Chapter Two:April Eighth
At least he wasn't doing it alone.
"Pleased to meet you," Nobuyuki choked out. The eyes of his classmates burrowed into him like a thousand tiny drills, turning, twisting, prying into his innermost secrets. He urgently wanted to sit down.
"You may take the seat over there," his teacher, an incredibly old lady named Komori (personal name unknown) managed to croak out after a long few seconds of introspection. She gestured with a long, bony finger to an unoccupied seat near the far wall. He blinked. One of the occupants of an adjacent seat was a boy with startlingly white hair and a drastic inability to follow dress code, wearing a lavender hoodie over his collared shirt and with no tie to speak of. The girl sitting next to him was something else entirely.
"Yes, ma'am," Nobuyuki mumbled as he took his seat. The white-haired boy elbowed him but he ignored it as best he could. Nothing good would come from associating with him, Nobuyuki figured.
"And, of course, the second student of the day. Would you please introduce yourself?" Komori said. Sachi shuffled towards the front of the room, and Nobuyuki was glad that he had gone first. At least she wouldn't get to see him embarrass himself from a position of superiority. She looked down for a bit, remaining quite silent. Whispers flooded through the room, too indistinct for Nobuyuki to catch. She looked up, and her face was lined with fierce determination.
"The tradition of forcing transfer students to announce themselves in front of the entire class is antiquated and barbaric and I refuse to stand by it," she said firmly. Whispers rose to a boil, and Nobuyuki could catch fragments, most of which sounded close to "what the hell?"
"That's nice, dear," Komori said. "Take the seat behind Mister Shinohara, then." The whispers now sounded a lot like "even for her..."
"'Ait," Sachi replied. She deposited herself behind him. He turned around in his seat to face her. She was grinning, like she always was whenever she did something stupid within visual range of Nobuyuki.
"Wow," he said with a roll of his eyes. She looked away from him and he followed her gaze to the white-haired boy. He was grinning too, the same grin, and Nobuyuki got the impression that it would be an extremely long year.
"Nicely done there! Pretty ballsy– did you know Komori-sensei was nine-tenths senile before you said that stuff?" the boy asked.
"No, I kinda figured I'd get kicked out of class. It worked out, though!" Sachi said.
"No kidding? Heh, that's what 'panache' is," he remarked. His brows furrowed and his grin faded slightly. He turned to the girl next to him and said, "Hey, Ren, did you hear me?"
"I heard you, Takumi," she replied. She continued facing the wall, where it appeared that Komori was attempting to give a lecture on something Nobuyuki could hardly make out. Her voice was quiet, her handwriting terrible, and she was teaching English, which Nobuyuki could barely manage in the first place.
"Okay, yeah, and?" the boy called Takumi said.
"I'm blind, Takumi, not an idiot. I know what panache is, I just don't know what it looks like," she said quietly. "Speaking of which..."
Takumi jumped. "Right. Shinohara-kun's, uh, brown hair, neat uniform, looks like he made a face that froze that way. Crazy girl's red hair, long, no jacket, and I don't know where the hell she got that bowtie from but I like it."
Nobuyuki's frown only deepened at his description. "I can make other expressions, but not in English class," he remarked. He gave up on the lesson and turned sideways in his seat, facing the bizarre pair. Ren's blindness provided a pretty good explanation for her appearance, if she dressed herself, and also had a fear of cold weather or something of the sort. It was April and she was dressed for a blizzard. A huge, fluffy white scarf concealed most of her face and neck, her jacket was tightly fastened and she for some indeterminate reason wore a coat over it, and she was wearing sunglasses indoors. Nobuyuki felt a tiny twinge of shame at having dismissed her appearance so quickly before learning that there was a half-decent reason for it. Then again, there was absolutely nothing excusing the pink hair.
"Oh, I'm his sister," Sachi responded. "Sachi. Nobody's called me 'Crazy Girl' since elementary school."
"Nice to meetcha. I'm Takumi Isogai–"
"–and I'm Ren Sasaki. I'm blind, and this is my seeing-eye boyfriend. As questionable of a job as he does," Ren interrupted. Nobuyuki couldn't quite see her face from where he sat, since she didn't seem to value looking at people who were talking to her, but he thought he saw the hint of a grin on her profile.
"Hey! I'm an artist– I'm pretty great at describing stuff, Ren," Takumi replied indignantly.
"I meant the boyfriend part, obviously."
"Then– wait, hold on!"
