Chapter 2: Hearts, Clubs and Spades

I woke up from my slumber, this time in a more violent manner.

"Hey, Izu! Wake up!"

Despite rubbing my eyes with my forearm, I looked towards the voice with blurred vision. "Youhei? What time is it?"

"Six o'clock, on the dot!" Youhei rhymed, attempting to recreate a hip-hop flow. "C'mon, man! You gotta get up!"

"You gotta give me a minute," I began, yawning in the middle of my sentence, "I just woke up, thanks to you."

He gave me a smug grin. "Heh, payback for yesterday."

I groaned, throwing the covers off, though with less urgency than yesterday. Instead of being late for school, I would be early if I started walking now. As I sat upright on my bed, I took notice of Youhei as my vision became clearer. He was fully dressed in his school uniform, in fact, I'd wager that I haven't seen him so well-dressed for school until now.

I also realized that if I wanted to get changed, I'd have to get him out of my room. "Hey, Youhei, could you give me some privacy?"

"No way! You'll just go right back to sleep again!"

"You can't use the argument I used against you!"

"Why not? You were late yesterday."

"I'm rarely late, and even if I am, it's only by a couple of minutes normally. You seem to be physically incapable of showing up before noon."

"You know, it hurts a lot more when you say that, Izu," Youhei responded shakily. A notable trickle of sweat formed on the side of his face.

I sighed before standing up from my bed. "I just want privacy so that I can get ready for school. That's all."

Youhei did a fake salute. "Roger, bus!"

"...bus?"

"Yeah, it's what you call your superiors in English. You should know that-"

I burst into a fit of laughter, before calmly explaining to him. "Youhei, I'm pretty sure it's "boss."

"Whatever, you understood what I meant!"

"I definitely didn't," I thought to myself as he left my room. I walked over to the various wardrobes, procuring some new clothes and changing out of my sleepwear to the new clothes I picked out. It was much like the process of yesterday, but this time, I wasn't under a time constraint, so I could be as quick or slow as I pleased.

It was just as I was putting my clothes on that I found myself looking at the picture frame on my desk. It was from a vacation my aunt and uncle took me on when I was six. I walked over and picked the photograph up, noticing my most noteworthy feature, both in the picture and in my reflection: my left eye which was a pale blue. In contrast, my right eye was brown.

Heterochromia, despite how unique or cool it sounds, has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. It made me stand out from everyone for all the wrong reasons, and was a big driving force in my reserved nature as a kid. Today, it doesn't garner as much negative attention, but it's still history that I recall periodically.

I shook off the bad memories and began getting dressed. Once that was done, I placed my sleepwear into my dirty clothes hamper. After double checking that I had everything, I walked out of my room and closed the door behind me.

"Now, let's get going!" Youhei announced, still brimming with energy. He rushed ahead of me to the front hall, while I sluggishly followed. Soon enough, me and Youhei were outside of the dorms, starting our morning trek to school.

A couple minutes pass before Youhei starts talking again. "This really brings back memories. Back in junior high, when we'd have sleep-overs and walk to school together."

I chuckled at the memory. "It was way more fun when we woke up late and had to run to school."

"Hell yeah! Nothin' beats a good jog in the morning to get the blood pumping!" Youhei had a smile on his face. As I was about to continue the conversation, the sound of a loud crash was heard up ahead.

Youhei looked towards the direction of the sound. "That didn't sound good."

"Yeah, we should go check it out," I proposed. "Someone might've gotten hurt."

Youhei nodded, and we picked up the pace. Soon enough, we found the scene of the loud noise: Okazaki was lying on the ground, with a scooter driving away in the distance.

"She really is a menace with that bike," I thought to myself. We walked over to Okazaki and helped him up from the ground.

"Fujibayashi Kyou, huh? This school is full of savage girls, huh?" Youhei snobbishly remarked.

"I'm surprised to see you up this early, Sunohara," Okazaki commented.

Youhei grinned. "Of course I am. After all, I have a score to settle with another savage girl from this school."

Impolite comments aside, I had no idea what he was saying, since the only person at school who could fit that criteria was Kyou. "Youhei, who are you talking about?"

"If I had to guess, I think he's talking about Sakagami Tomoyo," Okazaki inferred, to which Youhei nodded.

"Sakagami-san? What did she do?" I asked, tilting my head to the side.

"It's not so much what she did, but rather what Sunohara did."

"Nevermind all that, we have a rematch to attend to!"

"Fine by me," Okazaki grumbled.

I simply nodded, and soon our duo became a trio as we made our way to school.

After Youhei sought her out, we found ourselves face to face with the junior from yesterday.

