(A/N: 'Nother chapter for ya. Enjoy.)

Chapter 6: Advise

Before the incident at the cursed school, Satoshi Mochida had always regarded his relationship with Naomi Nakashima as an intimate friendship. They had been friends for a very long time, longer than most of the other people he knew.

For about ninety-nine percent of the time, Satoshi enjoyed Naomi's company to the fullest. Not only was she very kind to him most of the time, she was also, in Satoshi's eyes, extremely attractive. Satoshi had multiple times caught himself being in some kind of euphoric state, looking at her while she was doing a number of different things, like laughing with Seiko, scolding Yoshiki and asking Sakutaro what was up when he got frustrated with something.

However, the more time Satoshi had spent in the machine, the more his feelings for Naomi had developed. When they had explored the abandoned bomb shelter beneath the school itself, and where they had ultimately found their way out from the machine by putting the long-worn core to rest, Satoshi had found himself with such strong feelings for his tomboyish friend that he felt a nauseas warmth in the pit of his stomach. He didn't have to be a top notch biologist to figure out what that meant…

It was the human body's natural way of responding to a purely chemical reaction within the body when in near proximity with a very special person. It was love.

Satoshi usually didn't let ailments get him down. The few colds he had experienced in his life mostly kept him home from school a day or two at most, and he was quickly up on his feet and at it again. That was something which most of his classmates found highly admirable with him; his fantastic lesson attendance rate.

However, no matter how resilient he was when it came to afflictions and diseases, no one, not even he, could resist the side effects that came along with the phenomenon that was known as love…

Which was exactly the particular feeling that got him down on the last period of the day.

Satoshi sat right next to Naomi, due to a change in desk arrangements by the new teacher Makato. Had this been before the incident, it probably wouldn't have affected him half as much as it did now. Satoshi couldn't figure out why to save his life. His most probable guess was that this feeling had lied buried just beneath the surface for a somewhat long time, and that it had simply taken the opportunity to appear just at that moment, down in the abandoned bomb shelter. At this point, he wasn't exactly sure of what to make of it, either…

Probably the sudden change in his usual demeanour that made a certain friend of his approach him after the lesson, when all the students were starting to drain out of the 2-9 classroom.

-"Hey, Satoshi?" Yoshiki asked him with some concern. "You okay, man?" Satoshi lifted his gaze and looked at the taller, bleach-haired boy standing right by his desk. Satoshi blinked once and looked at him again.

-"Oh, hey, Yoshiki… Yeah, I'm okay. Why?" If it was the case, Satoshi hadn't even noticed himself that he had a slight change in behaviour. Both he and others usually deemed him as bright, cheerful and optimistic, but right now, he was actually pretty out of it, appearing fairly distracted most of the time and not very talkative, like he usually was.

-"Nah, I dunno, you just seemed kind of out of it during the class. You sure everything is okay?" Yoshiki asked again, throwing a quick side-glance at the entrance of the classroom. Satoshi smiled weakly at him, starting to get up from his desk.

-"Actually…" Satoshi began, adopting a somewhat saddened face expression at the still active nausea due to a certain feeling for a certain someone in a certain part of his body. He had begun contemplating talking to his friend about the matter, because quite frankly, even though Satoshi never had anything against any of his classmates, except for those who treated his friends badly, he also felt like there weren't that many people he could trust with telling all of his personal problems.

Seiko and Satoshi didn't always have much interaction, but when they did, it was usually just friendly chats and the occasional joke. Seiko was very fond of Satoshi, in a friendly way. The same was with Mayu and Ayumi.

Satoshi and Sakutaro didn't do much together, either. The one time they had truly really talked to each other was when they were assigned as a pair when working with an English project. Neither of them had anything against the other, though. Quite frankly, Satoshi respected Sakutaro for his seriousness and level headedness, while Sakutaro appreciated Satoshi's energy and will to work, unlike some other people he knew. Maybe they weren't the closest of friends at all, but they would certainly work together if the need was. Sakutaro had even complimented Satoshi on his reaction to Ayumi and Ms Yui's prank, and he had not hesitated to provide him with information when they met up in the cursed place when looking for clues.

Granted, Satoshi had caught Sakutaro taking pictures of a dead body, but he had decided to put it to the back of his mind at that time.

Of course, there was also Naomi, whom he often talked to about problems and things he wondered and thought about. As it had seemed, Naomi was never reluctant to answer his questions, which Satoshi was grateful for, but not even Naomi was suitable for all kinds of situations.

This being one of them.

-"Can I tell you on the way home?" Satoshi asked. Their homes were located in the same general area, so they could take the same path to a certain degree, only needing to split up at a point close to both of their homes.

