~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The door clicks shut and I rest my forehead on the glass for a moment. Classes are over which means it’s time for my lunch. That’s really only half my day done? I shouldn’t be surprised. Christmas season has always been an intense time every year since I started here. Hell, even before Yamaku this time of year brought about all sorts of stress.
But it’s worth it.
Seeing the relief on Matsubara’s face after he realized how much easier his new wheelchair would be to navigate in - not to mention the much lighter strain on his arms - is worth the sore shoulder from helping him move back and forth so many times.
Not to mention watching the faces of some of the kids slowly get brighter and brighter as they learn to live more independently and confidently. Today’s prime example was Ikezawa. She had requested a few different skin creams and lotions to help find one that makes exercising more comfortable and I don’t think I’ve ever held a conversation half as long as that one with her.
Though sometimes these kids gaining confidence grows to a whole new level. A problematic one. Exhibit A being-
My stomach groans loud enough I almost think it echoes down the empty hall. I push off of the door and stretch. There’s plenty more paperwork and reviews and meetings before the day ends, but for now I’ll stop worrying for just a few minutes.
I start my journey out to my car and as I’m passing by the gymnasium a quite familiar voice calls out to me from inside. It’s almost like she heard my thoughts earlier. What a terrifying thought.
“Shi- I mean Nurse!” Emi quickly moves to catch up to me. Unusually, it sounds like she’s not wearing her blades.
“Ah, Sunshine. I was just-” I turn around and forget what I was going to say.
She giggles, waves, and gestures towards the auditorium. “So, you coming to watch our show or what?”
Artist asked not to give links
She says that casually as if she’s not standing before me wearing what has got to be the most ridiculous outfit I’ve ever seen her in: bunny ears, what looks like just the sleeves of a black tuxedo with a red bow and some sort of thin black cape, an extraordinarily revealing latex corset, and sheer stockings. She’s even wearing matching black loafers on her prosthetics.
Somehow I manage to find my voice. “Right, there was that… some students were talking… something about a magic… and you were- … What are you wearing?”
Emi grins widely and leans to the side, letting her twin-tails hang. “Looks like I win this time.” She giggles.
I raise an eyebrow and cross my arms. “If I had known outfits were on the table I’d have busted out my-”
She rushes over and covers my mouth. “No, no, no, nopity-nope. I do not want to hear another word.” She glares directly into my eyes. I shrug, which is enough to convince her to back off of me. “It…” Emi’s cheeks flush. “… was Haruhiko’s idea.”
“What’s with the delayed embarrassed reaction?”
She grits her teeth and turns away, her face deepening a few shades. “Oh you shut it. Anyone would be embarrassed in this thing, I mean just look at it! Actually... don’t. I’m just glad he didn’t make us wear puffy little tails.”
“Yes, because that would be what was too far.”
Emi crosses her arms. “Yes. It would be.” She snatches my hand and starts dragging me along. “Now come on, let’s get to the show! I’m going on soon so I’m done handing fliers out.” Is that her excuse? The only foot traffic she’d find in that corner of the school are medical staff and students recently discharged from a check-up or visit. Hardly the most receptive audience, I’d imagine.
She’s leading me to the amphitheater. Does that mean this production was officially sponsored by the school? I don’t see how they could’ve managed that. “How did you get Principal Miyake’s approval for the costume choice?”
“Haruhiko and Lezard managed to talk Shizune into helping get the word out. She apparently went the extra mile to get us the theater and ‘other such’ approvals.” Hakamichi’s involvement explains everything. I swear that girl could get recreational drugs legalized on this campus if she wanted to.
Emi bites her cheek in a pout. “And here I was thinking she’d be the voice of reason. Well, not voice, but- anyways, we’re here!”
I expected to see a nice set of students present – I mean, I’d even heard buzz about it all day – but a turnout like this… First of all, the front section of chairs are completely full. I even see a couple students sitting on another's' lap. So right off the back we have at least a hundred students present there. Same goes for the wheel-chair accessible region and there’s extras nearby as well. About a dozen more. Beyond that, it seems no one wanted – or was rather directed not to sit further back than that so the remaining are standing in the lanes or sitting on the ground up front. Another twenty or thirty at least. That’s almost half the students at the school.
Emi pauses after entering, her eyes widening at the crowd. I retrieve my hand and ask, “Something wrong?”
“No… there’s just a lot more than last time I looked.” She shakes her head. “Anyways, I’m off to prepare for my part! Hope you like the show!” She giggles then dashes off to the side entrance leading to the backstage area.
