2.60: Deviation

I walked between Riko-chan and Yuna-chan, my hands clasped behind my back. Every few steps, I nudged my bag’s strap back over my shoulder to keep it in place as it slipped now and again and held onto my bento. The activity helped to keep my hands from shaking.

We passed Oba-chan on the way as usual. She was sweeping the pavement in front of her little store. Her broom paused mid-motion as she tilted her head, studying the three of us with quiet scrutiny.

My face warmed instantly. I straightened and waved, forcing myself into my usual cheer.

“Good morning, Oba-chan!”

She stared at us for another second but then abruptly dropped her broom.

“Wait. You three,” she said, nodding to herself as if she’d just made up her mind.

I automatically bent to pick it up. As I did, my bag slid off my shoulder.

Yuna beamed at me and helped get my bag back onto my shoulder. Before I could straighten, Oba-chan disappeared into her shop.

I stood next to Riko and Yuna, frozen in place, my chest tightening. It wasn’t long before she emerged again, carrying three small bottles of ocha in her arms.

She pressed one into my hands first.

“Do your best today, Sumire-chan.”

Something inside me cracked and a tear leaked down my cheek.

“Ah,” Oba-chan mumbled, looking away. “Please take good care of her.” She handed the other two ocha to Riko and Yuna and slowly took her broom from me and resumed her work.

I bowed quickly in her direction, gripping the cold bottle so tightly my fingers hurt, condensation coating my fingers. “Th-thank you, Oba-chan!”

“Thank you. We will,” Yuna said warmly.

“Thanks,” Riko added more stiffly.

The old woman waved us off, already embarrassed by her own kindness. “You’re welcome.” She kept her face turned away as she said it, sweeping one spot a little too furiously.

Riko and Yuna glanced at each other and Yuna smiled.

Riko smiled back at Yuna, protective and sincere.

Their eyes met. Clashed and held.

Oba-chan peeked at them from the corner of her eye, then snorted softly.

“Ah… youth,” she muttered, continuing to sweep. “Don’t be late.”

I stood there clutching my ocha, my heart pounding, trying not to cry again.

We didn’t talk much after that.

Walking between them, I found myself relaxing despite everything, my shoulders loosening, my steps falling into a rhythm. I worried less than I would have if they hadn’t been with me. The silence wasn’t awkward. It felt somewhat relaxing.

Then Riko dropped back suddenly and grabbed Yuna’s arm.

I slowed, instinctively glancing over my shoulder at them. Riko raised one hand toward me.

“Keep walking, Sumire-chan,” she said. “We’ll catch up.”

I hesitated. “What’s this about?”

Yuna said nothing, turning to Riko.

“Something…” Riko said, her gaze pointed, meaningful.

I frowned, looking between them.

Riko made a shooing motion with her hand, almost impatient now. Yuna smiled at me and nodded once, reassuring.

“…Okay,” I said, feeling uncertain, and continued ahead alone.

I opened my ocha and took a small sip, the cool bitterness refreshing me as I walked. The street stretched out ahead of me. I tried not to think about what they were saying behind my back.

I wonder if they’re getting sick of me the way I’ve been...

After a little while, their footsteps came up behind me and they fell back into place at my sides.

That sure was quick...

I looked at them curiously, turning my head to look left and right, trying to put on a smile. Something was different in their eyes.

They weren’t looking at me, not even looking at each other.

Huh? What’s going on between them?

Both of them seemed wrapped up in their own thoughts, their expressions carefully neutral.

I swallowed but didn’t ask because it was something they wanted to keep private.

At the next intersection, two familiar figures came into view, approaching along the cross street.

Hinata-chan and Megumi-chan.

I blinked in surprise, then lifted a hand. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, Sumire-chan. Riko-chan. Yuna-chan.” Hinata tilted her head slightly, her eyes curious. “I didn’t know your homes were near here.” She looked pointedly at Yuna and Riko.

“You’re right! Mine’s way off on the other side of the school,” Riko said with a light laugh.

“The same here. We’re closer to each other than Sumire-chan,” Yuna added, giggling.

Megumi’s eyes sparkled immediately. “What’s the occasion?”

“Ah…” I felt my face warm. “We had a sleepover last night.”

“Ooooh—” Megumi grinned. “One of those yuri things, right?”

Hinata froze then flushed hard. “Hah… O-one of those… yuri things? What did they do?!” She looked like she already had some ideas if no specifics.

“No! Nothing like that happened between us all—!” I blurted out, mortified.

…Well. One huge thing kind of almost did. I didn’t look at Yuna. She’d nearly kissed me. She would have if she didn’t respect my feelings for Aoi and I wasn’t sure what I’d have done if she had. I clutched my hands at my chest, holding my bento over my heart.

