TRACK 3

Knocking on heaven's door – Guns n' Roses

Blinding lights hit her eyes amongst the crowd ruckuss, crashing with her in an anguishing manner. She walked a little bit making her way through squeezes and bumps, paying attention to the sound they made. During a brief second there was a total silence and it was impossible for her to move anymore. Where she was she continuously received elbows to her ribs and stomps to her feet, and her heart skipped a beat when the music began. Trying really hard she made her way until the first rows, where she could clearly see the stage, lit with bright multicolored lights, and in that very same moment the sound of a guitar rose against the crowd's euphoria. She raised her eyes and the guitar player received a haze of red light from his back framing his body, lean, strong, and she could admire the movement of each finger as he played. She could see each muscle on his arms that was moved, humid tattooed skin, covered in sweat, that disintegrated into micro beads in the air when he shook his head ending his solo. The ache on her heart rose again when both pairs of eyes crashed into each other. It was really an enigmatic blue, almost not human. Before being able to even react, his eyes were closer to her. The guitarist was coming down the stage and people around him was opening up, giving him space to walk freely, until he reached to her.

"Iki-san", said a husky voice, calling her name. Deep, low, delicious. She could get used to hear her name on that voice, she thought, with her stomach turning to something liquid, almost starting to get painful when he reached with his hand to the small of her back and pulled her into him, closing the gap between their faces. With her chest on his, she felt the vibration of his voice, feeling her face combusting when she heard again, like a whisper:

"Iki Hiyori-san."

"Ya-"

A loud thump scared her and her back jolted backwards, and all of a sudden she found herself sitting in her classroom, mid-literature lecture and with Miss Kamishiro practically hovering above, looking at her through her glasses. She had let a heavy hard cover book fall on her school desk.

"I-ki Hi-yo-ri-san!" said the teacher, again. Still a little confused, Hiyori stood up jumping. She had been dreaming -Mid-class? What was wrong with her? The teacher turned around and slowly returned to her desk in front of everyone. A quiet mutter and some snickers could be heard from her classmates.

"Iki-san, if you feel tired, you're free to go to rest at the infirmary", said the teacher, still turning away from her, "I would advise you to, apparently you're running a fever". Hiyori realized her cheeks were still burning and wished to not be there with all her might. She barely could manage to talk.

"I-I feel… I'm fine."

"Well, so I suppose you could be kind enough to continue reading where we stopped."

Hiyori took her book between her hands but her brain didn't seemed to know where they had stopped reading.

"We're waiting, Iki-san", said the teacher, insisting. Hiyori turned her eyes on panic to her friend Ami, who had her notebook raised over her face, seizing the fact that Miss Kamishiro was still giving her back to them.

"P. 168 6th line!", said in thick and bold letters. Hiyori turned a couple pages and began reading.

"This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments."

Hiyori ended the line with a faint little voice. It had been diminishing upon seeing the growing displease on the teacher's face, as if she was eating something extremely sour.

"Hiyori-san", she said, with a soft and sweet voice that didn't matched with the rest of her face, "I understand that up until now your grades are a little less than excellent in every subject, and that you're a top student even at a mayor quality institute like ours, but I need to ask you, and you need to be absolutely honest", Miss Kamishiro shifted at her seat and looked at her again over her glasses, "are you really aware that this is an elite college guidance school?"

Hiyori felt something hard going down her throat when she swallowed. "Yes, Miss."

"And I suppose you're also aware what does that implies, not only on your credits, but in your professional future."

"Yes, Miss."
Hiyori lowered her eyes more and more. She was never the kind of person that teachers called upon. She kept listening to her professor while her sight traveled around. Outside the day was beautiful and from her classroom window she could see the end of the building number 2 and the main entrance, behind which the city seemed to invite her to float among the rooftops. Seemed nice.

A blue flash got her off the trance of her teacher's voice and suddenly she felt her heart racing wild. Adrenaline told her to run to the front gate, where a dark figure was wiping their sun shades in the cloth they had around the neck. They put the sunglasses on again with a whimsy gesture and shifted the cap over their head. Hiyori was starting to wonder what kind of attire was that, when an irritated squeal from Miss Kamishiro brought her back into the classroom once again.

"Iki-san! Are you even listening to what I'm trying to say?! This is an elite school and therefore if you're finding yourself unable to keep the rhythm, it will be better for you to reconsider."

Clearly, Hiyori was not thinking straight anymore. "I'm sorry, Kamishiro sensei", she snapped, "apparently I do have a bit of a fever, can I go to the infirmary?"

Even when it came out as a question, Hiyori had already stormed off the door as soon as she stopped talking, with her briefcase halfway open, trying to get Shakespeare inside, without waiting for any response from her teacher, who had been left blank. Was her imagination or she was really flying to the front gate?

