The next day was nearly hell for me. I had to be up on stage with the rest of the student council seated positions, addressing the student body about the festival. As always, it was met with a resounding set of applause, and the sheets we put up on the bulletin board, that often showed our scores on tests and sometimes class rank, were completely filled. It was the same people as always—not that anyone cared enough to say no to them, but it was an easy guess. Glancing over the list, I did notice two or three new names. Maybe they would have some fresh ideas.
After school, there was an announcement made that there would be an 'emergency' student council meeting. With a sigh, I headed down the hall from the classroom I was in all day to the meeting room with two fellow student council members from my class. Kai was already in there, and it had to be good news, otherwise she wouldn't be grinning so much. As we settled down, she stood up and motioned for us to keep it down.
"So. I just got a call from Meiou High School," she paused, looking as some girls seemed eager. I was slightly confused as to why they were so eager. I couldn't recall anyone special from Meiou…, "And they wanted to know if they could share the festival grounds with us this year. Their normal space is under construction. It seems like some water pipes were broken and they won't be fixed in time. Of course, they're splitting the cost of the fairgrounds with us, and we'd have more tents there than normal. No wasted space."
The girls whispered excitedly while a few guys moaned and complained about the student council president of Meiou. The confusion on my face must have been apparent because Kai looked at me and laughed, drawing attention to me.
"I guess you have no clue about Meiou, Ume. Weren't you offered to go there?" Kai's eyes twinkled.
Asahi finished for Kai, "Minamino Shuichi goes to Meiou, Ume. If you don't know who he is, then you've got to be one of the very few girls who doesn't."
"Never heard of him!" I replied, smiling. So what if I didn't know some hot shot guy?
Girls around the room sighed and resumed their talking and Kai hushed them, "And, because most of their normal festival goers will be attending still, and ours as well, there should be more money for both schools! Shared clientèle and all that. So, yes or no guys?"
The reply was pretty unanimous. All the girls said yes for the guy, and guys said yes so that maybe the girls wouldn't hate them and maybe give them a chance. I said yes because I was looking forward to work with the students that I might have gone to school with. I wanted to see what exactly I was missing—if I was missing anything at all.
The meeting was quickly dismissed, except Kai needed someone to take a packet of information to Meiou. It wasn't far and would be easier to hand deliver the papers then to fax then. Especially considering faxes could be easily lost if the wrong person picked them up. Every single girl wanted to go and see this guy, Minamino-san, but Kai looked at me. I groaned.
"Why me?" I hung my head, holding my hand out to take the huge folder of information.
"Thank you Ume-chan~. I appreciate it," she winked, "You'll be meeting the great Minamino-kun!"
And that is how I wound up walking about twelve blocks north east, to the prestigious Meiou high school. It didn't really take me all that long, only about twenty minutes. On the way I looked at all the pink and white Meiou uniforms of guys and girls in their fall-winter outfits. I really liked them more than their winter ones. Winter uniforms for men were solid pink, and for girls they had these ugly trimmings. These uniforms though, were white blouses with red ribbon and a pink over jacket. The skirts matched the jacket in color with long white socks and brown or black shoes. The guys didn't have their jackets on, and they wore ties to match the pants. Their black shoes were shining. A lot better on the eyes, in my opinion.
This led my thoughts to Minamino-san. What was he like? I imagined him to be a great guy—he must be handsome and kind to warrant a fan club in a school other than his own. Heck, no guy in my own school had a fan club! My imagination went wild, imagining a handsome, tall male; he had slightly long, ear length at the most, light brown hair with golden streaks. He has bright blue eyes, with grey over tones and they're framed by black full rimmed glasses. Minamino-san has a slight tan and looks absolutely dashing in the fall-winter uniform, with the first button being slightly undone, and his tie loose around his neck. He would carry his books in his muscular arm, his sleeves rolled up to his neatly curved biceps…
…Needless to say, that is not what I got. I entered the school easily enough, and a student council member, Minamino-san's own vice president, was there to take me to their Student Council room. My hopes and dreams shattered in an instant. His hair was girly. It was a harsh shade of red, the color of blood and roses, and it was down to the middle of his back. Did he dye it? That is when I saw what made most girls swoon and fall in love with this guy; his eyes were an un-earthly shade of green. I could picture girls describing them as emerald or even forest green, but there were no simple shades of green to describe his eyes. There was something about them, they were the color fire would be if it was green. They jumped to life with imaginary crackles—they were cold and calculating. Upon seeing me they softened and simply changed. My mind reeled, he was definitely dangerous. How could girls look upon this face and see someone to love? Did they not notice the cold look in them?
