Here's chapter two. My schedule is to write the next chapter before I post the previous one, so that's why it'll take longer for chapters to appear.
"For homework, pages one-thirty-six to one-forty will be read, and complete the questions on page one-forty-one."
There is little commotion as students hasten to scrawl down the numbers. Karma isn't one of them. His head rests on the back of the chair, hand hangs by the side, clutching a red pen.
It's already day five, and it's agonizing him.
"Now, about the formula that seems to be troubling us -"
Knock knock.
Heads turn. Mr. Karasuma, their physical education teacher, is at the door.
It's unlike him to knock, everyone thinks.
"Yes, Mr. Karasuma?" Even their teacher is mildly surprised, shown by a pink-dominated color scheme.
"You have a phone call." The PE teacher's expression is unreadable as he turns and leaves the room.
"Ooh, a phone call! I rarely ever get phone calls!" His face turns an even more intense shade of rose. "I'll be right back, class!" he says and hurries out of the room, leaving his students bemusedly wondering what just happened.
The class gradually lapses into comfortable conversation, a familiar atmosphere. He lets his eyes drift away from the door which his teacher just disappeared into. They finally land on the desk one row up and one desk left from his.
The empty desk.
He sighs and throws his head back, dropping the pen with a resounding clack.
Ryunosuke Chiba, who is mired in the day's homework, looks back uncomfortably. It's just one row back - Karma. The aura he's throwing off is depressing, in lack of a better word. Mournful, even.
Tap.
"Nakamura-san?"
Rio Nakamura stands in front of his desk, looking like business.
"Hey…" she leans in close, her blonde hair tickling the wood. "Don't you think Karma-kun's acting sorta strange?"
"Uh…I guess so…" he says, unsure of how to reply. Out of all his classmates, Rio Nakamura was probably the least likely to talk to him, much less approach him about something.
"Oh, come on!" She clucks. "Even I can sense it - he's not up to his usual standards."
He glances back again, this time warily. "Don't you think he'll hear us talking about him?"
She shrugs indifferently. "He's too under the weather to care, now tell me your thoughts."
Eh!? Now this was just getting stranger and stranger by the moment. He proceeds to detail what he can discern, although still confusedly.
"Thanks." She draws herself up, hands on hips. "Now I just have to get to the bottom of it…" she murmurs, and walks off, leaving the sharpshooter as bewildered as ever.
"Hrr hrr hrr, I'm back!"
The students snap to attention as their teacher strides purposefully...actually, more like awkwardly slithers back into the room.
"What was the call about, Koro-sensei?" Kaede Kayano asks earnestly.
"Okuda-san has recovered enough to come back to school, starting tomorrow!"
Those words are met with cheers and celebration.
"Yay!"
"I can't wait till she finds out all the homework she missed…"
"Don't be such a downer!"
People continue to celebrate all around him, but for Karma, it's not happiness. It's the poison of dread laced with specks of determination.
Haha...poison, just like her.
This is where I find out what's wrong with me.
"...nah, I think he looks about the same from last week," Koki Mimura muses, studying the redhead from afar.
"But he didn't even look happy when Koro-sensei said that Okuda's coming back!" the blonde persists.
Mimura sighs. "Look, I don't know where you're getting at, but that's all that I see." He shrugs half-heartedly. "Sorry I wasn't able to help you." He gets up and walks over to Taiga Okajima, striking up a conversation with him.
Hm, well that's just one out of twenty-seven. Now on to the next one.
"Heyyyy, Nagisa-kun~" she calls, drawing out the word.
"Nakamura-san!" He stiffens, obviously bracing for her teasing.
"Don't worry, it's nothing like that." She kneels beside him and coaxes his ear closer.
What's going on here? he thinks, but leans in anyways.
"Do you think...Karma-kun's been acting strangely lately?" she whispers.
Phew...I thought it was going to be something else… "Well...I wouldn't call it strange…" he begins. She nods quickly. "Continue."
"Well...after Okuda-san fell, I passed him on my way here, and…" He looks at the blonde. She's practically hanging onto every word he said. He gives her a weird look and goes on.
"His eyes...were different."
He thinks back to the day. Passing him, that look…
"His eyes are usually guarded. Defensive-like."
She can understand that, she sees it whenever she talks with him.
"But this time...they were soft."
Soft!?
"I mean...vulnerable. His walls were down," he hastily clarifies. He doesn't want Nakamura getting any funny ideas...it was bad enough she teased him about Kayano...and crossdressing...he didn't need Karma getting added to that list as well.
