Chapter Fifteen: A Request
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Kuromura Aki
I stifled a yawn and stretched upwards, rotating my wrists and working out the tiny knots in the knuckles along my fingers with a series of luxurious short cracks. Ah... That felt better, but better not indulge in it. Not good for the bones. And then there was the-
Wait. Stop mental rant. Better use that time on completing homework rather than mentally talking to myself. Screw the new grading system. Consistency- when it came to education- was not meant for me.
Added to that was the trouble with being caught up between Mother and my cousin's family. Why was my brother here? I had been so sure that my behaviour all these years were blatant enough to show that I did not want to be near him, even if he did want to bring me warnings- out of what? Goodwill? Peace of conscience?
Tipping my chair slightly backwards to balance precariously on the pair of wooden back legs, I reached out to pull aside my window curtain and immediately, the orange evening light streamed in. My eyes searched the windows on the opposite dormitory building for Torikawa's. Finally settling on the ones that should be his, from the memory of our window chat, I leaned against the right side of my windowpane and rubbed the bridge of my nose. Such was the stubborn headaches that I got from my spectacles.
I slipped the offensive item back on my face and stared at Torikawa's closed window, curtains still drawn together. Trust him to be the only student with enough courage to replace the only school-allowed standard curtains with his repulsively bright blue and neon-orange SpongeBob SquarePants drapes.
Shuddering to myself, I maintained my line of sight on those nauseating pieces of cloth hanging behind Torikawa's window. He must be hurting his brain now, trying to guess the reason for my spectacles, dyed hair and constant disappearances. It was scary how I could understand how his mind worked. Then again, his was simple enough to figure out.
And of course, there was still Nakamine. She would definitely be just as curious about my situation. Oh, the people I had to deal with.
Hopefully those two would stop at mere ponderings and not get involved. For now, there was only so much that I could wish for.
Torikawa Sekai
"I remember you!" Erika exclaimed. The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes with the same look of exasperation as Kuromura's. Talk about double image.
He stepped up to our table and held out his hand to me. "I'm Kuromura Haru. Aki's younger brother, which I am sure, is common knowledge by now."
"Torikawa Sekai," I replied, shaking his hand.
"Nakamine Erika," Erika said with a grin and a small sideways nod to save the younger Kuromura the trouble of stretching across the table.
The boy looked at me from the corner of his eyes before speaking. "I know you."
I raised my eyebrows. I was that famous?
"Mother ranted nonstop for the week after I came home. Something along the line of having someone mildly commenting on her parenting and messing up the family gathering while simultaneously abducting her daughter from right in front of her."
All right, perhaps more infamous than famous.
He waved his hands about in a bored manner and continued, "That was before she started on and on about having to bring offerings to the ancestors and then answering to my grandparents for letting some guy with an unaccounted family background onto Kuromura grounds."
Scowling none too discreetly, I cut in. "For your information, Haru- can I call you 'Haru'? I already call your sister 'Kuromura' and it'll be nothing but confusion if I call both of you by the same surname- Haru, that certain guy with family bloodlines not specifically noted down meticulously in parchment since the first known ancestors wed- which your family probably does- that guy with hazy parentage, is actually here while you are speaking of him."
Erika gawked at me, eyebrows rose towards her hairline while her usually sparkling eyes stilled in astonishment. I was babbling. Something I did only when irritated, and with the last occurrence so far in the past I could not even remember, this was one habit I had cleanly forgotten. Until Kuromura Haru came and stirred it up.
And he still possessed the nerve to look poised and calm as if he had not just indirectly questioned my existence. Well, I could be just as composed! Defiantly matching his gaze, I mustered on the mask of indifference that Kuromura paraded around with everyday the best I could.
"Uh... Boys- guys?" Erika glanced tentatively at us, right left right left right left...
Haru shrugged nonchalantly then, "I'm not here to be entertained with adolescent banter."
I responded with a glower.
"So I'll just get straight to the point: how well do you two know my sister?"
Erika sat back in deep contemplation while I frowned at the petite youth, my defenses slowly rising up. Whose side was Kuromura's brother on? Hers? Or the rest of her family whom she hardly mentions?
"Well," Erika's voice interrupted my thoughts. "It is quite difficult to say for sure how much we know her..."
I carefully weighted the different outcomes of the alternative answers I that could give. Stick to Erika's response and dig my own grave of suspicion since Haru knew of me being defensive about Kuromura that one time when the two of us sat at the same table with her mother for dinner? Or give the truth about the minor information on red hair and family curse that Kuromura had spoken of, thus effectively losing her trust by disclosing what I knew in front of Erika when the redhead obviously avoided speaking about herself to any other?
Well, judging by her behaviour, it might be until Satan himself wore a frilly pink costume and did a fancy figure-skate to extravagant flowing classical tunes on a frozen slate of hellish inferno that Kuromura would start to sprout bits and pieces of secrets about her own self. Voluntarily, no less.
The knot between my brows lightened on a minuscule scale at the reminder that I was the only non-family member privy to a tiny part of one of her many issues, allowed by her free will. The corners of my lips lifted, at that thought, by a sudden exhilarating smugness of superiority.
I missed the calculative look Haru sent my way, and decided to reply with a question instead. "What has our relationship with her got to do with anything, and more importantly, with you being here?"
Haru held my outward glare with distrust clear in his now stormy black eyes.
"I need to speak with you in private," he finally said and promptly turned to walk off.
Gaping at the teen's back, I answered Erika's whispered "What?" with a shrug.
"I meant now, once you're done closing your mouth, Torikawa-san," Haru said out loud from where he stood, waiting beside a row of low bushes.
