Andromeda

Saki doubted that it was a car accident that was the cause for Takako’s absence from practice. She did not have many morning practices so she did not know much about the girls that only went in the morning. However, it was strange for Takako to be gone. There were still a few minutes before the final bell would be ringing for homeroom. “Let’s go check her homeroom, Hitomi,” Saki said, “She might have skipped for some reason.”

Hitomi rushed up to Saki unable to shake the panicked expression on her face. “The first big meet is coming up. What reason would she have?”

It was pretty clear that Saki did not have an answer. If Hitomi had been thinking straight it would have been obvious, but Saki felt like she was being requested to answer. “I don’t know. We’ll ask her reasons when we find her.” Saki stepped forward around the girl and grabbed her wrist taking her away from her class.

Chapter 13 – Short One

Her class, 3-A, was left behind at the end of the hall of the third floor. Along the floor were all of the first year classes with many of the students still hanging around outside of their classrooms. The classes went down to 3-D, before coming to the widened part of the school coming to the end at 3-J. Takako was in class 3-H near the opposite end of the building and through the crowded hall.

Saki arrived at the front door for 3-H and Hitomi continued on to the back door. Hitomi went into the class not fearing the students. Saki had remained outside looking in staying cautious about the number of students that she did not know. There were only half of the seats filled and several standing up talking. It made it difficult to look around and in addition Saki barely knew Takako, the girl was not going to stand out to her immediately. Unfortunately, she could not see her in the room and Hitomi returned shortly afterwards. “Any luck?”

“No…I couldn’t find her and no one has seen her. I’m worried.”

“Well class is starting soon. Everyone misses classes once and a while. After school we can check on her at her house. There’s probably a reasonable explanation for it.” Saki began to walk back for her own class, but was stopped by a shaking hand on her arm. She looked around seeing Hitomi’s face wrinkled in worry still not satisfied by the brief look that they had made for Takako. “Hitomi, we…”

“We can’t give up!”

Saki face turned a little to frustration and pensive still confused by the whole situation. She had been helping Hitomi out, because she was worried. However, this seemed to be going beyond just normal concern even for simple friends. ‘There is something strange about the whole thing, but why is Hitomi so caught up by Takako missing one day?’ There was not going to be any reasoning with Hitomi as Saki realized as time passed slowly. If she did nothing she was going to be late for class and if she did something she was probably going to be late for class. “Let’s talk to the teachers. Maybe they know something.”

The new idea seemed to calm down Hitomi some from the uncontrollable fear that was gripping her. “Alright.” Saki helped Hitomi through the hall and downstairs to the teacher’s office. Here all of the teachers stayed before classes would begin in the morning or if they did not have a class for a period of the day. It was normally a place that students would avoid and stay out of without permission, but Saki needed something that would settle Hitomi down. This was the last chance that they had. “Will it be alright to go in?” Hitomi said staring at the door of the teacher’s office as though it were an ominous creature that would attack if she so much as touched the door handle.

“It’ll be fine. We’re just asking about a student.” Saki was not going to able to get Hitomi to make the effort. This was quickly realized and rather than debate the issue Saki pushed her aside. She grabbed a hold of the door’s indented handle pausing for a second while she felt the wave of dread wash over her from knowing that this was not a place that she belonged. The moment passed quickly for her and she tightened her hand against the handle and pulled it open. The sliding of the door alerted a couple of the teachers towards them bringing them over to Saki.

“Is there something you need?” said one of the male teachers approaching Saki with a couple notebooks in hand. It was a teacher that she had not seen before, no doubt for one of the upperclassmen.

Saki swallowed roughly suddenly feeling more out of place than she would have thought. She tried to bow politely in apology even in failing. “U-Uh…I’m sorry! We’re looking for class 3-H’s homeroom teacher.”

The teacher pulled back giving Saki a comforting smile to try to not make her feel nervous. “Oh, you’re looking for Mr. Akutagawa. He’s still here, but class is starting soon, you know.” Saki and Hitomi nodded quietly to the teacher, but remained at the doorway not wanting to enter any further. “Well I’ll go get him for you. What is it about?”

“Oh! It’s about Takako Yamazaki. She hasn’t showed up today and we were concern she might be sick or something.” Saki tried to keep things sounding fairly normal, since she knew that Hitomi was on the edge of reason. If she had said that Hitomi was afraid that Takako was in a car accident it would only start up panic and questions that would lead to misunderstandings.