Yoshiki regarded his friend with even more concern as he nodded a yes to the question.

-"Sure thing, man."

Satoshi sighed with relief at Yoshiki's confirmatory answer. He got up from his desk, propping his bag up on his back. Then, he suddenly felt a hand touch his shoulder. Somewhat still in his own thoughts about Naomi, he jumped a little and turned around.

-"Hey, Satoshi." Naomi turned out to still have been in the classroom. She must have heard his and Yoshiki's conversation.

She was standing very close to him. Satoshi actually enjoyed this closeness, mostly because he just really enjoyed Naomi's company. "Is something troubling you, Satoshi?" She asked. Satoshi cursed himself for being so apparent with his… Affliction. But he couldn't tell her. Not now, not since she was really the reason to it all.

-"Y-Yeah, I'm really okay. I was just going to walk with Yoshiki." Satoshi said quickly, hoping that Naomi hadn't heard the part about Satoshi actually confessing that something was indeed troubling him. Instead, Naomi just smiled brightly at him.

-"Oh, alright. But if anything happens, you know you can always talk to me." She said, almost sounding a little disappointed, before turning around and proceeding to leave the classroom. Just before leaving, she turned back to face the two boys standing next to one another.

-"Bye, Satoshi! Bye, Kishinuma!" She exclaimed cheerfully, almost sounding a bit forced, before leaving Satoshi and Yoshiki's fields of view.

It did not take long for Naomi to get home, and when she did, she simply left her backpack on the floor. Her mother wasn't home at the moment, so she wouldn't have to answer any stupid questions.

As soon as she reached her room, she threw herself onto her bed and started crying her eyes out, not even bothering to take her student uniform off.

_

Both Satoshi and Yoshiki looked after the young girl who had just exited the classroom.

-"Did… Nakashima seem a little strange to you?" Yoshiki asked after a few seconds of empty silence had passed. Satoshi kept his gaze locked on the doorway Naomi had just left through, and then turned to Yoshiki

-"I… Maybe Shinohara's absence is starting to make her lose it…" Satoshi said with his head hung somewhat low, his hand balled into a fist as his mind flashed back to the machine they had spent the most horrifying hours in their life at.

-"Could be…" Yoshiki agreed, raising one hand to rub his neck awkwardly. "I know how much Shinohara meant to her… And now that nobody except for us can remember her…" Satoshi could even feel a tear trying to fight its way out through his eye when he, too, thought about the poor souls who had fallen in those halls… Sure, he hadn't been the closest with any of them, but one was his teacher and the other three his friends. Or, somewhat, at least. Satoshi straightened up.

-"Let's go. Won't be any good standing around." He said, and Yoshiki couldn't do much but agree.

Well outside the school and on their way home, Satoshi decided to tell Yoshiki about his problem.

-"So, Yoshiki…" He began, earning the taller boy's attention. "Could we keep this between ourselves?" Satoshi knew that Yoshiki was very much trustworthy, but he really just wanted to make sure.

-"Sure thing, man." Yoshiki replied, not really having anything else to say. Satoshi took a deep breath.

-"You see… It's about Naomi, actually…" He began sheepishly, unsure of how to present his problem. Yoshiki raised an eyebrow, somewhat confused. He did feel like he did have a hunch of what it was about, though.

-"Hm? What about Nakashima?" Yoshiki asked, his curiosity perked. Satoshi had his hands in his pocket, and his gaze drilled into the ground. When he looked up again, Yoshiki could see in his eyes that he was indeed troubled by something, which he had assured Naomi that he wasn't minutes ago.

-"I…" Satoshi began timidly. "I think I've fallen for her… Quite a lot…" He explained, and Yoshiki nearly choked on his own breath. He managed to suppress it, though, and patted his friend on the back, perhaps harder than he would have intended, and let out a huge laugh.

-"Haha! Nice going, Satoshi!" He exclaimed exasperatedly, and Satoshi grunted as his friend's hand made contact with his back. Had it been any harder, Satoshi figured he'd probably have the air knocked out of his lungs. At some times, Yoshiki was a bit stronger than he realized.

-"Hng…" He groaned, quite surprised at Yoshiki's enthusiastic reaction to the news he had told him. "I just…" He found himself unable to say anything; he was at a loss of words.

-"Well, it's understandable. She's pretty hot." Yoshiki said quite bluntly, and Satoshi reacted as he had expected.

-"Y-Yoshiki!" He raised his voice a bit, his cheeks a bright shade of red. He then looked around instinctively, wondering if anyone else was nearby and if so they had heard him. Thankfully, there wasn't, so he just exhaled in a somewhat feeling of relief.

