@ametakarano: Thank you for reading! Huhu, I'm glad you like it. I've never watched that anime before, but I won't deny that there are parts of the story that have been inspired by other things I've read/watched.
@four4four: Thank you for reading! Akane's going to be able to turn the tide soon. Just not this checkpoint. (Actually, this wait for happy YuukaNen flirting is killing me too, but... ah, somehow the pacing of this story...)
Checkpoint 22.5
A day before the television in the cafeteria showed the news about Sugai Yuuka’s father, Saitou Fuyuka wouldn’t have expected the way her friend Akane’s relationship with Yuuka would develop.
It was a hotter day than usual, and as the bell rang, signalling one of the long class breaks, Fuyuka quickly went over to Akane. She was sick of seeing her friend brooding, and she felt like they needed a change of pace.
Fuyuka smiled, “Hey, Akanen. Want to go out for ice cream now?”
Akane nodded, “Sure.”
“Want to bring Aoi along?” Thinking back, Fuyuka joked about a request Akane made when Yuuka scolded Akane for bullying Aoi.
“No.” Akane scowled. “Don’t treat Aoi to ice cream.”
Fuyuka smiled wryly, “Okay, okay.” She had expected such an answer since she wasn’t blind enough to ignore the tension between Aoi and Akane that had gone beyond teasing recently.
The two girls got up to leave for the ice cream place on campus.
“Hey, we’re going to get ice cream. See you later.” Fuyuka called out to her friends who had migrated over to Yurina and Neru’s area this break period.
Manaka waved casually, leaning on Yurina, “Bye bye.”
“Bring me something.” Risa held up her wristband, signalling that she would pay later. She was sitting next to Neru.
After saying a few words, Fuyuka and Akane left the classroom. Soon enough, they were outside with the hot sun beating down on them.
“Geez, it’s hot!” Fuyuka complained.
Akane bantered in reply, “That’s why we’re getting ice cream.”
“Yea.” Fuyuka laughed. “Risa’s ice cream is going to be all melted when we come back.”
“She wanted a Haagen-Dazs, right?”
“Expensive ice cream for Risa-sama. As expected of King Mona’s Queen.”
“Pfft. What is that? The normal students write weird stuff on that site.”
“You’re also called Moriya-sama by some of your fangirls.”
“Not that much.”
“Risa has been getting annoyed with the -sama thing recently though.”
“Yuuka doesn’t really like the being called Sugai-sama either.”
The conversation trickled down. Fuyuka noticed the look that always appeared on Akane’s face when she talked about Yuuka. It was a worried face.
“Ah, we’re here already.” Fuyuka was glad when they reached the ice cream place. “What do you want?”
Fuyuka and Akane got their ice cream and sat down, allowing themselves to enjoy the cold sweets despite the weather. Fuyuka got a new flavor of ice cream sundae that had come out while Akane got herself a frozen yogurt.
“So, is it good?” Akane asked Fuyuka, looking apprehensively at the green parts of the ice cream sundae.
Fuyuka took a spoonful of the sundae and tasted it. “It’s surprisingly good. The green stuff is mint chocolate chip.”
They chatted for a while about mundane things like ice cream and whether or not dieting was effective.
Then, Fuyuka inquired, “You’ve been kind of annoyed with Aoi recently. What’s with that?”
“She kept prodding me on a topic that I didn’t want to talk about.” Akane sighed.
“Oh.”
“Yea.”
“I won’t ask then.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
A silence fell over the two girls. They continued eating their ice cream. Fuyuka was willing to drop the topic if Akane didn’t want to say anything.
“Actually, I’m worried about Yuuka.” Akane started.
Fuyuka nodded.
“I don’t really know why, but she’s been really out of it recently. I wish she would talk to me about it. Every time I say that she can rely on me, it’s like she tries to run away.”
“Akanen…”
“Yea.”
Fuyuka listened to Akane’s problems without judging. She offered a few suggestions like simply talking it out, but she felt that Akane probably tried that already. Nonetheless, Fuyuka encouraged Akane not to give up because she didn’t want to see her friend’s friendship fail.
