Himitsu Yume ch.5

“Where are you off to now?” Quin looked pleadingly to her sister, still believing she needed to make up for her mistakes.
“Japanese.”
Quin stared at her sister as she walked away. “She must be mad,” Quin thought, unable to accept that for once Mia was letting it go.
“Are you sure everything’s ok? You wouldn’t usually let something like this go,” Quin ran up to her, asking once again.
Mia turned to her sister, revealing a sinisterly evil gaze, but hiding it almost immediately with a charming smile, “Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine. We solved the problem and no one’s worrying about any of it now.” She continued walking, with a blank stare enveloping her face.
Quin stopped in her tracks, “It’s not ok! You’re going to do something to me, aren’t you? What are you going to do? Please don’t take revenge. I’m really sorry, I mean it.”
At the word revenge, Mia stopped, an ominous smile curled upon her lips, “Revenge? Now am I really the type of person to do something like that?” Mia hid her threatening aura with the charming one of before, and walked away.
“Well now what? She’s gotta be mad at me,” the third and final bell rang as Quin mumbled these words to herself. “Oh no! I’m late for my next class! I don’t even know how to get there.”
Quin ran down the hallway, the opposite direction Mia went, in search of her math class. As she ran, she clumsily pulled out her schedule to, once again, look at the room her math class would be in. Closely reading her schedule, she collided, head first, with a man. He was older than her, too old to be a student, yet barely old enough to be a teacher.
“I’m so sorry! This is my fault. I should’ve been more careful. I hurt you, and now I’m late, and you’re probably late, and I don’t like math anyways, and I have no idea where this room is!” She raved.
The man gestured that it was ok, and pointed to the door they were both standing before at that moment. Quin’s eyes widened and an enormous grin spread across her face.
“Thank you so, so much! You have no idea how much you’ve done for me. Thank you,” Quin bowed to him and turning around, entered her math classroom. The man followed her in.
“Hitachi Quin, I presume?” said an older man, the math teacher, standing at the front of the room. “This may be your first day, but tardiness never has excuses in my class. Ignorance of the law does not allow exemption from it. Have a seat.”
Quin looked at him, and sat at a desk in the second row, where he had pointed. Some students around her began to snigger. She looked at them and smiled mischievously. It became evident to all her classmates that she’s been in much worse than such a position, and she was someone worthwhile to befriend.
“Works like a charm,” she thought, even though she knew herself that she was not who they now thought.
The man that followed her in stepped forward now.
“Ah! Headmaster, how may I help you?” the teacher quickly changed his tone.
“That girl was with me. Please excuse her this time, before putting her in that little black book you keep in the second drawer.”
Flustered and appalled that the new headmaster knew of his secret, he attempted to defend his position, “We..well you see-”
“The student triathlon is at the end of this month. As you know we will have several sports events, and several academic ones. I need someone to run the academic portion on the second day of the event, and I couldn’t think of anyone more capable than yourself.”
“Well of course there isn’t anyone better than Kourizawa Shuichi-” the math teacher began, but was once again interrupted.
“Now, I know that this is a Sunday, so I thank you very much for volunteering to donate your time, without pay, to do this for our school and the students. I’ll give you your responsibilities later,” the headmaster hurried out the door before Kourizawa sensei could say anything further.
Turning to his students, now infuriated that he was coaxed into wasting his free time at the school, he began his lesson.
Quin watched steadily, but was unable to even take notes at the speed that Kourizawa sensei spoke. Ten minutes into the class he stopped, looked at the students, who were all staring blankly at the blackboard, and began writing.
“7x^2+4x+15=y. Find the zeros of this function,” he said firmly, looking around the room for a victim. “Hitachi-san!”
Quin, suddenly awoken from her trance, walked to the front of the room. Holding the chalk, she stood at the front of the room for five minutes before Kourizawa sensei relieved her of this impossible task.
“Suzuki-san!” he called.
A pale girl with dark brown hair cut several inches above her shoulders stood up and walked to the board. She quickly solved the problem that Quin couldn’t, looked coldly, and haughtily at her, and sat back down.
“You can sit down now, Hitachi-san,” Kourizawa sensei said satisfactorily, and continued the class.
“Oh my god! Can you believe Kourizawa sensei? It’s my first day and he already hates me! Oh, so what was the triathlon thing headmaster was talking about Suzu-chan?” Quin asked Suzuki-san as she walked out of class.
“Don’t call me that. And, why are you talking to me?” Suzuki-san walked away from her without looking even once.
“This is harder than I thought,” Quin said sullenly to herself as she continued towards the hallway.
