”To-go, please.” Sato replied. As much as he wanted to protest, Sato was not one to pass up a free coffee, especially while he still had a nagging caffeine craving. The teen lingered quietly at his seat, fingering the pages of the book he was reading as he sat solemnly. The drowning feeling killed his mood pretty fast, and he doubted Otonashi was particularly fond of him after their first meeting entailing him spilling coffee on her and her white dress and
ughh. He didn’t even help. Or, rather, couldn’t. All Sato had done was get somebody else to aid this scalded girl. At least none of the books on the table got any on them.
Of course, Sato didn’t show his distress. It wouldn’t be any good to make anyone feel bad. Or worse, they think he’s being pathetic.
Once he was done wallowing in his own frustrating feelings, Sato looked over at Otonashi again, who was rubbing her eyes and beaming warmly.
”I-I'm truly grateful for what you've done for me, I-I hope to return them in kind if I may." Sato responded with a wry smile.
”Don’t bother repaying what I’ve done for you. And again, I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I doubt this is what you wanted when you came here today.” He rose from his seat at the table, heading off to put his books away in their original locations before grabbing his freshly prepared coffee. Otonashi left as he was picking up the drink, and he took a tentative seat back at the table as he watched her leave. He’d have to talk to her again at a later date just to iron out the lingering suspicion in his head.
The young male’s attention was drawn from Otonashi’s deperature back to the café when he heard yet another familiar voice speak to him. He turned his head to look, and, to his surprise, it was Mako. The drama kid that was there on the day of…
the incident. Sato had thought there was some kind of unspoken agreement between them that they’d never talk about it again, but he supposed that was foolish to think that would happen after such an
interesting development.
”Sato Hashimoto, yeah? You remember me? Mako Moritomi?” ”How could I forget. We go to drama together.” Sato answered, a dead-pan manner used.
”I was just…” Mako swallowed.
”Just concerned about how you were holding up. After that… the thing. That one day. Last week…? Just... letting you know that, if you need to talk about it or anything, I'd be happy to just listen.” While Sato was completely expecting the topic of the cross-dressing thing, what Mako actually said was a little odd. He wasn’t exactly sure what Mako was implying but regardless he didn’t like it.
”I’ll assure you, I’m holding up fine. And whatever reason you think it happened for, I can tell you now it’s likely incorrect. It was solely for monetary gain. Just… listen, just don’t mention it to me again, and especially not to anyone else. If you want to do anything for me, pretend it didn’t happen.” Sato felt he was being a little unnecessarily rude, considering Mako had approached him with good intentions, but he was not in the mood for playing around by being polite.
Sato took a deep breath.
”I think I’ll excuse myself now.” And with that, he slipped out from the store, the mid-day sun glaring down at him. It was a nice day at least. He searched for a cloud in the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, but found none. One year of Warakuma and he was off to university, back to the city. The town was starting to grow on him, but something deep down told him that his place was back in Tokyo.
Whatever. That kind of thing was hardly important at the beginning of one’s third year. The brunette exhaled, the coffee cup in his hand burning ever so slightly. There wasn’t anything else he wanted to do in Warakuma, so he turned to head home.
[. . . . .]
When Sato walked up the street to his house, he was a little surprised to see Mika walking away from it. As she was going the other way, the male quickly jogged over to her, calling her name as he did so. She turned around almost instantly and lit up a bit, clearly having business with him. “What’s up, Mika?” He asked, standing up perfectly straight.
“You’ve got some real convenient timing, Sato. You could’ve come home five minutes earlier though.” She clenched whatever she was holding (some kind of package?) and gave a half-hearted smile. Sato figured whatever reason she had came by was not a very happy one. “I just wanted to make sure you’re going to practice first thing tomorrow. It’s important, so don’t skip like the last time. Got it?”
Sato blinked. Important? He didn’t know what this girl was planning, but it was probably rather relevant to him (though now he was just thinking the obvious) considering she’d swung by instead of the thing a normal person would do. “Yeah, sure. I’ll try to make it. Though I need to ask, why didn’t you just text me? It’s not 1973, Mika.” Sato played with his fingers as he talked, the singe from the coffee still throbbing painfully ever so slightly. Maybe the people back at the café were right about treating it, even if it seemed superficial.
