Chapter 2
All beginnings are… strange?
The hesitant smile on her new girlfriend's face told Naoki that the little fool was spinning the issue and that she was in the middle of some fantasy. Surely to someone as foolish and stupid as she might be, that he took notice of her was impossible.
Truly, in normal circumstances, he wouldn't have looked at her again after attempting to give him her letter, but his interests suited that he should still be with her.
"N-no…" Kotoko coughed to clear her throat. "I don't understand."
"I imagined it," he replied wryly.
She had the decency to blush. At least she had understood that.
"But… how?" She still had a little smile, despite the doubt in her eyes.
He almost hissed. It irritated him having to explain himself, to tell her she would be his girlfriend should suffice. Supposedly, when a man told a woman who liked him, that she was to be his partner from then on, a relationship began. She had to be happy, she had achieved much more than what others aspired for, she shouldn't question how she had come to that state.
"You're not ugly," he answered plainly.
She blinked, then inclined her head.
"Eh… thanks? But… is this real, are we dating?"
He nodded, starting to get irritated.
"I look attractive to him? Do you like me? He accepts my feelings?" For a moment she was talking to herself, but she repeated one of her questions: "Seriously, do you like me?"
And she looked at him with her enormous eyes, wide-eyed, in an almost gracious image.
"Are you dumb?" He spat irritably and she touched, repeatedly and nervously, the tips of her indexes.
"Well… I'm from F," she replied in a whisper.
Please. Now she thought he was an idiot. She had said it in her letter, of course he knew it. And her attitude corroborated with the fact that she belonged to that class.
"Nice to meet you, Irie-kun. I am Aihara Kotoko from Class-F. You do not know who I am, right? But, I know who you are. For two years…"
"Eeeeh!" The redhead exclaimed jumping from her seat. "Have you memorized my letter? How?"
He decided to ignore the fact that she had interrupted him. He looked at his watch and noticed that it was twelve minutes before the beginning of class; he informed her why he memorized it, so that the knowledge of it came to light when his mother interrogated her.
"I just have to read a text once to memorize it."
"Wow, you're really a genius," she said in an admired voice. "And that genius said I'm his girlfriend, although I'm from F. He likes me and my platonic love accepted me." She whispered to herself, but Naoki heard her perfectly.
He smiled wryly at that.
Suddenly Kotoko started bouncing around.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! He likes me! He is my boyfriend!"
He looked at his watch again. Nine minutes.
"Kotoko" he spoke loudly and she stopped as quick as a lightning.
"Yes, Irie-kun?" She asked with sparkling eyes.
"It's Naoki," he said. "I'm going to class, don't say anything to anyone until I talk to you at the break. Side yard. "
He did not wait for her to nod as he turned towards his classroom.
"See you later Naoki-kun!" She said with a cry. "Yeeeees!"
Knowing that no one was watching him, he smiled to himself.
The first step was ready.
[...]
With a few minutes remaining until break, Naoki waited for the school bell to ring, something he never really did when he finished his work early, as usual. He was aware of the undisguised looks he received from the other students, too curious after he returned late after being accompanied by the red-haired girl that someone found belonged to Class F.
Rumors about the exchange between the two of them were probably running, many of them speculating about what he had said or what the relationship between them was, due to the little they knew about his life. Even his closest companion, Watanabe, looked at him intrigued.
To him, the attention wasn't important, he only wanted to settle some rules with the redhead, so that she was clear what was expected of her, in addition to directing her to the story that both would represent in front of his parents.
Finally, the clock indicated the rest period, and, calmly, he stood up to go to the exit, slightly shaking the head to his blond partner Watanabe, so he abstained from following him. The other nodded with a shrug.
Fortunately, at that hour people would gather in the cafeteria and the place where he'd be with Kotoko wouldn't be the subject of indiscreet looks, so with peace, he went there. He had his lunch with him and could eat it when he had finished communicating his message to the redhead, with no intention of sharing any more time with her on that day.
