The students roll into class for the Saturday morning session, each and every one of them sporting the tired eyes of people who have worked through the night. With only a day left to prepare, I suppose it's not so surprising. Thankfully, we only have to suffer through classes until the lunch break, and then our time is our own.
Mutou lurches to class in a tired stagger. I suppose students aren't the only people here that enjoy their late Friday nights. Without saying a word, he scrawls down some problems on the board and goes to his desk. It's completely atypical behavior for him, but no one seems willing to call him out on it.
Wordlessly, everyone shuffles their textbooks into position and get to work, or pretend to. The class is particularly quiet, especially with the absence of Shizune and Misha.
"Nakai, may I speak to you for a moment?" Mutou speaks up for the first time, breaking the silence.
"Er, okay." I wait patiently for him to speak.
"It's probably better if we speak outside the classroom." Something about this doesn't feel too good, but nevertheless I follow him out, crutch in hand.
He stands in the hallway, scratching his head as he works out what he is trying to say.
"So, tell me, how are things?" He begins.
"Things?" I expected him to be a little vague, but this is pushing the limits.
"You know, things." This fails to be the descriptor it was intended to be.
"Er...fine, I guess." I reply with an equally arbitrary and meaningless answer.
"I see. And how is your...condition?" He glances at my leg.
"Could be better, but at least everything is self-inflicted." He doesn't seem to know whether to be relieved or disappointed, eventually settling on the former.
"Good, that's good. The school nurse was a little concerned that you might have been pushing yourself, with your, uh..." I wince.
"What happened with my leg was mostly an accident and it shouldn't happen again. Otherwise, my academics are fine."
"So you are finding your studies well, then? Not only in my class?" I blink.
"This is all material I have had the chance to cover before, save for English. I slacked off a little on that during my, er...free time..."
"Good, good. A student that understands. One wrong move in this world and you're left behind, right?"
I wouldn't say that, I really wouldn't. A lot of the time, things just...happen. It isn't a move, a misplaced piece. It's like when someone comes and kicks your chessboard over, or something equally cruel.
"No, wouldn't want that to happen to me." But, just like with Rin, you try not to argue the small things.
"No, no you wouldn't. Every week there's a new scientific discovery. Most of them mean nothing to the layperson, but any one of them could be the key to the Next Big Thing."
"I'll keep that in mind." It's an interesting thought, though. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I graduate. This conversation would be relevant if I went into the sciences, but I'm not sure what I want to do.
"Right, that's all I wanted to talk about." I nod before following him back into the classroom, taking my seat again. A few of the students jump at the sound of the door, rapidly trying to pretend that they are working on the questions. Some don't even bother, their heads slumped down on the desk as they nap. Thankfully, it would appear that Mutou does not even notice them.
He returns to his desk and retrieves a scientific journal from one of the drawers. I guess he feels inspired after his speech. The class quickly returns to the stilted silence that Mutou and I left it in. Mixed feelings of tiredness and anticipation buzz around the room. Everyone here is waiting for a chance to rest or the chance to get their last-minute preparations underway.
The clock on the wall slowly ticks the remaining class time away, until finally the bells cry out, ending the torment.
"Before you all leave, I expect the answers for those problems by Monday." The class sighs as one, instantly regretting slacking off, but still acutely aware of the more pressing issues at hand. The classroom empties in a blink as everyone rushes out to who knows where. I stay behind and try to quickly finish the questions so I don't have to bother with it over the rest of the weekend.
Apart from me, Hanako is the only one left, obviously waiting for Lilly. I'm tempted to strike up some kind of conversation but refrain, not sure what we would even talk about.
Time passes in silence. It's probably just fifteen minutes or so but it feels longer. I turn pages of my notebook. Hanako turns pages of the novel she's reading.
My pencil lead splinters against the paper just as I am about to finish a paragraph. The sounds of my irritated sigh and subsequent fumbling around for a sharpener feel like they're breaking the mood in the classroom.
Before long, Lilly's tall figure appears in the doorway.
"Hanako?" She asks. Her name is all it takes to make the aforementioned girl jump up from her desk and run to Lilly. The conversation is rather short, though, and soon Lilly turns to leave, Hanako returning to her desk.
For a couple of minutes, she does nothing but sit with her chin in her hand, staring at the desk dejectedly. The boredom evidently becomes too much for her though, her slender frame reaching into her bag and pulling out a small book.
