Chapter Thirty: Day, Today
~~~~Taro~~~~
Summer ended with little fanfare, most of us starting the old routine of study and sleep in preparation for the new semester. I say most of us…
“Mmmmmornin’, Taro…” Ritsu announces sleepily as I return from the shower.
“Morning, beautiful. How’d you sleep?” I ask, throwing my wet towels into my laundry hamper and start sorting through my closet for my uniform.
“Fantastic~,” She purrs as she stretches like a cat. “I should really bring some stuff over here… It would save me so much time…” She yawns, getting out of bed and finding the casual clothes she came over in last night.
I cough subtly as I pull a girl's uniform out of my closet. Her eyes go wide in surprise before narrowing.
“When did you steal this?” She casts an accusatory glare as I pass the hanger with a freshly pressed uniform to her.
“I didn’t, I bought a fresh one from the school store yesterday. Figured you may need one here one day so…” I shrug, hoping that comes off more as a nice gesture than creepy as hell.
“Huh. Okaaaay,” She says, checking the sizes are correct on the tags. “How did you know my measurements?”
“Do you somehow think I’m
not intimately familiar with your body by now?” I throw her a smirk and an eyebrow as I zip up my pants.
“Don’t start playing
that game, Mr Arai. We don’t want to be late to class on our first day back.” She smiles coyly and begins dressing. I button up my collar and attach my clip-on tie.
“I’m going to check on Akio, back in a second.” I smile as I head into the hallway, almost getting knocked over by Haruhiko as he bolts past me.
“Watch it, {knob-head}!” I shout at him as he rounds the corner for the stairs. I give Akio’s door a quick series of taps.
“You decent, Akio?” I call out and the door slides open.
“
Never.” Akio grins as he locks the door behind him.
“Did you and Hana manage to get that reading assignment finished?” I ask, half expecting him to say no. Hana didn’t leave ‘til bang-on curfew last night.
“Really? You're asking if I, a card-carrying member of the Literature Club, and Hanako Ikezawa managed to finish some
light reading?” He gives me an incredulous look before laughing. “We had that finished in a couple hours.”
I don’t personally think a three-hundred page book on the Meiji Restoration is light reading but if anyone could storm through it, it’s probably those two. Ritsu appears from my room and gives an irritated sigh when she sees Akio’s smile grow wider.
“Don’t you start, Akio…” She threatens, narrowing her eyes. I step behind her to lock my door.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear Ritsu.” He bows a little, still wearing his goofy grin.
“Maybe Hana’s been a good influence on you after all. Taught you some manners.” Ritsu scoffs, crossing her arms in a cocky way.
“I even say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ now!” He quips and we make our way out onto the main grounds. The campus is buzzing with activity, both students and teachers racing to their respective classrooms. Strolling through the crowds, we spot a familiar figure.
“Holy crap, is that Mr. Mutou? Is he actually going to be on time?” Akio asks as we watch a slender man in a brown coat sprint through the crowd, clutching textbooks to his chest.
“I guess I owe Miki dinner…” I state plainly with a raised eyebrow.
“That better not be a date!” Ritsu playfully threatens, punctuated by a bop to my bad arm.
“Don’t dash the girl’s hopes, Ritsu. There’s plenty of Taro to share.” Akio winks at Ritsu with a sly grin. Do I get a say in any of this?
“Stop trying to pimp out my boyfriend, Akio!” She narrows her eyes and Akio laughs, only to be silenced with a slap to the back of his head.
“Am I not good enough for you, Akio?” Hanako scolds, having strolled up behind us from the direction of the girls' dorms. “Am I to share your affection with
Taro?
N-no offence.” She offers an apology to me after her telling off.
“Some taken.” I chuckle, rubbing the back of my head. Suzu and Miki soon follow Hanako, who must have jogged ahead to catch us.
“Look at him, he’s loving it. Akio’s right though, there’s
a lot of Taro to go around. Right, Miki?” Suzu snarks, nudging the girl beside her.