"Ah, you must be the vice president from Miyanaka student council. I'm Minamino Shuichi. It is a pleasure to meet you…?" His hand was poised for a hand shake, but I almost laughed. His voice was so girly! What was with that?
"I'm Minagura Ume. It is a pleasure to meet you Minamino-san. I have the documents in this folder, here," I replied, "We need to finalize a few of the details bu—"
"My apologies, Minagura-san," The charming smile on his face faltered and I swear I felt my eye twitch. I did not come here just to get brushed off, "I need to be somewhere. I will talk to your president over the phone tomorrow and finalize all details then. It will be a pleasure to work with you, and I hope you can forgive me for this rude interruption."
He stood up and my eyes narrowed slightly, "Excuse me for being rude, Minamino-san, but I did not walk twelve blocks from my school to yours just to have you brush me off like this. The Student Council President picked me instead of anyone else because I would not be a rabid fan girl as I had not heard of you. If you were going to be rude like this, she could've sent anyone else and let you suffer."
His movements were fluid and graceful, and it took no effort and no sound for him to get up. A look at those inhuman eyes reminded me of my suspicions. I shook my head briefly, nothing but my mind and paranoia. There was no way he was anything but human. Although he wasn't good looking at all, and I'm not really sure why girls thought so. He was dangerous. And his eyes narrowed slightly in my direction, turning slightly cold. His calm and kind personality vanished quickly.
"I really do apologize, Minagura-san, but it is an emergency I cannot hold off, if you will excuse me."
With a brief bow, he left me and I left the school on my own. As soon as he left I muttered, "I certainly will not excuse you. How can anyone like you?"
I was thoroughly not impressed with Minamino-san.
-x-x-
Hey sis. Mother and Father need some ingredients for dinner tonight:
Eggs
Butter
That sauce they always get (they said you'd understand.)
Thanks a ton, saves me a trip!
-Sho
I sighed, checking the time on the text message. It arrived only a few minutes ago, so I was good on time. On the way to my house, I stopped at the local food stands and bought everything that was required, and even picked up some donuts for Sho and myself. It was a relief to see my house in sight. But it was at that time that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I whipped my head around and saw nothing. I brushed it off; my mind was going crazy today. But when I looked forward again, I swear I saw a flash of red hair. My eyes narrowed, Red Hair + creepy mysterious guy = Minamino-san. It made sense to me, at least.
As I entered my house, I shook off my shoes and lazily kicked them to the side, not caring for proper Japanese tradition with the nice lined shoes. If anyone cared, they'd fix it later. I walked in and greeted Mom and Dad and handed over the food bag before yelling at Sho that I was home.
"It's about time!" He came down stairs in nothing but a pair of sleeping pants, hair wet from a fresh shower, "I'm starving, Ume!"
"Yeah yeah, get over it." I tossed a small bag of deep fried donuts at him, grinning, "I'm sure you'll forgive all my previous insurrections with that, yeah?"
He peered into the bag and looked at me with narrowed eyes, "Isn't that blackmail?"
"Nope, it's bribery. Is it working?"
"…I'll let you know after my stomach is satisfied." He replied, running upstairs to stash the donuts away, I was sure.
"Don't ruin your appetite, Sho-chan!" I looked over and saw my mom frowning up the stairs at him, and I tried to suppress a giggle.
"Like that could happen, Mom. His stomach is nearly bottomless."
She hid a small smile, "This is true. Dinner is almost ready; go tell him to at least have a shirt on when he comes down."
With a smart salute, I marched up the stairs. We were not a very traditional Japanese family. My dad wants to 'keep up with the times.' As such, we live more of a modern life style than anything.
"You better not be naked, Sho, I'm coming in!" And with a dramatic flick of the wrist, I flung his door open to see… no one. I cautiously walked in only to be tackled by a certain brother of mine from behind the door. I let out a startled yelp as I hit the floor and thus began the wrestling.
We pretty much rolled around, each one trying to up the other one and pin the other sibling. It ended with my foot in his face, pressing him to the wall, breathing heavily. He grinned slightly, before pretending to bite my toe, making me retract the limb.
"Dinner's probably ready now, Sho-chan. Don't try and eat my toe, it'll ruin your appetite. The sooner we eat, the sooner we get donuts."
He grinned, "Way ahead of you Ume."
At the end of the night, as I sat in my room at my desk. I stared at the pages of homework there. Maths and Japanese and a sheet on English. I couldn't focus on any work. The numbers all blurred together in my mind, the kanji and hiragana turning into animals. My mind kept wandering back to the mysterious red head I met earlier that day. Minamino-san was strange. There was something off about his whole aura; it felt almost like the aura itself was alive and watching, calculating. But auras weren't alive, so maybe it was just my mind making a mockery of me. He seemed rude enough, maybe I was projecting it onto his looks.