"Ohh. I see what you mean." She gives the person in particular a long stare from across the room. He is lounging lazily on his chair, twirling a pencil from finger to finger. It's honestly not all that different from the usual Karma...but it is. There's just something, something about him that seems so different than the day-to-day one she's used to…
I'll have to figure it out later.
"Thanks, Nagisa-kun!" She slowly gets up and walks back to her desk. No point in studying, Koro-sensei's letting us talk...he's probably high on the fact that our neighbourhood chemist is coming back…
Nagisa is the only source of information she needs. He told her everything she needs to know.
Now...what to do with it?
It nags at her all the way home, after the last bell has tolled. She's so deep in thought, she doesn't notice it.
Crack!
Boom.
Sound and light explode, and the heavens rip open.
"Oh...it's raining…" she mumbles.
My uniform's going to get soaked.
She sprints the rest of the way, dropping her bag the moment she's inside.
"I'm home!"
She gathers up her things and makes her way to her room.
"Ugh, I'm all wet…"
As she lays out her raindrop-splattered outfit, she realizes it.
"Oh, right…"
An image of Karma today surfaces. Looking all bored-like, less talkative than usual, which wasn't much, mind you. Jacket open, knife in one hand, pencil in the other...
...he was wearing a tie…
He never wears ties!
Her homework is forgotten as she hurriedly dons a shirt and shorts to call up Nagisa.
"Sorry, my dear partner in crime…"
It's time to get to the bottom of this.
I had to tell mom I was meeting her for a homework project...why does she want to meet me here, of all places, anyways?
The bluenette looks around the deserted main campus yard. Not a soul in sight...except for him.
Did he mention it's pouring buckets?
He'd just changed out of his school uniform when his phone had started buzzing rapidly, and answering it had revealed that Nakamura wanted to meet him at the main campus. And fast.
It's something important, she'd stressed. Just meet me there. And then she'd hung up abruptly, leaving him more confused than he had at the beginning.
"Mom? I'm going out to meet a friend for work!" He had called, picking up an umbrella.
"Are you sure? It's raining really hard, I don't want you to get hurt," she fretted.
"I'll be fine." He had stepped outside and immediately regretted his actions. It was raining, really hard. I promised her though.
He had sighed and opened his umbrella. This had better be worth it.
And that was how he'd ended up here.
"Nagisa-kun!" She's running, as he expected. She comes to a halt in front of him, panting. She isn't holding an umbrella.
"Nakamura-san!?" He rushes forward, extending his hand to shield her as well. "What are you doing out here without protection?"
"I...realized something about...Karma…" she gasps between pants.
Was she really running this hard to talk to me? And without an umbrella, no less? "So you had to run out here in the heavy rain to tell me?"
"Look, I know I sound crazy, but…" She looks up, her eyes gleaming. "He was wearing a tie!"
A...tie…? He musters his best really? expression (which is difficult, because he doesn't utilize it very often). "I wear a tie too," he points out.
"Yeah, but…" she holds out her phone, displaying a picture of Karma. It was taken a few weeks ago, from what the date says. "Here he isn't!"
She furiously taps on it and a new picture comes up. "This one was taken today." It's Karma again, except with the tie. "He's been wearing a tie for these last few days!"
"...I'm not following you…" he says, still extremely confused by this whole thing.
She closes her phone and turns around. He's afraid he's done something to upset her, until she speaks again. "Don't you get it? He used to not wear a tie but now he does...it can only mean one thing!"
Maybe it's that he's actually following dress code for once…
"Something traumatic or changing came up in his life, and now he wants to make amends for it!"
What!? His eyes nearly pop out. That's so specific!
"It happens in every romance novel," she swoons. "I wonder if he's in love."
Romance!? In love!?
This is getting weirder by the minute…
"Nagisa-kun!" She snaps her fingers. "What's something that's happened, something big, in the last week or so?"
"Oh! Um…" he names the first thing that comes to mind. "Okuda-san fell from the roof a few days ago…"
No reply.
"Nakamura-san?"
"Oh you are a GENIUS!" She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him around. "You said he acted weird after that, which fits perfectly with what he's doing now! I knew it had something to do with love! Maybe he's missing her a lot…oh, sorry, Nagisa-kun." She stops shaking him and he wobbles around dizzily for a few seconds. She rubs her hands together and grins evilly. "Now we just have to think of a way to get him to admit it himself…"
He sweats nervously. How did I get dragged into this?
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I don't have much else to say, but feel free to leave a review if you spot any mistakes, or just to simply review.
Until next time!