“Running errands for my dad,” she held up a brown paper package, “and I just so happened to have to pass through here. Just figured, I’m already here, so why not? I probably
would’ve texted you if you didn’t have some sixth sense for arriving when people are leaving. But I really do need to be going now, so… see ya tomorrow, Sato.” Her tone was notably serious. The male waved good-bye as Mika started walking away again. What events would transpire at the range on Monday, Sato could only guess. Now that he thought about it, it was likely something regarding Rokurou. That guy seemed to be the source of a lot of the drama going on around Sato. He took a sip of the coffee he had been holding the whole way back. It was kinda cold. Disappointed, the teen withdrew into his house.
MAY 4TH 2015, MONDAY
Afterschool Sato didn’t really hate school like most of his classmates seemed to, but coming back to school after a week of freedom was still horrible. Especially when one of their teachers had given them a warning to be very careful around town when alone, and to not be out and about in the evening. Of course, they would hardly be able to enforce it, and Sato already knew people were going to ignore the message. Midterms were also coming up, which elicited internal screaming from some in the room. Sato wasn’t particularly worried about it, even if he hadn’t been studying much recently. He’d always been good at taking tests.
To make matters worse, Sato had noticed some talk of a “Saki” when lunchtime had rolled around. Some of the guys had been debating various facts and opinions regarding photos that were no-doubt taken by Akira back at the café. Sato could only hope Mako would take his words to heart and not talk about it like his classmates were. Luckily nobody seemed to be on his trail yet, so there was still time to distance himself from it. How he’d do that, he didn’t know, but there had to be a way…
Regardless, the bell tolled and almost everyone rushed out of their seats in a hurry to get out of their suffocating classroom. Sato, as always, waited for the crowd of students to disappear before getting up. Though, as he was putting his items in his school bag, his cellphone began to vibrate. The teen caught it before it could shimmy itself off the desk. A number he didn’t recognize was calling him.
”Hello?” Sato simply answered. Except nobody replied. He was considering blocking the number when he heard a knock at the classroom’s door. Looking up, he spotted a familiar face. Naomi Chiba, was it? The self-proclaimed city girl that moved to Warakuma a month ago (apparently). “Odd way of meeting somebody, don’t you think?”
The chestnut-brown haired girl was peaking out from around the corner of the doorframe, scanning the room quickly before walking inside. She held her bag behind her, carefully making her way over to Sato, who had just finished putting away his books. “I wasn’t sure if this was your homeroom or not, heh. Your friend has some pretty bad handwriting.” The male felt a bit of flush burning onto his face, but he quickly suppressed it Not cool.
Sato raised an eyebrow at the comment. “He gave you my homeroom number too? How much information did he exactly give you?”
“I didn’t ask for anything other than your homeroom, I swear!” Naomi fumbled a piece of paper out of her bag and showed it to Sato. On it was his phone number, homeroom, and email. A bit much for having barely known the girl, even if she seemed harmless enough. He wouldn’t have been upset if he’d never seen Naomi again, but it wasn’t
bad that she wanted to keep in touch with him… Still, this was going a little fast.
“What an ass,” Sato muttered, returning the crumpled paper back to Naomi. He leaned back onto his desk. She emulated him by doing the same with the one behind her. “Well, I can’t change what he did. Not to be rude, but what do you want with me exactly?”
“
That’s a bit of an accusing way to ask it…” Naomi brushed a strange of hair behind her ear. “It’s just, I haven’t made very many friends here yet, which is a bit jarring since I was sorta popular back in my hometown, and I felt a little lonely, so I figured maybe we could be friends.”
“Tokyo’s not that far away from here. I’m sure your old friends could still visit you.” Sato said, scratching behind his ear.
She exhaled loudly. “Well, they
could, but it’s a little far away for a highschooler, dontcha think? It’s better if we just stick to texting, haha.” Sato tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help but examine her face again. Now with a name and place, he recognized her a lot more. But, of course, he didn’t look too much, lest he get flustered again. “Oh, that boy gave you, uh, my phone number, right?