“Oi… Aoi-chan,” Megumi said casually, “where is she? Didn’t she join you? You’re the most lily with her.”

My chest tightened. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to blush over that.

I bit my lip, then shrugged, turning my face away. “She… can’t always go out of her way to walk to school with me.”

Before Megumi could respond, Riko and Yuna both crossed their wrists sharply in front of them, shaking their heads in unison.

Megumi paused, then nodded slowly, as if suddenly understanding.

“Would it be alright to have a talk in private later, Megumi-chan, Hinata-chan?”

Riko blinked, tilting her head thoughtfully, saying nothing.

“Okay!” she chirped. “Let’s all walk together since we’ve run into each other! Hinata-chan and I live that way.” She gestured with her index and middle fingers and behind her, indicating the direction they’d come from.

“I didn’t know you two lived so close,” I said, forcing a smile. “Yes, let’s walk together.”

As we fell into step as a group, I could feel Riko and Yuna close at my sides again.

And even with the knot still tight in my chest, their closeness helped me breathe.

I went through the motions, slipping off my shoes at the lockers, changing into my school slippers, walking down the hall to the stairs with the other four going up toward our homeroom on the second floor.

When we entered the classroom, Aoi-chan was nowhere to be seen as far as I could tell. She wasn’t at her desk.

Her absence pressed in on me immediately, feeling tight and uncomfortable. I told myself not to panic, clinging to the rhythm of our routine, waiting for the moment I’d see her get seated at her desk, looking calm and smirking like always.

Ah… like the strange morning where I was really forgetful… Maybe she’ll show up and yell at me for leaving her behind. We didn’t wait. Maybe she’ll be so mad at me that she won’t want to…

My teeth sank into my lower lip.

Riko-chan and Yuna-chan exchanged quick glances behind me.

I… I hope she didn’t… No! That’s not how Aoi-chan is! There’s no way she’d avoid going to school over me… Over what we did…

I sat at my desk, but after a moment, sitting with my hands in my lap, making myself small, my eyes swept the room, and that’s when I saw her.

Aoi-chan slipped into the classroom at that moment.

DOKI-DOKI

She didn’t look in my direction, instead walking along the wall and away from me.

She stopped at the empty desk at the rear of the classroom, seating herself, her posture straight, pointedly ignoring my eyes. She removed a book and a folder from her bag and started rush working on some homework that she’d ignored over the weekend. Her pencil moved steadily across the page.

She didn’t look up. She didn’t look at me.

It felt like something inside my chest cracked open, sharp and sudden.

I turned away and tried to focus on unpacking my own bag, stowing my bento with trembling hands. My gestures were too gentle and careful like a small wounded animal, feeling like any big movements might draw attention I didn’t want. When I finished my palms sweaty, I turned toward the window beside me and stared out at the sky blankly, the glass reflecting my own face in it. My eyes were filled with too much pain.

You’re going to need a better poker face than that if you want to keep what happened a secret…

Forcing myself to control my expression, flattening my face and forcing a smile that couldn’t touch my eyes, I looked back at her a few times, hoping that I was hiding my pain better those times. No matter how many times I looked, she still refused to see me.

I didn’t want her to hurt like me. She seemed calm and composed in a way that I couldn’t be.

Riko was angry. Now and again, she glanced at Aoi. Yuna gazed at me with infinite empathy, not turning her attention from me even for a moment. That empathy might break me if I looked at her face too long, so I looked away. 

My fingers drifted to my hair without thinking and my fingers encountered it.

The ribbon that I’d decided to wear.

She wasn’t wearing the ribbon I bought her. Of course she wouldn’t…

I twisted it once, then again, the silk suddenly feeling wrong for the day. After a moment, I pulled it undone and closed my hand around it, lowering it into my lap.

The room filled with the usual morning sounds, chairs scraping on the floor, the quiet chatter of other students and pages turning.

But to me, everything sounded completely distant.

“Oi! Kurobane-san! Why are you sitting there?” A boy asked loudly.

Aoi-chan didn’t reply, at least not in a way that I could hear.

“Did something happen?”

“It’s strange not seeing you leaning towards each other before class starts.”

In my mind, I was already somewhere else. I didn’t want to hear whatever harsh things she might say about me if I listened hard enough. My heart was pounding recklessly and relentlessly and I felt weird tingles.

After a while, the chime rang.

The sound cut cleanly through the room, sharp and official.

“Be quiet and rise,” Daichi said from the front row.

My body moved on reflex. I stood before I even thought about it, my head swimming, already lowered, my shoulders drawn in like I was bracing for impact, my heart not wanting to stop. The sounds around me muted a little.

“Bow.”

