Kuromura Aki

"Do you still remember that?" Torikawa continued to ask for the n^th time, nearly two months after the kyudo challenge had ended. "If only someone had taken a photograph, I'm sure a lot of girls would want to get a copy of it." He then did a pose which I assumed was supposed to make me drool all over. Not.

"Can you stop following me around?" I knew I was too hopeful to think that Torikawa would stop bugging me after the challenge.

"Why? After all, if it weren't for me, we wouldn't have won," Torikawa grinned widely.

It was true that he had saved our game as I had a sprained wrist because of the "faulty" bow that Rika had oh-so-kindly swapped with me. But her schemes were already taken into consideration when I was strategising. It was better for Torikawa to take over, should anything happen to me, since Rika would be less wary of him.

I ignored Torikawa and sat down at my place, two seats behind Rika's.

"I'll need your help again for today's notes, Rika-san," I said loudly before putting on my earphones to listen to my mp3 player. She clenched her fists and cursed under her breath; as a forfeit for losing the challenge, Rika was subjected to our commands for two months.

"Do you know that we have an exam that's starting next week?" Torikawa asked as he slumped across his desk. No wonder almost everyone else was studying even before lessons were starting.

I stared out the window beside my seat in class, trying to drown out all the noise.

"Are you studying soon?" Could he stop bugging me?

"I'm not planning to."

"Why not?"

"Since the system in this school guarantees promotion to the next level and doesn't depend on our grades, whether we pass or fail exams makes no difference. So what's the point of studying?"

"They'll haul us back for extra classes."

"Then I won't attend."

"In that case..." He suddenly leaned over to my table.

I looked at him suspiciously before backing away. "What?"

"Let's go to Hokkaido this winter holiday!"

I stared at Torikawa with a blank look on my face. At times like this, the best thing to do is to ignore him. So I lay my head down on my table and started to "sleep".

"Hey!"

I will not answer... I will not answer...

"Kuromura!" He began to shake my shoulder, "think of all the food we can eat! Steamboat, seafood... CRAB! Plus the hot springs!"

I squeezed my eyelids tightly together and refused to lift my head up.

"C'mon... c'mon..."

"SHEESH!" I sat up abruptly, causing Torikawa to jump back in surprise. "Look, I don't know you well, and I'm sure you can't say much for me either. So why don't you go find your other friends and stop clinging onto me?"

There was an unnatural air of silence when I stopped so I thought that the message had finally gotten through.

"What made you think that I have a lot of friends?" Torikawa asked, with a sudden change in his tone; no longer light and cheerful but deep, with a tinge of sorrow. Sorrow? That sounded a little impossible for him. Come to think of it, I hardly saw him around with anyone else other than Takagi, Kentaro and me.

"Most class clowns are actually lonely people," he ruffled his hair absentmindedly, making his fringe fall over his eyes. "It's pathetic, actually, doing all sorts of unaccepted things to get accepted by others. No one was there when I was young to correct me either. To me, this is the right way- my only way- to prove my existence.

"I don't know why I'm even telling you all these," he gave a small laugh, as if mocking himself. "Maybe it's because we're somewhat alike and I think that maybe you don't want to be lonely too, even though you alienate yourself from others.

"Aren't you?" He turned and looked at me through his chocolate-brown hair before glancing away. "Deny it all you want but you can't hide forever."

The proof of my existence...

What I had been doing...

With every fight I got into, every rule that I broke, every strand of hope that I denied from others, I would be looked at in the eye; making me feel real. Every pain and bruising I get from fights reminded me, for a short while before I healed, that I was living in reality, but forcing me to seek out that hurt each time the feeling is gone. Perhaps it had become a habit without me noticing.

I would be reprimanded, punished, but at least those people would realise that in the midst of this blinding world, I was existing.

Unlike back then... with them...

"Sorry, I think I said too much," Torikawa's warm tenor cut through my thoughts. "It's okay if you don't want to go to Hokkaido. You were right about us being just normal classmates."

"I'll go."

Torikawa blinked at me, a skeptically surprised look on his face.

"I'm not used to hearing deep stuff from you, of all people. Plus, it'll shut you up. Hopefully," I added before turning to look of the window on my right.

Thank you.

Sigh... Two idiots...

"How much did you get?" It was near the end of the second term and the teachers were returning us our exam papers.

"Forty-eight."

"Forty-eight?" Torikawa looked totally in shock. "NO! How can this be? You're higher than me by two marks even though we both failed!"

"Then I suppose you are to pay for my expenses when we go Hokkaido."

"Argh! I shouldn't have bet with you!" So I left him alone to do his... weird dance of despair around our desks and took out the letters I had just received that morning which I did not have the time to browse through then.

