Pre-Chapter Notes:
- The last of these for today. The rest is still being written. Please wait warmly.
- Can you guess which one from Aya and Hatate is the stalker in this relationship? You'll find out.
"D-Done already?" Aya stammers. "I wasn't expecting that… thought you'd be someone who was more of the 'take-her-time' person…"
Hatate shifts uncomfortably, wringing her hands atop her checkered skirt. Her eyes are heavy, and she can already feel the eyebags glowing underneath them. It's only one night, she thinks. It's not like that sort of thing is going to happen again. Right?
A few seconds tick by. Red eyes scan the paper, widening and narrowing at appropriate times.
"Well," Aya says, setting the paper down on a table. "Your writing style's certainly interesting."
The brunette blinks. She wonders if 'interesting' is a compliment or an insult.
"There are a few parts that need fixing, and a few parts wherein I can't understand a word or two, and a few parts where it looks like you're trying too hard to copy my style…"
Each phrase jabs into Hatate's chest. She feels suffocated, though she tries to convince herself it's only because it's hot. Really. Nothing else.
"… but there are also a few parts that are really good. I think you're the person who sees things real deep in others. Y'know, I always thought that Margatroid was just some creepy stalker who got lonely after a while and goes all yandere when someone rejects her, but maybe this thing you wrote here has a point?"
The constricting feeling fades, replaced by a warmer one. Hatate tries not to think too hard about the words 'really good'. Instead, she raises her head, allowing Aya to see the question swirling in the brunette's eyes.
"Huh – which part? I think it's… yeah, this one, 'After some research done on the Internet, it appears that Miss Margatroid lives alone after running away from her mother and her relatives. It seems to be that she creates dolls not only as a hobby, but perhaps a sort of coping mechanism, in hopes that she will be able to have her family back with the presence of such dolls. Her lonesome and clingy nature is a result from living solitarily for most of her life. Perhaps all she needs is some friends?' Yeah, I like this one. Let's keep it."
Hatate nods slightly, head dipping in a momentary state of sleep. She hears a giggle from Aya's general direction, and she's suddenly reminded of the article the reporter wanted to write about yesterday. Something about giggles.
"You're so cu… funny when you're falling asleep, Hatatan," Aya says, crawling closer to Hatate, then seeming to think better of it as she backs away to her previous position. Extending her hand, she loops their pinkies together and asks, "What time d'you sleep last night for you to get this out of it? Hmm… two? Three?"
The brunette sighs, feeling like she really and honestly needs something to rest her head on else her chin would drop and her head would come tumbling off her shoulders, she's sure. She risks a search-around with her hands, finds something soft, and lays her head on it without even thinking anymore. She hears a squeak that sounds vaguely like Aya, but pays it no mind. After all, this soft thing is probably just a stack of papers or whatnot…
The pinky link tightens. Hatate mumbles incoherently and tightens it back. She hears Aya's chime of a laugh, and dozes off.
"Hey~! It's the new edition of Bunbunmaru Newspaper! Come and get it, everyone! Yoohoo~!"
A pair of bright blue eyes blink curiously at the bedraggled newcomer. "Ohh, who's this? I think I remember you… Hatate, right? My locker-mate?"
Hatate lifts her head up the slightest bit from her arms. She's got them settled comfortable on the table for her to rest her chin on. Aya laughs a little. "This one's Hatate Himekaidou! She's the new member of the Newspaper Club, can you believe it?"
Nitori's pigtails bounce as she jumps in surprise at the exclamation. "Seriously?! That's great, Aya, Hatate! You know, you know," she turns to face the drowsy brunette. "Ever since Tenma, the founder of the Newspaper Club, graduated, only Aya here decided to join. It's been sooo long since she's found another member. I hope you be good to her!"
