Chapter 2 – Target

Beep. Beep. Beep. Mika groaned and rolled over onto her back as her alarm broke through her unconsciousness. Stretching out her left hand, Mika aimed for the bedside table. However, instead, her hand smashed against a wall.

“Ow!” She jerked upward, holding her throbbing hand against her chest.

Beep. Beep. Beep. With a sigh, Mika turned to the right, where her bedside table was located in this room, and turned off the alarm. Apparently, it took more than just a couple of days in a new home to re-write years of trained muscle memory.

I miss grandmother’s house. It’s just too lonely here. She turned into the kitchen, and for a moment, could imagine her grandmother’s face standing over the stove as she cooked an egg and pancakes.

Then Mika would nod, and clean the table while her grandmother finished breakfast. They’d eat together, she’d collect her school things and be out the door with her grandmother waving goodbye as she left.

Mika went through the morning in a trance as she envisioned what used to be, and what was no more. Instead of a morning greeting, she was met with only silence. Instead of a wonderful meal, she had a slightly burnt piece of toast. And of course there was no one around to wish her a good day.

Impatiently brushing away the tears that were trying to force themselves into her eyes, Mika gathered her homework, shoved some rice and a leftover chicken into a bentou box and all but ran away from the house and down the street.

Mika stopped at the bottom of the hill by the bus stop to catch her breath and look over the schedule.

Doesn’t leave until eight… That only gives me twenty minutes before school starts. If the bus route goes through other neighborhoods, I probably wouldn’t make it.

With her breathing now slowed, Mika started down the road at a brisk walk.

I think this was the road Kana went down yesterday afternoon. Mika stopped to look down the way, hoping against hope she might be able to catch her newfound friend on her way to school. She waited at the corner for a minute before giving up and continuing on her way.

A couple of blocks later, she was waiting for a light to turn when she heard her name. Glancing around, Mika found Kana standing on the opposite street corner. Mika turned on her heels and ran across the street to meet Kana.

“This is where I wait for Ayako,” Kana answered the unspoken question covering Mika’s face. “She’s almost always running late, so I often end up waiting at the corner.”

“There she comes,” Mika said, pointing down the street to a figure that was sprinting in their direction. “She’s so fast.”

“She’s on the track team, and is one of the fastest students in the school,” Kana said. “Although more often than not, it seems she practices by being late and then sprinting to make up for lost time.”

“As long as that works for her,” Mika said with a short chuckle. “Ohayou Ayako.”

“O-ohayou,” she murmured as she stopped beside Mika to catch her breath. “Am I late?” Ayako questioned, looking to Kana who was examining her watch.

“Surprisingly no,” she answered.

“Yes!” Ayako threw her fist in the air before wrapping an arm around each of her friends, and pulling them to her. “Come on. Let’s go!”

With Ayako’s swift pace, they made it to the school with nearly fifteen minutes to spare. “We got a little time. Let me show you around the outside of the school. You haven’t seen it yet, right Mika?”

Mika nodded and followed her new friends to the left around the school.

“Over there is the track and soccer field.” Ayako gestured to the fields to their left. “And over there on the right is the gymnasium – you saw that yesterday though. People are almost always practicing in there – basketball, volleyball, aikido, boxing, kendo… Everyone fights for gym time. Then over here at the back is a spare lot and beyond that in the trees is the old school house. I heard once that they were going to use the space to make a swimming pool, but the project was abandoned because it was too costly to maintain. Instead, the swim team rents out some time at the community pool a block away from here.”

They came around the left side of the school, and Ayako pointed out the baseball and softball fields. “And this is where we like to hang out if we have extra time before class.” Now at the front of the school once again, Ayako sat down against a sakura tree.

“The school has a surprisingly large amount of land for being in the city,” Mika commented lightly as she sat down opposite Ayako.

“It doesn’t look it, but it's is quite old,” Kana said, sitting down to Mika’s right. “The land was purchased by a wealthy family in the Edo period and served as a dojo for years. When swords were banned in the Meiji, it became an academic school and opened to the public. Although the school is owned by the government now, since its founding, the plot of land hasn’t changed.”

“Wow Kana, how do you learn these things?!” Ayako exclaimed.

“The library’s property records.”

“That’s cool. I mean the school’s past and all,” Mika added quickly.