Before long, they had finished their ice cream.
The two looked at the clock in the ice cream place, and they found that it was time to head back to the classroom lest they have to run all the way back.
As Akane pushed in her chair, she grinned at Fuyuka, “Thanks, Fuu-chan.”
“No problem. I didn’t do anything but listen.” Fuyuka shook her head with a smile. She looked forward to when Akane’s problems with Yuuka would be solved.
They headed back to the Keyaki class together.
In the classroom, Watanabe Risa took a look at her phone, noticing a LINE message from Fuyuka. Manaka had come over and placed her head on Risa’s shoulder, and Neru looked from the side, encouraging Manaka and sending Risa teasing looks about Manaka’s actions.
Manaka read the message with a snicker, “Queen Risa, the ice cream’s going to melt, so let’s go get some later instead.”
“Yea, yea.” Risa snorted, ignoring the nickname.
“I’ll be your king then. Right, Risa?”
“That…” The cool Watanabe was at a loss for words for a second, feeling her heart race from Manaka’s casual proclamation, but found herself retorting, “I’m the king. You’re the queen.”
“Yurina-chan, you should cover your eyes.” Neru covered Yurina’s eyes to protect her roommate’s innocence.
Risa scowled without much heat behind her expression, “Is there a need to do that?”
“Is there a need?” Yurina wondered as well, removing Neru’s hands from her head. She wasn’t really all that averse to Neru’s gentle touch.
“It’s okay.” Neru replied mysteriously.
The four continued talking for a while before Risa stood up from her seat and said, “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“I’ll go with you.” Manaka said.
Just like that, the cool duo left the classroom. Walking through the hallways, they didn’t say much but enjoyed the quiet side by side. Risa took Manaka’s hand, and they continued forward.
The bathroom closest to the Keyaki class was for some reason out of service.
Risa frowned as it was fine in the morning, but she couldn’t pick out a reason why there would be some hidden motive for someone to make the bathroom suddenly out of order and saw it as just bad luck.
As the pair strolled through the hallways to the next bathroom, they noticed a young man chatting with another person.
Looking at the other person gave Risa a sudden jolt of phantom pain, but she felt that the other person seemed familiar. She and Manaka turned their eyes toward the young man who they had never seen before in the school.
Sakamichi was a girls’ school, so there weren’t any male students, and most of the male faculty was older. The young man wore a suit and a sharp pair of glasses. When he spotted the cool Keyaki pair, he turned to ask the other person about the two.
Not liking the aura that the glasses man gave, Manaka took Risa and turned around to find another bathroom somewhere else.
Checkpoint 23
Sugai Yuuka’s tears streamed down her cheeks. She had run away again to some secluded place on campus, and she wondered if Akane followed. The horse loving girl didn’t see her roommate anywhere, so even if Akane had chased, Yuuka had escaped. However, she didn’t feel like she had escaped.
Looking around, there was only foliage.
Yuuka dropped down the ground, taking a seat. She knew that she looked like a mess, and she couldn’t be bothered to care about getting her uniform dirty.
She took her phone into her hand. All her troubles seemed to stem from the small device. In a spur of the moment, she threw it down to the ground, but it didn’t break.
Her family hadn’t contacted her. Yuuka should have called, but she didn’t.
The horse loving girl just sat there for a while. She stayed until it was even time for class to start. Although her metal bracelet buzzed with a demerit of points, she didn’t even glance at it.
Her cell phone on the ground shook with the sound of notifications.
Yuuka looked over to it without picking it up. Her friends were sending her worried LINE messages, yet she didn’t know what to respond and could only watch the words as they flitted by with the notifications.
Akane’s icon didn’t show up at all.
Just as a single sliver of disappointment showed up in Yuuka’s heart, she suddenly heard footsteps. Yuuka grabbed her phone and turned it to silent so she wouldn’t be noticed.