Sachi began to laugh a loud, pealing laugh. Nobuyuki twisted around and stared with one brow cocked as she descended deeper into a fit of hysterics. While the teacher, as was apparently the standard, acted as though she felt nothing of importance was happening, Sachi's antics drew a few glances from across the room.
"Ah, I'm okay, I'm okay," Sachi said at length, coughing. Takumi grinned.
"Finally, someone who understands our humor, right Ren?" he asked.
"Someone who understands your humor. I'm actually funny," she replied.
"Come on, don't do the straight-man routine right now!"
"Fine. I think you're funny, but anyone who says otherwise is probably right."
"I'll take your opinion over a hundred other guys', Ren," Takumi replied. Nobuyuki rolled his eyes.
There came a slow chuckle, and Nobuyuki glanced in its direction. It came from a slight, plain girl who sat in a corner. She was staring at her hands and laughing slowly, and a deep dread pooled in Nobuyuki's stomach. The chuckle became louder and louder and more violent until it was a roar, a desperate pained shriek twisted into a grin, echoing through the classroom and drowning out sentence structure in a wave. The teacher actually seemed to take notice, dialing a number on her phone with her skeletal fingers, and then the room was quiet except for the roar. Most students looked unnerved, but strangely used to it. Many plugged their ears. Ren put on large white earphones. Nobuyuki looked over at Sachi.
Sachi was staring at the girl with an expression of utter horror, the color drained from that familiar face, her eyes misting over, and her jaw slack. He put a hand on his sister's shoulder quietly, but she seemed numb to it. A well-dressed boy came in through the door and took the laughing girl by the arm, escorting her out. A moment later, Komori-sensei cleared her throat and turned back to the board, fingers came out of ears, Takumi took off Ren's earphone and she stowed them in a coat pocket, and class progressed.
"What the ever-loving fuck was that?" Sachi asked at once.
"The laughing thing? The doctors are calling it Sudden Amygdaloid Dysfunction, I think, but mostly we just call it The Giggles. SAD is too ironic a name for it," Ren said.
"Yeah, it's pretty creepy. Hits the nervous, twitchy, overworked kind of kids– you know, the ones with seven clubs and eight sports? I guess adults too, but mostly we just hear about the kids," Takumi added.
"Good thing, too– Takumi will never need to worry about it," Ren said.
"Ouch, Ren. I do okay!"
"Sure. You're my ride home, so I might as well indulge you."
"...This is normal?" Sachi asked in a low, strained voice.
"Sorta– been going on for a while now, I guess," Takumi replied.
"What happens after that?" Nobuyuki added suddenly.
"There's a whole wing of the hospital dedicated to studying them, and I guess caring for them. They seem pretty happy, if that's any consolation," Ren replied.
"I guess," said Nobuyuki, his brows lowered. Sachi gritted her teeth but said nothing. There was a quiet, awkward moment, before Takumi broke the silence again.
"Hey, did you guys hear that Bliss is doing yet another album?" he asked.
"Who?" asked Nobuyuki.
"How have you never heard of Bliss? It's the hottest craze here!"
"I guess down south we don't, uh, do whatever that is."
"Bliss is the worst, most indescribably bad idol group that has ever risen from a cankered sore on the ass of Sutai-no-Toshi," Ren said without preamble.
"...why?" Nobuyuki asked.
"They're so–"
"–Pink. They're indescribably pink,"
"They're sweet like warm caramel poured down your throat through a funnel," Ren continued, ignoring Takumi's contribution.
"Why does everyone like them, then?" Nobuyuki asked.
"I have no idea, but don't talk about them to anyone wearing a pink wristband. That's kind of their dumb little fan signal," said Takumi. Nobuyuki quickly glanced around. Aside from Ren, Takumi, himself, Sachi, and two or three other kids, every single person in the room was wearing a pink wristband. Even their teacher wore one loose on her ancient, withered arm.
"...Wow," he said after a moment. "Maybe they're actually good."
"Ren, you have one of their albums, right?" Takumi asked.
"Yes. Pirated, of course," Ren said. She took a small music player out of her coat, with a pair of earbuds dangling from a cord. "Listen."
Nobuyuki and Sachi each put in one earbud, and Takumi obligingly pulled up Bliss' album. There was a long lull, as they listened. And then Sachi spoke.
"Let's kill them. We'll get caught, but it's the right thing to do. We would be martyrs," she said quickly as their first song, saccharine and about nothing in particular, finished. Nobuyuki found it strangely enjoyable, but decided to keep it to himself.
"That's what I've always said!" Ren said.