"Huuh? Don't be like that, Hatatan's good at this!" Aya exclaims, laughing as she hands a copy of the newspaper to a student, saying thank you and waving goodbye after. "Oh, Hata, I don't think I've ever introduced you before? This one's Nitori Kawashiro, she's not an official member of the club since she's already in the swim team, but she helps me distribute the newspapers on these days. Nitori, this is Hatate, as you know! She doesn't talk much, and doesn't like talking to others she doesn't know, so don't be too pushy like you sometimes are."
"P-Pushy! I'm not pushy!"
Hatate shifts her seat to the edge of the table, resting her head on her arms once more. Closing her eyes, she lets out a mental sigh, happy to be out of the conversation. By this time, about a week or two after she had officially joined the club, she was a little bit more comfortable with others, given that she's in immediate reach to Aya. Alone? She's still hopeless. Hatate doesn't like that she relies on the reporter for everything and follows her around like some lost puppy, but she can't help it. She needs a rock, an anchor, or else she'll lose it again.
Someone taps her on the shoulder. The brunette almost screams – almost – but manages to barely restrain it. Her muscles tense, but a vaguely-familiar voice calls, "Hello? Can I have a copy of the paper?"
Hatate forces herself to look up, spotting white and red in her hazy vision. Momiji Inubashiri. Of course. The brunette nods, taking a copy from the nearby stack and handing it to the white-haired student. Momiji dips her head in acknowledgement, greets Nitori and Aya with a wave and a 'good luck!', and goes on her way. Hatate sighs, vocally this time, and decides to move a bit closer to Aya. Safer this way. Others would much prefer to ask Aya for a copy than for the strange girl sleeping next to her.
She's slightly disappointed that she can't loop pinkies with Aya, but she glances upwards, catching sight of the reporter's bright smile, and she decides that's all the thanks she needs.
A little later, once lunchtime is done, Hatate's shuffling back to her usual seat in the classroom, but she is interrupted rather abruptly by a pale white hand on her shoulder.
She jumps. She jolts. She crumples down to the floor, shaking and trembling and wishing she could call out for Aya. But all that comes out of her mouth are ragged, terrified breaths that silence the whole room.
"Hatate!" Rapid footsteps on wood – a pinky interlocked with hers. A comforting presence. Hatate sighs. "Hatate, are you… no, you're obviously not okay, but… calm down, calm down…"
"Is she alright?" a worried voice asks, high-pitched. "Momiji, w-what'd you do to her?"
"I just… I wanted to ask her something, but then she…" Deeper, but still feminine. Laced with concern and confusion.
"It's okay, Hata, hear that? It was only Momiji, she doesn't mean any harm…" The grip tightens, and Hatate lets out an involuntary whimper, hoping against hope that everything will just stop and the brunette can reverse everything she's ever done. The only thing she's good for is causing trouble for everyone. It's just Momiji, it's just Momiji, it's just Momiji, and Aya's here…
Her chest unravels. Air comes faster and easier than ever before. Hatate slumps into Aya's arms, shivering at the cold touch of skin. Why does it have to be this way? Why am I like this? Why can't I be like Aya, who's not scared of anyone? Why? Why?
"Ha-Hatate?" a soft voice calls. No, it's not really soft, Hatate just can't hear it anymore – everything feels horribly fuzzy…
She hears more voices, louder, shakier, but no, that's just her…
She wakes up in a hospital bed – no. It's just the school clinic. It stinks of hospital scent, though.
Hatate pushes herself to sit up unsteadily, her breath hitching when she spots Momiji on a stool right next to her, and with no Aya nearby. 'No, no, I don't want it to happen again…'
"Feeling better?" the white-haired girl asks, curious red eyes (but not as pretty as Aya's, Hatate finds herself thinking) staring at her, then averting their line of vision to her lap. "Sorry for surprising you there, I didn't know…"
The brunette soon tunes her out, more out of tiredness than irritation. She looks around, wincing at the sterile white surroundings. She hates hospitals. Clinics – whatever. They're all the same. Hatate kicks the sheets off and slips her feet into her boots, lacing them up with practiced ease. She hears wood scraping on the floor behind her and tries not to think about Momiji's eyes boring into her back.