“Alright.” The teacher walked back through the aisles of desks towards one of the teachers whispering to him. Saki remained watchful while still trying to hold back the uneasy feeling that she was getting from being in a place that she did not belong. A minute later Mr. Akutagawa approached them.

The class 3-H homeroom teacher was a young man in his late twenties wearing the usual suit that most male teacher’s did. He seemed kind from his warm expression. “Hello. Mr. Shimomura was telling me that you were worried about Miss Yamazaki.”

“Yes, we haven’t seen her today and didn’t know what happened. Have you heard anything?”

“I actually had just gotten off the phone with her mother. She is staying home today having come down with something. I’m told it shouldn’t be too bad. Just keeping her out of school for a couple of days.”

“Oh, thank you very much. That’s very relieving. Are you okay, Hitomi?” said Saki looking behind her to see what reaction that she was having from the news. It was nothing to be worried about, just a normal flu or something. There did seem to be some calm brought to Hitomi, but her face was still heavily covered in concern.

Mr. Akutagawa picked up on this quickly and stepped forward looking towards Hitomi. “If you want, she’ll need her homework taken to her. I would normally have someone from her class do it, but…”

“T-Thank you,” Hitomi said slowly beginning to finally come to ease.

“Well then, you can stop by here at the end of school and I’ll give you her assignments. You should be getting back to your class though. The last bell is about to ring.”

“Right! Come on, Hitomi!” Saki said glad to leave the teacher’s office. She pulled Hitomi along until she was able to walk on her own. Saki left Hitomi when they reached the third floor letting her go to her classroom. She ran back to her own room hearing the bell ringing for her. The halls were empty for her, but that only signaled a deeper panic for her knowing how late she was going to be.

She softly attempted to slide the back door to her class open to not pull attention to herself, but that turned out to be a futile effort. Saki narrowly dodged a pencil across her nose that embedded itself into the wall next to her. She cautiously drew her eyes forward seeing the cross expression of Ms. Kuniyoshi staring her down. The attempt at a sheepish innocent look had failed her just as quickly leaving her cornered. “You’re late, Miss Furukawa…”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Kuniyoshi!” Saki fled to her seat trying not to pull in any more attention to her than she had already drawn. The teacher glared a little longer at her and then continued on with roll call for the class, the reason that Saki had failed so miserably. She dropped her head down on the table exhausted from the morning already.

Yuki leaned forward from his seat having watched the whole thing unfold and tapped Saki on her shoulder. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you at lunch.”

He leaned back a little confused by Saki’s response, who was normally more than willing to talk to him, even if it was during class. The fact that she was late when she had come with him seemed a little strange, but he knew that she had gotten dragged away by someone that she knew. ‘Guess I’ll wait then…’

The lunch period came for everyone, a normal one this time (relatively, of course). Yuki and his friends walked up to the roof of the school that was being shared by a couple other groups when they arrived. The warm air and cool breeze made it enjoying to be outside, while eating something, freeing after being in class all morning. They still had time before they could change to their summer uniforms as well, so it made things more bearable as well.

Yuki unbuttoned the top of his collar and pulling at his dress shirt’s collar underneath. Hiroshi sat down next to Yuki undoing all of the buttons on his coat and placed his lunch in his lap looking eager. On his other side the other two friends that followed around with Hiroshi more often sat down. They were Kazuhiro Nanase and Tatsuya Mori.

Kazuhiro sat next to Yuki opposite Hiroshi sitting down slowly with Tatsuya following up behind him forming a semi-circle now. They both knew Yuki through Hiroshi and in part became like friends. However, their first obligations were towards Hiroshi since they were not certain about Yuki. They had known Hiroshi from middle school and Yuki was someone new to them. It had left them a little puzzled how quickly Hiroshi had become friends with Yuki. Hiroshi was always looking for the next exciting thing to do and quick to act for a joke. While Yuki was reserved most times, except when he was acting out in class he usually played the fool for his odd manner and constant dreaming. The two personalities did not end up being as far apart as they would have thought.

Opposite of them was the girls this time it was only Saki and Ayumi. Yuki had invited Ayumi to the group and Saki did not object like Hiroshi was expecting her to do. Since there were not arguments about the addition lunch began, though in an uneasy mood. The previous day was not easily forgotten.

Yuki slowly ate through his lunch before looking up at Ayumi and then to Saki. He remembered then that he had wanted to talk to her about in the morning. “Hey, Saki! You said that you would explain why you were late this morning to homeroom.”

“Oh, yeah that was unusual for you since you’re usually attached so closely to Yuki,” Hiroshi said with a mischievous grin that looked like he was asking for trouble.