A few students turn to glance at her as she goes, but most are distracted by the ongoing show on stage. The apparent star of the show, one Haruhiko Suzumiya, seems to be finishing up some sort of trick that involved a member of the audience. Miura glances at both sides of a card, one with some vulgar writing on it, and mouths some similar vulgarities while walking off stage.
Suzumiya gives a flashy bow, then lifts the microphone to his mouth. “For my next trick, I’m going to switch things up!” He snaps, which is surprisingly audible given the gloves he is wearing. Speaking of, the rest of his outfit is exactly as loud as his personality. It screams ‘magician’ at the top of its lungs, down to the absurdly tall top hat and cape. At least I can say Emi’s outfit matches.
After the snap, he slowly brings his finger to his mouth. “Shhhh….” He waits for the quiet buzz to go nearly silent. “Thank you. This next performance works best in near silence, so I humbly request your cooperation.” He gives another flashy bow and as he does a pair of footsteps comes from off-stage.
My immediate expectation was Emi, but that doesn’t sound like her walking. Then I’m even more shocked to see none other than Lilly Satou walk out on stage in an outfit matching Emi’s - the only major difference being her wearing heels instead of Emi’s loafers.
Her expression and posture are as composed as ever, though there’s a stiff edge to it that I’ve not seen before. There’s an immediate, loud reaction from the crowd, which even included a distinct amount of cat-calling from the feminine crowd.
The resident magician holds up has hands to draw attention back to him, then moves to zip his lips. The crowd quiets down, but not without a few people getting their last piece in. As for Satou, the cracks in her composure are definitely showing. No amount of blush could mask that level of red in her cheeks.
She’s carrying a box towards center stage, and when she gets there Suzumiya takes it from her and sets it on a chair next to him. As he does, it collapses revealing a large jug of water and a paper reading, ‘Magician’s refreshments. Caution! Heavy.’
Suzumiya quietly picks up the jug and takes a long draw from it, then sets it back down.
“Now…” The crowd interrupts him with a growing laughter as more people read the sign. He plays into it, pointing at Satou and silently shushing the crowd again which only worsens the situation for a moment. She doesn’t seem to notice anything’s off.
Suzumiya wipes fake sweat from his brow and straightens his bow-tie. “Thank you, Lilly, for bringing out the important tools…” He winks to the crowd, “...for this next trick, however your assistance will also be further required.”
He moves to grab another chair from off stage. As he walks, Satou raises an eyebrow. I don’t think she was informed of this part of the script.
With the chair in hand, Suzumiya returns and sets it next to Satou. “If you wouldn’t mind, please take a seat here.” Satou obliges.
“As many of you are well aware, not everyone present has the ability to appreciate every trick performed tonight. With that in mind, I will now call upon otherworldly spirits to move sound beyond its physical capabilities.”
He moves a few of the objects off stage, leaving just Satou and the chair she’s in. “But I’m going to need those visually capable to cooperate for this to truly work.” He moves his hands in small circles and points upwards. A moment later the lights slowly brighten throughout the room. Chatter picks up in the hall.
“Can everyone present please confirm to those unable to that there are no speakers on any of the walls or roof in the room?” Everyone’s heads twist around and scan the room. Sure enough, it seems like the few speakers that are usually present have been temporarily taken down. I had been wondering why he wasn’t using a mic.
For a couple minutes the crowd mumbles about to each other and checking for speakers everywhere they could think, including under the chairs, before Suzumiya draws them back in with another distinct snap of his fingers. “With that complete, I shall begin by snapping my fingers a few times.”
Sure enough, he lifts on hand and starts snapping it rhythmically. Each time he does, it’s loud and clear. Then he starts walking across the stage behind Satou. “If you want to participate best, I recommend closing your eyes and keeping track of my movements through sound alone. This will be our baseline.”
He reaches Satou and starts walking in a circle around her. “I will walk this same path for the remainder of this half of the performance. Starting on one end, circling around my lovely assistant,” he finishes one slow loop, “going to the other end, and back again.”
He waits until he reaches the end of the stage before turning around and retracing his steps, all the while snapping about every two seconds. “If you are ever in doubt of my location, I invite those able to open their eyes again and confirm my position on stage. In fact, I encourage it for the sake of those unable.”
When he reaches stage-left he turns and it begins, with every other snap seeming to come from the opposite end of the stage than him. With every snap he points towards where the sound is going to come from, all the while continuing the monologue about the spirits and other such nonsense.
Once he reaches the other end of the stage he switches it up again, pointing everywhere around the room as he snaps with the sound seeming to come from wherever he points every time. It’s too dark for me to make out, but nothing seems to be off about the room.