"Are you going already? Can I ask a question first?"
Hatate shifts slightly. Under normal circumstances (read: If she were with Aya), she would raise her head to reveal brown eyes showcasing the answers, but Momiji isn't a reporter. She's just… Momiji. In a way that isn't offending, that is. Instead, the brunette nods, suppressing the panicky feeling she gets when the white-haired girl opens her mouth once more.
"Thanks. I read the paper, and I saw… is your name Hatate Himekaidou?"
Nod. Suppress.
"I see… so you joined the Newspaper Club?"
Nod. Suppress.
"That's nice. Since Tenma graduated, the only other student who showed interest in writing for the paper was Aya… and she's always overworking herself, staying up late everyday to finish articles and such. While Nitori and I would want to join the club with her, we're already in our respective groups, so we can only really help her with distributions…"
Nod… suppress…
"She seems to like you quite a bit. I hope you can stay with her in that club for some time." Though Hatate doesn't look up, she can imagine the small smile Momiji has. "By the way, you have a fever."
'…' The brunette feels slightly woozy. 'Shouldn't that declaration have come first?'
A little later, Aya flies into the clinic, babbling on and on, asking if Hatate's okay, if she needs to lie down a little more or anything like that. It brings a tiny, tiny smile to the brunette's face, but after a while, she has to shush the reporter with tired brown eyes because wow, she can talk fast. Nurse Yagokoro comes in with a clipboard once Aya's shut up for about three minutes, saying that Hatate's going to have to stay at home for a little.
"You haven't been sleeping well lately, have you?" The grey-haired nurse raises an eyebrow, momentarily looking up from her clipboard. "Your fever's been here since three days ago. Didn't you feel anything?"
'No,' Hatate wants to say. 'I haven't felt a thing because I stopped myself from feeling. It's better that way. Gets things done faster. These articles are more important than my health. Aya's more important than me…'
She doesn't say anything, though. She just nods, and takes a slip from the nurse, shuffling out of the clinic with Aya and Momiji trailing behind her. As Hatate takes out her phone, flips it on, and stares at the screen, she knows what she has to do for the next two days that she won't be present.
She has to write. Not rest, not sleep, nothing. She has to write.
The calligraphy brush dangling off the side of her phone reminds her of such.
The next morning, at six-thirty sharp, Hatate wakes up and feels sicker than she's ever felt before. She feels so sick, it's like her blood is frozen and her limbs will stay numb for the rest of eternity, not to mention the horrid pounding in her head that leaves her train of thought fuzzy. There's no way she's going to be able to write like this.
But she has to. She has to. This is all for Aya. Right?
The brunette pushes herself off the bed with great difficulty, wincing as her breaths come out heavy and laden with effort. She brushes her teeth and fixes her hair sloppily, but doesn't dare take a bath just yet, feeling like she would melt into a puddle of Hatatan if she stepped into water, cold or hot. Instead, she washes her face and takes a seat by her study table, facing several Post-It Notes stuck on the wall.
Mystia Lorelei/Kyouko Kasodani made punk band 9/12/14
Moriya Club conspiracy? More research needed
Ran Yakumo goes crazy after losing fried tofu 9/11/14
Certain templates banned in school 9/14/14
Hatate's sure there had been a truckload of news to be gathered that had happened yesterday, on September 15, but when she had gotten home, she'd fallen face-first onto her pillow and slept the night away. Much to her immense luck, last night was one of those times that her mother stayed in the bar for the night, so she didn't have to make dinner for her.
She grabs a blank sheet of paper from a nearby stack, hand wobbling as she uses the dark-purple-black pen to scribble Best friends Mystia Lorelei and Kyouko Kasodani form punk rock band before she feels her vision going hazy. Why are there sunspots? She isn't even looking at the sun. … Hatate feels ready to black out right then and there. But no, she drags herself to slump down on her bed, curling up tight in a mountain of blankets and pillows, shivering in the frightening cold. Her heater is on, she knows, so why is it…
She hates fevers.
