Andromeda

The morning brought a new dawn and new opportunities that could be wasted or used. How they would be used was still unknown leaving a heavy weight on those that had to make a choice. In the case of Yuki, he had been unable to find Saki after leaving Yumi, but he was relieved that he had been able to help in some way. The way that things had been going for him lately, he was constantly worried about things that seemed out of his control and always on a watch to keep his own power in check. So it was refreshing to be able to do something normal as just sitting down with someone and talking out a problem. It seemed so normal and more natural than everything that was surrounding him anymore.

Yuki went down for breakfast after dealing with his brothers. “Morning!” he said in a not quite so cheerful manner, but pleasant enough that it might have seemed a little strange. His family had a different view of Yuki than the rest of his friends or school. They knew how he acted, but family always seemed to bring out annoyance for him rather than pleasant feelings he usually felt outside.

However, ever since he came back from the day with Seiji where he fought with the assassin in torn clothes, again, Momoko had been acting a little different with him. She was adamant about getting home on time and taking responsibility around the house with his brothers. It made him feel like the air was thin and he was being choked by an invisible hand that would not let him go.

He was not certain if she was suspecting something about the truth and Ayumi’s memory eraser power did not do as good as a job as they thought or she just thought that he was reverting back to the way he had been before. Yuki continued to remind her that he was not fighting, but that did not stop people from picking on him. It was not his fault that he was a target for bullies. ‘How long can I keep this up? It’s not that I have trouble lying to her, but this can’t last. It’s going to slip again. Seiji and Saki already know, but they’re keeping it a secret.’ Yuki left his house quietly in silence thinking that the day would be easier once he left.

However, as he walked away there was a strange sense that he was being followed that he could not shake. When he turned around there was Ken and Jun smiling up at him. “What are you two doing here?!”

“You walking to school together today?” Ayumi said cheerfully as she came down from her house up the street.

Jun nodded to her and Ken jumped up holding on to Yuki tightly. “Yup! He said we could at any time.”

“What?! Wait, I didn’t say that! That was Saki, not me!”

“You going to turn down your own brothers?” Ayumi said starting to get a little upset and sad that Yuki would be so cruel to them.

Yuki stepped back off balance not sure how to take Ayumi’s reaction. “W-W-Wel-Well…it’s not like I…I didn’t…” He saw Ayumi getting closer and closer to breaking up over something so small and could not take it anymore. Yuki slouched over sighing to himself knowing that he was beat. “Fine.”

“Yay!” Ken said grabbing up Jun’s arm making him look more or less equally excited as well.

They had all decided to walk together and Ken and Jun took up sides on Yuki with Ayumi taking some pleasure or amusement in watching Yuki. However, as they came to the intersection in the road Yuki came to a stop. Yuki could see Saki coming up from the street and he hesitated for a moment, but changed quickly to a smile. “Hey, Saki!”

Chapter 33 – Those Above

The rest of the walk went by smoothly for everyone with the company of Ken and Jun keeping things in good spirits. Even after they left Yuki did not change in mood keeping to his cheerful self while Saki held quiet with Ayumi walking with them. On their way to their homeroom class, Yuki was interrupted by a familiar group of boys looking to get back at him for the last time they were interrupted. In spite of Yuki feeling like he had changed, this continued to happen and he let it go on. He was not going to stand up to them. However, it was to his surprise that Saki never appeared to save him. She had gone on leaving him behind to get pounded until they got out their aggression on him.

He came out of the beating with only minor scrapes with the boys getting tired out fairly fast and being a little taken back by the fact that they were not stopped. After the morning ritual had been completed he walked to his classroom trying to get the dirt off of his uniform before getting to class. His clothes were one thing, but his face could not easily hide the fact that he had been in a fight of some sort. When he entered the class a little late during Ms. Kuniyoshi taking attendance, she stared at him seeing the signs on his face. “I’m sorry I’m late, Ms. Kuniyoshi!”

“What’s with your face, Hayashi? Were you in a fight?” She was holding her pen tightly in her hand keeping it from going through her paper that she was reading from. For her, Yuki was a troublemaker constantly disrupting her class with his problems. The cuts and bruises on his face were not something that he normally had, but it was neither the first time either. It was just another sign of proof.

Yuki backed away from the teacher’s accusations trying to come up with something that might seem believable. “I slipped and tripped on the stairs rushing to class,” he said laughing trying to brush it all off.

“Tripped?”

“Uh huh!”

“Tripped?” The teacher leaned in on Yuki make it pretty clear that she was not believing him.

Yuki smiled nervously trying to be as convincing as he could with the pressure of his teacher glaring down on him. “I tripped and fell back down the stairs. A lot of stairs. I’m sorry!”

