Wow, thank you ALL for reading my new story! ^_^ It's great to get so many comments, and I hope most of you keep enjoying it as the story rolls along.
...Obviously, most of the comments were to the untimely death of a Miss Niigaki
, but that was really it for the "teaser intro" I decided on, and hopefully this first chapter will give you more to think and talk about. Oh, and I've decided to try and split up chapters after I finish a section, so things will look different than in most of my other stories... at least at first... It also means that in the coming chapters more (even significant) characters will appear, so if you're looking for someone just hang on.
Also, a special thank you to those I haven't seen in awhile (or AGES), like Sukoshi and e-girl! I'm glad AX has seemed to bring so many people to/back to JPHiP.
Anyway, it looks like you're all looking forward to the next chapter, so I won't disappoint. As always and forever, enjoy~
Chapter 1Aika Mitsui stared at what filled the assorted plates and bowls on her tray, wondering not for the first time how she was actually expected to eat things like this. Shrugging and supposing it didn’t really matter, she stuck a finger into what she thought was potatoes and licked it clean. As she was still sucking on it she looked up slowly to see a taller girl set her own tray down next to hers and sit across from her.
“You’re such a baby, sucking your thumb,” Koharu Kusumi, the girl from a year ahead of her who was supposed to be her best friend, told her as if she’d done so many times before.
“Am not,” Aika mumbled as she picked up a somewhat bent fork awkwardly to stab a sausage with it.
When she looked up again, the girl was giving her a funny look, eyes never leaving her face. “Ok what’s up? There’s never been a time I’ve told you that when you didn’t respond by giggling and telling me you might be, but at least your face wasn’t fat.”
“Nothing’s up,” Aika said simply, continuing to prod at her food, bits occasionally making it to her mouth.
Koharu bluntly reached over and knocked the bowl Aika was working on to the side of the tray, poking her wrist. “Hey, how long have I known you? I can tell if you’re lying to me as easily as if your hair fell out.”
Aika looked up finally, the previous target of her attentions having been displaced. She raised a hand to the hair hanging over her ears. “My hair…?” she asked dumbly.
Next thing she knew her head rocked to the side as her friend slapped her jaw. “Hello?” Koharu asked. “Is there anyone home in there? Geez Aika, I’m beginning to wonder if you shoulda joined Chisa and Kanna in dropping out of school.”
Aika slowly turned back to her attacker. The slap didn’t actually hurt; Koharu did it to her all the time, partly out of amazement she didn’t seem to feel any pain, but usually just out of boredom. Of course it used to hurt. But she learned rather quickly to ignore pain as minor as that. Lately some of her other friends were even catching onto the game of “Let’s slap Aika!” Especially Miyabi-chan.
“Maybe I should,” she said simply in response, and started stabbing the table with her bent fork.
“Ok now I really know something’s wrong,” Koharu responded, the serious tone returning to her voice, and now much stronger. “You’ve always thought those girls were idiots – ‘the only not stupid reason for dropping out of school is getting knocked up,’ if I remember right.” It was obvious the girl was surer she remembered right than she let on.
“I don’t know,” Aika responded dully.
After a moment of silence she looked up slowly again, seeing Koharu still staring back at her with a serious, if slightly dumb, curiosity. Of course, that’s just how her friend was. “They got my sister last night, all right?”
“What?” Koharu asked, her face screwing up slightly. “Got her? Is she all right?”
“She’s dead,” Aika responded in her simple words once again.
Koharu stared at her a minute with a blank face, before blinking and then somewhat uncertainly picking up a fork to poke at her own food. Aika dragged her bowl back in front of her and cupped it in her hands, staring into its depths.
“Hey you two!” came an alto voice from beside her, but she didn’t turn to watch as Miyabi took a seat. A small fit of giggling told her Chinami-chan was with the girl as well.
“There you guys are!” came another, but higher voice, and recognizing it as Ayacho’s, Aika knew their little lunch group was now growing by a couple more.
“What’d ya bring for lunch, Miyabi-chan?” Sayaka, one of the new arrivals, asked as she dug into a brown bag she plopped in front of her.
“Ahh, I’m sluggin’ it today, Saaya” Miyabi responded, referring to her eating the cafeteria’s lunch, which could be slimy enough that’s what it tasted like sometimes. Or perhaps people had actually found slugs in it before. No one seemed to know for sure.
“You and the two musketeers both, I see,” the brazen first-year responded, eyeing Aika and Koharu, who were quiet and involved in their eating as if the others hadn’t even arrived.
“Is it me or are they even more spazzed than usual today?” Miyabi said, leaning over to wave a hand in front of Aika’s face.
“Leave off, Natsuyaki,” Koharu said through a mouthful of food.
“Oh yeah?” the other responded, her voice taking on a sardonic warning tone. “You wanna make me?”
“Careful, Miya,” Chinami giggled, tugging at the other’s arm. “Don’t want you to start a fight and get spanked only halfway through the day.” Then the girl leaned in and whispered in the other’s ear.
“That’s my job for later…” Despite her attempted detachment, Aika choked on her food upon hearing that, and noticed Miyabi color slightly as well. Likely no one but the two of them heard what Chinami had said.
“I can take her anytime,” Miyabi grumbled out loud. “And aren’t you supposed to be my
supportive girlfriend in things like this?”
