Chihiro reflexively pulled the door to the locker shut and span around, to come face-to-face with the Student Council President herself, Kirijo Mitsuru. Chihiro caught her foot on the side of one of the books she had dropped and stumbled back onto her locker, which elicited a squeal of sharp pain as she banged her shoulder against the steel. Mitsuru merely raised an eyebrow in response.
"Um, Mitsuru-s-senpai! Hello! I-I'm.. I've n-not..." Chihiro stuttered. "I w-was just going... my m-maths book..."
Mitsuru remained motionless, standing there in front of Chihiro with her arms folded over her chest, and a grim, no-nonsense expression of cold, hard stone half-obscured by her wavy red hair. She broke her stillness with one simple movement - turning her eyes towards the locker behind Chihiro.
"Is there something in that locker you don't want me to see, Fushimi?"
It was at that moment that even the sound of Chihiro's heart seemed to disappear into nothingness, and she was instead left with a frozen wave of cold panic as she recognised how dire the situation was. Mitsuru was the President of the Student Council of which Chihiro herself was a part, and she was also Chihiro's senior - if anyone had to approach her about the gun being found in her locker, it would likely be her. Not for the first time did Chihiro become aware of her senpai's uncanny ability to know more than she actually admits to; something in Chihiro's quiet, slowing heart began to whisper about her.
She knows. She knows what was in there. She's seen it. Or someone told her already. You're too late.
"Fushimi?" came the President's severe voice.
"Um, yes! I mean, no! No! There's nothing in there!" Chihiro stammered in response. She span around and grabbed the dial to her locker. "I can show you!"
In her panic, she fumbled with the dial input for a suspiciously long time, and, as she heard Mitsuru's exasperated sigh from behind her, she forgot her combination completely.
"It's fine, I trust you," Mitsuru said. "I'm not here to interrogate you unannounced, anyway. I just wanted to ask if you were going to attend Student Council today."
A trap. She knows about the gun. They'll bring it out when I'm there. I'll break down, and I'll look guilty.
"U-um, well... I was j-just going h-home after... after the-"
"If I could make the suggestion, I would appreciate it if you would come along, and I was going to ask if you could wait behind afterwards." Something about Mitsuru's tone of voice suggested that this was less of a suggestion and more a discreet demand that had to be met.
She needs more time with you, to interrogate you. To find out more about the gun. She knows.
Nonetheless, Chihiro either did not register what her heart was telling her... or ignored it completely.
"O-Of course! I'll be there, s-senpai!" she said.
"Excellent," Mitsuru replied. "I appreciate your commitment."
The Student Council President turned around, delicately stepped over a Science book lying on the floor, and strode off down the hallway away from Chihiro without looking back.
After a few moments, the ambience of the students traipsing to their classes began to flow back into the forefront of Chihiro's senses. Her heart rate slowed - though she remained panicked. The gun has gone, she thought, and Mitsuru-senpai must know something about it.
Chihiro bent down and scooped up her fallen books into her arms, and joined the throng of students again, heading towards her Mathematics classroom in a daze.
Once again, Chihiro couldn't focus on her schoolwork, but this time, the tutor did not afford her any time to brood - she was intent on making sure the class were alert by demanding answers from any student who looked as though they weren't paying attention - and, unfortunately, Chihiro happened to possess a particularly vacant expression that morning.
"Fushimi-chan, wake up, please!" the teacher bellowed. "And, when you're able, the answer, if you will!"
"U-um... The... I-It's..." came Chihiro's stumbling response as she snapped out of her contemplative-vegetative state. She looked at the blackboard, and saw a mass of numbers arranged in equations she couldn't make sense of. She looked down at her desk, and saw an empty workbook.
"Never mind, Fushimi-Chan. I'll wait until you're somewhat more alert, shall I?"
Chihiro nodded in response, before cringing at herself answering a rhetorical question. The rest of the class laughed - Chihiro kept her head down from the remainder of the class, glimpsing up only once to discover that a number of people were passing amused looks in her direction.
The rest of the morning's classes dragged on - and every hour that Chihiro had to wait for the bell to ring felt far longer. When the lunch-bell rang, Chihiro's mind was immediately gripped by the thought of her locker, and of the gun which had disappeared from it only an hour after she had found it there in the morning. She had to go pick up her lunch from the lockers, and made her way there.
Along the way, new fears began to wriggle their way into the forefront of Chihiro's thoughts. What if the gun's back in the locker again? What if the police already found it? What if they're waiting to see if I confess? What if the person who put it there, put it there by mistake, and now they think I know about it, and that I'll tell someone, and they're going to kill me? What if-
Her worries churned round and round in her mind, and in her stomach, until she turned into the main hall - to find Mitsuru-senpai talking to a police officer at the front entrance to the school, just a few paces away from the lockers. Then, her worries dashed away from her mind, as though they had chosen to become amused spectators to a scene of such callous reality that could not compare to the fevered schadenfreude conjured in Chihiro's imagination.
It took a great deal of mental coercion to force her own body to move, but move it eventually did as Chihiro leapt in between two rows of lockers to listen in to the conversation between Mitsuru-senpai and the police officer.
The first voice belonged to the policeman. "If there's anything else you need, don't hesitate to let me know, Kirijo-chan."
"Of course, Kurosawa-sama," replied Mitsuru in her severe, yet almost playful tone. "That won't be too long from now; I intend to bring Fushimi in soon."
The implications of the sentence filled Chihiro with an overwhelming urge to run. Her mind, despite being wracked with worry and anguish, was analysing the situation with a cold, ferocious logic and a dedication to avoid the consequences of this unfair scenario. No justice would be administered if she was taken in. No-one would believe her if she told the truth. No fairness would be dealt. And so, her conscious mind came to the same conclusion that her body's impulses did - she would run. Run from the hallway, from the school, from her home, and from her life. She placed her textbooks atop the lockers, sneaked down the row, and waited for Mitsuru and the policeman to leave the area.