Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! These were Akane's thoughts in her first lesson after lunch on Wednesday. This was also her first time attending this class and for good reason. Horses always freaked her out. She'd never understood the aspiration many girls had to own one, much less, the desire to learn how to ride one. This tutor, Mr Iwata, was also much more insulted by Akane's absences from his class than even, Mrs Hara had been. So, as punishment, he'd instructed Akane to be the first to mount her steed and try the jumps.
Mr Iwata was a tall, well-built man with a strong jaw, short, wavy brown hair and almond-shaped, hazel eyes. These traits should have equalled a relatively handsome man, but regrettably, they did not. He had suffered a severe acne infection in his youth that had left him, with deep scarring on his cheeks and forehead. However, it was Mr Iwata's attitude that was his most unpleasant quality. In essence, he was that one teacher that didn't seem to want to be a teacher or even like children at all.
Akane stood holding the reins at arms-length of the snorting, brown beast. Chestnut watched her curiously, unaware that his big, brown eye, fixed on her, stood beside him was the cause of her nervousness.
"We'll, Nakamura? Up you get," Mr Iwata instructed impatiently, pushing her closer to the horse. Akane stumbled and bumped into the animal, stiffening as it turned to her.
She glanced at her peers as they stood watching and waiting for her to mount her horse. With a deep breath to steady and calm herself, Akane lifted a shaky leg to the stirrup and pulled herself up onto the saddle. She pushed off the ground with her other foot, and swung her leg over the horse's back, quickly fully secured her feet in the stirrups and grabbed for the reins, holding them so tightly, her knuckles turned white. She sat ramrod straight. The little colour she had, quickly draining from her face as she breathed in short, rapid gasps.
Akane's classmates hadn't noticed her distress and mounted their horses, listening to their tutor's instructions to walk around the enclosure.
"Akane? Are you alright?" Miu called once she saw Akane hadn't moved off with the rest of them and walked her horse towards her friend. Akane watched the thing coming towards her, every step it took doubling her dread. She was stuck up on an animal she didn't trust or like. It was uncomfortable, it smelled and every shift in its stance made Akane feel like she was about to fall off, and now, another one of them was interested in her. She was terrified!
Miu's eyes widened as she realised what was wrong with her friend and stopped her horse, dismounting quickly and rushed to Akane's side before she completely freaked out.
"Miss Hayashi, what do you think you're doing?" Mr Iwata yelled before he noticed Miu was hurrying to Akane, who was sat rigidly on her horse with her face as white as a sheet of paper.
"Akane?" Miu called as she took hold of her friend's trembling hands and prized them off the rains. Silent tears had begun to fall from her eyes when their tutor arrived. "Akane, I'm going to get you down now, ok? It's going to be all right," Miu soothed as she pulled one of her hands from Akane's tight grip and unhooked her foot from the stirrup, while Mr Iwata did the same on her other side.
The class gawked at the scene, some with looks of concern, others, like Kasumi Kobayashi, quietly chuckling from atop their mounts.
"Miss Nakamura, I want you to swing your leg this way, then I'll lower you to the ground." Akane did as she was told, more from her body reacting to the command rather than her mind obeying it. As soon as her feet hit the ground her legs dropped under her. Miu and Mr Iwata caught her and wrapped their arms around her to steady her properly. Mr Iwata instructed Kimiko to take the class and continue their walk around the corral until his return while he and Miu carried Akane to the infirmary.
Once she was in the capable hands of the academy nurse, Mr Iwata sent Miu to notify the headmaster of Akane's condition. When Kaien arrived, Mr Iwata explained what had happened and apologised for not noticing Akane's discomfort with the horses sooner. After a quick discussion, where Kaien reassured his colleague, not to worry, Mr Iwata hurried back to his students.
"Will Akane be ok?" Miu worried to Kaien when the nurse came out to tell them how Akane was doing.
"She's had a scare, but she'll be fine after a little rest," the nurse reassured with a smile at the young girl.
"You should go back to class now, Miss Hayashi," Kaien added. "Miss Nakamura is in safe hands." Miu nodded dejectedly before heading back to her riding lesson. Kaien instructed the nurse to bring Akane straight to his office once she awoke then hurried off to inform Kaname that Akane may still be in the school building when the Night Class begin their lessons.