Just as the trick starts getting old, he switches things up again and starts ‘transporting’ his voice around too, though not nearly as globally as the snaps. Much like a ventriloquist, he even ‘speaks’ with his mouth closed, alongside amplifying and dampening his vocals. The final part is him repeating the snapping section while doing so close to Satou’s sides so she can feel the air from his hands move. Sure enough, the sound starts moving around again.
The cycle from earlier repeats in similar fashion as well, before another visually impaired member of the audience is invited to take Satou’s place. She seemed really relieved by that. Then comes time for the next trick. Satou takes her leave, and Emi comes onto stage.
As with Satou, there’s a chorus of cheers and such. I can’t help but sigh and shake my head. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that these are still high school kids.
Instead of a box, Emi’s carrying a platter. “For my next trick, I’m going to require a volunteer.”
Immediately a whole slew of hands shoot into the air. I can’t imagine Hisao is amused. Wait, is he even here? I’d imagine he would be considering Emi’s presence. I don’t think he’s so shy as to not chew out at least a few of these far too eager volunteers.
Suzumiya scopes out the crowd. “Who to pick, who to pick…” He turns to Emi. “Any participants that catch your eye?”
She raises a finger to her chin and exaggeratedly scans the crowd as well, until she makes eye contact… with me. “Ooh! How about him!” Alright, so this was definitely a scheme.
“He looks to be the perfect volunteer!” Suzumiya agrees. A hundred pairs of vicious eyes turn their attention to me and I’m almost transported right back to secondary school myself.
I raise my hands defensively and shake my head, but it’s no use. Before I know it I’m on stage as well. “And what, might I ask, will I be helping you with?” I lean in to the extravagant nature of Suzumiya’s show. If I’m gonna be up here, I may as well have fun.
“If you may, please reveal what’s on this platter.” He gestures to Emi, dutifully holding the plate with a grin on her face.
I hover my hand over the plate. “I hope there’s nothing too exciting under here…”
Emi’s smile drops into a frown and glare, and the groans in the audience tell me I’ve succeeded. Suzumiya holds it together though. “I assure you it’s nothing so interesting. In fact…” He gestures for me to proceed.
I shrug and lift the cloche to reveal… an empty plate.
“It’s nothing!” Suzumiya gives a dramatic bow and pause. I assume he was giving time for an applause or roaring laugh that never came. Instead he got a quiet chuckle. Emi takes the cloche back from my hand as he clears his throat. “Yes, to start I’m going to need you to deposit a device of personal importance on the plate.”
“Oh my! In front of everyone? If you insist…” I turn to my adoring crowd and wink. The response is louder than what Suzumiya got, which I’ll take as a win.
“In other words…” Suzumiya’s eyebrow twitches. Looks like I’m finally getting to him! “… your phone please.”
“Ah, that. Of course…” I grab the phone in my jacket. I doubt I’ll get a call on break, so it should be fine.
As I’m about to set it on the plate, the familiar voice of the student council calls out. “Wait, wait, wait~!” Mikado and Hakamichi are standing up, though what really catches my eye is that Tezuka is seated next to Hakamichi. Anytime I’ve seen her at an event for Emi she’s been on her own, with Meiko, or more recently with Hisao.
Hakamichi starts signing, which Mikado dutifully translates, though I’m able to catch some of it on my own. “If I’m not mistaken~, that would be the phone provided by administration, correct? You’re right Shicchan! It looks like the one Mr. Mutou has!”
“I’m not sure I follow. Is that an issue?”
“Wahahaha~ Of course it is Mr. Nurse! One condition of this event is that no damage comes to any~ school property. Which of course includes your work phone! Yep~ yep. Can’t have that!” Hakamichi smirks when she says- or rather signs- ‘any school property.’
Suzumiya snaps and points to Hakamichi. “Thank you Ms. President! That’s correct, Nurse, I can not accept school property for this performance.” Was it just me or was that snap much quieter than the ones earlier during his earlier act? Hakamichi and Mikado take their seats again, looking quite proud of themselves.
I’m getting suspicious of this event’s pretense. “You’re not planning on breaking it are you?”
“Not at all!”
“Then it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“If you’d be so willing, we’d prefer not to take any risks here. I’ll ask again: might you provide a personal device?” He gestures towards the plate again, where Emi’s quietly waiting.
She raises the plate. “Come on! It’s for the show!”
I sigh. Whatever they’re planning, it seems like there’s no way around it. I return my work phone to my jacket and retrieve my personal one from my pants pocket. The second I set it on the plate Emi snaps it shut with a loud clang.
“Excellent!” Suzumiya spins back towards the crowd. “I will now procure information from his device and relay it publicly!”
“Woah, woah, woah now.” I poorly cup my hand over my mouth, then speak louder so that the crowd can hear. “If you wanted to see my personal photos you could have just asked for them!”
