a speeding locomotive if she ever got too close to the person. She could even see their thoughts from afar. Reading this type of mind exhausted her a great deal more than just plain thoughts. While other's thoughts formed only whenever they saw her, this one seemed to be always active, like a lighthouse that refused to be unseen. To her chagrin, there was one that always hounded her.

It was the proud class representative of her older sister's class from last year, Haruki Hanai.

He was the most insistent, or perhaps persistent, of all her adoring fans. His bold attempts for recognition eclipsed any confession she'd received from anyone – and that was against innumerous crazy fanboys. He'd even go so far as to involve others as part of his endeavors to impress her. One shining example was when he volunteered his whole class (without their consent) to clean the school pool so that Yakumo and her class wouldn't need to. He felt that by doing so she would feel indebted or be amazed by his manly generosity.

To Yakumo however, his neverending attempts were like reaching the moon by reaching towards the sun. It only worsened her headache and thus alienated her even further. With his thoughts like a rampaging beast and his actions a literal beast, she found herself in so many embarrassing and awkward situations because of him.

The thought of finally ending it once and for all had crossed her mind. She had thought to try and talk to him, finally confront the problem directly to stop it. But every time she tried, something stopped her.

Hanai, for all intents and purposes, was the most sincere and honest person she had ever met. His thoughts and verbal declarations always corresponded with each other. His thoughts may be wild and intimidating but she could sense he was a good person: smart, strong, and noble to a fault. Some of her classmates wondered why she would avoid this kind of a role model student. They were so hard to come by in this day and age; so much so that her classmate Miki had grown a huge crush on him.

If they could read minds, they, too, would understand.

Moreover, the backlash of her actions worried her deeply. The feeling of rejection was one thing Yakumo knew was very damaging to one's personality. It could pave a new way to someone else he could show his affection to and who would love him back. But it could also lead to a downward spiral of self loathing and a total loss of confidence. She wasn't willing to take such a big risk since in Hanai's case, it was likely he would sink to depression. Her rejection might traumatize the boy beyond recovery. Maybe one of the reasons he kept up his studies and martial arts was because of her. And who was she to rob him of something that made him a better person?

And so, everyday she put up with him. Everyday enduring all his antics and proposals, hoping somehow, someday, the man would realize himself she wasn't the right girl for him.

There was a particular mind she had found that was stranger than everyone else's and it was the complete opposite of Hanai's. Instead of overly large thoughts, this one was barren, silent even. She had discovered it belonged to a person who was coincidentally the opposite of Hanai in every way.

It was none other than the school's famed delinquent, Kenji Harima. It was the first time she had met a boy with a blank mind. She didn't know this person and his notorious background but this strange anomaly made her curious about him.

Since that fateful day when she became his manga assistant, she had spent a considerable amount of time with him, finally able to get to know the person with the strange, hidden mind.

Behind the leather jacket and motorcycle, she had seen a person who would do everything for the people he loved, even sacrificing his own happiness for them. She could sympathize with him and it deepened her respect for him. Despite his status as the school's number one delinquent, he didn't act like one, or at least not around her. Their conversations were more "normal" unlike with most boys. He didn't nervously stutter whenever talking to her or boast about his achievements in order to impress her. He was simply himself and even when they got themselves into awkward situations, he would treat her with respect in contrast to his treatment towards his female classmates.

He also showed a love for animals, something they both shared. But his ability to bond with animals was on a whole other level. She witnessed Harima befriend Iori, a very mercurial cat, upon their first meeting. Yakumo had had a hard time getting along with the black cat but this person had befriended the animal with just one sentence. More surprisingly, he had a large assortment of creatures at his beck and call. His devotion to each one of them was akin to friends. Be it a lion or sheep, he deeply cared for them.

This strange connection to every other species except his own made her see Harima was indeed a good person, if not a little misunderstood by his own race. His outward appearance concealed what he was really like. The man was a living paradox - a delinquent who writes romantic comedies; brawls with thugs and black belt masters but snuggles with a sheep. He was a bad boy in everyone's eyes but to her, he was the only boy with whom she could talk casually, and become friends.

