Chapter 2

"So, how is she?"

Ren knew what the old principal was going to ask even before he opened his mouth. It had become a routine, after all. Ren would walk past the faculty lounge at nine in the morning and the balding, smiling man would be there, waiting with a pile of papers in hand. Wanyuudou was pretending to work. He was pretending to care.

"So, how is she?" He asked again. Ren bit back a "I heard you the first time" and tightly smiled , he had actually thought of giving Wanyuudou different answers to make it seem that he was paying particular attention to the student in question. But his superior seemed to be satisfied with a run-of-the-mill "She's doing just fine", so he didn't even bother making the effort. He found it was a good decision after several days, when every morning started to feel like deja vu. Today, Ren said the same four words. Only this time, the exasperation he had so very closely reined in managed to escape in the last second.

If Wanyuudou-kouchou noticed, he didn't let on. Ren had a gnawing suspicion that Wanyuudou was the type of man who saw and heard just those that he wanted to.

"Is she participating in class?" the principal pressed, falling into step with him.

"Well, she's very...open to new ideas. Very obedient, too."

Wanyuudou-kouchou was delighted, and he gave Ren a pat on the back to show it. "I was not wrong about leaving her in your hands." He followed Ren into the half-empty faculty room and straight to his cubicle, not minding the blade-sharp stares Ren was getting from his colleagues. "I knew from the very first second that you'd get along with her. You two seem very compatible, personality-wise." Ren almost scoffed. If getting along meant Ai allowing him to glimpse at her every now and then, then he had to agree. That probably made Ren and Ai best friends in Wanyuudou's book.

Ren carefully deposited the stuff on his desk. To the untrained eye, his table was organized and teacher-like: notebooks on one end, red pencil sharpener on the other. There was the expected photo of family (his was of he and his grandfather, smiling at the camera. He was eight then, and didn't know any better), and behind it, a tinted glass container full of markers and pens. But in comparison to the cluttered space next to his, Ren's table shouted pretense and it was a wonder why he was the only one who noticed.

"I'll make sure to update you if anything comes up," assured Ren, subtly hinting the man to go away. "Have a nice day, Wanyuudou-kouchou." Smiling like he meant it, he waved the elder away with an open palm before making a show of arranging his already arranged desk. He admitted to himself that the principal's attempt at building interoffice rapport was getting old to him pretty fast. Perhaps it was the apparent pointlessness of it that turned him off more than anything; because despite the initial mystery Wanyuudou had planted in Ren's mind, the student he was weirdly fixated on failed to hold Ren's attention. She was absurdly quiet sometimes, yes, but to a teacher like him, she was still perfectly normal. He would even go as far as saying that if monotony had a form, it would very much look like Enma Ai.

So the next morning, Ren decided to skip the ritual. Instead of going to the faculty room to drop his previous class' things off, he went the other way and made do with carrying the crumpled pile of homework to his next class. It was located on the opposite side of the building and Ren was most likely going to pass more annoying students and equally grating co-teachers on the way, but it was either this or that, and Ren thought there was really no choice to make.

Outside, the grass looked like an ocean of green. Gusts of wind bent and blew the compliant blades and the sun shone in that peculiar way that made everything seem a little bit better. If Ren only looked out of the windows, he would see it. But since he was preoccupied with dodging as many people as possible, it was lost on him.

He was humming to a made-up tune when he passed the old store room. It was a stale fixture in the school, something that you pass on your way to somewhere else. It was locked, anyway, so there was nothing interesting in it except for the fact that it was closed in so securely with two big padlocks. And as he was oblivious due to the current state of his preoccupation, Ren failed to notice that the perpetually locked room was no longer such. The rusty chains slithered to the floor with a metallic hiss. Ren glanced to his right at the sound.

It took no rocket scientist to figure out that something was off.

Ren walked to the door and reached out to take the heavy lock in his hand. He cocked his head to peer inside the slightly opened door. "Kobayashi-san, you in there?"

It was silent for the first few seconds, but as he was about to walk away, there was a shuddering breath. It whisked past his hearing, more like an illusion than anything else. But it made Ren freeze. His mind quickly debated on going in or leaving but there was a pull in his gut that told him to stay.

So with furrowed brows, he pushed the door a little more and squeezed himself in.

The place was dark, dank, and not surprisingly, smelled of old socks. Ren's lip curled in disgust.

Turning to his left, he tried to listen closer, focusing on the shallow breaths that made his heart race. After all, Ren was a very practical man and like all practical men, did not believe in ghosts. Or at least, did not want to.

"Is anybody here?" The taps of his shoes on the floor unknowingly matched the weak exhales of the unseen stranger.