Subtle, Suzu.
“Someone’s feeling especially
sassy today.” I comment, narrowing my eyes.
“No more than usual.” She smirks.
“Ignore her… She’s been in a weird fucking mood for the past week.” Miki sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Molly said she’d meet us in class, she
somehow lost her school jumper.”
Hanako kisses Akio and joins hands with him. Ritsu does the same to me, and the six of us continue to the main building and to our first day back in Class 3-3.
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The lunch bell rings and the class breathes a collective sigh of relief. From the looks of it, everyone else seems to have forgotten how to write too. I smile at Ritsu when she seems to make the same judgement call.
Me, Ritsu, Akio, Hanako and Molly all decide to have lunch outside as Miki watches over a napping Suzu. What’s gotten into her to almost out mine and Miki's past? We’ve never mentioned it to anyone so having it come up now would probably be a shock to everyone.
We sit around on a grass verge and enjoy a small picnic of vending machine snacks and bento boxes. Akio’s attention turns to the group when he deems the coast to be clear, finally speaking his mind on something that had been bothering him since this morning.
“Okay, so are we just
not going to acknowledge that someone murdered Misha’s hair?” He asks, earning giggles from all of us. We'd all noticed of course, it's hard
not to notice a drastic change in Misha's appearance but it seemed to grind Akio's gears.
“Dramatic, much?” Molly asks, still giggling as she lounges on the grass.
“I’m not even kidding, I bet there’s a chalk outline where it happened.” He frowns. “Such a tragic loss…” He shakes his head a little.
“I th-think it’s
nice.” Hanako offers, sipping on a juice box.
“Please don’t get a pixie cut…” Akio pleads with his girlfriend, who laughs harder.
“Who’d have thought Misha could be pragmatic?” I offer, gulping down a mouth full of rice before I do. “Must have been hot as hell during the summer. Still going to miss the drills though…”
“Shall I grow some of my own for you?” Ritsu asks suggestively. I notice Akio hold his finger up to his mouth when Hanako seems to suggest the same thing.
“Nah, it would probably look weird. It was just…
iconic for her, y’know?” I try to explain and Akio nods.
“See? Taro gets it!”
“Why is it only the
boys who seem to care?” Molly asks and she’s spot on. Huh. Weird.
“Are you g-going to grow some hair drills, Akio?” Hanako asks with an adorably curious look on her face.
“Y’know what? I just
might. Get all Gurren Lagann on your asses!” He grins.
“Row, row, fight the pow-ah!” Molly cheers, pumping her fist in the air. Is that a new show or…?
“Molls, you just became my new favourite.” Akio declares before Hanako swiftly makes him regret it.
“So… That’s h-how it is, huh? D-
dumped for the anime-watching Brit, is it?” She sulks purposefully, making her eyes as big as she can. “I understand…”
“W-w-wait, Hana, no I didn’t mea--”
“You apologise to your sweet girlfriend right this second or I swear to god I will throw my
legs at you.” Molly scowls at the stuttering Akio and Hanako bursts into a fit of laughter, shortly joined by the rest of us.
“You guys are dicks…” He snorts, shaking his head with a smile and kissing his girlfriend on the cheek. “I’d never leave you, you know all my dirty secrets.”
“G-good answer.” She smiles and nuzzles his nose. Those two really are a good match. I smile at Ritsu and she returns one of her own, resting her head against my shoulder.
The warning bell rings, telling us lunch is almost over, and we head back inside. I think I’ll grab a couple drinks for Miki and Suzu, just in case they missed lunch all together.
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The final bell of the day rings and the class departs in short order. Ritsu’s wrists are a little worse for wear so she keeps her braces on as we head back to the girls’ dorms with Miki, Suzu and Molly. Akio and Hanako went off to the Newspaper Club room with Natsume and Naomi.
“Man, I did
not miss history class…” Miki laments, earning chuckles from the rest of us.
“I think I
did…” Suzu admits sheepishly, referring to her napping in class.
