Chapter Text
The committee was held on Friday, so there were only two days left to start the classes, and soon they should know their schedule of classes. As per earlier declarations, the stimetable was to be received no later than Saturday morning. Also on that day, another event was to be held in the Kuwat room to celebrate the successful passage of all the recruitment procedures.
Of course, the girl did not miss the information, because the redhead began to announce the message before she even had time to come down from the middle of the gym after her performance.
Haruka was surprised that the boy had once again decided to gather so many people in such a small space. Even with a house party for 10 , cramming so many people is a challenge. The baseball player must have been incredibly extroverted to decide on such an undertaking. She had the impression that over the course of her education, the boy would find more and more reasons to gather the group together for partying.
However, for her parties were associated with crowds, noise, silly jokes and, worst of all, alcohol. It occurred to her more than once that Yasuhiro would be able to provide drinks to the rest of the students because of his age. She definitely didn't want to be a part of this.
Besides she will see them enough throughout all the school years and will probably cherish every moment she gets to take a break from them.
When she got herself in order, she returned to the room, only stopping by a nearby vending machine where she had bought a bar and a packet of salty sticks, because she could not fit in at lunchtime.
Shortly after her, Fujisaki-san also returned to the room; however, he did not sit at his computer as was his custom, but on his bed and began staring at the floor. Although it seemed strange to her, she decided to ignore it and returned to reading the book, which she had only just started.
The boy sat in this position for a very long time. She managed to read at least 20 pages, and the programmer still remained in his place with his head down.
“Y-yoshida-san...” he uttered his characteristic whisper.
“Huh?” she replied, but didn’t take her eyes off the reading.
“I wanted to t-thank you,” he continued, this time a little louder.
"Don't mention it," she said casually.
"If it wasn't for you, I might not be here anymore, a-and..."
"You're here because you're smart and talented, and you were able to make that clear to the committee today," she glanced up from her book and finally looked at him.
The boy looked the same as he had before his morning appearance, completely pale and shaken. Had the conversation with her caused him so much stress?
When she said he shouldn't be attached to her, she didn't forbid him from speaking to her completely. She felt guilty for making Fujisaki-san afraid of her. Maybe completely ignoring him was a bad idea...
"And it's not my credit but yours. All you needed was ... a little push," she added, softening her gaze and putting the book aside completely. She wanted to make him aware with this gesture that she was now going to devote total attention to their conversation.
"You're very kind...," the boy raised his head and relaxed a little. Blush could be seen on his cheeks.
"Sometimes I am, and sometimes I am a bitch," she looked at him meaningfully. He knew perfectly well that she hadn't treated him fairly in their last conversation, and he was still cordial towards her. "You're always polite."
There was silence in the room, though it did not last long.
"You're very t-talented, too. Your performance was... phenomenal,"
“And you’re telling me I’m being polite?” she asked ironically, in a slightly amused voice.
"I'm not just saying this out of sheer courtesy. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I think you represent emotions perfectly, which allows the audience to be a part of those feelings. Plus, you have tremendous vocal skills. I don't know much about sing, but your voice is...beautiful," he spoke with great emotion. Almost in the same way as when he spoke about his talent. His blushes on his face increased, his eyes seemed to sparkle, and it was all complemented by a wide smile.This time, however, it was she who caused such an expression on his face...
She felt appreciated and understood, and stressed... and suddenly realized that her face was getting hot.
"I can sing something to you sometimes if you like it so much...," she blurt without thinking.
Again, she was crossing a line that she shouldn't have even touched in the first place and worse, she was messing with his head again. First she was telling him to keep his distance, and now she was offering him something like that.
He was making her lose her mind...
"I-I... would...like t-that," he barely mumbled. He ran from her sight and his face was already a tomato-like color
"And for the record, I didn't say you were smart and talented just out of politeness, either," she got up and headed to the bathroom to calm down.
When she looked in the mirror she saw blushes all over her face for the first time in her life.