"Are you all right?" The stranger wasn't answering but he kept at it. By the time of Ren's third call, he had already reached one corner of the room. It was a dead end. He turned around, clasping the wall for balance, something to hold on to as the nervousness got to his chest. There were bells going off somewhere in his brain, but the thought Try again was stronger.

"Look. I'm here to help," he said. If you need it. There was still no word.

Despite the protests of his common sense, Ren did his best to scour the room, going to the other corners. His hands served as his guides, brushing and clutching at random things to keep him from hurting himself. Dirt clung to his fingers as though desperate to attach itself to something else other than the room.

The breaths were still audible.

Ren's thoughts ran over themselves in haste. What was he doing? He should be in class in ten minutes. But his feet didn't seem to want to leave, and he cursed them for it. It was not every day that he found himself in a situation that required him to stray from the schedule neatly printed out on his journal. Nine o'clock, first class. Ten o'clock, second class. Eleven o'clock, lunch. And all it went until three in the afternoon. Nowhere did it say Eight fifty, investigate strange sounds in the empty store room. Ren had the strong urge to slap himself in the face, but the urge to find out was stronger.

He circled the room one more time. And then another. He was pretty sure his footsteps had made a path in the unswept floor by now. Sweat ran down his back and he didn't have to look at himself in the light to know that his shirt was stained.

It finally came to the point when he no longer had to use his hands to know where he was going. The turns became oddly instinct. His steps were surer and he had learned to step more quietly to minimize anything else other than the inhales he was trying to trace. But the longer he did, the more he felt lost.

And Ichimoku Ren never was a patient man.

"Fine," said Ren, talking to the darkness, "if you don't want me to bother you, then fine. But if you're a student... if you're a student you should go back to class and stop playing pranks.

And if you're not a student-" Ren swallowed, "then you have no business being here so you should leave before security catches you." Security meant two middle-aged guards who spent their time napping in the gym, but the stranger didn't need to know that. Threats were his last resort at this point and he made sure they were as convincing as they could make them. He gave the stranger a few more seconds of chance to respond.

Annoyingly enough, it seemed to Ren that the breaths came calmer, as if the stranger was relieved that he was giving up. Ren felt the anger rise, so he knew it was time to go. The stranger could breathe away for two more years undisturbed for all he cared. With a final squint, he trudged back to the door.

And tripped.

The pain was immediate, lancing through his skull before he could fathom that he was facedown on the filthy linoleum. His left knee, the first to hit the ground, felt like it had been jack hammered. The right side of his face was numb and ringing.

Nonetheless, Ren tried to push himself up, spitting out the disgusting whatever that had found its way onto his lips.

"Fucking shit." Student or not, he was in too much pain to care if he was heard by the stranger. He grabbed his hurt leg with two hands and slowly tried to fold it closer to his chest. The skin stretched excruciatingly, making him stop.

This is what you get for caring, a cynical voice in his head jeered, but there was another jolt of pain and it was gone.

Lids closed, Ren could now hear two sets of pained inhales. And when he opened his eyes, he saw another pair looking at him right back.

His heart went all the way up to his throat before his brain processed the familiarity of those gleaming orbs. They were red, even in the dark.

"Enma Ai?"

Her pupils held surprise, too. Judging from where her eyes were, it seemed like she was crouched on the floor. Ren imagined she was holding herself away from him, wary and untrusting. "Are you okay?" Ren asked, forgetting his probably broken leg. "Are you hurt?" It was instinct that made him reach out to her.

"Don't touch me."

His outstretched fingers curled in rejection. "What?"

"I said, don't touch me." Her voice was tens of decibels away from being considered a shout but the thinly veiled dislike in her words made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Ren's knee throbbed in a steady rhythm under the fabric of his slacks. Half of his face felt sensitive and swollen. The back of his throat burned with words that itched to match her ungratefulness. But he couldn't bring himself to say anything but a bleak "Fine." The girl did not want anything to do with him; that much was apparent. And he would happily go on his way if not for the fact that his leg felt like it was going to fall off.

He put all of his weight on his right foot and tried to prop himself up to no avail. The muscles on his injured knee screamed with the effort. Ren sighed. "I know you're not feeling particularly helpful at the moment, but I have a class waiting for me, so I would really appreciate it if you'd lend me hand."

He threw in a "please", too, for good measure.

But it felt like she stared at him for hours before he heard a shuffle. He expected her to stand up and do something, anything, yet all he felt was an unknown object falling into his lap. He grasped it carefully. It was an old baseball bat. Ren got the urge to swing it in her direction.

"So what am I supposed to do with this?"

Her eyes vanished for a second as she blinked. "It's a crutch."