"Quite the persistent guy, you are," Sakagami stood before Youhei, with me and Okazaki flanking either side of him.

"I was unprepared yesterday, you just got lucky!" Youhei boasted, his pride unshaken from the intimidating girl. "And for your information, if the best pitcher's been off of the plate for a while, even he can throw a pitch that gets hit!"

"That sucked, Sunohara," Okazaki sputtered, desperately trying not to laugh.

"Aren't you here to hype me up?!"

"It's really hard to do that when the person I'm trying to help is you."

"Whose side are you even on?!"

Sakagami was, obviously, not impressed by his analogy. "This is not a fight you want. Or do you like the idea of not coming to school for a while?"

Youhei's supposedly-indestructible pride was shattered instantaneously by Sakagami's intimidation. However, his pride returned to him as quickly as it departed him. "Heh, I wonder which one of us won't be coming to school for a while!"

"That was your best retort?!" I angrily thought.

"You really are hopeless," Sakagami said in a dejected tone, before turning her focus towards us. "Hey, you two. Will you guys vouch that this is self-defense?"

"Sure, since this is self-defense in your case," Okazaki responded immediately, while I nodded in response.

Sakagami turned her head back towards Youhei's direction. "Now, what should I do to you? How about taking away your ability to walk-"

"You're so full of yourself! Forget this, just fight me already, coward!"

Youhei lost his patience, and in an instant, charged towards Sakagami. But she was faster, moving to close the distance in the blink of an eye. Once she reached him, Sakagami unleashed a flurry of kicks which hammered away at Youhei. The rapid impacts of the kicks made him go airborne.

Okazaki was in awe at the sight. "Wow, he's really getting some air."

"Acquaintances! The dust chute!" Sakagami cried out.

While Okazaki obliged, I was still trying to process if she meant what she said. "Did she just say dust chute-"

CRASH!

Before me was Youhei, ass-first in the chute. "H-Help me!"

Sakagami walked towards Youhei, who was now sweating a great deal. "You'll fall if I move your fingers."

Youhei flinched as she got closer, but Sakagami had no interest in mercy. "You want to fall? I see."

"Wait, I didn't say anything!" Youhei yelped, watching helplessly as she removed his grip on the rim of the chute. As the last finger was removed, he plunged down the dust chute with a scream akin to a banshee. The screech became fainter and fainter until we heard a loud thud from below, indicating that Youhei had hit the ground floor.

To say I was shocked was an understatement. "That was a two story fall…"

"Perhaps I went too far," Sakagami uttered with a concerned expression.

"Not to worry! He's a lot tougher than he looks!" Okazaki beamed while giving a thumbs up.

"I'd be more hesitant, I haven't seen him fall from two stories up," I nervously stated.

Tomoya went to the dust chute and opened the lid nonchalantly. "Sunohara! Are you alive?!"

After a few seconds, Youhei yelled back angrily. "Goddammit! I'll get back at her! I swear I will!"

Okazaki closed the lid and smiled, content that he had been proven right. "See?"

"I really wish he would drop this nonsense," Sakagami sighed, before walking away from us. "But, seeing you guys really brings back memories."

We both looked at her as a soft smile crept onto her face. "Nevermind, it's nothing."

As she turned a distant corner, me and Okazaki were left alone. "Hey, Okazaki, maybe we should go-"

However, when I turned to face him, he was nowhere to be found.

"Well, I guess I'll be getting him by myself…"

I continued down the hallway to a stairwell and proceeded to the ground floor. I was trying to pick up the pace so that he wasn't sitting at the bottom of the shaft too long, although you can only go so fast on stairs without hurting yourself. I reached the ground floor and turned left immediately after stepping into the hall. And I, unknowingly, ran into someone which stopped me in my tracks.

The sudden impact did more to the person I ran into than myself, sending them flying a short distance. I took a moment to analyze who I just bumped into. It was a petite girl with dark, green hair. Judging by the green badge on her uniform, I interpreted that she was a freshman.

"I'm really sorry about that," I exclaimed as I knelt down to help her up. "Are you alright?"

The girl looked up, and for some strange reason, her face struck me as vaguely familiar. "Y-Yes, Fuko is fine."

"Why does that name sound familiar?" I thought to myself as she said what I can only assume was her name. After a more careful analysis, I noticed something in the girl's hands: a sculpture made of wood and fashioned into the shape of a star. She seemed to be studying my face too, because she had furrowed her brow slightly.

I realized how awkward it was to just be standing still in front of someone, so I tried continuing our discussion. "Do you like stars?"

This instantly regained her focus. "What makes you think Fuko likes stars?"

"Uh, well," I pointed to the sculpture in her hands. "Isn't that a star?"