They elapsed into a comfortable silence. Mika rested her head back against the bark of the tree as the warm, spring breeze wafted over her. The school was certainly big, and far more chaotic than the school she’d left. She missed her old classmates and friends, but this wasn’t so bad either.

At the ringing of the bell, Mika opened her eyes and stood. In that moment, despite the warm morning, she felt a cold chill run down her back. Instinctively, she looked around, getting the feeling that someone was staring at her. To her left, she could see students walking through the gate and filing into the school; to her right, off in the distance, the sound of a whistle ended a morning practice. No one had their eyes on her.

“Mika?”

Ayako’s voice roused her from her stupor. Mentally shaking herself, Mika replied, “I’m coming!” and jogged a few steps to catch up with the two who were heading toward the front entrance.

They had to sprint to class to make it to their seats by the final bell. Once in the classroom, Mika collapsed in her desk panting from the run up the stairs. They’d made it by the skin of their teeth.

“Hey!” Daisuke chirped from his desk.

“Good morning,” Mika replied.

Daisuke opened his mouth to say something more, but suddenly cut off and jerked his head to the entrance of the classroom where the teacher was entering. Following right behind him, out of his line of sight, was Kaito.

“That guy…” Daisuke muttered under his breath just loudly enough for Mika to hear. “Watch, he’s late, but the teacher isn’t even going to notice.”

Mika’s eyes lingered on Daisuke for a moment before they drifted back to watch Kaito. He kept close behind the teacher, and when he stopped at the front podium, slipped around behind him, and with a nearly inhuman walking speed, glided to his desk before the sensei even looked up at the class.

“He’s notorious for that by the way,” Daisuke said, pulling Mika’s attention away from Kaito. “He thinks I’m bad at being on time, but he’s worse than me.”

“But I don’t get caught,” Kaito added with a sly smile in Daisuke’s direction.

Daisuke huffed, crossed his arms, and ended the conversation just in time for roll call.

Class for Mika was incredibly uneventful. Every teacher lectured straight through the hour, and although Mika tried to pay attention, her mind kept drifting off, to her old school, and her old teachers; they rarely ever lectured straight through the period. Instead, almost all of them planned some sort of activity to keep the students’ minds engaged.

After an hour of systematically going through different poems in Ise Monogatari and discussing the meaning behind them, the lunch bell finally rang. Ayako and Kana met Mika at her desk, and they all headed up to the roof.

The three ate with minor conversations, and sometime near the middle of the lunch break, Mika became aware that Kaito had once again taken his place on the uppermost part of the roof. How he’d gotten up there, she couldn’t even begin to guess as the ladder was situated directly in front of her. It was well above her head, and thus, too high to jump. But perhaps there’s another ladder or means to get up there on the other side, she reasoned as she turned her attention back to Ayako’s and Kana’s conversation.

The bell indicating the end of lunch rang and with a lot of grumbling from Ayako, they stood up. It was when Ayako rounded the corner to face the door that she noticed Kaito for the first time. “You’re going to be late again if you keep sleeping! Those slick tricks are going to fail you one day, and when they do, you bet I’ll be there laughing my head off,” she jabbed.

An incoherent grumbling came from Kaito.

“Tch, whatever you ba – ” Ayako muttered under her breath but was cut off. He moved so suddenly, that Mika’s eyes couldn’t completely follow the movement. The most she registered was him hurtling directly for them. Mika jumped back in astonishment while Ayako and Kana remained rooted to the spot. Kaito came to an almost unnaturally light and quiet landing directly in front of a startled Ayako.

“That was a rather rude thing that was about to come from your mouth,” he said silkily as he backed up half a step and began to make a slow circle around her.

“You - you’re the one who’s rude… suddenly flying at us like that,” she hissed.

“Even I’m not thick-skinned enough to sit idly by while being talked down to in such a way,” he continued, coming to a stop once he’d circled around to the door.

“Kisama…” Ayako snarled, balling her fists at her sides.

Mika put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, just in case she lunged at Kaito fists swinging.

“Arguing this now is pointless,” Kana said, moving between Ayako and Kaito. “If we don’t get a move on, we will have a repeat of this morning, except Takahiro-san will not be the only one who is late.”

With an over dramatized huff, Ayako spun around, and marched to the door. Kana nodded her head to Kaito before following Ayako down the stairs. Kaito moved off next, with Mika just a step behind him. Before she passed through the door, she made a point to glance around the corner to look for a ladder Kaito could have used to get to the top portion of the roof.

There was none.