“Yuuka…?” Akane called out for Yuuka, searching.
Akane was searching and calling out for Yuuka, but from her dejected and somewhat sore-sounding voice, Yuuka could tell that Akane had been going on for a while. Yuuka stayed silent and waited for Akane to pass.
Yuuka berated herself for her actions.
She swiped the screen of her phone, unlocking it. She read through her classmates messages, but even she was aware that a message of ‘I’m okay’ meant nothing if she was clearly not okay. Thus, she didn’t send one at the moment.
Yuuka went to the chat she had with Akane. It hadn’t been touched much in the recent days, but just from the history, she could see the silly things they’d said through the past months together.
Yuuka flicked upward through the history and glimpsed over Akane’s words, ‘My special skill is saying food in a sexy way.’
She had responded at that time with, ‘Eh? What’s with that?’
Yuuka started drafting a message to Akane. The length grew from something one would send in a messaging app to something more like a letter. As she wrote, she let her fingers pour out everything else that she had held back when she spoke to Akane previously.
The words she wrote were her own cowardly feelings and hopes that perhaps Akane would be able to give her courage. Yuuka stopped for a moment, looking as the draft of her words automatically saved. She hadn’t had courage to talk to her parents, but her finger started toward the send button to Akane.
Then, the phone rang.
—Because you had already completed the deed.
—Can there be any hope anymore?
Yuuka picked up the call. The number that had appeared made her heart fall, but she picked up the phone nonetheless.
“Hello.” She greeted.
A male voice sounded out from the phone, “Hello, cousin. Although, I suppose I can call you Yuuka.” It was Seiichirou.
“Hello, cousin.” Yuuka greeted him again, not using his name. “What are you calling for?”
“You know what it is.” Seiichirou humored Yuuka. “Our engagement.”
“I see.”
“I’ve liked you for a long time, Yuuka. I’m glad that we can come together like this. Do you not agree?”
Yuuka could only mutely nod, forcing out some noise of agreement.
“There’s no need to worry about uncle. I will take care of you and his health. I won’t go back on our deal. I will make sure to dedicate resources to bring him back to health. The hospital payments won’t be an issue.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, Yuuka.”
Yuuka replied softly. Through the phone, he sounded kind, yet she knew the chill in his eyes and how he had a hand in the fall of the Sugai Company. She couldn’t love him in the slightest, and there was someone else already in her heart.
“I’ve visited your school recently.” Seiichirou spoke.
“Eh?”
“If I remember correctly, you are in the Keyaki class? It’s quite interesting, a class named after the zelkova tree.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a new system as far as I’ve heard, but the class is held in positive regard by some of my acquaintances. Yet, I feel mixed about it.” He laughed. “All of the girls wear a metal bracelet around their wrist? That seems a bit barbaric. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. Yuuka, you won’t have to wear such a thing anymore.
“I will come to pick you up soon. I will arrive in Tokyo from a business trip tonight, so I will come tomorrow. The man in charge of your class offered for us to stay a few days longer, so if you would like, we can delay leaving the campus.”
“Thank you. I would like that.”
“Of course. You will be leaving that place soon, so one or two extra days won’t matter.”
Yuuka looked at the metal bracelet on her wrist. If she were asked about it, she wouldn’t have said she liked it. However, she didn’t hate it either, and parting with it now seemed like a symbolic parting with the bonds she had made in the Keyaki class.
Seiichirou’s words were like everything had already been decided. It had.
He suddenly asked, “When do you want to get married?”
“...I don’t know.”
“I suppose that was a sudden question. We can get married any time. Next year in June would be fine, and you could be June bride if you’d like. This winter or fall would also be fine. It will be extravagant. We can talk about the future heirs later.”
Yuuka’s words were stuck in her throat.
“My apologies. Our conversation will have to continue later. I have a meeting soon. We can talk much more later.”
“Yes. Good bye.”
—Future. What future?
—The person who was supposed to have the future was...