The girl looked down at the sculpture with a confused look on her face. "This is not a star. This is- haaaaah~"

I couldn't help but be dumbfounded as I witnessed her enter a trance. I looked down the hall in front of me and behind me, hoping to see someone that could help me.

"What kind of Final Fantasy sidequest did I get myself into?"

A loud, metallic clanging brought me back to reality, and I was swiftly reminded why I was down here in the first place.

The girl quickly spun around to face the noise, still clutching the sculpture. "Ah! Fuko heard a ghost! It's going to steal our souls!"

"I wouldn't put much stock into ethereal Youhei personally," I felt a smile creep onto my face at the thought of a vengeful spirit Youhei. "I don't think this spirit is as mischievous as you'd make it out to be."

"Are you a ghost whisperer?"

Yet again, the girl had left me befuddled. "What did you say?"

"A ghost whisperer! Fuko has seen them on the TV before! They can speak to the dead, and are more connected to the spirit world than our own!"

I had no words to respond to the girl with, so I decided to just go along. "Y-Yeah, you could say that."

She said nothing more as we approached the hatch, the muffled sounds of someone struggling inside the chute could be heard as we got closer.

"Dammit, I can't die here, I haven't even gotten laid yet!"

Youhei's misguided priorities made me start giggling to myself. "Even in near death situations, your priorities don't change much."

"Izu? Are you out there?! Get me out of this chute!"

"I'm working on it, give me a second!" I shouted back, opening the hatch to the dust chute. Youhei had found himself in a rather humorous position, with his legs sticking up in the air.

"Please be gentle!" Youhei exclaimed. Such a statement made my face turn red out of embarrassment.

"Please rephrase that!" I fired back, grabbing his ankles. "Alright, this is gonna take a second."

As I began pulling him up with a struggle, Youhei took to a more snobbish mannerism. "You have no core strength, Izu!"

"Do you want me to drop you instead?!" I loosened my grip slightly to prove a point, which prompted a yelp from further into the shaft.

"D-Don't joke like that! Just try doing it harder!"

"Doing what harder?"

"Lifting me up!"

"How the heck am I supposed to do that?! The muscles in your head weigh half a kilo alone!"

"That was unnecessarily mean!"

Within a couple of minutes of grunting and struggling to lift Youhei out of the shaft, Youhei was lying on the ground in front of the shaft as opposed to being in it. "I thought I was done for!"

"You would have been in that shaft all day I wager," I said plainly. "Or the faculty would have found you and fished you out."

"I don't wanna think about that!"

As Youhei dusted himself off, I felt a tug at my sleeve. Remembering the girl, I turned to face her.

"Um," she coyly began, "here!"

Before I even had time to respond to her, she had shoved the wooden star into my chest and ran off. As I was about to give chase, the first bell rang.

"She's pretty strange, what did she give you?" Youhei asked, now noticing the girl and subsequently the star in my arms.

"A wooden sculpture, not sure what's so significant about it," I responded, investigating its craftsmanship. The star's texture was coarse in nature, so it was probably made by someone, maybe by the girl? But why would she give it to me, and what purpose does it even serve?

Youhei had his own assumptions about the sculpture. "Maybe it's a charm, or a talisman for warding off spirits?"

"Well you're still here, so it's clearly not a talisman."

"I'm not a spirit!"

I chuckled, stuffing the star into an open slot of my bag. "Well, let's get going, Youhei. Might as well go to class on time."

"Sure, let's go," Youhei replied, cracking his neck as we walked towards the stairwell.

The day passed me by like a blur until the fourth bell rang, excusing 3-E and everyone else around campus to lunch. While I tried to maintain a semblance of focus in class, I found it harder and harder to ignore the questions I had from this morning. I had questions about the silver bullet underclassmen, Sakagami, the mysterious girl, Fuko, and her obsession with stars. I had so many questions I wasn't sure where to even begin processing as I began packing my bag with textbooks and handouts from the previous lessons.

As I was closing my bag up, I heard the soft but distinct sound of footsteps from campus shoes approaching my desk. I looked up to see who they might belong to, and I was met with the sight of my classmate, Mariko Narumi. She was short, but even then she was still taller than me by a few centimeters. Her eyes were pale green and her light brown hair was adorned with an equally pale green hairband.

"Um, Sasaki-san, are you busy today?" She began, her voice was so faint I almost couldn't hear it.

Since Youhei wasn't coming to get me, I assumed he and Tomoya had already made their way to the lunch room. "Not really, did you need something, Narumi-san?"

"Well, did you want to-"

"Hey, Izumo!" Another familiar voice rang out, followed by more rapid footsteps. "What are you still doing here? Did you not hear the lunch bell?!"