Yoshiki instead delivered to him a load of pearling laughter.

-"Relax, man! I'm just messing with you." He still laughed as he excused himself for his recent behaviour. Satoshi couldn't help but laugh a little himself, somewhat refreshed to experience Yoshiki's cheerful demeanour for a change.

-"It's just… She might not even feel the same…" Satoshi then said, brought back to sadness a bit with this fact. Yoshiki's still persisting laughter died down quickly as he was presented with the actual amount that this problem was getting to his brown haired friend. Yoshiki sighed and placed his hand on Satoshi's shoulder, with much more ease this time, as a gesture of friendship and, if it would be perceived that way, comfort.

-"Eh. If she doesn't, there's not really much you can do, is there?" He wasn't sure what to say, so Yoshiki just settled with one of the cheesiest lines ever known to mankind. Satoshi sighed, and they had now reached the point where they had to split up, so they bid their goodbyes to one another.

_

Thankfully, Ayumi didn't live that far away from school. If she hurried, and she always did, she could make it to the school in just about half an hour. Of course, the trains she used to get there weren't always on time, and that's why she was a little late home this Monday afternoon.

-"Welcome home, Ayumi!" Her mother Asuka called from within the apartment as she stepped in through the door. Ayumi took off her jacket and hung it up on the rack like she always. Then, she neatly put her backpack against the wall and walked into the living room. Asuka was sitting on the couch, and though she had already discovered it, the fact that everyone except for her and the others who had survived Heavenly Host had forgotten her existence, it still hit her like a brick in the face. Hinoe had always been a conduit of support for Ayumi whenever she experienced problems, and now that she wasn't around anymore…

-"Hi, mom!" Ayumi said as cheerfully as she could manage, mind the circumstances, hugging her mother and kissing her forehead.

-"How was school today?"

Ayumi would answer, like she always would, that it had been completely fine and that nothing special had happened, but she eventually figured against it. There was actually something on her mind, and she felt like right now, she needed to vent a bit. Normally, she'd probably have spoken to Hinoe about it, but since she was now another deceased soul at the hands of power black magic, her mother was really the only one left she could speak to. She did feel like she wanted to keep this out of her group of friends and just have it stay between her and her mom.

-"It was… Good." Ayumi began, making up her mind on bringing up her feelings about Satoshi. "Mom, how did you and dad get together?" Ayumi didn't know where the question came from, but it strangely felt like a natural way of starting a conversation of that type, unexpected and without any forewarning as it was.

Upon hearing the sudden question, Asuka looked up at her daughter, curiosity perked.

-"Hm? Why do you want to know?" She asked, but not in a way that suggested that she found it an annoying or unnecessary question. Ayumi folded her hands behind her back, walking over to the couch in order to sit down.

-"Well… I just got curious, I guess." Ayumi explained, but that wasn't the whole truth. Nevertheless, she was really eager to hear about this, because as far as she was certain, her mother hadn't told much at all of her life before Ayumi had been born.

-"Very well, then." Her mother said, her soft voice working well together with the warm smile she showed Ayumi. "I met him at the place I worked around, as an archivist of some kind; I sorted out a lot of document, exactly nineteen years ago. I was generally very distrustful of men; they're simply cheaters, it's in their blood, but somehow, this particular man felt very different." Ayumi held her breath as her mother told a tale she hadn't before had the pleasure to hear. Though, she still knew and understood the perspective her mother had, the mostly deceptive nature of men was something she had heard much about.

-"He would always open doors for me when we crossed paths, and whenever I had trouble with carrying things, he would always help me. Eventually, he offered to buy lunch for the two of us, and although I was hesitant at first, I decided to give him a chance. Before I knew it, I had fallen head over heels for him. My mother even warned me about the nature of men, and though I had had unfaithful boyfriends before, I couldn't help feeling secure with your father." Ayumi didn't say a word as she listened to Asuka's previously untold story.

-"A year after I met him, you were born, and mark my words; you were such a beautiful little girl… Of course, you still are." Ayumi couldn't help but let out a short "Mom…" But Asuka wasn't fazed. "And shortly after you were born, we got married. And that's the story up to today!" Asuka finished happily, as if she had just told her entire life in a few minutes.

In some perspectives, she might as well have.

Ayumi tried to suppress a noise that seemed to be a mix between relief and anxiousness. Her own love life was somewhat on the bad side, seeing as the only singly guy she was interested in clearly had a similar interest in another girl.

-"Was there something else you wanted to know about?" Her mother's question brought her back to the present, and she shook her head lightly. She would see if she would tell her mother about Satoshi, but she didn't feel like now was the best time.