What the hell was going on with her? It wasn't like it was the only compliment she'd ever heard.
She rinsed her face with cold water, took a few deep breaths, and once she had regained her balance, she returned to the room. Fujisaki-san didn't move from his seat, but he seemed to have a little control over his emotions, too.
“Fujisaki-san?,” this time she started the next part of the conversation.
"Yes?"
"I don't want you not to talk to me at all, or even worse, to be afraid to talk to me. I just... don't do friendship, and I want you to be aware of that," she decided to make it as clear as she could this time.
“I’ll respect that,” he declared, and his look assured her that he really meant to.
"That's good. I'm glad that we have everything explained..."
"But I d-don’t agree with you,” he interrupted unsurely.
“Well, it couldn’t have gone that easy,” she thought.
"I think you'd be a good friend," he added. He was very naive and certainly didn't realise she was not who she claimed to be.
"I believe you think so," she concluded, and reached back for her book. Before she could open it, however, the conversation continued.
"I've n-noticed that you read a lot," he changed the subject.
"I like to read." "and I don't have much else to do," she added in her head.
"Some time ago I was in the library looking for a book. I read it and it was really interesting. It might interest you...at l-least I think so...," he opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out mentioned before book.
"Show me," she quickly put the reading she was holding in her hands into her backpack next to the bed and reached out for the one Fujisaki-san was talking about. He followed her command and handed her the reading. "Japan Sinks, Sakyo Komatsu," she read aloud.
"Of course he likes to read too," she thought ironically. There weren't that many people in their generation who were interested in literature. Books took off in the age of the internet. "Science fiction huh..,it fits his character," she added in her head.
It wasn't a genre she would first reach for on a shelf full of various works, but in the end she read practically everything. It's important that the book is good, though she also managed to read total craps just for the sake of extra entertainment.
"It might be good. I'll let you know when I'm done," she put the item down on her desk, placing it at the very top of a pile of borrowed books from the library. When she finishes the one she's currently reading, she'll take that one as the next one. "I didn't know you like to read."
"I usually read on my computer. I certainly don't consume as many books as you do, but I like to divert my attention from programming from time to time," he concluded with a nervous giggle. That would explain why she hadn't noticed it sooner. At that point, realization dawned on her.
"You, too, chose literature as your additional subject, didn't you?," she asked to confirm her assumptions.
"That's true. This means that this is the second subject that we will be attending together, apart from the obligatory ones...," in response, she only raised an eyebrow in surprise and directed a questioning look at him. "I also chose music because I didn't know what to choose in the end. As I mentioned earlier, physical fitness is not my best side, so any classes in this area were no longer an option. I think music is a slightly simpler subject than, for example, art, in which my skills are also rather poor..."
"From what I've observed from the classes I've been to, it's mostly music theory, so it doesn't seem overly difficult. Only extremely boring..."she extended the last syllable to highlight the level of nuisance she had been subjected to during her classes, and to think that the boy had chosen them of his own free will.
"You're going to have enough of me," she joked, reaching for the backpack into which she had earlier threw the book. She began to rummage through it to extract the object. She had to clean up the mess in her bag, because it was getting harder and harder to find anything there.
"I doubt it," the statement was uttered practically under her nose, though she understood it perfectly.
His statement so distracted her that much that she dropped her backpack and some of its contents fell on the middle of the floor.
"Although the book was found," she thought.
Unfortunately, in addition to the reading she wanted, there was also a borrowed flashlight on the floor, and to her detriment, Fujisaki-san quickly rushed to help her pick up her belongings and kept his eyes on this particular object.
"Well, it's a good thing. I forgot to return this to you earlier. It must have fallen into my backpack by accident, and I must have forgotten about it," she mentioned inconspicuously.
"You can keep it," he said, handing her the object.
"There's no need. I..."
"I've noticed before that you carry it with you when one day in the cafeteria fell out of your p-pocket," suddenly, he interrupted her. He had known about this for some time and was aware that the "incident" she had just made up was only an excuse. He caught her lying, and she had no idea how to get out of it. "You don't have to explain anything to me, just keep it, please. I don't need it anyway," he looked at her gently with a smile, practically putting a flashlight in her hand.