She would never have thought she would be alone with a man for many hours at a time, but she had enjoyed all the time she spent with Harima working on his manga. The time would quickly pass as she read through the story. Sometimes Harima would read it to her just so he could get the plot flowing in his mind. It reminded her greatly of her childhood and her father.

But whenever she looked at Harima, his odd lack of visible thought persistently piqued her curiosity. For the first time since she was able to do so, she really wanted to read a person's mind. But she couldn't. She had grown comfortable with Harima because of this reason, but now she wanted to get past his mental wall, to know what he truly thought of her. But if she had been able to read his mind from the very beginning, then their friendship would never have even happened. It was contradictory and frustrating.

And now that friendship had turned into something more; on her part anyway. She wasn't aware of when she had started harboring feelings for him; and when she did notice, would doubt herself. But Harima had consistently shown traits she really liked in a person. He gave her space, privacy, respect, consideration, gratefulness, encouragement, honesty, casualness, bravery, dedication, and some flashes of self-sacrifice and brilliant insights from time to time. He was not some perfect boy with both brains and looks but it was his roughness that made him stand out to her. He was simply himself and that was all.

This was all possible because he was the only boy she had ever met with invisible thoughts; whose proximity didn't give her headaches by the end of the day. But until she finally pieced the clues together, Yakumo did not realize his mind was silent because it was fully occupied with thoughts bearing his undying love for her older sister Tenma.

The only man she had fallen for and it had to be not only the one on the entire planet who didn't have feelings for her, but had feelings for her sister of all people.

Due to the ghost's recent appearance, things were a little shaken up. If the ghost's words were true, and there was no reason why she would lie, then there was definitely an explanation for why Harima's mind was blocked from her. The ghost said his love for Tenma was the main cause of it but hinted there was also something else responsible for it. She didn't know there was a secondary barrier in his mind but perhaps, this was what had obscured him from her these past few weeks. She had noticed a difference before but never really thought it was due to something like this.

After Tenma's departure, both Harima's behavior and his mental state had changed when in school.

Instead of the usual void of his mind, Yakumo could see something resembling static or white noise. It was like watching a blank TV channel with the sounds rumbling continuously. It was the only time Yakumo had seen fuzzy images in a person's mind. It also corresponded with the nonchalant expression he always had on his face.

His depressed behavior supported it but Yakumo was more concerned about his welfare than his strange mind.

During break times he would always go straight to the roof and stare at the sky, waiting longingly for something until the bell rang. Yakumo followed him at a distance and stared at him being so melancholic. She somehow knew Harima was searching for a plane to cross the sky, carrying Tenma back home. But it was not meant to be. Despite how much of a stretch his wish would be to come true, his sullen eyes stayed affixed to the sky, looking way beyond the clouds.

Yakumo wanted badly to offer him some sort of company but he had politely asked her to not be seen together during breaks. They couldn't afford to harm Yakumo's reputation further by fuelling the many misunderstandings that they were in right now. Besides, they would always see each other back home so it wasn't necessary for them to meet up at school anymore. She respected his decision and gave him distance, understanding where he was coming from.

But after all that, she still couldn't help but look after him. With her sister gone, it was in her instincts to look out for the people who were staying with her. Sarah was no problem since they were always together but Harima was so distant and obviously hurt that she just had to worry for him.

When they left for home, however, Harima's sullen attitude disappeared and his old self came back. It was like Harima had two personas for the day. His mind went back to being silent instead of a garbled picture. Yakumo suspected it was just in school that he acted this way. Tenma must have been the only driving force for going to school at all and without her, he was emotionally crippled and had to push himself just to attend.

At home, it was the same old story. Harima would be in his room most of the time doing his manga while she and Sarah watched TV or did homework until it was time to prepare for dinner. With a new direction for his manga, Harima was more energetic and cheerful; but in school his mood took a completely different turn. It was so strange seeing him so sullen and then go back to being himself and the next day it would be like that all over again.

