Alone on a darkling plain - Emi's Interim

[Farnbil]

A quick exchange between the track captain's boyfriend and Emi, which takes place right after Emi and Hisao's last big fight.

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At Yammaku high, a student completes his morning run around the campus. His old and worn running shoes hosts a strong step and a weak step, working as one to keep his thinking and his walking straight. Fatigue alienates his nerves, driving distance between himself and his incomplete leg. But he walks undaunted by the immediate loneliness.

The school track creeps up to his vision. The nurse told him about the track team, the boy himself knew the team captain, Shoji, intimately. His being a close friend of the track runners is no coincidence. However, he wants to walk far around the track's perimeter to avoid being seen, but the sun is already starting to impart the grass with it's true color. There is neither method or motive.

He sighs again, looking out towards the bleachers. A girl, he knows her as Emi Ibarazaki, stretches her neck upwards, then to the left. The runner's eyes look everywhere but forward, mostly behind. She is alone, Hisao is not here. Something is missing, a huge chunk of red warm something. The boy walks over with his face straddling on a look of worry to greet her. He calls to her with a hello.

"Oh hi Sakamoto!" Emi tenses her shoulders and smiles in shock. "I thought you were someone else for a second there. Is Shoji okay? I haven't seen either of you in days."

Sakamoto is jogging now. "Still sick as a dog. He can't even open the door to his room."

"How does the track captain get this sick?" Emi pouted, playfully. Her expression lacks its usual warmth. Every movement in her face is strained, ever so slightly. "He's not setting a good example at all!" She smiles again. "How are you?"

"I just ran. The weather's nice in the morning. I never get up this early though. No wonder you're the only one who does it."

Emi grins wiley. "Trying to one-up me huh?" Expecting more questions about his absensce, Sakmoto was caught off guard by her jesting. He shot a blank, leading the path of a nonexistant bullet as he spun in a cyclone.

"Where's your boyfriend?"

The light around Emi's body dimmed for a split second. An invisible force suddenly slammed downward onto her eyes, causing her to give into some pain for only that short window of time. The blow was only glancing. "He's been busy."

"Exams?" The boy shot again.

"Yeah." The girl ducked.

The silence trailed on Emi's back like a long rope as she jogged out onto the track. It pulled on Sakamoto as he began to limp with her. The air was cool and still. Emi threw herself against it with every leap and bound. She travelled like a perfect wave, an uncatchable thing marked only by the displacement of the matter she tore though. Sakamoto jogged as Emi made one lap after the other. The silence wrapped itself around both of them. In no time at all they were both tangled. Emi stops all at once, eyes wide in pain, her breathing past a point of human capacity. The boy feels his own legs getting colder by this sight alone. He walks over to her just in time to catch her toppling backward.

"I'm fine, damnit!" Emi grunts as Sakamoto sets her back up on her own footing. "The cup got loose that's all."

They both sat down right on the rubbery track. A blurry afterimage of Emi continued to run in place of the real personality as they rested, testament to her perseverance. Sakamoto tightened his laces while Emi examined the inside of her prosthetic legs. They went at this slowly, their hands almost still. Finally, Sakamoto spoke up. "Shoji and I patched things together after, you know, we got into a big fight earlier." Emi put a hand on her left leg stump and began to stare at it. "It was about the...the clandestine buisness." Sakamoto chuckled. Emi let out a small empty giggle with him. The boy sensed a dreadful air of normalcy creep in. "Shoji can tell you all about it when he gets better. He's good at being candid. Anywho, the problem's solved."

"I'm glad for you two." said Emi with a smile, without a hint of sentiment, without any force of impact, a speeding train that suddenly dissapears into a white gas before hitting a wall. "Really I am."

"Thanks. We even started using the lemon stuff again."

Emi shivered at the word. "That's great."

It was getting late in the morning. The pair begins to travel back to the nurse's office, the boy trailing behind Emi as they ascend a grassy ridge. After resting on the track, Sakamoto's thoughts had straightened back out again. "Have you been sleeping?" asked Sakamoto as he strained his bad leg. "Your eyes have bags."

Emi looked straight ahead toward the main buildings. "It's nothing."

More walking. Sakamoto's mind turns to another thought. Passively he tries to probe her. "Hisao is a handsome guy, I have to admit." Letting all the air out of her lungs, Emi walks faster. "You didn't tell him about the storage shed thing did you? It's alright if you did."

"I didn't tell him much." said Emi with finality. The crest of the ridge was approaching.

"Nothing happened?" he said, a little short of breath. "Talk to me!"

She looked back at him smiling. "I'll race you to the top!"

"No wait-what?"

She bolted on both arms and legs with ferality and dissapeared ahead of him. Sakamoto was puzzled, she was avoiding something. But what? He pursued her, wanting answers, calling her name playfully at first. "Emi! Come on, I'm tired!" But when he reached the top of the ridge, all he could find was a breeze, a spot where she should have been. He called to her again, this time in frustration. "Emi? Emi! Where'd you go?" He limped toward the nurse's office, still a long way ahead. He gave up looking, and, for the first half of the day, felt as if he'd seen her fall off a boat. It would be almost a week before he would see either Emi or Hisao again.

By then, it was clear that the issue between them had been dealt with.

[Helbereth]

I'm a little confused about when this happens exactly.

After the fight at her mom's house, or the final fight at the track?

The former would mean this story might have somewhere to go, the latter makes this seem like adding insult to injury.

It's well-written either way.

[Farnbil]

I'm a little confused about when this happens exactly.

After the fight at her mom's house, or the final fight at the track?

The former would mean this story might have somewhere to go, the latter makes this seem like adding insult to injury.

It's well-written either way.

I intended it to be after the fight at Emi's house. While the latter makes perfect sense, I would have made some major changes to the ambiance to bury Emi's emotion even further.