“Good morning, Kurosawa-sensei,” the class chorused without me.

“Good morning!” Kurosawa-sensei replied brightly.

We sat.

“Let’s take attendance!”

I didn’t look up as I lowered myself into my seat, my gaze fixed on my lap, on my hands folded too tightly there together, shivers going up them. My whole body shook.

“Amamine Megumi?”

“Hai!”

“Kondo Daichi?”

“Hai.”

“Mori Hinata?”

“…Hai.”

“Yahiro Satoshi?”

“Hai.”

“Arisugawa Yuna?”

“Hai.”

Her voice came from a few rows back, near the windows as usual. Steady. The same as always. It helped more than she probably knew.

“Tachibana Riko?”

“Hai.”

Riko’s answer was sharp… too sharp. Tense in a way that made my chest tighten.

“Kurobane Aoi?”

“Hai.”

Aoi-chan’s voice was crisp. Controlled. Exactly the way it always was.

It felt like a knife sliced through my heart hearing her name.

“Shinohara Sumire?”

Time stretched.

The name echoed in my head, distant and unreal, like it belonged to someone else. My throat closed. I opened my mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

“Shinohara-san! Answer!”

“She’s right here! Everyone can see her.” Riko said quickly.

“H—Hai.” I barely managed.

My voice cracked badly, the sound thin and uneven, my heart beating far too quickly. I didn’t care who heard it. I didn’t have the strength to.

“Are you okay, Shinohara?” Kurosawa-sensei asked gently.

I couldn’t answer.

My chest felt tight, like it was being squeezed from the inside. My breath came shallow, uneven.

“Sumire-chan!”

“Shinohara-san!”

“Shinohara-san!”

Voices blurred together. My heart just kept beating far too fast, refusing to stop, pounding so hard it felt like it might tear its way out of me. The edges of my vision darkened, the classroom smearing and warping as a tear slipped free from the corner of my eye. My breathing was too uneven. I couldn’t get a clean breath of air.

I tried to stop it from happening.

I really did.

But I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Baku hovered just beyond the classroom window, unseen and unfelt. His elephantine head tilted slightly as he floated there, half-phased into the dream’s upper layer, the glass and concrete offering no resistance to him at all. He wore his customary top hat, suit and held his cane.

Somewhat below him, the classroom moved on, chalk scratching softly on the blackboard, papers rustling, the low murmur of students settling back into a normal routine. Today was completely ordinary and predictable… except for Sumire’s collapse. She’d been carried to the nurse’s office, surprisingly not by her. It had been class representative Daichi Kondo, Riko and Yuna that took her.

Baku hadn’t followed them, nor was he merely watching them all.

He was watching her.

“…No sign of the nightmare anywhere,” Baku murmured to himself, his voice a low vibration that never touched the waking world. “And yet…”

His gaze narrowed, fixing on Aoi where she sat at the rear of the room, her posture perfect, her eyes lowered to her work. She was composed. Too composed, all things considered.

“…There is another anomaly.”

He drifted closer to the glass windows, shadows of yōkai energy flickering faintly around his form as his attention sharpened.

“What are you?” he wondered softly.

The dream had been adjusted. Carefully and delicately. A nudge, no more than that had been necessary, memories smoothed, paths realigned, their lunches restored to their familiar rhythm. It should have been enough.

And yet.

“I wonder if she remembers our encounter,” Baku mused. “Even after I rewrote the seam.”

Aoi’s expression didn’t change, her pen moving steadily. Something about her presence resisted the flow of the dream, not violently, nor loudly. Quietly and persistently.

“She played her role at first,” Baku continued, thoughtful rather than annoyed. “A mere construct formed from Sumire’s buried memories. Memories of martial discipline. Combat instincts given shape. A guide meant to temper, not fracture.”

His trunk curled slightly, a gesture of puzzlement.

“And yet… she chose deviation.”

He watched her fingers tighten briefly around her pen, watching her pause, just for a fraction of a second, before continuing.

“She refuses instruction,” he said. “Even when the dream itself bends to accommodate her. That should not be possible.”

The foxfire around him dimmed as his thoughts deepened.

“A will,” Baku said slowly. “Her actions were not scripted by myself. By whom, in any case? No. She possesses a will of her own.”

He leaned back, floating higher, his eyes never leaving Aoi.

“How curious,” he murmured. “A dream figment who resists being only a dream… who wishes to live.”

His voice softened, something like regret threading through it.

“How interesting,” Baku added quietly. “And how tragic.”

Somewhere beneath him, Sumire currently slept fitfully in the nurse’s office, her heart still raw and wounded, her fate still unfolding.

Baku exhaled.

“This dream,” he said quietly, “is becoming far more interesting than I intended.”