When he reached the courtyard, he went to a bench covered by a tree, away from building, to wait for the girl. He imagined that she didn't finish her duties on time and when the bell rang, she must've run to deliver what she had, to later collect her belongings to leave. The thought made him laugh mentally, it was predictable something like that.
The F's were disorganized as well as foolish people, so she would be too.
Knowing that didn't make him reconsider choosing the girl, and even if it did, he wasn't one to step back after taking a decision and carrying it out. More when there were more pros than cons. An idiot person was easily manipulated.
Naoki looked at his watch. Six minutes. He glanced at his lunch and contemplated the possibility of continuing to wait to eat later, but decided the opposite. The girl was already late, so she would have to wait until he finished his meal to speak with him.
He took his bento box and prepared to eat, paying no attention to the arrival of the girl, if she appeared, it'd be well for her to notice the consequences of her lack of punctuality. It would be a lesson well learned. In addition, it would make it very clear. No one made him wait.
Fifteen minutes later, his meal ended, he was about to go with the full conviction of punishing the idiot redheaded for the audacity of standing him up. Maybe she was too brave or too stupid to think that she could waste his time like that.
Usually, the more than twenty minutes of rest he had after eating, he occupied them to read, and the current occasion in which he gave his time to someone was a loss. He would make her pay for it…
"Do not go Naoki-kun!" He suddenly heard from his back, in Kotoko's voice.
He ignored her completely, continuing on his way, but more was his surprise when she stopped him by taking him by the sleeve of his uniform. Of course, his face didn't show such a glimpse.
"I'm sorry Naoki-kun!" He glanced over his shoulder to an agitated Kotoko, shrunk, trying to catch her breath. "What happened is…"
"I'm not interested in listening to you," he mumbled dryly and pulled his arm away from her. What boldness on her part to believe she could take hold of him.
"Do not get mad. I'm very sorry for being late," Kotoko said walking beside him, who intended to go to the library. "I could not get away from my friends, they wanted to follow me and I thought you would not like it."
At least the idiot had a bit of common sense.
"I didn't know what to tell them, since you forbade me to speak until we talked… And they asked a lot of questions about rumors of you and me, I had to deceive them and lose them. I didn't want to keep you waiting too long. I finished my activities fast to be the first to leave class but the teacher held me for a few moments and then my friends…" Kotoko chattered without breathing, trying to keep pace with his. "Would you forgive me?"
He gave her a sullen glance.
"You plan to follow me all the way?"
She nodded effusively.
"My father says I'm pig-headed." Surely Mr. Aihara said it because of the headaches she caused, as she irritated him at that precise moment.
He sighed and turned to return to the bench.
"Thank you for excusing me! I really regret it…"
"I have not forgiven you," he interrupted sharply, to which she responded by lowering her head in distress. "You'll have to do something for me."
Kotoko lifted his head when he stopped and speechlessly looked at him with the promise to fulfill whatever he wanted.
It seemed so easy to him, that girl was a little puppet. Hollow-headed and fastidiously persistent, but conveniently obliging. He tilted his head to the bench.
"Sit down." She nodded and followed his order, looking at him expectantly.
He accompanied her on the bench, his eyes fixed in front. "I know what you can do for me. I thought of your reaction." A justification for his behavior would do. Persuasion was better than force, "and it is true how unbelievable it is that you are my girlfriend so easily."
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed how her shoulders fell, accompanied by the glow that died out in her orbs. Suddenly, Kotoko stood, nodding, intending to leave.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked angrily, for not understanding what she was doing and being ignored at the same time.
"I understand… what I have to do for you is… to forget that you said I'm your girlfriend," she whispered brokenly.
Naoki frowned. When had he said something like that?
He reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her when she thought of running away. He felt her soft skin beneath his hand and felt how small she was in comparison to himself.
He thought about her words for a second, he had the perfect opportunity to dismiss the girl as his candidate and find someone with better credentials; but something in his head dismissed the idea and he persisted in continuing the execution of his course of action as it was planned from the morning.