The Eccentric update goes up to here. I've got a Wattpad account now! And I'm uploading Eccentric there too, but... ah, it's kind of a pain to format, so Eccentric will update here first as usual. However, I also have some one shots (well, just one right now). The one shots will probably be uploaded there first, and they'll be bundled with the Eccentric updates on jphip.
Just a note, the one shots aren't in the same universe as Eccentric.
An Afternoon and BreadThe cool afternoon sun of early winter shined down on the earth without a cloud in sight. There wasn’t much wind, but the students heading home were still coated up with their winter wear, eager to get out of the cold and into their homes where they could relax after a day of hard work studying.
Watanabe Rika was walking home by herself, her friends staying after school due to student council work or clubs. Her long hair was down as always, and she had a red scarf wrapped around her neck. She didn’t have any gloves on, but she was holding her bag in her hands, having not forgotten it this time.
As she was gazing off into space, strolling along mindlessly, she felt a hard hand on her shoulder.
Turning around, she saw a group of flashy girls grinning at her. They had always liked pushing her around, but they hadn’t troubled her ever since she made her first friends at school. However, Rika’s friends weren’t here with her.
“Hey, Watanabe Rika.” The leader of the gang grinned, calling out to Rika.
Rika edged back, “W-what is it?”
The leader grabbed Rika’s wrist and said, “Come with us for a bit. We found a place just for you.”
Rika was frightened, and she tried to wrestle her wrist away from the leader to no avail. Even though she was a bit forgetful and airheaded, she felt that she hadn’t done anything worth their ire. Yet, the group of bullies didn’t let up.
In response to Rika’s struggling, the leader girl scowled, “Quit it, you weakling!” The leader raised a hand to slap Rika across the face.
However, she was stopped by one of her underlings. “Wait. If Moriya or Sugai see a bruise, we’re going to be screwed!”
“Tch.” The leader clicked her tongue back at her underlings. However, she dropped the hand that was about to slap. Then, she turned back to Rika and spat out, “Don’t think you’re so great just because you have little miss rich girl and tennis freak godzilla behind you!”
Rika flinched, wrist starting to hurt from the grip.
She looked at the bullies with tears in her eyes. No one around them was stepping in to help her. However, Rika couldn’t stand her friends being insulted like that, so she retorted as she could, “Don’t say that about them!”
“Shut up!” The girl gang’s leader kicked Rika’s leg.
Without waiting and bantering any further, the group dragged Rika along despite the girl’s unwillingness. They kept going until they reached an abandoned building.
Throwing open the creaky door, they stepped into the building. There was a hole in the roof, letting sunlight into the building. There was a lot of dust around, and the furniture was all broken down. In the middle of the floor, there was another hole, leading down to a floor with only a dirty mattress on the ground and nothing else.
The bullies let out a few complaints about how gross the place was, but they said nothing to Rika.
Rika glanced around nervously, not knowing was they were planning.
Then, they stepped in front of the hole.
With a smirk, the leader girl and the others pushed Rika down through the hole. “Down you go. Into the trash where you belong.”
Exiting, one of the lackeys whispered to the leader, “Isn’t this going a little far?”
However, Rika was left all alone in the hole with no one else.
She landed on the mattress with a puff of dust coming off the dirty mattress. As she tried to stand up, Rika found that she had sprained her ankle. Seeing as she couldn’t get out of the hole, no doors or stairs in site on the floor, Rika could only make herself somewhat comfortable on the mattress, sitting and hugging her legs.
Rika looked up toward the sky sadly. She wanted to cry. She wanted to eat delicious bread and chocolate. She wanted her friends. She wanted her plushies, Aoko and Karaage.
The long haired girl didn’t know how long she was there, but she ended up crying quietly.
Then, suddenly, a voice called out to her, “Who’s down there?”
Sniffling, finishing up her tears, Rika let out a reply of, “Um…”
A girl on the floor above peeked into the hole, noticing Rika. The girl was wearing a different high school’s uniform than Rika, and along with her school bag, the girl was carrying a convenience store bag stuffed full with food.