Forgive me for being so forward…”
“Huh?” Sato reached into his uniform pockets, but came back with nothing. Of course it wasn’t in there. He felt dumb for checking. Last time he remembered, he’d thrown it onto his desk all crumpled up. It should be there. “Oh, yeah. You’re good for asking, though. Knowing Rento, he probably considered keeping it for himself or something, heh.” Rento wasn’t really like that and it wouldn’t even be a smart move. Sato was just saying whatever popped into his head; this wasn’t good. It was then that the teen remembered he had archery practice after school, so he quickly grabbed his bag and stood up. “Sorry, Chiba. I’ve got to go.”
Naomi nodded knowingly, standing up straight as Sato made his way to the door. “Kyuudo, right?”
Sato stopped. That was weird. “How’d you know that?”
“Oh that must’ve sounded creepy! I’m sorry! I only know you’re a member there because I saw you practicing there when I was scoping out the clubs here at Warakuma High. I still haven’t joined any though.” Naomi seemed a little embarrassed, understandably. “See you later, right?” She gave a happy wave good-bye as she brushed past Sato, returning to presumably her other recently made friends.
Sato waited for a minute in the door frame, since she went the same way he usually took to get to the archery range and he wanted to avoid any kind of awkward post-goodbye path crossing. Or he just needed a moment to process his thoughts on this girl who basically forced her way into a friendship with him. But did she have some kind of hidden agenda? No… He shook his head, erasing the idea from his head. He’d learned his lesson about humouring that train of thought.
Against his better judgement, Sato made his way over to the range. He really didn’t want to attend practice this particular day, but he felt obligated to, especially after what Mika had said the previous day. A nauseas feeling swept over him as he stepped inside, but he was sure it was just a weird second-guessing sensation. As he looked around, the building seemed emptier than usual. There typically weren’t
that many people around on a typical day like this one, and it was understandable for it to be a low considering it was the first day back after the break.
Still, though. Suspiciously empty. As the boy stepped onto the firing range, bow and arrows in hand, he noticed Mika and the others standing at the wall opposite to Sato, far from the only other people at the range that day. Reluctantly, he walked over to them, setting his equipment against the wall. “Did something happen here?” Sato simply inquired.
Rento gave out a tired sigh, looking over to Sato, explaining the situation. “She had a spat with Rokurou before you got here and the drama got to some of the members so they left. Wasn’t how we wanted it to go but what can you do.” Sato nodded. Though, Mika seemed oddly calm despite having had an apparently feisty argument with the club president. “Not a fist fight or anything, though I got pretty close to giving that dick a black eye.
“Where’d he go?” Sato asked, not sure why he felt he needed to know out of all questions he could ask. Part of him wanted to go talk to Rokurou again but he reconsidered quickly.
Rento shrugged, but Mika then spoke up. “He went off somewhere with his girlfriend or whoever she is to him. Not like it matters.” She shot him a glare as if sensing he had a fleeting desire to seek the president out. The atmosphere felt too tense to continue, so Sato awkwardly stepped away from the group with his bow already notched. It didn’t take him long to get tired of firing it, so he put it away quickly and slipped out from the range again.
[. . . . .]
Sato exhaled, shaking his head ever so slightly. He didn’t really feel like wandering about Warakuma after the teachers’ warnings, so he instead decided to head over to the school’s library to study some more. It was fairly busy considering midterms were coming up very soon. Some people were diligently going over the material, while some were scrambling to get notes together. Sato set up on a table one of his classmates were at and got to reviewing. As always, the mathematics were pretty much a breeze for him, and he was quickly onto the next subject. The teen fished around in his school bag for his textbook, but he frowned when he couldn’t find the one he needed. This was… problematic.
Sato got up from his table and scanned through one of the aisles for something to use in place for the missing textbook. While it was still an issue that he wasn’t using the intended source, he was confident he could get the same result with any other book. It wasn’t like the textbooks made up all of biology. It took him a couple minutes but he finally located a suitable replacement in the midst of a bookcase He went to withdraw it from its home in the wall of books, but, and he wasn’t sure how it happened, almost the entire line of books the text was in came out with it. He tried to catch them and not make a commotion, but he only ended up crumpling to the floor with them (albeit quieter than it would have). What a mess. He didn’t even know which books were where as he started trying to put the pile of literature back in their rightful places.
A helping hand would be nice. 