The fact that he used her own words made her laugh and took a bit of stress out of her.
"Okay, thank you," she tucked the item into her pocket and together they collected the rest of the contents from the floor.
Then each of them went back to their own business.
To her delight, nothing more suspicious came out of the backpack. She was very grateful to Fujisaki-san for respecting her privacy.
It seemed that this time she got away again.
Or at least until the next day...
As announced on Saturday morning, their timetable was already in the secretary office. After receiving it, she found no errors and had no objections.
In the evening, Fujisaki-san decided to stop by for a moment at a party organized by Kuwata, because he had already promised Ashainia-san that he would show up. However, he didn't seem too thrilled about this and just before leaving he asked Haruka if she was sure she didn't want to go either.
"I'll pass. It's not my thing, but you have fun," he heard in response.
The girl sat on the bed and scribbled in her notebook, satisfied that she was not condemned to such torture.
Theoretically, Fujisaki-san wasn't either, though as she noted his assertiveness isn't his strong suit.
The programmer left after 8pm, which gave her the perfect time to take at least an hour's nap. Haruka hadn't had a chance to blink her eye for the past few days, which left her barely aware of what was going on around her.
In the situation she was in now, controlled sleep was the best option for her. She set her alarm clock for at least 5 alarms every 5 minutes to wake her up after 2 hours of napping, unless of course the nightmare wasn't first to wake her up.
Previously, the last thing she would do would be lie down to sleep of her own volition, however, she knew that in the situation she found herself in, sooner or later she would faint from fatigue at the least expected moment.
Shortly after the boy left the room, Haruka put down her notebook and changed her sitting position to a lying one. She leaned against the wall and covered herself with a duvet. At first, she had a huge problem falling asleep, but after a while she finally managed to do so.
It was a lazy Saturday. She sat in her pajamas on the white, soft carpet in her room. She wrote down in her notebook ideas that would come in handy when writing her songs . Her favorite playlist was flying in the background, and there were posters of her favorite artists on the walls: Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Beyonce, Jenifer Lopez, Kumi Kōda, Hamasaki Ayumi. Right next to her was a box of chocolates, from which she would occasionally pull out one of the treats. It was getting late, and soon she would probably have to go to bed, otherwise her mother would not be happy.
When the clock struck 22pm everything in the room began to change. The light went out, making the room completely dark. Instead of on a warm carpet, she was now on a cold bed. She was lying on her stomach on the edge of the bed, her legs slightly dangling but not touching the ground. The door behind her slid open, and a distinctive smell of whiskey began to float in the air. She tried to turn around to see who was coming into the room, but she couldn't. She tried hard to move, but her body completely froze. A figure from behind the corridor began to approach her, and she began to feel fear. Suddenly, a cold hand slipped down the bottom of her pyjamas. Tears began to flow down her cheeks. She tried to scream, but she couldn't. She began to tremble. She heard the sound of unzipping pants, and then felt icy hands on her buttocks. Moments later, her body went through a piercing pain...
"S-stop!," she yelled. "I beg you to stop this!," she screamed through her tears. "Don't t-touch me!"
The room was dark, which led her to even more hysterics. She had no idea where she was. She broke out of bed and began crawling across the floor in search of the nearest free piece of wall. When she managed to do so, she leaned against it and pulled her knees to herself, curling up. She also began to clench her right hand into a fist with all her might. She was completely shaken and sobbing loudly, having trouble breathing.
Suddenly the light in the room came on, and she nervously, still with tears in her eyes, began to look at the space that surrounded her. When her eyes appeared completely terrified, Fujisaki-san sitting on his bed, she knew where she was and what had just happened.
She looked at the clock, it was 1 a.m. She was trying to think back to when she went to bed and, most importantly, why none of the alarm clocks woke her.