“Come on man!” Miura shouts from a couple rows back. “Just let him do his thing!” Her outburst gives others in the crowd confidence to shout in agreement and a few even boo me. Perhaps I overdid it this time around. I shrug, then turn to Suzumiya and invite him to move on with the show.
Wait a second, someone's missing from the stage – or more accurately, someone was replaced. Where’d Emi run off to, and why is Satou the one holding the plate now?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Come on, you gotta give me something to tell Haru! His stalling is worse than Nurse’s jokes.” I urge as I peek through the curtains nervously. Haruhiko’s ‘spirits’ are telling him Nurse’s name, height, weight… favorite work outfit? This is terrible. Worse still that only two of them were correct and one of those is plastered right on Nurse’s door.
Emi clicks onto another page on the phone. “Got it! His most recent shopping list. He mentioned liking to write down his receipts on his phone so-”
“Really?”
“What?”
“Groceries? That’s what we’re going with here?”
“It’s something, Lezard! Besides, I think-”
“Fine, fine. Just hurry up and list it off.” I pick up the walkie and beep it twice to warn Haru we’re giving something and to start preparing for it. I also take a breath to calm down. I didn’t think I’d get that weirded out by so many people checking Lilly out, but it didn’t feel good. I mean, of all people I get it. Just look at her! But… I don’t know. This is new to me.
“Ready?” Emi asks.
I peek out again to make sure Haru’s done with the showy part of the act and is listening to the paper ‘spirit radio’ on his ear. “Go.”
Emi starts reading it out and I write it down as she does. Luckily I can multi-task, so I start reading the beginning of the list slowly as I write. Haru nods thoughtfully as I go, then repeats. “His most recent shopping trip consisted of a two pound bag of rice, some nori seaweed, udon noodles, dashi soup stock, mirin, tempura shrimp, scallions, some Shichimi Togarashi, narutomaki- so you made or are making Udon soup with some onigiri?” There’s a gap as the next list starts, separate from the first as Emi noted. Good pausing point though.
Nurse crosses his arms. “It’s the plan for tonight, yes.”
It finally processes what Emi read to me a moment ago and what I wrote down. I stare, wide-eyed, at her. She shrugs and giggles, gesturing for me to continue. I sigh, then start reading again.
Haruhiko smirks. “But that’s not all you bought, is it? You also bought an array of beers… a pair of ‘play’ hand-cuffs…”
There’s a small grumble of ‘oohs’ from the crowd and Nurse steps back in shock, then turns to Haru. “Wait, what?”
Haru relents. “A tube of floral scented lubricant…” Haru is having way too much fun with this, and the crowd is eating it up.
“Now hold on a minute-” I’ve never heard Nurse sound impatient like that about anything besides someone's health. Was this too far?
Not for Haru. “And a box of-”
“Stop!” Nurse commands. We may have flown too close to the Sun here. He turns impatiently and points aggressively towards Lilly. “I was under the impression we were keeping things tame going forward and that’s a step too far for a joke, especially if my phone is really still here, Suzumiya.”
Haru feigns hurt at the suggestion that we did exactly what we did. “Are you saying we’d actually snoop through your phone in secret? Oh my… Were the spirits being truthful?”
The crowd is loving this ‘act,’ but Nurse is unimpressed. Haru shrugs it off. “Please, Lilly, would you mind showing that our dear volunteer’s phone is still in our presence?”
“Certainly.” Lilly lifts the lid from the plate, revealing a phone strikingly similar to Nurse’s. We’re lucky I had the same model as him, otherwise something like this would’ve been much riskier. Still though, we should be careful. If he gets a closer look at it, it won’t take long to fall apart.
Nurse takes in the scene for a moment, then sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Perhaps I was too aggressive there. I apologize for my earlier remarks, but I promise not to make another if you keep yours more appropriate as well.”
Haru does a flashy pose. “I believe we have found our dearly beloved Nurse’s limit, my friends.”
“Turnabout’s fair play, so long as there’s an even playing field. I just like it more when it’s a two-way street.” Nurse finally seems to find his footing again.
And Haru finally takes the hint to back off. “So you say, so you say. Very well! I’ll have the spirits only seek tame information going forward! So what will we hear next…”
“Got something?” I ask Emi.
She clicks a few times, hammering out either a search or a text. “Just a moment… aaaand sent!” She smiles. “I think we did it!” Her face turns sour. “But I kind of hope I’m wrong here… eheh…”
I raise an eyebrow. “Find a name?”
“No, but… well I just hope my memory is off is all.” She scratches her head. “Ah! We should get something ready for Haruhiko!”
“Right! Have anything?”