It seems unusual that Lilly leave Hanako alone, judging from the latter's reaction to it.
Probably rushing for the festival, like nearly everyone else. Hanako, of course, probably really doesn't want to get involved in that particular excitement.
My Saturday is basically free. A nap sounds really good right now...I barely got any sleep last night, what with the whole Rin thing. She seemed unusually grateful though, so I don't regret it.
The library, maybe. That's peaceful enough for my tastes, I think. I leverage myself out of my seat, collect my crutch and things, and limp off to the library.
...
The walls of the library only partially insulate the noise of the festival, but they're the only sounds to be heard. Not a soul stirs here, with everyone enjoying the outdoor weather. I walk through the library, now fairly familiar with its layout. I head to the back, where Hanako's private little corner is.
I run my hand along the spines of the books as I walk past them, finding some comfort in the way they glide across my fingers. Some things never change. Like the smell of a library. No matter how much care you take, the paper of books is always going to degrade with time.
I drop down on a beanbag, my things carefully placed next to me, before closing my eyes.
It's just like last time; the somnolent atmosphere, the peace and quiet. The only thing missing is...
...
"Erm...H-Hisao...?" A timid voice says, coming from somewhere above me.
Pity that. I don't even think I managed to properly fall asleep this time.
"Hello, Hanako." I reply, without opening my eyes. "Don't mind me. Just admiring the scenery."
"W-With your eyes closed?" Hanako asks, and I can sense her take a seat in one of the beanbags across from me.
"Yes. I love the color black; the absence of light; shadow personified. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? With black comes so much, revealing while hiding. Black is true perfection."
It takes a while before she can properly format a reply to that, during which time I nearly fall back asleep.
"Y-Yes...I like the night, too..." I don't have to ask why. It's pretty obvious. Night would do a far better job of hiding her burn damage.
"Mmm..." I say. It doesn't adequately fill the silence between us, so I try to think of something else.
"So, I see Lilly left without you?" I ask, eyes still shut. It's nice, sometimes, not to have to see. Just calm and relaxing.
"Lilly said she had to go and meet...someone."
"Oh?" I ask, intrigued.
"Akira. Her...sister."
"Sister? I haven't heard her talk about her family." I say, musing this over.
"They used to...live together..." I slowly open my eyes, blinking briefly at the return of light.
"Really? I mean, there's food right here and you're close to school...I don't think I've ever been to class on time so often in my life." I joke. Her badly hidden smile proves quite rewarding. In the back of my mind I know I have a bit of homework to catch up on, but it's quite comfortable in here. No one can find me and force me into working for their pet project, either. Though now that I'm thinking about the festival...
"Hey, Hanako, what are you doing for the festival?" For a split second I think that Hanako is about to throw her book in the air from shock.
"S-Sorry...?" She asks.
Oh, whoops.
"I was just asking what you're doing for the festival tomorrow. Anything planned?" Sometimes the best way to deal with an awkward social situation is to ignore it entirely. Rin taught me that.
"I...don't know." She answers in the way that people do when they don't want you to ask any more questions. I take it large crowds and loud music aren't really her thing.
"Oh, okay." Hm, she'll probably be in the library for a lot of it, or maybe the tea room. That's no good...I'll make an effort to find her, then. I don't want her to spend the whole day completely alone. I don't buy into the idea of this festival either, but still...
"What's Lilly's sister like?" I ask, closing my eyes again. I think it puts Hanako at ease.
"She's...nice. She's pretty like Lilly, but she dresses...business-like." I try to picture that in my head.
"With, like, a suit?" I ask, curiosity saturating my voice.
"Y-Yes."
"Hm...I see..." I recline a little more, relaxing. The conversation trails off and I hear Hanako reading her novel, the turning of her pages marking the passage of time.
It doesn't last too long, though. I had already sensed her movement, the way the pages have stopped turning.
"H-Hisao?" She asks, tentatively, to see if I'm awake.
"Mm?" I reply.
"I was...I-I was in an accident..." At this, my eyes snap open to lock firmly into hers. She shies away from my gaze and I immediately glance away.
"Accident? When?" She can't possibly mean...
Hanako shakes her head, her hair flowing around her shoulders in wisps of amethyst.
"N-No. When I was...y-younger..." So it is what I think it is...