"Ah, Kyou-" I tried responding to her, but found myself being pulled to my feet, effectively being interrupted by Kyou.

"C'mon, Izumo! I'm not gonna accept you being late for lunch today!" Kyou reprimanded me, although I wasn't too sure what she was reprimanding me for, as I hadn't made any plans for lunch. Of course, I had very little time to process the situation this time, since the moment I was on my feet, Kyou began dragging me to the door.

Despite my futile resistance to Kyou's strength, I was able to get one last statement out, directed to Narumi. "I'm sorry~!"

As soon as we got out to the hallway, what normally took me and Youhei a good two minutes to navigate was being threaded in a manner of seconds thanks to Kyou's agility and threatening aura. "Jeez, Izumo, it's like you weren't even aware of today's plans."

"I wasn't!" I shouted, unwillingly following behind her. "We didn't make any plans for today!"

"You were gonna skip out on lunch today. You should spend time with your friends!" Kyou quipped back.

"You interrupted Narumi-san, though! That was uncalled for!"

"Whatever she was going to ask probably wasn't important."

My face paled at the brazen response from Kyou. "That's unnecessarily heartless!"

Kyou stopped responding to me, leading me down the stairwell and to the first floor, somehow skirting past the blobs of students trying to make their way to the cafeteria, stopping just after entering. Kyou let go of my arm and held her hand out.

"Money," she said plainly.

"Are you shaking me down for chump change?" I joked with her.

She gave me an annoyed glare. " I mean for lunch, you doofus. You hang out with Youhei and Tomoya way too much, their idiocy is rubbing off on you."

"I keep forgetting your tongue is razor sharp," I weakly replied, grabbing a handful of bills from my wallet and handing them to her.

"Beef udon bowl?" Kyou asked after pocketing the money, to which I nodded. "Alright, go find Ryou, I'm pretty sure she found us a seat already."

"Alright, sounds good to- wait, what?!

"See ya, Izumo~!" I caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared into the crowded lunch line.

"Damn it…" I grumbled to myself. I began to let my eyes wander around the cafeteria, hoping to spot Kyou's twin. "Knowing her, she probably picked a spot as far away from the chaos as possible."

I began to walk near the far north wall of the cafeteria before spotting Ryou at a table in the corner, shuffling a deck of cards incredibly slowly. As I approached the table, I couldn't help but feel a lot less confident than I had been feeling earlier. In fact, that confidence had turned to brashness so fast that I hadn't noticed how warm my face was, until I was almost at the table.

Ryou looked up from her shuffling, which made her yelp in surprise once she saw me. She then dropped her cards onto the table, which made me snicker for a split second before I stopped myself.

"A-Ah, Sasaki-kun, good afternoon," Ryou meekly began, trying to gather the deck of cards that were now scattered across the tabletop.

I approached the table and took a seat across from her. "Good afternoon, Ryou. Sorry for startling you.."

She then started waving her hands. "Ah, n-no, it's okay. I mean, this helps them to be shuffled too, right?"

"It would also help if your hands weren't so shaky," I thought to myself as Ryou finished shuffling the deck.

It was at that moment that a thought flashed through my head. "Hey, Ryou-"

"Yes?!" She sputtered.

I felt a sweatdrop bead down the side of my head. "Erm, sorry, did I scare you again?"

Ryou paused for a moment before nodding. "Did you need something?"

I pointed towards her card deck. "Would you mind reading my fortune?"

Her eyes widened, before gathering her composure and picking the deck up. "O-Of course! Let me shuffle the deck."

"Didn't you just finish shuffling?"

"Ah, um…" she paused for a moment, a bead of sweat forming on her brow. "This kind of fortune requires the deck to be shuffled twice!"

"That didn't sound genuine," I thought to myself as she began to shuffle the deck again. Thankfully she didn't spill the cards everywhere this time around. She then unfurled the cards and held them up towards me.

"Please, pick three!"

I scanned the dozen or so cards in front of me before choosing three at random. The ace of clubs, two of hearts and four of spades. I held the three cards before me, fanning them out.

Ryou packed the cards back into a deck and placed them down on the table. She then held out her hand. "May I see them?"

I gave the three cards to her. Her brow furrowed as she studied the three cards. "What does that look mean?"

"Sasaki-kun, you won't have lunch today."

"Well, that was extremely blunt," I thought to myself.

It seems she had noticed my facial expression sour at the news, which made her immediately start sweating. "O-Oh! Sorry, let me explain the rest of the fortune!"

Ryou placed the cards on the table between both of us. "So, what are you seeing here?"