The first was the monthly check from home, which means I have to make a trip to the bank to withdraw my allowance for this month. I put that aside and took a look at the postcard in my other hand.

It was from my mother. Why would she...

Aki,
    We have a problem at home.
    Come home this winter holiday.
-Mother

How could a mother write a letter like this to her child? She should have called if she had such little to say. Wasting postage just so she could avoid hearing my voice...

"Does that mean that you're not coming with me to Hokkaido?" Torikawa asked from behind me, peering at the card over my left shoulder.

"Uhm."

"Yay! Now I don't need to fork out money for your share of the trip!"

"There is still next year."

"Eh?"

"So you still have to pay for my share." Torikawa's face blanked. Then his expression softened and the corner of his lips lifted in the beginnings of a smile.

"Yeah, we'll go Hokkaido someday."

"Uhm."

Torikawa Sekai

If everyone wanted so much to be mean and abandon me for the whole winter holiday, all I could do was to enjoy myself and show them that I was having a better holiday without them!

Kyoto was such a nice place. The historical feel... the ancient aura... I had been circling around a few old houses just to admire their majesty and...

I should stop deceiving myself.

I'm lost. Hopelessly lost.

Yes! I'm lost! Here I was with everything I needed and I was stupid enough to forget to buy a map! Argh!

As I continued to question my intelligence, I noticed someone standing beyond the open back gate of the house that I had just passed.

Being curious, I peered in cautiously and there she was, a girl clad in dark blue kimono standing in the middle of a zen garden. Her dark irises, filled with a strange emptiness, showed through half-lidded eyes while her long jet-black hair danced around her slender frame in the cold breeze.

Suddenly, her expression sharpened as if she sensed something, and she turned sharply to glare at me.

Whoa! Even though their eyes are of different colours, the coldness in her eyes had an uncanny resemblance with Kuromura's.

"What are you staring at? You wanna die?" She even talked like her! She gave an exasperated sigh when I did nothing to reply and began to walk towards me.

Intimidated, I started backing away as I looked for a way to escape.

"What's wrong with you? It's me- Kuromura!" Huh? I stopped in my tracks and glanced at the nameplate on the stone wall beside the gate. It did say "KUROMURA". So this was where she lived? But she looked so different... and she had actually looked a little feminine.

"You look so... haha..."

Kuromura narrowed her eyes. "Why are you here? Are you stalking me?"

"No, no, no... I was touring alone. It's just that I..." I lowered my voice and whispered, "got lost."

"Aki!" A woman appeared behind her, "Be softer if you want to be rowdy. You won't want to leave a bad impression for our guests tomorrow."

Kuromura glared relentlessly up at the figure who was just a few centimetres taller that her.

The woman pushed up her glasses and patted her bunned up chestnut-brown hair, "Is this your friend? Aren't you going to introduce him to me?"

Kuromura glanced momentarily at me, "I don't know him. He's probably just some other irritating salesman. I'll get him out of here."

You, Kuromura Aki, are such a cruel person... And to think that I treated you as a friend.

"I'm Torikawa Sekai, Kuromura's classmate," I grinned, ignoring Kuromura's statement, and stuck out my hand. "Nice to meet you."

The woman stared down at my hand through her spectacles. She did not shake it but substituted it with a curt nod. "Kuromura Reina. What brought you here to Kyoto?"

"I'm touring alone," I answered as I slid my hands back into my coat pockets.

"Alone? What about your parents?"

"I'm an orphan."

"I see..." She paused while an indecipherable look flashed across her face momentarily, too fast for me to catch. "Why don't you stay here for the rest of the holiday? Aki can show you around if she's free so you won't get lost again."

Had she been listening in on us?

"Really? Thanks!"

"Aki, bring him to any vacant guest room," she said before walking off so gracefully she seemed to have floated instead.

Kuromura looked absolutely murderous now. This could not be good...

"You IDIOT!"

"Who was that just now?" I asked as Kuromura led me to my room.

"The woman who bore me." What a weird way to call your own mother.

"You two don't look related."

"I'd rather not," Kuromura replied, bitterness dripping from her usual cool and sarcastic tone.

"Why? She seemed nice enough." I think.

"Didn't you see her reaction when you told her that you're an orphan?"

Now that she pointed that out... her mother did look a little weird when she heard that information, not to mention not paying much attention to social introductions despite the air that she gave off.

I shook those thoughts out of my mind and shrugged at Kuromura, "I'm sure you just misinterpreted her because... maybe you don't understand her well enough?"

"And you do?" Kuromura raised an eyebrow in mockery.

Not replying, I kept my pace as we continued to walk in silence.

"I guess this room is vacant. You'd better stay in here until I come to get you for dinner if you don't want to get lost in this madhouse," she said monotonously before stepping out to close the door behind her, her shadow fading off in a distance.

...To be continued

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