“Yes it's right…”
We decide to stick to more mundane things. Basic, cheap information that Emi would likely know or be able to get by following him for a couple hours, like where he went for lunch on a few days or less well known trivia.
Eventually we manage to sneak Nurse’s phone back out onto stage and if he knew something was up, he hid it well. The rest of the show plays out without much of a hitch, but I did notice the crowd slowly grew more disinterested as the acts went on. Haru may have front-loaded the event a bit too much, using his better tricks at the start like that.
The rest of us in the back are too busy helping him play out his tricks to really talk, and Hisao had to take five at one point from doing a little too much running around. But the show eventually ends and we all gather backstage after clean-up.
“You okay, Hisao?” Emi hands Hisao a cold bottle of water, then crouches over him to inspect him.
He’s been sitting on the couch with a damp cloth covering his eyes for a few minutes now. At first I was a little annoyed that he wasn’t helping finish clean-up, then I remembered hearing about him having to be taken to the Nurse’s office a few times when he first got here. Who knows what he’s dealing with.
Hisao gives a thumbs up, then sits up to drink some water. “Just a little worn out is all. Helping run a magic show like that takes more work than I expected.”
Haru bursts through the curtain. “Excellence doesn’t come easy!”
“And neither does a fraud magic show.”
“It’s only fraudulent if the audience knows the tricks!” Haru pulls a chair up to join our circle. “So, did we get results?”
“It would be nice to know that this wasn’t all for naught…” Lilly sits up. She hugs her arms and it strikes me that it is a little chilly in here. I just hadn’t noticed on account of all the moving around. I strip my jacket off and drape it around her arms, then sit next to her and pull her into a hug. She nestles into my side. Damn, she’s so adorable.
The Captain sits up. “I’m interested too. This whole thing was a lot of work to put on.”
“Well…” Emi sits on the couch next to Hisao, causing him to bounce a little. “I think I might’ve got something, but it’ll have to wait till the end of Nurse’s shift.”
“You mean you didn’t get a name?” Ryuunosuke asks.
“Nope, but he had someone saved as ‘her’ with a heart next to it so I looked at a couple messages and it seemed like it was the right person.”
Lilly frowns. “I thought we weren’t going to snoop though any private conversations.” Lilly’s influence must be rubbing off on me because even I feel a little guilty about it, though it might just be leftovers from what happened during the show.
Emi raises her hands defensively. “I wasn’t snooping! Swear! But it’s hard to send a message without seeing the most recent couple.”
“Send a message? Sounds dangerous.” Hisao’s looking a little better already. Less pale, at least.
Ryuunosuke rests his chin on his hand. “I agree. I know you’re more familiar with Nurse than us, Emi, but that might’ve been too much.”
“It’s fine guys! Seriously.” Emi steals Hisao’s jacket from the back of the couch behind him and puts it on. I must’ve inspired her. “Besides, I didn’t really have time to do much else. And it’s not like I sent anything that put him in a bad spot. I just set up a meet-up is all. When she texts back he’ll know about it too!”
“Unless he cancels after figuring out he’s been tricked.”
Emi waves Ryuunosuke off. “Nah, he’ll probably just think he forgot about sending the first message.”
“Is he really that forgetful?” I ask.
“No, but it’s not like we can shift gears this late into the game.” Emi stands up and stretches. “And we have a couple hours to kill, so I’m gonna go change.”
Hisao stands up. “I’ll come with you, since your stuff is in my room.”
I rub Lilly’s arm. “Guess we could head out too.” I kiss her cheek, and take the opportunity to whisper, “Besides, it looks like you could really go for a... carrot... right about now.”
Lilly’s lips curl into a small smile while her cheeks redden and she whispers, “That was terrible.” She clears her throat and speaks up. “I would definitely prefer having the chance to change before what seems to be the finale.”
With that, I lead by standing up and saying goodbye to everyone, then escorting Lilly back to her room. Hisao and Emi follow suit and get ready to head back to the boys’ dorms. Lilly and I head straight for the nearby exit while Emi and Hisao head towards the hall.
Emi takes a moment to turn back towards us. “And Lezard, friendly bit of advice: make sure Lilly’s sitting up straight and holding her breath when you’re undoing the corset! And yes, that means it should come off first.”
“Will do.” I lift a hand to wave back as thanks. Lilly tenses up and covers her face, but her ears betray her attempts to hide the embarrassment.
As we’re leaving Haru makes the remark, “Damn, what’s so great about fucking anyways?”
Ryuunosuke puts on a sultry voice, “Wanna find out?”
“Not really. I’ve got important things to do. Besides, there’s no one else left anyways. The Drill Sergeant Duo already left.”