“You didn’t miss much. Hanakio aced all of the {bloody} questions.” Molly says, her hands held firm on her bag straps.
“Did Akio have a chance to chat to you yet, Suzu?” I ask, remembering our conversation during break.
“He tried but I was kinda asleep so we haven’t yet. How’d you know I wanted to talk to him?” She asks with a quizzical expression.
“I didn’t, Lezard asked me to tell him to talk to you for some reason.” I shrug, trying to play off that I know less than I do. Which isn’t much admittedly, though I’m not going to caught up in whatever drama is brewing in the Lit Club.
“Oh. Well thanks for doing that. I should text him now while I think of it…” She mutters, whipping out her phone as we enter the girls’ dorms.
“Tarooo~ My wrists hurt! Rub them for me?” Ritsu groans, flailing her arms pathetically at me.
“Sure thing.” I offer her a big smile and she nods.
“Welp, I can see where this is going. I’ll catch you guys later!” Miki says, splitting off into the common room with Suzu following instinctively despite her face buried in her phone.
“I’ll probably see you guys tomorrow?” Molly asks, stopping at her door.
“Sure thing, Molls.” Ritsu smiles and I give a little wave as we continue.
When Ritsu and I reach her room, she throws her bag into the corner and flops face-first onto the bed with a satisfied groan.
“I’ve missed you, bed…” Her dreamy sigh muffled by her purple covers. I chuckle and bend her knees to give me room to sit down. She clambers backwards into my lap, pressing her back against me. I wrap one arm around her stomach and hold her close.
“Mmmm, you’re almost as comfy as my bed…” She sighs.
“Your bed can’t hold you like I can. Or give you wrist massages.” I chuckle, unbuckling the Velcro straps on her left hand. I take her small wrist in hand and begin to apply pressure with my fingers and thumb in circular motions.
“Your magic hand does it again. That feels much better…”
“Wish I could do the other at the same time.” I admit, a little more solemnly than I’d care for.
“This might sound a little
dark…” Ritsu begins and I tilt my head to look at her better. “But do you ever wish you just didn’t have that arm?”
Miki asked me something similar once and I’ve definitely
thought about it. It’s just a useless lump at the end of the day but I always kind of hoped that eventually, in the future, I’d be able to get some sort of exoskeletal brace to allow me to move it. Even a little. A pipe dream, sure but I live in Japan. We do robotics like no one else. There’s bound to be a breakthrough. Someday.
“Taro?” Ritsu breaks me out of my reverie and I see that she’s turned sideways to look at me better.
“Sorry, just thinking… I
have thought about it but there’d be one major drawback if I decided to have it amputated.”
Ritsu looks at me with pained confusion and I simply lift my left arm, tilting my body as if I didn’t have a right to counterbalance and we fall along the length of her bed. Ritsu falls onto her back while I land on my side, my arm around her shoulder.
“I’d be all lop-sided.” I offer with a grin and Ritsu giggles profusely.
“I see your point, Taro…” She smiles and kisses me tenderly on the lips. She undoes her right hand brace. She turns and moves my right arm across her hip before wrapping both her arms around my neck.
We lie there for a long time, simply looking into each other’s eyes and planting kisses on each other’s lips, cheeks and necks.
“We should really start thinking about dinner.” I say after a while, just to start a conversation.
“God, I wish we didn’t… It would mean moving.” She pouts cutely.
“Well I’m sorry I can’t provide you with the sustenance you need to survive.” I laugh and she responds with a devilish grin.
“I dunno… I think we can come up with something…” She purrs into my ear.
“I don’t doubt it. I know how…
ravenous your appetite can be.” I slyly smirk and we embrace a little tighter.
“Shall we have a little pre-dinner ‘snack’ then, Mr Arai?” She says, already unbuckling my belt.
“I guess we can always have dessert
first…” I gasp as she takes hold of me.
All in all, the first day of the new semester played out exactly as I expected.
drama