Ch. 2: Who?

The six of us stayed together, as close as possible as we jumped from branch to branch.

"Hoo? Hoo?" the lonesome owls spoke into the darkness as we sped through the green canopy of the forest. "Hoo? Hoo? Hoo?"

I reminisced back to when we were young children, back in the days when we were carefree, innocent, and unaware of the trying times looming over us. I recalled the day before we were split up. Back then, it didn't matter who a person was or where they were from; anyone could join our games of tag and hide-and-seek.

"Hey Yumi, are you coming?" a small six-year-old black-haired boy shouted at a pink-curtained window. "Mayumi? You there?"

"She's there all right. She's probably dressing extra nice for her boyfriend," a blond haired boy wearing glasses snickered.

The other boy's ears colored as he replied, "You know I don't like her! I already like someone else, Hideki!"

The red coloring spread to his cheeks as he realized what he had admitted. "Anyway, you should just shut up! It's not like you don't like anybody!" His voice suddenly turned happy as he said the last sentence and a wide grin lit up his face.

Hideki's face turned red as he blurted out, "At least I still have a chance! You still haven't gotten over her, Kazuyuki! She moved away a year ago, and she's not coming back, scat head!"

"Nerd!"

"Dork!"

"Jerk!"

"Lover's boy!"

"Well at least—" Kazuyuki got cut off as the two rowdy boys spotted a slightly shorter girl with a pink bow in her short black hair emerge from the door of the house in front of them.

"Hi Deki! Hi Kazu! I packed lunch!" she chirped.

"Great!" Hideki said as they walked down the path together. "Your blonde friend and that curly-haired kid are already there. You're the last one, Yumi."

Kazuyuki stopped with a puzzled look. "Wait, are the other kids there?"

"Are they?" Mayumi asked, looking towards Hideki.

"Yep!"

"Wait—what about Tomoko!" Kazuyuki asked.

"Oh yeah! How could I forget about her? The girl who could be Yumi's twin. Probably," Hideki spewed, sending out flecks of saliva on the 'p'.

"WAAH!" A figure jumped out from the bushes, with black hair billowing around her head.

"GAH!" Kazuyuki jumped. Mayumi giggled as Hideki calmly said, "I knew you were there the whole time, Tomoko."

"Aww, you're no fun!" I whined as I carelessly ran my fingers through my straight hair, settling it back down beneath the satiny indigo headband tucked into my hair. We soon entered the field and met up with Kaida and Washi and started our game.

Back in the present, we noticed it was getting brighter through the dense cover of leaves. I nimbly hopped higher until I could see over the thick foliage and found it was already close to high noon. People were dropping down to set up camp and rest, and we did the same, but further on, a little away from the older men and occasional woman. We put out four bedrolls, two on either side of the miniscule clearing.

"Alright," I said, "two girls on that side, two boys on the other. I'm taking first watch, which of you boys is watching with me, and who's taking second and third watch?" They worked it out, then Deki joined me at my perch on a tree branch as Washi, Kazu, Yumi, and Kaida lay down.

"Hey, Tomoko," a voice startled me. It was Deki. "I need to ask you a question…"

"So… will you help me?"

I looked about our campsite as I pondered the question. Yumi was sleeping peacefully, and Kaida's fingers were twitching, probably looking for the weapon that was always near her. Kazu's eyelids were fluttering as he muttered something about a 'secret technique', and Washi was rolling around in the midst of a dream. Back to the problem, on one hand, I'd be glad to help Deki out, but I couldn't answer, for my other 'hand' was tied down by the thought, 'he just told me one of his biggest but kind of obvious secrets. Why?'

I turned back to face him and said, "I need a little time to think. But it will almost positively be a yes," I concluded with a smile.

He grinned back at me and said, "I think it's past time for those two, your violent friend and that pissy friend of hers with the 'special' water bottles, to wake up and take their turn!"

Washi groaned as he woke up and mumbled, "They're NOT water bottles, you lesbo."

"Yes, yes, yes," Deki replied sarcastically. "Of COURSE they aren't," he said, ignoring Washi's last comment.

"Shut up Hideki," Yumi said as she jumped up next to us. "Tomoko, go to sleep now. You too, Deki!" she said in an oh-so-sweet and oh-so-innocent voice that quickly turned dark as she added, "or else the snakes'll get ya, and you don't want us to be HAPPY, do you?" she ended with a fooling 'cute' smile.

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm going now," Deki grumbled.

"Yeah, I definitely need sleep," I added with a yawn as I crept under the cover of the bedroll Yumi had just vacated. "G-day! We'll be up dark and early tonight and move on!" And with that I fell asleep.