Aika’s two classmates were the first ones in their little group to start dating, although to her knowledge they never admitted anything officially aside from teasing such as this. None of them had even caught the two kissing, though Aika was sure it happened.
It used to be in this part of the City that girls would have kids young and maybe eventually marry the father of the third or fourth. Aika’s own mother, in fact, had her sister when she was sixteen, and in truth Aika and Risa were only half-sisters since, like many siblings around here, they had different fathers. Due to a cultural technicality, it also resulted in different family names, Risa’s happening to have been Niigaki.
These days however, with women taking more of a stand for themselves and the men only becoming less and less reliable, most of them had decided to live without men entirely, at least if and until they wanted to get knocked up, in which case there were normally plenty of willing “volunteers”. They generally let intense and real emotional attachments develop only with other women, or in their case, girls.
Miyabi and Chinami seemed to get along well enough, which was good since they had all been friends to begin with, but Aika still wasn’t sure what she thought of the whole deal. She didn’t know if she was even ready to have a crush on anyone yet…
Unfortunately, as many things had so far today, that again made her think of her sister, and this time of her last words. She’d been thinking about them ever since, not completely sure of what she was trying to tell her, but with the word she definitely did make out – “love” – she had an idea of the content of the message at least. Not that it did a whole lot of good. There were many things about her life her sister hadn’t told her… including why last night had to happen.
“Maybe if you quit being so silly and childish Miyabi-chan, she wouldn’t be embarrassed about doing so,” Ayaka teased in her perpetually half-amused and half-insecure sounding voice.
Miyabi responded by sticking her tongue out at the precocious girl, and then waved a spoon at her. “You know I won’t take any lectures from a
first year.”
“Will you guys stop fighting?” Koharu asked in a long-suffering voice, her eyes browsing Aika’s face again.
For her part, Aika finally looked up from her food to see Saaya and Ayacho smiling at her from across the table. She didn’t glance in Miyabi’s direction; instead, her eye was caught by three girls passing by their table and giggling to each other. All three were in Koharu’s year, and the two had run into them from time to time. The tall one shared some of Koharu’s classes, and so they particularly knew each other relatively well.
They didn’t do much more than glance over at the six younger girls at the table though, one of the shorter ones making eye contact with Aika and continuing to giggle. Aika felt herself flush, although it wasn’t completely due to the giggling. She hid it by burying her face back into her bowl, which was now nearly empty.
“Look at the three of them,” Sayaka complained, watching as they left. “Acting like they’re all big shot.”
“They’re third years,” Chinami replied simply. “Now they’re upperclassmen they’re simply taking advantage of their—”
“…assholeness…” Miyabi interrupted.
“…age.” Chinami finished, frowning at her girlfriend.
“I… I don’t think they’re too bad,” Aika said in a small voice, speaking for the first time since the others arrived.
“Well look who woke up!” Sayaka teased.
After the momentary surprise from Aika’s outburst, and a short group stare at her until she blushed back into her food, noticing Koharu’s eyes following her the whole way, Chinami glanced over to Koharu. “Why aren’t you all cool like that? You’re the same year as them.” For the first time in a while Koharu took her eyes from Aika, narrowing them at her questioner instead.
“I hear they’ve been invited to Pine Street,” Ayaka piped up, immediately earning the attention of the other girls except for Aika and Koharu. Pine Street was where the kids went to practice dancing, and was considered one of the elite – non-violent at least – social groups to be involved with.
Chinami whistled through her teeth. “Now that’s something. Good for them. Seriously Koharu, what are you good for?”
“I saw Yajima-san out on the track one day,” Ayaka continued. “She’s actually a really good dancer!”
When she’d barely finished, Koharu suddenly jumped up from her chair, rattling her tray when she slammed her hands on the table. “That’s enough!” she almost yelled. “You guys are all stupid, fighting like this and just being rude all the time! Can’t you give it a break for even just one day?!”
“Koharu-chan…” Aika whined softly, looking up at her friend and pleading with her to sit back down.
“What’s the matter with you?” Miyabi asked in disbelief. Koharu was a little… over-energetic… at times, but rarely just blew up so seriously like this. The two first years were actually looking a bit scared, and Aika saw them cling to each others’ arms.
“We’re always like this,” Chinami protested in a less caustic voice than her girlfriend. “Why’s today so special?”
Koharu didn’t say anything in response, instead just glaring down at Aika, who was trying to make herself as small as possible, before
harrumphing and stalking off, leaving her lunch which miraculously she managed to eat most of while everyone was talking. Aika rolled her eyes across her own barely eaten food before she noticed everyone was staring at her again.
“What’s
her deal?” Miyabi griped as she turned to look after the runaway.
“What’s going on, Aika-chan?” Chinami asked in a soothing voice. “First you’ve been so quiet, and then she blows her top and marches off like that. Something must have happened.”
Aika stared into her bowl again. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she also didn’t want to have this drag on again either, even like it had with Koharu.
“My sister’s dead, okay?” she said, a bit curtly, and lifted her almost untouched bowl of rice before walking off as well, not looking back into the stunned silence she left behind.
Topic: City of Angels (Chapter 15 on 10/20) (Read 32245 times)