With a sigh I put away all my homework, done or not. It was getting late. And yet, for some reason, I kept picturing Minamino-san with glowing golden eyes, the shade of gold you'd find on the finest treasures in the Emperor's collection. His hair had turned pale silver, almost like the Moon had cast its glow into little threads, and like silk worms had woven it into hair.
Even after I tried to stop the pictures, his nose would elongate into a snout and his hair receded his face morphed into a fox. I guess it made sense; Minamino-san was sly enough to be a fox. He had the cunning and the grace. And the red hair. Foxes were beautiful and deadly. And although he was beautiful to some, I felt no real attraction to his face at all. He was just another pretty boy for all the girls to fawn over. But dangerous, that I could compare him to. Something about his eyes and all the calculations made me shiver in the warmth of my bed.
As I fell asleep that night, I thought of golden eyes and Moon like hair, all fading into Minamino-san's face until they fit perfectly. And the image remained. And for some reason, I felt like it belonged.
-x-x-
The space around me was white. How I imagined purgatory must look. A mist-like film was in the white, so I wasn't truly alone. Something in my brain told me to walk; so I did. My bare feet carried me all over the plane of whiteness. Every time I looked behind me, the mist had rolled in to block where I had come from. For all I knew, I was walking upside down or really standing still.
I don't know how long I walked for, but eventually the mist started to clear. The white I was stepping on turned to sand, and then grass. I followed an imaginary path through the field of grass. Or at least, my feet did. For some reason I didn't really have control over my body. It was like being in a dream and watching from your body while something else, something not natural controls you.
And all of the sudden, flowers were everywhere. And on top of a hill in the middle of the field amongst the pastel colors of the flowers, sat a giant tree made of the greenest leaves I had ever seen. It was so tall, I could not see, nor fathom, how tall it was; it extended into the sky and maybe even space itself if it were allowed.
In an instant, I knew that was where I was heading for. I broke into a run, a smile on my face. The whole place radiated good feelings, and I felt my heart pound in my chest as I ran up the hill and my lungs filled with more air and the wonderful clean air filled my nose. Without a second thought, I turned on my heel and practically threw myself at the ground so my face was up towards the tree.
As my breathing returned to normal and the ache left my legs and I felt the heat leave my body, I opened my eyes. The tree above me had fruits of all kinds and colors and shapes. But it didn't strike me as odd. What did strike me as odd though were the two circles above me, with enough space between them to be eyes. They looked like chocolate covered cherries, and the more I looked, the more of a face I saw.
My eyes widened and I sat up as whatever it was dropped from the tree and flipped neatly before landing on its feet in front of me. Scratch the 'it' part, for it turned out to be a she. Her hair parted slightly to the right, her bangs reaching to just below her eye level. They were thin enough to see through, though. The rest of her hair grew longer the farther back it went, until the longest lengths reached just below her chest. It was a bluish-grey charcoal color, with a small under layer being a reddish purple—most likely dyed.
"You're the girl from my other dream the other night." My eyes widened, how had I known that? Call it instinct, if you will.
She smiled and giggled, "Yes. I am Jia-li. I'm here to help you, Ume. There is a great deal of bad things heading your way. Call me a guardian if you will, my race is very rare. I will be training you in dreams, dreams being my special power. You need to be ready, and trust no one."
"Then how can I trust you, Jia-li?" I tilted my head to the side, somehow believing this was all real.
"Look inside yourself, Ume. You have a better sense of trust than you may think, and subconsciously you use the powers you possess to see things, understand things, and hear things. Otherwise you wouldn't see me. The proof is your thoughts of the human Shuichi. You see his aura too, not just himself. You're even unconsciously projecting the aura overtop him. What you saw will make sense, and you will understand."
The mist from before started to close in around her, and Jia-li smiled at me as she began to fade. I tried to fight it and follow her, but all was lost in a matter of seconds. I ended up running around in the white mist, it closed in closer and closer...
"Wait! Jia-li!"
"It is time to wake up, Ume. I will be watching you. Do not be afraid of anything, I will help you. Even at your darkest hour, I will be there to save you. Everything will be understood shortly, Ume. May God help your soul."
And I woke up.
-x-x-
A/N: I hope everyone liked this chapter, twice the size of previous chapters, 6 pages long. I hope to keep writing this, but I'd love feedback!
Please Review!
-AM*C