About a couple hours later, with the brunette drifting in and out of sleep, she hears muffled footsteps echoing in the hallway. Hatate doesn't pay it any mind, assuming it's simply her mother, though she appears to have come home much earlier than usual. She forces herself to stand up and walk the short distance between her bed and her door, locking it in case her mother decided to come in and see the pathetic state her daughter is in. As Hatate's numbing fingers adjust the lock, her forehead bumps against the door, and the brunette sighs, because when has she ever become like this?
But instead of a door opening and slamming shut like what always happens when her mother comes home from the bar, there's only the repetitive sound of footsteps again and again and again. Hatate finds herself focusing a bit more – it's not like her mother to start pacing back and forth, or get lost in a house that she's lived in for years. No, these footsteps don't even sound like her mother's, but they're eerily familiar…
Knock. Knock.
Hatate all but shrieks, jumping backwards and hitting her back against her bed. Idly, she thanks her mother for buying her a soft bed, but at this point she can't bring herself to care anymore. Is it a murderer? A rapist? An enemy of her mother? Tax collectors?! She doesn't know. She can't think. It hurts it hurts it hurts.
"Ha-Ha-Hatate?"
Muscles relax. Shoulders go down. Eyes blink open. Before she can help herself, she blurts out, "Aya?"
Silence. Then, knock. "Um… can… can I… come in… I mean… um…"
Hatate pushes herself up to wobbling legs, eyes still wide and mouth still hanging open, as she unlocks the doorknob and turns it open. She's face-to-face with ruby red eyes, short black hair, and annoyingly adorable freckles that Hatate's never noticed before. Since when has Aya even had freckles? Or maybe she's just never gotten this close to the reporter to see them clearly before…
Oh, God, I'm so close, if I move just one bit –
Hatate jerks backwards, almost tripping over her own feet. Aya yelps, lunging forward and swiftly catching the brunette, clutching her tightly as if scared to let go. Hatate tenses instinctively, hands raising up to push the reporter away – but no. Her skin is on hers, and it just feels so natural instead of wrong, so warm instead of cold, and Hatate wonders where Aya's been all her life.
The reporter gently, slowly (unwillingly) lets her go, arms dropping limply back to their sides. A moment of silence passes until Aya cautiously extends her hand, pinky outstretched. Hatate takes Aya's whole hand and presses it against her chest, right above where her heart is, in a desperate attempt to keep herself standing. She is just so tired without even having done anything, bags under her eyes weighing down more than ever, and she feels awfully self-conscious about her frazzled hair and the blouse-skirt uniform she had worn the day before…
Aya wordlessly leads her to her bed, carefully setting her down and laying her head on the pillows. Hatate doesn't argue, instead, simply curling up into a shivering ball of sick and flinging the covers on top of herself. She hears wood scraping on wood, and a comfortable presence beside her – Aya's sitting atop a chair, probably feeling incredibly uncomfortable but sticking with it anyway.
Hatate cannot thank her enough, right from the very bottom of her heart.
When she wakes up, an estimated two hours or so later, she sees a lukewarm bowl of soup on her study table and her stack of Post-It Notes beside it. With great effort, the brunette drags herself over to the table and, as she takes hesitant sips of the soup, reads the note Aya presumably left for her on one of the Notes.
"I took the liberty of pasting a couple of news topics I'd like you to write about that I didn't get to tell you yesterday! All the new ones are at the bottom-left corner of the wall so you'll find them easier. Also, some soup. Get well soon, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T OVERWORK YOURSELF! –Aya
PS: I may or may not sometimes see you heading this way after school. Totally not a stalker."
It brings a weak smile to Hatate's face, but even that takes enough effort to drain her motivation to do anything for a few years maybe. The brunette finishes the soup, even though it makes her want to puke more out of the fever than out of the taste, and pushes the bowl away, reminding herself to wash it later. With a sigh, she crawls over to the new patch of Post-Its on her wall, which amount to about… two.