"And what the fuck should I suppose to do now, Yukine?!" thought Yato, desperately searching for a believable excuse for a guy like him to be loitering outside a prestigious highscool. He found it after a few blocks searching. He could perfectly recall the lilac uniform of the girl he had shared a stare moments before she jumped at the street to save his life. He thought it would be better to hang around the neighborhood for a while until the school bell rang to be sure he wasn't getting suspicious eyes over him, but yet he stood there, carefully observing the building. Halways, sliding doors, big windows, laughters. All those things gave him a nostalgic feeling and he wondered if highschool now was the same as back then. Most surely it wasn't. At least not the way it had been for him.

A pale kid from an oval frame in the wall gave him a scared look. Due to the darkness of the room, he could barely tell it was his own face. The tie around his neck started to get uncomfortably tight and soon he noticed the itch the uniform gave against his skin, feeling heavy. He was an intruder at his own body, which felt numb and covered in cold sweat. From the other side of the haze of light from the window behind him, a cute little voice made the hairs of the nape of his neck to stand when it said, playfully:

"I told you dad was going to get mad."

Yato noticed a warm and nasty feeling at his feet, and looked down. The checkered blue slippers he used to hang around that house were stained with a warm and dark liquid. The smell filled his mouth with an acid taste. The puddle extended a little beyond the light from the window, giving enough lightning for making it able to distinguish the scarlet red of the blood, and the caked fur around the wound-

A squirrel sprinted along the sidewalk between his ankles, and Yato jolted, surprised, trying to not step on the other squirrel following the first one. Intrigued and somewhat relieved for the two intruders good timing, Yato looked back at the direction they came from, expecting to see a cat. Getting down of a tree, gracefully, was the magenta eyed girl from weeks before.

Barely understanding what she just did, Hiyori ran to him. Flustered and breathless for the effort, she could hardly manage to speak. There was no doubt it was him.

"You!- here!..."

Yato placed a hand above his hip, staring at her with curiosity. "Good t'see you're fine."

"Wha'?" She had no clue what he was talking about, but her breathlessness and his intense gaze was enough to make her stutter and not being able to communicate properly was excruciating.

He had removed his sunglasses, and there was it, the paralyzing feeling of his catlike eyes, the thin bridge of his nose, the edge on his cheekbones.

"You're quite verbal, don't cha?" he mocked sarcastically, before making proper eye contact. The hair on his nape stood again and he cleared his throat to keep in check of what he had to do. "Anyways, gotta go now."

Hiyori reacted until then, "Wh-why? You- How?-"

Yato reached at the back of his head with his hand "Listen, I really don't know whod'ya think I am, but you're surely mistaking me for someone else" he shifted his cap and the scarf before turning around. "I just came to check upon you, t'see if you were doin' fine, so there's nothing left for me to do!" he hesitated a bit before giving the first step, "anyways, thanks for saving me and stuff!" Yato began walking, but he couldn't gave two steps away when Hiyori spoke, this time with confidence.

"Your name."

Yato wasn't sure to have heard well. "W-what did you said?"

"I want you to tell me your name!"

He turned around and blinked at her a couple of times.

"You're kidding, right?"

Hiyori put on the most serious and steady look she could, even when her legs felt like jelly. She needed to hear it. She needed to know if the guy standing right in front of her was the same from the accident and the same she had been listening playing his music every night until falling asleep.

Yato was looking at her with interest, and she felt her skin get goosebumps with each passing second. He went from the brown hair framing her face, to her bright eyes, her tiny nose, the youthful lips. In an instant he got his attention to the gate before her. Three figures were crossing the main courtyard almost running.

"We have company" said Yato smiling, and to the confused look from the girl, he pointed at the gates with his chin. Hiyori turned around to see what he meant, and suddenly all the color left from her face, a shiver running through her entire body.

Miss Kamishiro, followed by the head teacher and the headmaster himself, were coming to her full speed. It was her first highschool year and she had already blew away her entire future, or so she thought when she saw the literature teacher looking at her with furrowed eyebrows in a way too severe expression. She felt something heavy in her hand and looked down, finding her briefcase which she had brought along with her the entire time. No matter from where you looked at this situation, it seemed like Hiyori was running away from highschool. A tall figure stood right next to her.

"Hey", she heard Yato saying. She looked at him directly in the eye. The helpless look on Hiyori's eyes, with the trace of little tears forming in the corners, made him stand straight suddenly and he looked to the street, to the teachers and again to her, alternatively. "Pop quiz! What did Gandalf said to the Fellowship of the Ring before falling into the mines of Moria?". Hiyori furrowed her eyebrows. Was he insane?

"What?!"

"Fly, you fools!" and saying this, he took her hand and began running in the opposite direction. Trying to catch her breath, Hiyori didn't know what to process first: if what was happening right now, or the electric feeling of Yato's hand holding hers, or what the teachers were yelling at her, back at the main gate.