“That was great, Hitachi-san.” “No one ever stands up to him.” “You’ll fit in just fine.” “Don’t worry about that Kourizawa sensei, he picks on everyone.” A crowd of classmates walked past Quin, but after a quick chatter, they all moved on.
“Ah! It’s useless, no one will be friends with me,” Quin crouched onto the floor, holding her hands to her head. “And on top of that, I’m going to fail math for sure now.”
“I’m pretty good at math, you know,” Quin turned around to see none other than Kiley crouching behind her. “If you ever want a personal tutoring session, give me a call.” Kiley winked as he stood up, pulling Quin up with him.
“That’s ok. I’ll just ask Mia. She’s always been an honor student. She can help me. Thank you though, Kiley-kun.”
“Oh, right. The sister,” Kiley mumbled to himself. “You know, she didn’t seem too happy to see me at lunch.” Kiley looked at Quin innocently.
“Oh, no! She just doesn’t know you yet. I’m sure she’ll like you more later.”
“Are you sure it’s not the other way around?” Kiley hinted in a sly smile, and walked away.
Quin stood in her spot, frozen in a trance, her cheeks painted pink, until another student walked into her.
“Don’t stand in the middle of the hallway!” the bell rang, and the student ran off.
“Oh, I have to go to class too! Umm…” Quin checked to see what was next in her schedule. “Gym, that means I have to go to the other building.”
She ran down the stairs, past numerous students, and finally outside. As she walked into the gym, it was eerily empty. Everyone had already gotten to the lockers and was changing. Quin burst into the girls locker room. Everyone stopped changing and turned to her. Through their awkward glares, she walked to an unoccupied locker and began to change.
“What are you doing?” a tall girl with extremely short, choppy hair walked up to Quin. “That’s my locker.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know we each had assigned lockers. Umm… where do I find mine?”
The tall girl sneered, “Back of the room. Next to the other new girl.”
Quin headed to the back of the gym, discovering a series of dirty, broken down lockers, with mold growing on the sides. Amidst all this was Mia.
“You too?” Quin began changing.
“No. Well, yes. But there are no locker assignments. I just got tired of being glared at, and this was the only row without anyone here already.”
When everyone changed, they began to file out of the locker room, into the gym. The formerly empty gym now had a net stretched across it, and volleyballs laid out across the floor.
“Hitachi-san? Hi, I’m Saitou Natsuki. You’re in my math class right? Don’t worry about what happened just now. Nakahara-san doesn’t like new girls. Tomorrow you can use a locker in my row,” a short girl with long wavy brown hair who sat in the last row of Quin’s math class said as they lined up in front of the gym teacher, a tall, built man with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She then glanced at Mia. “Your friend can use a locker in our row too.”
“Today we play volleyball. The triathlon is coming up. During the triathlon everyone will be in a group with their class division. Even though there’s a combination from many classes here now, everyone needs to practice, especially you non-athletic types, to take home the gold. These next two weeks we will practice all the sports that will be played: volleyball, soccer, basketball, and cricket. Today we practice volleyball. First years versus second years,” the gym teacher explained. “I see anyone slacking off, minus five points to your class.”
The girls separated to different sides of the gym. Everyone began the same stretches and warm-ups, without any instruction, as if it was all common knowledge that this was the order things should be done, and the only order it could be done.
“Man, is everyone so tense in this school, Saitou-san?” Quin whispered to Natsumi, who was next to her.
“Hmm… Not usually. I mean Kourizawa sensei is, but Umeda sensei is usually nicer. But, even so, isn’t he gorgeous?”
“I guess, I don’t really like long hair so much. Oh, so what’s the deal with the triathlon?”
“Well, for one, that’s probably why they’re so tense. It’s not confirmed, but there’s a rumour going around that the teachers have a bet going over which class will win. And the winning student class gets a prize too. From what I hear the winning class will get a great prize too. No one knows what yet. But it’s still exciting. The triathlon consists of three parts: one that’s academic, one that’s athletic, and one based on natural talent. The first is pretty much like a quiz show. The second is just a bunch of matches in the four sports, but for some reason, the third almost always ends up being a beauty contest. No one knows why.”
“So the school really has horses?”
“No… You mean for cricket?” Quin nodded in reply. “You’re thinking of polo. Cricket is kind of like baseball. Don’t know why they don’t just make us play baseball…”
“Oh. Ok. So what class are you in?”
“1-A. I’m an art student. You?”
“1-B. How come we have classes together then?”
“They split classes up based on ability. So basically, we’re both stupid in math and stink at sports,” Natsumi grinned.
“Oh, so when do we see people in our-” the shadow of a figure loomed over both Quin and Natsumi.