“That’s not what I… you know what, never mind. I’m gonna go shower, see you at the parking lot later.”
“Okay.”
Lilly and I escape out the door just in time to hide our laughs. I really hope Emi and Hisao heard that from the other hall.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“So, you think she’ll actually show up?” I start buttoning my shirt up. I thought about putting the sweater vest on just because it’s fun to see Emi groan at its apparent ‘lameness,’ but even just the thought drains me.
Emi slips into her own shirt, then starts working on putting her legs back on. “Mom? Probably. At this point I’m like 95 percent sure that was her number.”
“And you think Nurse and her…” I let the question hang in the air. Something about saying it out-loud feels awkward. A particularly inappropriate image flashes across my mind and I have to shake my head clear of the thought. I’ll blame Haruhiko for that. Sure, it was Emi who read the list, but he’s the one who read it out loud like that.
Emi uses her left leg as a poking rod and jabs my side. “You better not be thinking weird things.”
“I’m not!”
She pouts. “That’s gross, Hisao.”
“This is on you too! You didn’t have to tell Haruhiko about the hand-cuffs.” I cross my arms defensively, but still can’t bring myself to look Emi in the eyes.
Emi giggles. “I wonder how he’d react if I asked to borrow them.”
What. “Heh?...”
Emi notices my shock and is confused for a moment, then her cheeks go red. “Ijustmeanttotryandembaresshimforourgame! Not for- I mean-” She grabs my pillow and turns it into a weapon, assaulting my side repeatedly.
“Ow, ow, ow! Hey, knock it off!” I start laughing as I try and fail to grab it between smacks.
After about the eighth hit I manage to snatch it. Emi immediately shifts gears and refocuses on putting her second leg on. “Hmph. Pervert.”
“You were the one that brought it up!”
“Not in that context!”
I laugh as I finish putting the last button on my shirt through. “Okay, okay. I’ll admit my head was probably in the gutters there, but you can’t tell you weren't thinking about it, even a little bit, either.”
Emi’s leg clicks into place and her pout deepens. “I wasn’t!” She lowers her voice almost to a whisper. “At least not until you mentioned it.”
It’s not too often I get to tease her, but I love the face she makes when I do manage to pull it off. “Hmmm? What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you, but it sounded like you were making a suggestion…”
Her focus finally shifts to me and we have a stare off for a couple seconds, then she giggles. “Maybe, maybe. I’m too pent up to think straight right now.”
“Ah… sorry.” All we ended up doing was cuddling and watching a movie to pass the time, which was really nice, but I don’t think it’s what Emi had in mind.
She stands up and stretches. “No, it’s fine! I’d rather this than you have a heart attack while inside me.”
Sheesh. She’s so direct sometimes.
Emi tilts into my vision with a devious grin plastered on her face. “Hehe, now I’m not alone!”
“You weren’t in the first place. Now come on, we should get moving to meet the others.”
“Right.” Emi starts gathering her clothes into her backpack.
“Emi?” I cross my arms.
“What?”
“Pants.”
She looks down at her bare thighs. “Right…” She digs back through her bag and I shake my head. She’s too used to running around in her gym outfit.
~ ~ ~
“He should be out here in about five minutes.” Emi says as we all peer around bushes and trees into the parking lot. Mrs. Ibarazaki’s car pulled up about two minutes ago, almost completely confirming Emi’s suspicions, but we still need to see how she and Nurse interact to say anything definitively. I think Ryuunosuke is the only other person who recognized it, though I guess that’d be hard for Lilly to do.
I feel a warm hand on my shoulder, too rough to be any of the others here. I turn to see Nurse, shushing me. Shit… Without much time to even think about it, I comply, and his teasing voice rings out from behind everyone else. “Who we waiting for?”
“Gah!” Everyone jumps back from him. He didn’t even speak loudly, and he wasn’t that close to any of them, but I guess they had no warning.
Emi practically falls into the bush in front of her, Lezard probably would’ve gone through his if Lilly wasn’t on the brink of squeezing his arm off, Ryuunosuke darts to the other side of the tree he was next to, and Haruhiko just scrambles forward on the ground for a moment.
Haruhiko quickly dusts himself off and stands up, then he points at Nurse. “Caught you!”
“No, I think I’m the one doing the catching here.” Nurse crosses his arms.
“Impossible! We were the ones investigating here.”
“Who’s to say I wasn’t doing an investigation of my own?”
“Hmm… good point. In that case, we caught each other! But our catch of you is the bigger catch.” Haruhiko nods to himself.
I head over to Emi and help her clean herself off and stand back up. She also takes a moment to catch her breath, as does nearly everyone else.
Nurse shrugs, then his eyes dart over to Emi and I. “So, what’s going on here?”