It had only been a few weeks since the two started staying in her house and they were still adjusting. She hoped things would change for the better eventually. Harima couldn't possibly keep grieving forever and the ghost, as persistent as she was, said she couldn't influence him no matter what she did. Sarah was still the carefree and independent Sarah, although she was stuck in the middle of all that was happening right now. It was probably for the better to keep her in the dark since she might perform an exorcism and blow the situation out of proportion.

However, overall Yakumo was happy and content with the current circumstances.

x-x-x

Three days later...

The three housemates were about the leave the school gates when a black limousine blocked their way. The impeccable butler Nakamura got out of the driver's seat and opened the passenger's door without saying anything. The trio expected the blonde heiress to come out of the car but instead, they heard a familiar voice coming from behind them.

"Hey, Whiskers."

They turned around and saw Eri walking towards them.

"I need you for something," Eri demanded. It was not a request.

"What is it this time?" Harima indignantly asked.

"Just get inside the car. We'll talk about it on the way there." Eri then glanced at the other two students but dismissed them. Yakumo felt uneasy as the glare Eri gave her was as sharp as ever.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," Harima then looked to his side. "Imouto-san, would you please read the manuscript in my room? It's inside a manila envelope on my desk. I need to hear your feedback afterward. You could also ink it if you find it okay – if it is alright with you, of course."

Yakumo was about to confirm when Eri interrupted her.

"Is it your manga again?" Eri asked with slight irritation in her tone. "You know I could better help you if I reviewed it instead." Yakumo felt Eri was doing this to slight her. She unconsciously wrung her hands in worry or anger, not sure which case it was.

"That's not necessary, Rich Girl." Harima replied. "I don't want to be mean but Imouto-san has an eye for these things and I trust her judgment more than others'."

Yakumo was amazed after hearing his words. Sarah seemed to be thinking the same thing with the look she was making as both of them stood still. Eri, though, looked pissed and glared at her. If looks could kill, Eri had massacred multiple people already, all of them bearing the same name of "Yakumo".

"Tsk. Whatever." Eri grabbed Harima's arm and began leading him to the car. As they walked, Harima turned his gaze back to the two girls.

"Don't forget, Imouto-san! I'll be waiting for it!" Harima said, his voice trailing from the distance.

Yakumo nodded, "Of course," though he wouldn't hear it.

Nearing the car door, Eri pushed Harima forcibly to the side as it was customary for the girl to enter first, though Harima was about to give way in the first place. Narrowing his eyes out of irritation, he then entered the car. The butler closed the door and went back to the driver's seat. The car drove away to wherever they were going and was gone.

"That ended well." Sarah said finally.

"I know Eri has been acting this way lately whenever we see each other." Yakumo said, bowing her face, her downcast eyes fixed to the ground. "I wish this won't always be the case."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked. Yakumo looked at her as if the blonde was the only person on earth to not notice something so obvious. Sarah then continued, "Harima just chose you over Eri. You win this round at least."

This time, it was Yakumo to ask the same question. "What do you mean?"

"Come on now," Sarah replied rather patronizing. "It was clear you won this time. Even if he went with her it was obvious Harima chose you. Didn't you hear his compliment earlier?"

Yakumo's cheeks reddened as she remembered Harima's words. It was the first time she had heard Harima compliment her in front of others. She hadn't been aware of how much Harima valued her feedback but now she knew he actually regarded more highly than others.

Another reason to add to why she liked the guy so much.

Sarah then teased her, "Well, are you going to just stand there blushing or shall we go home now?"

"O-of course." Yakumo replied and nodded at her. Both girls then began their walk home together.

After a few seconds, Yakumo slightly turned her gaze to the side and said in a low voice, "And thank you, Sarah." It was about Sarah's habit of looking at the positives rather than the negatives. She really was a Godsend.

Sarah returned a smile. "No problem. That's what friends are for, right?"

Yakumo couldn't get the manga off her mind as they walked. Her character was going to make her debut in this issue and the thought made her giddy with excitement. Curiosity was slowly eating up her patience and she wanted to sprint to the house and read the manga as soon as she got back.

But if Harima could wait for her then she could wait for him.

It was not something that was going to be taken away from her, after all.

Author's Corner: Holy crap. That wall of text, man. I'm sorry about that. It was needed for the story so bear with me.