"Do not be silly." He forced her back into the seat. "I told you this morning that you are my girlfriend, I don't break my word." He was indignant that she believed him capable of such behavior.
He frowned more as she tried to hide her head and a low tear running down her cheekbone. She was a ridiculous, sentimental girl.
His mother would love her.
He had an idea of how he could handle it.
"My parents and those who know me won't believe that I so easily agreed to associate myself with you." He went on with the previous topic, trying to express it so that her intellectual capacity would allow her to understand it so he wouldn't have to repeat himself. Then he released the girl's wrist. "So to the others we will say a different version. My parents will want to know how we started, when you meet them…"
"Will I meet your parents?" She asked, interrupting him.
"Yes, and I yours."
"I only have my father," Kotoko muttered in a low voice.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said respectfully for the deceased woman.
"Do not worry. It was a long time ago and you didn't know." She paused. "And… were you saying?"
"No one but you and I are interested in how we started, but my parents and yours will be curious. My mother, in particular, wouldn't trust me to want to start with you without knowing you and therefore wouldn't want to accept you."
He hated having to talk more than usual, but he needed to be explicit this time. She opened her mouth and he looked at her, scolding her for wanting to interrupt him again. She was a disrespectful girl. She had a lot to change.
"She will find more logical than, for my personality, I'd accepted you some time after you insisted, when we already had the time to know each other. With today's letter, I finally decided to make you my girlfriend."
The girl seemed to think for a moment.
"What I have to do for you… is to take care of your reputation by saying that you have become my boyfriend because you agreed to give the F girl a chance, after I insisted a lot?" She asked with her index finger on her chin.
He nodded. "Only the two of us are concerned with what actually happened," he reaffirmed.
"I guess so. My father won't care and if it's what you want in return for forgiving me. I will do it for you!"
He bowed his head, satisfied. She was naïve enough that she didn't know when she was being manipulated. A feature that he would take in his favor when he needed it.
He glanced toward an infinite point, thinking of nothing in particular, and he almost seemed to see a flash of light in the distance, on the periphery of his vision. He dismissed it with a shrug referring it to the sunlight and the beam resulting from the reflection.
He looked back at his watch, ten more minutes before the warning bell rang to return to class.
"I don't know… Eh. If you would like… or could you…"
"What do you want?" He asked Kotoko, tired of her hesitation. He didn't know if her insecurity would get him fed up with her, but he would make sure that she would change in favor of the child they might have in the future.
"Today my father and I celebrate that we move to our new house and I can invite friends. You…"
They hadn't been "together" a single day, and she was already planning on bothering him with her affairs. She was quite the case. He was willing to see her occasionally, but he would not let the girl decide what he should do with his time.
"I have activities to do in the afternoon."
"Yes, my apologies, I should ask in advance."
Kotoko cleared her throat.
"I've never had a boyfriend and I do not know how… shall we meet at break time or outside high school? Do we share our numbers?"
Naoki thought for a moment. "In the breaks, I read in the library after lunch. I dislike being disturbed as I read," he added at the end so she could not think of showing up at the place.
"Outside?"
"I have duties and tennis practice."
"I'm never as busy as you," she replied with admiration in her tone of voice. He avoided rolling his eyes in their sockets.
Pathetic.
"And when is your birthday?"
Six minutes.
He supposed that she should know when her mother questioned. And it was logical that he couldn't send her a list with information about him to learn it. Her intellect was so little and she would forget to read; the best bet was that he told her. Also, the obviousness of his intentions should not be uncovered.
"November 12th."
"Mine is on September 28th. I'm older by just over a month." The redhead gave an amused laugh.
Four minutes.
"Don't you feel a bit odd?" He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I do, this morning I woke up thinking I would give you my letter and that you would read it… I had the illusion to meet you later… And today I'll lie down in my new house and when I get up tomorrow I'll think it was just a dream that you wanted me to be your girlfriend. Did you imagine that today you'd arrive home without being single?"