"Well, the first card, from left to right, is the ace of clubs. This card tends to signify that opportunities are on the way in the future," Ryou points at the card furthest to my right, before slowly moving to the card in the center. "This card, the two of hearts, um, signifies a blooming relationship between, uh…"

It was then that I noticed her cheeks had begun to glow red. "Uh, Ryou?"

"Ah! R-Right! The fortune!" She exclaimed, shaking her embarrassed demeanor off. "This final card is the one which gave me a lot of worry. Spade cards tend to always have a negative twist, and there's four of them on this one card. So from the cards on the table, your opportunity is having lunch without paying for it, spending that lunch hour with a person you get along with, but the misfortune being you won't eat any lunch today."

I wasn't sure how to feel about being told I would go hungry today. Well, it wasn't entirely a bust, Kyou would just return my money, and I could get something after school. "Could the four of spades be interpreted as four unfortunate events as opposed to one event?"

"Ah, erm," Ryou looked nervous again, "I thought of that too, but I didn't want to make you upset."

"How much do you know about this fortune telling gig?!"

"If it's any consolation," Ryou began, "you can have half of-"

"Hah! Sorry about the wait, guys! The lunch line was brutal today!" Kyou appeared spontaneously, stopping Ryou in her tracks. "The last udon bowl got snagged when I came up to order, so I hope you don't mind a sandwich, Izumo!"

Kyou passed a sandwich to me, which hit the table space in front of me with a muffled thud, while she took a seat next to Ryou with two bento boxes. She handed the top bento to Ryou while opening the bottom bento for herself.

I picked up the sandwich while looking back at the cards on the tabletop, which attracted Kyou's attention. "Oh, was Ryou fortune telling?"

I nodded. "She foresaw me not getting lunch today."

"Is that so?" She began, procuring a pair of chopsticks. "Well, it isn't udon, but it's still food!"

"I'm more surprised that Ryou's fortune didn't cause me any bodily harm," I thought to myself, removing a portion of the plastic wrap containing the sandwich. Meanwhile, Ryou looked down sheepishly, trying to avoid eye contact with me.

It didn't take long for Kyou to pick up on her sister's sudden reserved nature. "Ryou, were you going to offer Izumo your lunch?"

"I-I um, uh," Ryou's stuttering was just further proof that she was trying desperately to avoid the bold statement she just said earlier.

"Maybe I should have 'misplaced' your lunch in that case," Kyou continued, her trademark smirk flashing on her face.

It was then that I felt my own face flaring up. "You love making us squirm, don't you?"

"I can't deny that it's entertaining to watch," she admitted. I let out a sigh and glanced over at the lunch line. It was still as large as before, though a pair of students stood out in particular. One of the students I knew, the other I had only seen once but her appearance wasn't too unfamiliar, so I had to have seen her around the campus a fair amount. It was Okazaki and the girl I saw yesterday.

"Interesting," I took a bite of the sandwich as I silently observed the pair observing the line. It looked like they were having a conversation, but their distance from me and the amount of people talking around me, made deciphering them impossible.

"Oi, Earth to Izumo!" Kyou's voice drew me out of my catatonic state. "Were you listening?!"

"Well, obviously not, otherwise I would have responded to you," I responded, unfurling more of the sandwich wrapping. "What did I miss?"

"Doesn't this feel nostalgic?" She asked plainly.

I took a moment to analyze the situation, and realized that, yes, this was familiar. Back in my first year, a month into the second trimester, Kyou introduced me to Ryou, and we had lunch together.

"Oh, this is the same table, too!" I exclaimed.

"Talk about coincidence, right?"

"Okazaki! You have to help me, the crowd's got my leg!"

I recognized that voice anywhere, and judging by Kyou's head turning towards the lunch line, she did too.

"Was that Sunohara-kun?" Ryou inquired, turning towards the lunch line.

"Couldn't have been anyone else," Kyou uttered in a defeated tone. "He probably tried cutting the lunch line again."

In another second, Youhei's shrill scream pierced the air, and he was swallowed by the lunch mob. I turned back to the other two and continued eating my lunch. Kyou tended to carry much of the conversations when all three of us were together, which we didn't necessarily mind. Given how difficult it was for either me or Ryou to start a conversation, Kyou basically broke the ice, allowing for us to have genuine conversations without awkwardly asking the other for discussion topics.

But I knew my anxiety always spikes when I talk with Ryou alone. More often than not, I'm having an internal dialogue instead of actually talking to her when we have a chance to talk to one another.

I still had a long way to go, it seemed.

AN - WOW! This took me way longer than I wanted. Sorry about that! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and stick around cause we're just getting started!