Emi clears her throat and puts on her best smile. “Not much. Just a post show decompression with everyone! Right guys?” There’s an assortment of half-hearted agreements… until we all collectively realize that Haruhiko basically already outed us. Nurse is unimpressed by the show. Emi sighs. “That’s not working, is it?”
“Nope.” Nurse rubs his forehead. “I’m going to say it safe to assume today’s entire performance was a performance of its own under this pretense.”
“What? Not at all.” Haruhiko waves it off. “It was also a test to see if my tricks were good enough to draw out an actual magician. Clearly my reliance on others was still too prominent to sneak by them so I’ll have to try harder.”
“So you’re saying you didn’t orchestrate this entire event in an attempt to get information off of my personal device?”
“Course we did.”
Emi frowns. “Yeah… I should’ve seen this coming.”
Lezard slaps his own forehead in disbelief. “We all should’ve, with him.”
“That may have been difficult for me…” Lilly laughs nervously. Silence hangs in the air. “Was that… a bad time?”
Nurse shrugs. “Eh, I thought it was a good one.”
“More importantly,” Haruhiko leans in towards Nurse, “Just come out with it! Who’s in the car? We know you have a girlfriend so you may as well just tell us who she is. My guess is Hisao’s mom. Unless you’re into guys. Then it’s Hisao’s dad.”
“More importantly,” Haruhiko leans in towards Nurse, “Just come out with it! Who’s in the car? We know you have a girlfriend so you may as well just tell us who she is. My guess is Hisao’s mom. Unless you’re into guys. Then it’s Hisao’s dad.”
“Really, dude?” I really don’t get this guy. He’s almost as bad as Kenji sometimes. Almost. “I told you to drop that.”
“Why? I still think it’s the best guess anyone came up with. It just invites all sorts of fun speculation.” He shrugs, then puts a hand on his chin. “Hmmm, actually, that might still be a student or subordinate staff member.”
“Oooh… Emi, hold me back before I kill him.”
Nurse clears his throat loudly. “Getting back on topic, there are two things I would like to ask. First: was Ms. Hakamichi aware of the real scheme behind this event?”
“No…” Lezard admits. “We convinced her to help using Lilly’s presence as a pretense.” Lilly doesn’t seem particularly happy about that detail. Lezard creeps away from her bit by bit.
Nurse nods. “Then I will be informing her of what happened here.” Damn… I doubt she’ll be happy about being used like that.
“Secondly,” Nurse’s glare is directed towards Emi, “I’m also going to assume it was you who broke into my phone. Correct?”
Emi nods sheepishly.
“We will discuss this later. As for the rest of you…” In short order Nurse lectures everyone about respect, privacy, usage of school resources, amongst other things. He even manages to get Haruhiko to quietly listen. Basically, none of us were getting out of this without some level of punishment, tailored to each individual. Somehow, despite being on clean-up duty for the gym for the next two weeks and not knowing quite yet what Shizune has in store for me, I feel most bad for Lilly. She’s going to have to directly deal with her own cousin while under her full discretion.
After what feels like eternity, he sends everyone but Emi and I on their way. After they’ve made their escape, he turns to Emi. “As for you, Sunshine,” Emi flinches under his harsh stare-down, “we’re going to go and apologize for wasting your mother’s time.”
“Kay…”
Emi starts a shameful walk towards the car. I start to follow and Nurse sighs. “I should’ve known she had my pass code.” He catches me hesitating and gestures for me to get a move on.
As we’re walking, I decide to try to earn some brownie points back. He is in charge of my meds after all… “Sorry again, Nurse. Emi was meant to just collect some info… not send a message or make up that bit about the hand cuffs.”
He stiffens up for a moment, then buries his head in his hand and sighs. “Are you under the impression that that changes much?”
“I guess… No. Not really.”
“Good. Because it doesn’t. Given our relationship, I’ll do you a favor and decide if I believe you or not later when I’m in a better mood.”
“Right.”
Emi’s already at the car, getting another harsh glare from her own mother. What were we thinking trying to even steal his phone in the first place? Wait… Is he going to tell my parents? I’d really, really prefer he didn’t, which is exactly why it’s probably going to be exactly what he does later. If he hasn’t already. Well, we’ve come this far.
May as well see it through. “So uh… you and Mrs. Ibarazaki aren’t, you know.”
He raises an eyebrow and gives me a fierce look. “When was that stated?”
“You mean-”
Nurse nods towards Emi and Mrs. Ibarazaki and I start listening in.
Mrs. Ibarazaki looks exasperated. “… keep it under wraps until the end of the school year.”
Emi bounces excitedly. “You mean you are dating!”