Hatate blinks. Does Aya really underestimate her with her new fever? Usually, she gives around four or five… well, it's only good that the brunette just rests for some time. The two new notes look simple, mainly because Hatate has already researched about the two topics a few nights before (Saigyouji's supposed 'haunted tree' and the mad cackling reportedly heard at the Scarlet Mansion at nighttime). After running through some potential drafts over her head, Hatate wills herself to hold her pen with her still-unsteady hand and write some ideas on a scrap paper.
Hatate spends the next few hours in the same position, scribbling and scrawling all over the paper until the words start to overlap each other. (It only occurs to her to flip the paper to the blank side when she realizes she's written over the same sentence three times.) When the clock hits one in the afternoon and she hears a door slamming shut, she flinches and looks down at her stomach. 'I really should eat something… but if it's one, that means mother is home, and she never eats lunch at the bar because she says the food there is shit… and I'm so tired… but I have to…'
Pushing herself up, she drags her feet across the wooden floor, but winces at the scraping sound it makes and decides to walk a little more properly. Slipping into the kitchen, she whips up a quick sandwich, enough to keep her mother at bay until Hatate can find it in herself to make something better, and places it on a tray. Going back to the hallway, she stops in front of her mother's room and places her ear against the door to make sure the woman is really there. A loud crashing noise is audible, which doesn't surprise Hatate as much as it used to years ago, and so she knocks on the door.
She steps back moments before it swings open, just barely avoiding colliding with her face. Her mother is there, short cropped brown hair even messier than usual, and eyes bloodshot. But when she shouts her usual greeting ("What the fuck do you want?!"), it's cut off at the end.
"… What the… fuck… Hatate?"
The brunette's tired eyes go wide. She tries and fails to remember the last time her mother called her by name. Perhaps three years ago? Four? But when she realizes her mother is waiting for an answer, she asks, "What is it?"
"What the hell happened to you? You look terrible!"
'Since when have you cared? I don't mean this in the offending way, but since when have you cared, mother?' "I have a fever. It's why I'm not in school."
"Shit! You look like a fucking zombie! Is that a sandwich? You made me a sandwich?" Hatate closes her eyes, hunches her shoulders, and braces herself for a slap on the face, but it never comes. Instead, unfamiliar hands (when was the last time mother touched me without the intent to hurt?) take away the load of the sandwich plate from Hatate's own hands, and the brunette looks back up, brown eyes flickering in confusion. "A fever is what you get from overworking. Lock yourself up in that room and don't go back to school for five days at least!"
'Is this your way of showing affection? Or do you just not want me to get in your way?' "The nurse said–"
"Screw what the nurse said! You look like you're three-fourths dead! Now go sleep the day away. I don't care, I can make my own food. Go!"
Hatate wants to cry. She wants to sob, to wail, to do everything because what the hell is happening? She just got a fever, and it's not that bad! (It's what she wants to think, at least, but she knows it's the worst fever she's ever encountered.) Now Aya's made her soup, and her mother is saying that she can go to the kitchen and pile up some bread and meat for a sandwich?
She nods, barely, and trudges back to her room. Today, it seems, is a day for contemplation and quiet writing.
At seven, she's back at her desk, staring forlornly at the half-filled paper before her (the newer side, anyway). She's written enough for one article, but it honestly looks to her that it's not even half the amount she normally writes. So Hatate picks up her pen, silently thanks it for not running out of ink even after such rigorous writing for so long, and goes on her writing.
It continues well on until ten o'clock, to which Hatate's head promptly dropped to the table, eyes closed and dozing away. Somehow, through the determination she had fixated on her writing, she had completely forgotten she was supposed to have been resting.
Next Chapter: Aya visits again, among other stuff. (Hope you enjoyed this, and will continue reading the future chapters!)
Slacker, 11/27/14