Saki nearly choked on her lunch pounding on her chest to get the food down. She grabbed a sip of her juice to push down the rest of way. The look from Hiroshi knowing that he hit a nerve on her made her cross her brow. “I was helping out someone from track. I ended up losing track of time.” She went back to eating leaving her explanation to go no further.

“Oh I see. Makes sense.” Yuki continued to eat his meal as well watching Ayumi sitting quietly minding her own business looking innocent and lost. ‘I guess for being a foreigner she knows Japanese culture pretty well. The food all looks pretty normal. Though I don’t know what I was expecting to see.’ The thought of having lunch with her made him think if he was going to regret doing it. She was new and it could be blamed on her being a foreigner and transfer student, but the whole thing still made him worry. However, as lunch passed he came to the realization that he was probably worrying unnecessarily since she seemed to have a grasp of everything.

When the end of school came for them Saki was pulled away by Hitomi leaving Yuki to watch her leave. He had not planned on walking with her anyway, since Saki had practice. It just made him wonder further about what was going on that she was being pulled away. Saki was something that he could not concentrate on now with Ayumi in front of him. He had questions for her. “We need to talk,” he said to Ayumi before leaving the classroom without her.

He did not know what he was expecting or why he had even said it to her like that and left, but he was walking away. When he came to a stop he was in the middle of the school grounds with the noise of the track members practicing at his back. He sat down in the grass leaving his school bag at his side separated. And he waited.

“You know telling people where to meet you is important.” When he looked up it was Ayumi standing over him with her hands on her hips looking a little bothered by the situation.

Yuki stared up at her with the shade of the building blocking out the sun behind her. “What you can’t find me by sensing my power?”

“You read too much of that stuff you call ‘Manga’. It doesn’t work the same way in the real world.”

“…real world…”

Saki had thought that she was going to be going to practice, but that seemed not to be the case today. Hitomi dragged her in front of the coach and beg for them to get the day off. She explained to him that she wanted to deliver Takako’s assignments to her immediately before it was night and she would be out too late. The coach was not nearly as understanding as Mr. Akutagawa was about her concerns, but he ended up giving in eventually.

That was how Saki found herself being dragged along with Hitomi to another part of the city to find Takako’s house. The city was not unfamiliar to her, but it was still unsettling traveling on the train to someone’s house that she barely knew. Hitomi seemed to have gained her strength back, though her face was still thick with worry. It was no longer slowing her down from doing what she wanted.

“You sure it is this way? These houses are pretty expensive looking. I don’t think she lives here.” Saki was feeling even more out of place in this neighbor knowing that there were gates and large lawns of grass before even the house. She did not know if Takako was rich, but it never seemed to come up.

Hitomi was not listening very well to Saki marching on looking at the paper that showed the address. “This way.” She disappeared around the corner leaving Saki to catch up quickly before she lost sight of her. When Saki was behind Hitomi she had already stopped staring up at the gate before them. “This must be her house.”

“You haven’t been here before. Did you know she lived her?”

“Takako never mentioned it before, but she was usually pretty quiet about her family. I’m going to ring the bell.” Hitomi leaned in pushing the button on the panel that was built into the brick wall that fenced off their property. An annoying buzz came from the button that sounded off until Hitomi released it.

A minute later of waiting a reply over the speaker came. “Yes? We aren’t interested in anything you’re selling.” The voice was deep and old with a little crack in the speech. It made the two girls step back expecting that they would see someone rather than a voice.

“U-Uh…I’m sorry,” Hitomi said finding the courage to speak while Saki kept a placid face trying to look like she belonged. “We aren’t selling anything. We’re classmates of Takako.”

“I see. Well Miss Takako is not here currently.”

Hitomi looked back at Saki as though she was expecting an answer to explain what she was just told. It was plainly clear to her that the instant glance at Saki told her that she had no answers. She turned back to the speaker. “What? But we were told that she was sick. We have her assignments for her.”

“You may leave her things in the box. I’ll inform her of your visit. Thank you.” The voice ended and a clicking sound that seemed to tell them silently to leave.

“What does this mean? The school says she’s sick and her family says she’s out.” Hitomi looked back at Saki wanting something from her this time. She was at a loss as to what was going on, but there was something being hidden by someone.

Saki had no more of a clue to what was going on than Hitomi, but it had been made clear to them that someone was lying. She did not know why they were doing it, but this was not going to be as simple as she thought anymore. ‘What’s going on?’

To be continued…