She was probably asleep and turned off the device. Apparently 5 alarm clocks were not enough.
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry," she began wiping away her tears. "It's so embarrassing, I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to wake you up like that," she began to wobble from the floor as she was still a little shaken.
"Yoshida-san...y-you...bleeding..." that was the only thing the boy was able to get out of himself after witnessing the earlier incident.
After she managed to get up from the ground, she looked at her hand from which the blood flowed in accordance with the programmer's observation. She also noticed traces of blood on the floor near where she was sitting. In addition, a red substance was also on her clothes and probably her face as she wiped tears from it with her injured hand.
She was not at all surprised that Fujisaki-san was so terrified, because the scene looked like it was from a horror movie.
"I'm sorry for the mess. I'll be cleaning it up in a minute. Only the first thing I'm going to do is clean myself up," she avoided eye contact because she was so embarrassed.
She struggled to move towards the wardrobe. The event left her extremely weak and caused her a lot of dizziness. But she couldn’t leave it like that, she had to get it together.
"Maybe I can h-help you..."
"Thank you, I'll be fine. Just stay where you are until I clean up," she still didn't look at him. With a healthy hand, she pulled clean clothes from the furniture and went to the bathroom.
When she looked at herself in the mirror, tears began to well in her eyes again. She looked exactly as she felt, which was horrible. Her hair was all sweaty and messy. She was completely pale, her eyes were extremely swollen and in the middle of the eye you could see a slightly broken blood vessels.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. They mingled with those already dried on her face and with the blood that came from her right hand. There were fresh wounds on her limb, from which blood was seeping out, and old ones that were scratched and pus come out of it.
She couldn't count how many scars she'd accumulated over the years on such a small stretch of skin, but there were probably a lot of them. Often, though, she didn't have time to look at them, because the old damage was quickly covered by the new ones.
She imagined herself smashing the mirror in anger and then stabs herself with its shrapnels. She didn't have the strength to go through it over and over again. But she didn’t have enough strength to fulfill her fantasy either.
Besides, the last thing she wanted was for Fujisaki-san to find her dead in the bathroom. It was enough that he was forced to watch her "performance". "Fujisaki-san..." she thought, recalling his horror. She had no idea how to explain herself to him now.
The first thing she had to do was get into the shower. Once inside, she turned on the water. It was dripping on her for a good few minutes, and she was unable to even look at herself, let alone touch. Because she felt disgusted even at her own touch, washing her body was very difficult for her. After experiencing a nightmare like this, it seemed practically impossible.
She started to feel weak, leaned against the wall and unwittingly slipped down. She felt that she was starting to lose air, and her vision was beginning to blur. As she slowly began to swim away, she turned on a faucet that changed the temperature of the water flowing from the shower head. The sudden cold that swept through her body revived her a little.
After a while, she returned to a standing position and turned off the water supply. She wasn't able to scrub herself, but at least the water fluishe the blood and maybe a little sweat out of her.
When she calmed down even more and wiped away, making sure only the towel was in contact with her skin, she started running around the bathroom, where she assumed there must be some kind of first aid kit.
So far, she has not needed to dress her hand during her time at the academy. The damage wasn't usually severe enough to require it. This time she had no option but to do otherwise because the wound was too deep. When she finally found the kit she wanted, she set to work.
The first thing she did was pour the wound with oxidized water to clean it. Although she had a very high pain tolerance, this experience was not pleasant even for her. But it did not hold to the feeling she felt in her nightmare...
After disinfecting her hand, she wrapped it clumsy with a bandage and changed into pajamas.
She didn’t comb her wet hair, even though she should, because she knew what would happen to her hair the next day. It took too long when she had a "fully functional" right hand. She preferred not to even wonder how long it would take her with the left one.
Before leaving the bathroom, she took with her a paper towel and a spray of some cleaning product that she managed to find in the cupboard under the sink.
Before she pulled the handle, she looked once more in the mirror. She didn't look much better, though for that moment it must have been enough. She took a deep breath and left the room.