Chapter Two - Ayano Aishi
It was around 7:30 am when Budo Masuto finally woke up. He got ready in five minutes - record time in his mom's view - and left the door before she could even properly say goodbye. The martial arts leader was running a bit behind schedule, but he rode his bike quickly, pulling up when bumps would appear and taking shortcuts to get to school faster.
Seeing the white walls of his school's premises, Budo pulled up and slowed his pedaling. Taking his bike to the bike rack, he glanced up and smiled at his close friend Taro Yamada walking towards him. Jumping up, he saluted his friend and happily greeted him.
"Morning, Taro! How you doing?"
"Morning Budo. Okay I guess, but I feel like I might be forgetting something..." Taro muttered, rubbing the back of his head in confusion. His eyebrows were knitted in hard thinking, before he sighed and gave up, shrugging his shoulders.
"Well, if you forgot, it probably wasn't all to important." pointed out Budo, indicating for them to start walking inside.
"Probably." nodding his head, Taro separated from Budo to get to his locker.
"Haha, Taro and his forgetfulness..." chuckled Budo underneath his breath. He smiled and wandered over to his locker, grabbing his headband from within. Tying it tight, he double checked his arm band representing his leadership, before closing his locker and greeting his members and friends.
"Morning Mina-chan!"
"Morning Senpai!" a girl in her second year of high school greeted back. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and bits of it fell, framing her face. She wore the same headband that Budo was wearing too. Smiling and greeting the other's, he slipped away from them and sauntered over to where Taro stood.
"Hey, what you thinking of there?" Budo asked, bumping his shoulder against Taro's, jarring the daydreaming boy away from his stumper.
"Hm? Oh, nothing." Taro's eyes were trained on the girl group. Budo raised a suspicious eyebrow at this.
"Oh really?" he asked, a sly smirk displaying itself on his lips.
"Yes." was Taro's curt answer back. He turned to properly face his friend, raising an eyebrow at the mischievous look on the martial arts leader's face.
"So Taro, found any girl your interested in yet?" Budo teased, winking and gesturing with his head at the girl group, who had heard what Budo had said. They glanced over, giggling and shyly waving at the pair.
"Ah... No, not - !" abruptly getting cut off by a tap on the shoulder, Taro turned around to come face to face with his childhood friend Osana Najime. The petite girl was glaring daggers at him, as she yanked him down to her height.
"You said you would wait for me! But you didn't!" she blew up on him, wildly gesturing to herself then Taro. She huffed and said loudly, "You baka!"
"Hahahah!" breaking out into a fit of laughter, Budo wiped a tear from his eye as he witnessed Taro trying to explain himself. He looked very flustered, apologizing a hundred times as Osana continued to look away from him, expressing her anger.
Ding, ding!
"Oh, time for class. Cya guy's later!" waving as he turned around and left the scene behind, Budo grinned to himself and quickly fled up the stairs to the third floor.
Turning a sharp corner, he very nearly collided with someone, as he stopped short from tackling them down. Even though he didn't physically ram into her, the black haired girl still stumbled backwards in surprise and fell on her butt. She groaned painfully, wincing and rubbing her bottom as Budo began to immediately apologize.
"So sorry! I didn't see you there!" he stammered out, bowing deeply as the girl got up and dusted herself off.
Peering from where he was bent over, Budo saw the girl's neutral face stare at him with hollow eyes. For once in his life, Budo felt an eerie chill go down his spine as he stood back up and offered an apologetic smile.
"Sorry about that... Uh, are you okay?" he nervously asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I'm fine." she blandly said back, sending another wave of shivers down Budo's back.
He didn't know what it was about this girl - maybe it was the way she stared at him with such blank, black eyes - but he had the ominous feeling that something... Was not right with her. Ignoring his dreading feelings for the moment, he asked politely, "What's your name?"
She raised a suspicious eyebrow at him, before reply rigidly, "Ayano Aishi."
"Well Aishi-chan, I'll pay you back for..." he paused, nervously chuckling, "Uhh... that. For now we should both go to class."
Nodding his head farewell, as Ayano eyed him with a look of disapproval, Budo quickly ambled his way out from there. The ebbing sense of fear he felt when he was around Ayano, hadn't left and his curiosity had been peeked. To be quite honest, he had never really noticed Aishi-chan before and he had never felt such a heavy "on edge" feeling from anyone else but her. Maybe he could befriend her soon. It's just as they say, "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back."