Two minutes.
"No," he admitted. He thought it would be at least two days in which the matter would be decided.
"It's good not being the only one."
"It's the end of the break," he intervened before she could think to speculate on the subject.
"How quickly time flies!" Kotoko said in response.
At least that was the case for her, he thought dejectedly. To him, all the time was relatively slow, although objectively it wasn't. When he read, did his homework, played his tennis games, or any activity he was involved in, the running of the clock, subjectively, was eternal.
"A break during the week, here."
"Hey?"
"Give me your phone number to tell you when I can."
The bell rang just as he saved her phone number. With a brief nod, he bid farewell to the redhead, who did nothing but smile more widely than in the morning.
He would have to get used to it.
[...]
That same night, after dinner, the Irie's were in the living room; three of them watching the news. Naoki was, as always, focused on the book in his hands, a manual about the updates in writing scientific texts, which would allow him to see the flaws in the latest publications.
"What day could your girlfriend come to dine with us, onii-chan?" his mother asked, insistent again on the matter of the girl. She couldn't just leave the issue unaddressed, pestering him when they were at the table and now.
He would have gone to his room if he weren't expecting news on possible aftershocks of the low-intensity earthquake presented that afternoon. Once they say the important thing on the news, he could retire to his room and read until nine to sleep.
"On the earthquake this afternoon, the Meteorological Agency does not foresee aftershocks of greater magnitude and neither have given tsunami warning. The telluric movement is reported with a magnitude 2 on the Shindo* scale. So far no serious damage to the Japanese community is reported, except for a case that my correspondent Ishikawa Yamato will show us."
Intrigued, Naoki remained in the room despite having heard what he expected. What kind of damages could be caused by an earthquake of derisory magnitude compared with those they had already lived in the past?
The screen showed footage of a home in Suginami, destroyed because of the movement that afternoon. The thought about the ineptitude of the builder or motives that might've caused the wrong demise of the house crossed his mind…
Until they presented the owners of that place.
"My friend Aihara!" His father exclaimed standing up to the phone.
"Kotoko… What the hell?" he muttered wide-eyed, listening to his brother Yuuki giggling beside him.
The house of his girlfriend had collapsed.
*Shindo stands for the unit of measurement in Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale. It could be different depending on the place.
AN: Now, this is how things get ugly. Ha,ha, ok, not like that...
While reading, I started thinking of some parts of my story that, at the moment, I wanted to change from the original, like some thoughts of him. (but no, I won't do it, unless they change in the original). Let's see your opinion.
What do you think of this chapter?
The full story just follows Irie-kun, so you'll have to imagine what happens in Kotoko's side... Next part will continue with the "mixing", but then, things will happen he,he. Not all will show day by day, it's just that I believe, the beginning is important.
AW, if there is something not so clear, you're free to tell me. Chapters have, like, four thousand words, more or less, starting in chapter 3... so, not really long, or very short, but I hope they're enough. Also, having to change them to English, the extension is good for me XD
And, before I finish my note... OMG! I have an enormous smile on my face... 18 follows in one chapter, great! Because of it, I'll do my best to have the chapters in a short time. Not a promise, but an effort ;)
All my love, Karo
PD: Don't think that just because the story is almost finished your opinions don't count, I can change things, eh!
Roshni: Thanks to you for the review. Well, this came to my mind when I was... ummm, now I don't remember it exactly. AW, the idea is kind of cliché, but it's interesting to imagine what would happen in this situation, right? Dunno ;) I really want to have you reading until the end.
Guest 1: Thank you, I appreaciate your words. God, I'll try to have the same response from you in the next chapters (even when you don't show it).
Guest 2: Well, I don't now, ha,ha, but I really hope this could be good enough for you all. At least, your language counterparts like it :D I like my story, as it goes, so, if I caught your attention in this two parts, I'm taking the right road, yeeah! Neway, thanks for the review.