The teacher’s head tilted down as anyone watching could tell that she was starting to shake vigorously listening to Yuki’s lying. Everyone knew that he was lying through his teeth, but saying that he was fighting would not have been any better either. She reached a point where she stopped shaking and the entire class held cautious at what would happen next with Yuki. They were expecting her to blow up on, just as Yuki was expecting. “Fine…go to the nurse’s office and get yourself fixed up. I don’t want you bleeding all over the class.”

“Alright! I’ll go immediately!”

Saki had been watching the whole thing and tried to keep from standing up the entire time. She knew what had happened and in some way hoped that he might actually do something, but he had taken it all. Saki did not know why she had done it, left him to the bullies. ‘Why… I let him, but I wanted to… He deserves it. No, I shouldn’t… Seiji… Yuki’s changing…’ Yuki and Seiji had gotten back together, even it was briefly, and that was the way that Yuki had wanted it. She knew that she had to let him do what he wanted to do.

Hiroshi looked over at Saki a little confused that Yuki had not been rescued by Saki as he always had been. ‘Are they fighting still over that Seiji subject? Yuki didn’t look like it, but Saki…’ He was not certain what was going between them, but it had not gone ignored by him that they were acting differently. However, there was something that made him even more confused than the Saki was not coming to his rescue. It was a matter of Yuki and what he had learned. ‘If Yuki knows how to fight then why isn’t he fighting back? This entire time he hasn’t need Saki to save him. And then there’s that other matter… I don’t have any more doubts that he could or still can fight, but it doesn’t explain what I saw. What was that?’ Hiroshi held his chin against his hand supported on the desk watching the scene while trying to keep himself out of it. His eyes turned his eyes back to Ayumi. ‘She’s another matter completely.’ The images of Ayumi killing that man had replayed through his mind for him. Anyone dying in front of your eyes was a difficult thing to forget, but it was made even more difficult by the fact that he knew the person and it was completely contradictory to who he thought he knew.

The day was slowly pushing forward for everyone. Yuki returned to class with a few bandages on his face and arms and an otherwise cleaned up appearance. The silence between Saki and Yuki continued with Yuki acting like nothing was wrong and Saki being left with a continued sense of uncertainty. Hiroshi held his eyes on Ayumi and Yuki trying to sort through his own problems. Most of the tension in the class went unseen or known as it sat just under the surface throughout the day. However, when the end of the day came for school and everyone else was leaving the tension snapped.

Saki had to stay behind to clean up in class as the others were leaving. Yuki and Ayumi decided to leave together, though it was more Ayumi telling Yuki and him just nodding in agreement. However, Yuki stopped all of sudden outside holding up Ayumi. “I’ve got to go back to class. I-I forgot something I need!”

“What?” Ayumi said turning to follow with him a little annoyed that he had been absentminded.

“No! You don’t need to follow me, Ayumi. I’ll be fine, it’s just school.”

She stared at him for a moment reading him and afterwards stopped. “Fine, just be quick.”

“I will, thanks!’ Yuki rushed back into the school looking back at Ayumi one last time before he disappeared around the corner. He ran up the stairs to the third floor and to his class sliding open the door relieved to find that Saki was still there. “…Saki…” Saki continued on clearing the blackboard ignoring him. He was only managing to stand in the doorway not entering feeling the unsettling presence of getting any closer would make him freeze up completely. ‘What am I doing? I can’t move any further.’

Saki moved from the blackboard to the back of the class leaving Yuki to keep standing looking like he was a statue. The lack of progress on his part only continued as Saki moved about the room keeping to herself with Yuki starting to hang his head lower casting a shadow over his eyes. ‘Why… This should be easy…’ There was sweat building over him as a massive weight pressed him until it felt like his bones would crush. His feet ached and knees stung unable to relieve the feeling that was covering him unrelenting. He tried to slide his feet back to run away with his will completely depleted in front of him.

Saki was suddenly drawn to the window that snapped everything in Yuki breaking his legs making him sprint to the window. The look on Saki had him worried at what she was seeing. When he looked down from the classroom to the grounds below he could see Ayumi surrounded by several boys. “Ayumi’s in trouble!” Yuki turned on his feet immediately followed up by and quickly passed by Saki.

“Aw, come on, don’t you want to come have some tea with us?” one of the boys said pushing in on Ayumi as she could only hold her hands up in panic.

She had been unable to say more than a few words to them, but they were not taking ‘no’ for an answer. “P-Please…”

“Hey, if you don’t like that, we can get a soda.”

“Yeah, cutie. Come on. We’re friendly.”