Erika gave a small motioning gesture, ushering me off. I stood up with a huff of irritation and followed the shorter boy to a more secluded corner.
Haru stood straight with an air of determination that seemed to almost make up for the physical difference in our heights. "First, I am going to assume that you treat onee-san as a friend, judging from the way you acted in front of my mother last winter, and that regardless of how onee-san might ignore the things you guys do for her, it is not in your capacity to let harm get in her way just to spite her. Tell me if I'm wrong."
I slid my hands into the pockets of my pants and told the boy to go on, wondering just what he was trying to say.
"Look, I don't know how much I am allowed to tell you before onee-san feeds my head to the sharks, skins me alive and grounds my bones to feed that powder to the rest of my family when she finds out..."
That sounded exactly like what Kuromura would do, with a ring of macabre hilarity to the familiarity of her thought process.
"... So whatever we discuss now will not be shared beyond the two of us-"
"Wait a minute," I interrupted, pulling my hands out to fold my arms in front my chest. "How do I know if you're on Kuromura's side? Chances are, this could be another of your mother's plans on your sister. And there are people-" or perhaps just Erika and me, "- who do think of her as a friend so why shouldn't they be let in on what we are about to talk about?"
Haru took a step back and gave an eerily languid smirk.
"So you do know something about onee-san."
Damn my inability to think before I speak!
"I only know as much as she was willing to tell. Which isn't a lot," I added under my breath.
"Look, I don't mean to rush but there isn't much time before people start to get suspicious about me staying too long in this school for every repeated visits or for them to say that I'm abusing my position as the brother to take the visitors' pass for granted."
I looked at him critically. "Just say what you came to say. I'll have you know that, presently, the only person I trust from your family is your sister."
"Good, good," Haru nodded impatiently. "In fact, it's better now that you've said that. I'm going to need your help, and unless absolutely, desperately necessary, you will tell no one about anything that I am going to tell you. That includes onee-san."
"I'll be the judge of that."
Haru nodded again. "You don't want harm to come her way-"
I grunted an affirmative.
"And neither do I. So I'm going to need your help. Now listen, this is what you have to do for me..."
"Stop staring at me," Kuromura said flatly, her thick owlish glasses hiding the suppressed glare which was most definitely on her face.
"I'm not! I was just trying to see what just went by the window!" I averted the issue stiffly. "Sitting beside it doesn't mean that you own it, Aki-chan."
Kuromura sighed with annoyance, "You're an extraordinarily unparalleled liar, Torikawa. An extraordinarily unparalleled terrible liar."
Erika stifled a giggle as she bent over her desk. Her shoulders were shaking erratically while she hid her head in her arms.
I narrowed my eyes at the back of her dark-blonde head. The fact that she sat in front of Kuromura and I, not able to turn around to talk to us, gave me ample opportunity to practice the 'Kuromura Aki Ice Glare'.
And Erika's head was still bobbing uncontrollably. Easily amused, that one.
"Find something else to entertain yourself with, Torikawa," Kuromura flexed her shoulders and went back to jotting down lesson notes.
Leaning back against my chair in defeat, I tried to conceive the next choice of actions to take. Personally, I could not see how what Haru wanted me to do was supposed to help Kuromura.
"Whatever plans that you are currently tumbling in your head- don't. They won't work."
"I wasn't planning anything!" I exclaimed loudly, earning a hard stare from the teacher. "But... What made you think that I was? Planning, that is."
Kuromura smacked her lips, editing her notes in frustrated vigour. "You are unexcitedly easy to read. And you always scratch the knuckle of your left middle finger when you struggle to get your brains to somewhat operate."
She noticed these things? That was a surprise.
"There are things happening now in the Kuromura family, not just our own family, and by that I meant those not from the main bloodline.
"It's a common thing among old and established Japanese families," Haru replied hurriedly, seeing my frown. "The honke is more in control of family assets, and is responsible for the safekeeping of the koseki- as you had so nicely put as the parchment of family bloodlines. Or family tree, if you will. We have a higher status of power, so to speak, since most of the Kuromura lands belong to the main line. Those not sold to the government after the wars back in the feudal period ended, anyways.
"The point is, one of the more reputable bunke families of which the eldest son you've already seen the previous holiday, insisted that he had some... vice, over onee-san, thereby assuring his elder family members that it was enough to force my family to hand over our honke position and everything else that came with it. They are quite aggressive this time around, compared to all their failed tries in the past. Or so if the stories I've heard from my grandfather were anything to go by.
"They are going all out to get concrete evidence on onee-san- I don't care if you don't know what I mean by that- but now she needs to be looked out for. That's all I ask, since I can't do it and that you see her more frequently than others, being her classmate. Keep your eyes open and make sure nothing out of the ordinary happens."
I rubbed the back of my head, still confused over what Haru said before the weekend. Daring a glance over at the girl in question, who was frowning over her notes, I wondered how 'keeping my eyes open and watching her' would help Kuromura.
Said girl ruffled her short black ponytail and tucked a stray strand of fringe back behind her ear before pushing up her spectacles.
"Torikawa Sekai, I'm telling you to stop staring at me."
"I am not," I huffed and turned to face the front.
Kuromura Haru
BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEE-
I flipped open my mobile phone.
Nothing happened today. This had better make some sense by the end of it all. And you owe me one!
>:(
- Torikawa Sekai
I deleted the message and waited patiently for the hour hand on my watch to finish its final two minutes crawl to the eleventh hour mark.
My phone rang a few seconds after. I picked it up and waited for her routine question to supply my answer to.
"Yes, Mother. Nothing today either."
...To be continued