“Yes. But again, we’d have preferred not letting half a dozen students in on that and risking most of the school getting those details.”
“Ehehehe… Sorry…”
Mrs. Ibarazaki notices us walking up and sighs. “Honestly, the two of you could’ve just asked if you were that curious. What was the point of getting so many people involved?”
I scratch the back of my head. “That’s kinda what we were planning on doing at first… but then Ryuunosuke overheard us talking about it and we were going to try to play it off as a secret investigation. We actually tried something earlier but it failed. Nurse didn’t notice what we were doing that time. We were talking about how to try again but then Lilly and Lezard walked in on us so we had to make something up about it and… yeah, it sort of escaped us.”
“We were going to try and keep who it was a secret! But…” Emi digs the end of her prosthetic into the ground. “Yeah, I sorta forgot about that when I told everyone to meet here.”
Nurse crosses his arms. “Even before that, your idea of a secret is convincing no less than five other students to help you host an event for half the school on the promise of getting said secret?”
“It wasn’t meant to be that big of a thing!”
“That’s not what’s important here.” He rubs his eyes, probably hoping the apparent headache will be rubbed away with it. I imagine he didn’t get so lucky. “In any case; next time, just ask. Now, Ideally this won’t be the talk of the school by tomorrow, but if it is I am holding you two directly responsible for this. Now get out of here.”
“Right.” We both say in unison, not wasting a second to escape the oppressive atmosphere.
Before we’re out of ear-shot though, Mrs. Ibarazaki calls out, “And Emi-dear, I’ll be seeing you at home, tonight, right?”
Emi’s face drops. “Right…” I almost think she didn’t say it loud enough until Mrs. Ibarazaki nods, so we leave.
After we’re out of earshot and eyesight, I look over and meet Emi’s eyes. She snickers, causing me to as well. Before I know it, we’re both giggling uncontrollably at the absurdity of today.
In between breaths, I say, “...and his face when Haruhiko read the part about the hand-cuffs!”
“I know, right?! That was hilarious! Hahaha!”
I wipe a tear from my eye. “Where’d you get the idea for that from?”
“Huh?” Emi calms down.
“You know, to tease him. I thought you were just going to go for his groceries, not make up some stuff to add to it. What gave you the idea to add that in?”
Her cheeks go red. “Uh. I… didn’t. I was reading a copied receipt.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So when you said you were hoping it wasn’t your mom…”
“Yeah… it was because I saw that.”
“Right. Um… I’m just not gonna think about it too much and hope I forget I ever heard it.”
Emi starts laughing again. “Too late for that.”
I join in because unfortunately, she’s right. Hello, newest nightmare.
Victim: Guthrum06
Prompt:
Emi finds out that her mother and the nurse are secretly dating (can be set after either of her canon endings).
Wow, okay... this took a lot longer than I had anticipated. To start, I'd like to thank BristerXD for helping with editing this beast. Was nice working with you again! I'd also like to apologize to Guthrum for taking so long, so uhh... sorry! Hopefully the story was worth the wait!
Thanks for reading what turned out to be a rather large short (13k words!), and merry very belated Christmas everyone! I'll try my hardest to make sure this year's won't take nearly as long.
Notes on how the story came to be if you are interested:
As for the story itself... When I first read the prompt I had to laugh. Seems like I was fated to write another Emi story, but that works for me. She's a fun character to write! And I definitely have spent a good amount of time with her by now. As for the contents of the prompt, my initial idea was to do some sort of dark and depressing story set after Emi's bad ending. I mainly strayed from the idea because writing something dark (at the time) just didn't feel write and I was just coming off of finishing my Fluff week story "Dash and Dine." All things considered, I'm happy I strayed away from the idea because this was a fun story to write.
I knew I wanted to to something big and absurd from the beginning because I feel like I've either read or know of a few takes on this idea and wanted to make sure I wasn't sticking too close to those if I had read them. So I decided to go with some sort of big "investigation" plan that was overly-complicated and bound to fail in some capacity. I think my initial thought was something like "imagine Scooby-Doo type shenanigans without the supernatural elements." It ended up straying from that inspiration a little bit, but that's where it started. The "Plan A" referenced at the start and that Emi suggests later on is along the lines of where my mind immediately went, but I thought it felt a little too tame and boring, thus came the introduction of Haruhiko. I also knew I wanted to include a few extra characters that might not normally be expected with Emi because it created some interesting opportunities for the story and situations. Which is when Lilly came to mind (Plus I don't think there's enough Lilly content - at least that I've ran into). Everyone else came afterwards to create a cast that I though both meshed and clashed nicely.
Thanks again for reading! And I'll see you all in SS24!