“Nothing to be scared of.”

“…I-I-I…” Ayumi tried to back away from them, but was held in place with them circling her. The tears in her eyes began to trickle down as she wanted it all to end, but could not take it anymore. The boys grabbed on to her arm still wanting her to come along with them even by force if it was necessary. “…no…s-s-some-one…” None of the other students that were watching even seemed to budge towards her. She was alone with no one willing to help her.

“Come on!”

Suddenly, there was a large shadow cast over everyone grouped together. As everyone looked back behind them all they could see was a dark figure with gleaming eyes of a demon staring down at them. The boys all fell backwards into the grass frightened by what they saw. When the figure leaned in towards them it made them all turn blue in the face with fear. “What do you think you’re doing? The girl doesn’t want you bothering her, understand?”

“Y-y-yeah!” all of the boys said quickly as they turned around and fled on all fours until they were able to get back to their feet leaving only a trail of dirt behind them. The rest of the students turned back to their regular lives no longer concerned by what was happened.

The dark figure leaned in offering a hand out to Ayumi with the shade breaking through revealing the person to be a female student and by the looks a senior. “They shouldn’t mess with you anymore. Are you alright?”

Ayumi cautiously accepted the hand getting pulled up to her feet. “T-thank you…” When they were standing up back up Ayumi looked up and up realizing that the girl was very tall. She had very long dark brown hair, held down to her edge of her skirt, working in contrast to her green eyes. “Umm…”

Saki came charging through the door out into the school grounds, to where Ayumi was, blindly going after whoever it was that was near Ayumi. Yuki followed up the rear trying to get to Saki before she got too out of control, but he caught in a moment that the situation had changed. In the speeding enraged scene that was about to occur, Yuki extended out his arm quickly bridging the gap between them through sheer will. “Saki! Stop!” Unfortunately, he could tell that there was no chance of that with the way that Saki was running like a bull. He did the only thing that he could and jumped off into Saki knocking her off her target and coming to a sliding stop on the other side of Ayumi and the senior becoming a new scene of embarrassment and entertainment for the students.

“Yuki! What do you think you’re doing?!” Saki grabbed Yuki by the throat throwing him off of her so that she could get up and do what she had intended to do.

It had been a long time since he remembered being on the receiving end of Saki’s hands. He choked through his words to calm down Saki. “Ayumi’s safe now, Saki! Look!”

“Huh?” Saki looked away from Yuki back to Ayumi and the senior that rescued her, who were now staring down at the two of them a little puzzled by their actions. “Umm…well…”

“C-can you let go of me?” Yuki said starting to feel his throat really tighten in Saki’s hand as she became embarrassed.

“What?! Ah!” Saki pulled back her hand from Yuki letting him drop to the grass suddenly as he was able to breathe. “Well…I-I-I…” The senior bent down and offered her hand to Saki, who was still flustered by everything, accepting the help without thinking. Yuki was given help up as well with everyone finally back on their feet.

Yuki turned and looked at Saki getting the same thought going through them. ‘She’s tall! I think she’s even taller than Seiji! Is she really a student?’

“Uh…thank you senpai!” Ayumi said bowing to the senior with Saki quickly following up, but apologizing instead.

The girl waved them off a little becoming embarrassed by the formality. “I’m just glad you’re safe. No thanks is needed.”

“I’m Ayumi Nishimura.”

“Saki Furukawa.”

“Yuki Hayashi.”

“Oh, well I’m Fumiko Terauchi. It’s nice to meet you.” Fumiko politely bowed back to them returning the formality that everyone was giving.

“Thank you for helping, Ayumi,” Yuki said not even acting with the thought that Ayumi was pretending the entire time not even coming to him. “She’s new to the school and hasn’t gotten used to everything.”

“I see. Well those boys aren’t how everyone is in the school, Nishimura,” Fumiko said leaning in to Ayumi to give her reassurance. There was an almost charming look in her eye that left Ayumi gasping for air and Yuki and Saki stuttering a little themselves. “It seems you have good friends to be at your side, but if you’re ever in trouble I’ll be there to protect you.”

Ayumi felt her face become a little red as she was still unable to keep breath inside feeling a strange pounding in her heart. “…uh…al-al-right…”

“I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time.” Fumiko stepped back quickly letting Ayumi go and bowed politely once more. “My club is meeting today, so I must be going.” She turned around and rushed off like she was late going off towards the club building of the school.

Yuki and Saki finally pulled themselves together and took up sides on Ayumi, who was still recovering from her encounter. “Who was that?” Yuki said not sure if he could believe what he saw just an instant before.

“…Fumiko…Terauchi…”

“Ayumi?”

To be continued…