“Enough chit-chat. Minus 5 points each,” Umeda sensei bounced a volleyball at each of them. Walking away, he continued. “The game will be played to 25 points. Regulation rules. Nakahara, you’re serve.” He threw a volleyball at her.
Nakahara served the ball. The game proceeded as any other low-level gym class volleyball game would, except for one detail: Mia played extraordinarily well. She ran for each ball spiked, volleyed, and set the ball as if she were a professional. Until the last hit of the game, where she spiked the ball directly into Nakahara’s face, knocking her unconscious. Everyone stared at Mia as the ball and Nakahara were removed from the gym.
“Alright, nothing to see. Go change, and get on to your next classes,” Umeda sensei helped carry Nakahara out of the gym.
The girls filed into the locker room, each uttering “bully” or other words of that sort as they passed Mia into the locker room.
“Guess that’s the end of any hopes at a normal life here,” Mia thought to herself as Quin approached. “You against me too now?” She said aloud.
“No. But Mia, how did you get so good at volleyball? You’ve always been worse than me at sports.”
“I was just angry.”
“Ooo, the angry spell, I don’t know that one. It makes you good at sports? Can you teach it to me before the triathlon?”
“Idiot! I didn’t use a spell! Can’t I be good at something without magic being involved?”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Well let’s go change. One class to go, and then we’re done with our first day ever!”
Quin skipped into the locker room; Mia followed with her head bent low. As they both walked towards Natsumi’s row, heated glares fell upon Mia. She looked up, stood still for a moment, then spoke.
“I get it.”
Mia left the row and returned to the disheveled lockers at the back of the room.
“You know, Saitou-san, Mia didn’t knock Nakahara-san out on purpose. Shouldn’t everyone forgive her?”
“Don’t worry about her Quin. You shouldn’t be so friendly with bullies. Just forget her.”
Everyone in the row agreed with Natsumi, and began speaking with Quin, quickly introducing themselves. Quin saw a shadow pass behind her. When she turned around, Mia was gone.
Mia ran out of the gym at her fastest speed. She raced into the other building, passing everyone by, unnoticed, until she finally reached her classroom. The classroom was nearly empty. A perfect seat was open in the front row. She sat down, taking a notebook and some pencils out, when someone spoke to her.
“Hitachi-san?”
“Yes?” she looked up, discovering her last period class was with the scoundrel who tried to molest her sister.
“I thought it was you,” Kiley sat down in the seat next to Mia.
“How are you in this class?”
“Can’t I be good at history? You know, popularity isn’t always inversely proportional to intelligence.” Mia sniggered.
“Listen, I’m going to be very clear on this: Don’t go anywhere near my sister. Got it?”
Changing his expression, Kiley answered, “Well, then how would you like to take her place?” Mia froze. “Hahahaha! I’m just kidding. I’m not interested in your type, don’t worry. So, you a history nut too?”
Insulted at his remark, Mia responded. “More like an everything nut. I think I’ve been in advanced classes since I could walk. Academics is probably the only thing I’ll ever be good at,” Mia looked down at her notebook.
A woman who looked old enough to have taken part in the history they were learning walked in. She had unnaturally black hair pulled up in a high bun, and her face seemed so tight that its general expression displayed anger. She stopped at the desk, looked up, then at her textbook.
“The Nara period marked the beginning of the strength of Japan as a state…”
The teacher, Maeda sensei, became alive as she began lecturing. Not a single student could take their eyes off of her, until the bell rang 55 minutes later.
Mia began walking out the door, quickly noticing as Kiley caught up and walked step in step with her.
“I think I understand why you like history so much. Even Quin would do well in a class with Maeda sensei,” Mia finally gave in.
“Maeda sensei can make anything interesting.”
“You wouldn’t say?” Mia walked faster, attempting to lose him in the labyrinth of dorms. “Why are you following me?!”
“Who says I‘m following? Maybe I’m just heading the same way.”
“There’s nothing left here besides our dorms. You can’t possibly-”
“Oh, so you’re undecided? I’m 2-B. I’m actually here to play tennis more than anything else. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for my tennis scholarship. Tennis is amazing. Sports in general are amazing - the action and energy you get. The excitement of it all…”
“I’m horrible at all sports, except when I get angry. I think it’d be best if I stay horrible though. Today in gym class, I accidentally knocked a girl out, and the entire class treated me like- no. Why are you here?! You should be heading in the other direction.”
Mia and Kiley continued arguing to the very moment that they reached a door with the numbers “713” printed near the top- Mia’s dorm. Mia slid her card and opened the door, finding Quin, Rika, and Sho sitting directly in the middle of the room.
“Oh Kiley! I’m so happy you could make it. This will be fun now,” Quin turned to Rika and Sho. “It’s ok I invited him, right?”