A crutch. "Right. Thanks. Great." Ren never thought highly of the human species but this particular instance made his head spin. "So I'm just going to lean on this and hope I don't fall and break my other leg." She kept quiet as he tried to stand up again, huffing heavily. The metal bat clinked as it hit the linoleum. Its rounded end convinced Ren he was about to hurt himself on purpose but seeing no other alternative, he merely bit his lip and hoped for the least worst.

There was no thud. He was up. The bat shook dangerously under his sweaty palm but he was up. His other leg was slightly bent and limp and he was having a hard time trying to figure out how he was going turn around and walk out of the door. There was something about her being there that made Ren feel thoroughly unwelcome and he just wanted to get out.

"Enma-san-"

"There's a bookcase."

"A what?"

"A bookcase. To your right. It's empty but it can hold your weight." Her voice was quiet and undisturbed, as though she wasn't inside an unused storage room with her injured math teacher. Ren blindly followed her instructions, stretching out his arm as far as it went. His fingers came across the texture of polished wood and he grabbed it desperately. He ambled his way to the exit with small, pained steps. He wanted to ask how she knew the room so well but decided not to. They had only been in the room for a small amount of time but he already got the impression that she wasn't much of an explainer.

The end of the bat hit the door first and with an exhale of relief, he felt for the knob. His hands must be filthy by now.

Ren looked back at her, at those eyes. "You're okay, right?" Of course, there was no reply. And he didn't really want to wait.

So he turned the metal handle and pulled it open. The sliver of light was weak but it was enough to hurt his eyes. He looked away, letting his pupils adjust to the change. When he could no longer see white spots dancing in his vision, he completely opened them.

Enma Ai opened hers, too. And he bet she could see the bruise on his right brow and the gray covering the front of his shirt just as well as he could see the blood running down her forehead and the grimace of pain on her lips that clearly told him he wasn't the only one in dire need of an icepack.

There was something strange about the way she shrunk every time Onna's manicured nails got too close to her face. It was with an almost desperation that she leaned away from the nurse's motherly ministrations, as though it hurt more to be helped than to be left alone. Ren had the cold compress squarely on his right eye but with his left, her movements to avoid Onna were perspicuous.

He shifted slightly from his cot and leaned more on the piled pillows on his back. He watched as Onna's palms grazed Ai's arms. Her wince was like a nervous jump and it made him worry more than he would like to let on.

When they asked her about what happened, Ai replied with a curt "I fell", which to Ren was right up there with "the dog ate my homework". But Onna did not push. Ren knew she had learned that the best way to make an adolescent be honest with you is to first swallow all of their lies.

"Are you bruised anywhere else?" asked Onna as she finished putting a band aid on Ai's head wound.

Ai's hands fisted in her lap, making her skirt ride up an inch. Ren glimpsed the faded watercolor-like spots on her knees. "No."

"Does it hurt anywhere else?"

"No."

Onna threw a worried glance at Ren. "Are you sure you don't need your grandma to come over?"

Ai tilted her head to openly stare at the nurse. "No."

The girl clearly thought nothing of her injuries, no matter how visible and excruciating they looked.

"O-kay then." Onna gathered the tray full of bloodied cotton balls and gauze before turning towards Ren. He sat up a bit straighter, trying not to flex his knee muscles. "How about you,

Ichimoku-sensei?"

"No worries," Ren grinned, "It'll take more than this to get rid of me." Onna laughed, while Ai's lips pursed grimly.

"Well, I suppose I should go talk to Wanyuudo-kouchou to make sure Inoue-sensei takes care of your classes for today. And as for you, young lady," she looked back at the meek girl, "you can go home. Get some rest."

Ai studied Onna's face before saying "Thank you." Slowly, she slid off the hospital bed. With another inch of leg revealed, Ren couldn't help but see just how much Ai was lying. Her skin was blotted with many bruises that Ren thought would only be natural if she hurled himself down the staircase. He told himself the feeling of sudden concern was the curiosity he almost always never fed, but his next words betrayed him.

"Maybe I can take you home."

Onna didn't even bother hiding her shock. Ai, however, did not show any reaction apart from turning her head slightly in his direction.

"I'm going to be fine," she said, with finality that he had never heard from a teenager. She left the room shortly after that, with both of them adults watching her back, perplexed.

They had seen more than their fair share of angsty, brooding adolescents but they had never seen someone look so...comfortable being one. It was unnerving, at the very least.

"Gotta tell you, Ren, that Ai's one weird kid."

Ren wanted to agree with Onna wholeheartedly but he found himself doubting his instincts. Up until now, he had not been bothered about being wrong; but when it came to Enma Ai, Ren felt he was going to pay dearly for it.

A/N: And I never thought this day would come. I'm trying to draft the rest of this story. We'll see where it leads. Review if you can. -J