“Are you okay?” The girl awkwardly asked Rika.
Rika shook her head, wiping away the last of the tears on her face.
The girl with the food made a series of faces as if wondering what to do. As luck would have it, she somehow fumbled over her own two feet and tripped, also falling onto the mattress, right beside where Rika sat.
The girl let out a wince of pain followed by a cry of shock, realizing that she squished some of her food.
“Oh no…” She sighed.
Rika asked quietly, “Um, are you okay?”
The girl replied quietly as well, “Yes.”
They spent a few moments silently staring each other. Then, they looked up at the sky. Neither knew how to get out of the hole.
“What do we do?” The girl murmured nervously.
Rika shook her head. “I don’t know.”
There was more silence between the two girls until the girl with food spoke up again, “If we’re going to be stuck down here… I’m Nagasawa Nanako.”
“...Watanabe Rika.”
“Do you want some food?” Nanako reached for her bag of smashed food. She sighed looking at the shape of her beloved snacks, but she knew that they were still delicious.
Rika nodded.
Nanako asked, “What types of food do you like?”
“Bread!” Rika suddenly perked up.
Nanako opened the bag and offered Rika a bread. She took one for herself as well.
The two girls happily munched on their food, almost managing to forget that they were stuck in the hole.
“Thank you, Naako-san.” Rika said, her voice muffled by the bread she held up to her mouth.
Nanako questioned, “Naako?”
“Sorry.”
“You can call me Naako if you want.”
“Thank you.”
They continued quietly eating. Chatting on little things, they found that they had similar hobbies and personalities. The sun was slowly beginning to set, and the two were very worried that they would be stuck in the hole forever. However, Rika felt somehow a little safer with someone friendly nearby.
Enjoying the food, they found that there was only one glazed donut in the bag.
“You can have it.” Naako said, giving Rika the glazed donut. On the inside, she wanted to eat it, but she also enjoyed seeing Rika’s joyful expressions more than she expected.
Rika took the donut.
She bit into the donut, letting out a smile of bliss. “Delicious!” She noticed Naako’s gaze. Then, she held out the donut to Naako and said, “Naako should eat it too.”
Naako looked at Rika for a moment to check if she heard correctly. Then, she took a bite from the donut as well.
The two of them shared the donut, enjoying the sugary sweet.
Before they knew it, they had spent the whole afternoon eating with breaks in between for drinks and breathing. It was a feast, but by the time the sun set, the bag of food had run out, and it was getting cold.
The moon was up, and a wind blew a cloud over half of the moon. It was dark.
Rika shook from the cold. Naako moved closer to Rika on the dirty old mattress in order to share her warmth. They didn’t know what to do now.
Just as the two girls were about to cry from the situation, a sparkling ringing sound came from Rika’s bag.
The forgetful girl’s head was blank for a moment before she realized that it was her phone. Fumbling around with her cold hands, she dug out her phone and found that her mother was calling her.
Naako’s phone rang as well, and Naako picked up the call as well.
Rika picked up her mother’s call, one hand holding the phone, the other holding Naako’s hand for warmth.
“Mom?” Rika asked to make sure the caller.
Her mother replied, “Rika, where are you?”
“I-I fell down a hole, and I don’t know how to get out...”
“Where are you?”
“Um, near the Hori Bakery.”
“Have you called the police?”
Rika and her mother talked. Rika realized how foolish she had been, forgetting her phone. Had she called the police right away, then she wouldn’t have been stuck in a hole for hours.
Naako came to the same conclusion from her own phone call.
The two girls stuck in the hole sighed, laughing at their own foolishness. Then, they called the police. Within minutes, people would come to pick them up and finally send them home.
“We’re finally getting out.” Naako said.
Rika nodded, “I’m glad to go home.”
Both girls started at the same time, ““But-””
They exchanged looks and giggled. Rika finished her sentence, “I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too.”
Topic: Eccentric (TechiNeru+) <DROPPED> - Thank You For Reading, a Summary (Read 96392 times)