"Wh-" No, wrong question. No question at all? "You don't have to tell me anything if you're not ready, Hanako." Especially because we're only acquaintances. Or are we friends? I don't think we know each other nearly enough to be friends yet. But even that's a subjective term. I know that I'm comfortable around her and that I don't mind her at all; on the contrary, she intrigues me.
But what about her? How does she view me? A fellow scar victim, though hers are far more severe? A slightly depressed and cynical young man, who seems to excel in his academics? What?
"N-No, I want...I have to..."
"Why? What brought this on?" I ask.
"B-Because you t-told...me about y-your condition...And I...didn't think it was f-fair."
"Fair? What?"
"T-That I knew about you, b-but you didn't know about me..." I swallow heavily, realizing the responsibility being placed on me right now.
"W-When I was young...I was in a fire...M-my house b-burned down, and I nearly...I nearly didn't make it..."
That explains a lot. The burns on her, made even more traumatic by the fact that they are reminders of a loss...
Her house. She says nothing about her parents, which leaves me to believe...
Her house wasn't the only thing she lost, was it? Those scars, then, are only visual reminders of a haunting loss...
"A-After that...I was alone..." And that's confirmation, of what I suspected...
Hanako's eyes glisten in the dim light of the library, and I reach out to grasp her unscarred hand. She flinches at first, tensing much like she did back when we first met, but relaxes.
I've been to the burn ward, before, multiple times, both for my own injuries and to see what others had. I even made friends with a small girl, Anna.
I lost her that very same day, holding her hand as her heart gave out on her. But I still remember sharply everything that happened. To prevent infection, she was kept in an isolated pod that no foreign object could enter. I talked to her from the outside and was only let it when the doctors decided that she wouldn't make it.
Stuck alone with nothing but the acid scent of corrupted skin, disinfectant, and sterilized air...And as nothing but a child...
"T-Thank you, Hisao. I...I haven't told many people about this..."
And like a flash, pieces come together with startling clarity.
Hanako lost her parents in the fire that took their lives and permanently damaged her body. As a child, she would have been forcefully removed from whatever life she had been previously living and thrust into the hospital, a scary place, especially when you're a traumatized child, and even more so in the burn ward.
After that, what? Most likely, she would have been alone. Children are cruel, intentionally or not; they would have excluded her, much like I have been. She would have gone to books, then, as a safe place. After all, books don't mock you.
What was that she said?
"I like the night, too."
Taught to be ashamed of her scars. For years and years. In an orphanage, most likely, a ward of the state. Came to Yamaku for her high school years, didn't meet Lilly until a year later. Third and last year here, alone for a good portion of it. She doesn't seem bullied here, but she's hardly welcomed into any social circles or the like; miscommunication on both sides, perhaps?
I don't know. But I'm almost certain in saying that Hanako is a lonely girl, and that her self-confidence must be absolutely trashed.
"Thank you, Hanako. For trusting me." Hanako nods, a small smile on her face.
"T-Thank you. For...listening." I smile back.
"Anytime." My head falls back onto the beanbag and my eyes fall shut again as I consider this new information.
Well, I think that, if anything, one thing seems pretty certain.
I think we're friends now.
...
"Hisao? The library is closing." Hanako's voice says, something shaking my arm gently. I open my eyes to see her startling close, her unscarred hand touching my shoulder. When our eyes catch, she blushes and hops back suddenly.
"Ah. I see." She offers her hand to me, uncharacteristically, and I use it to pull me up. I almost take her down with me, though, and I wind up being forced to let go.
"S-Sorry!" She looks disappointed with herself, like that it's her fault she couldn't pull up someone who probably has at least thirty pounds on her.
"No, it's my fault. I can't tell how much force I'm using, so..." It's probably true. When I think about it, I can't even tell whether or not I was using her to pull myself up or pulling her down. The thought sends a frown to my face.
"But..."
"No, it was definitely my fault." I say, suddenly annoyed with myself. "Ugh." I lean down to grab my crutch. She still looks concerned, and bothered.
"N-No..." I glance at her. "It...It isn't y-your fault you have your..." Hanako trails off, but I get what she means. I smile sweetly at her.
"Thank you." I sling my backpack around my shoulder and we walk in silence outside the library, and down to the dorms.
"Hanako?" I ask, suddenly, prompting her to look at me, almost.
"Thanks for putting up with me."
