Vol.3 Ch.1: Rainy Day Goldilocks ③

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Making one’s way through the woods in a downpour like this was no easy task. Since Yuko and Tanabe had just run in without following any sort of walkway, there was no clean path to follow. They were haphazardly jogging through the bare woods. The ground was soft and muddy, and the cloudy night sky made it almost impossible to see anything. Branches from nearby trees scraped against their umbrellas, causing a few small tears and letting the rain soak their clothes. And yet despite all this, the two pushed onward into Rigel Park.

“Hey, wait! We just want to help!” Yuko called out into the darkness.

“Coming in this way may have been a bad idea… My umbrella’s gotten really shredded.” Tanabe lamented.

“Yeah, we were pretty reckless… But still, that person’s still out here all alone in the rain…” Yuko felt frustrated and troubled.

The two pushed onward. The rain was finally starting to let up a bit, but it didn’t make much difference with all the moisture from the trees still dripping down and supplementing the rain. Just as the pair started to realize they may have gotten lost in the dark, Yuko just barely caught sight of their target once again.

“Ah! E-excuse me!” Yuko called out. Tanabe turned to where Yuko was facing, now also catching sight of the person they’d chased after.

The person the two were chasing hid behind a nearby tree. They appeared to be a girl just a bit shorter than Yuko. She eyed Yuko and Tanabe with apprehension.

“Are you okay? I saw you out here, and was worried abou- ah!” Yuko, who was slowly approaching the girl, suddenly tripped on the root of a nearby tree and fell over.

“Maeda! Are you oka- ah?!” Tanabe glanced her way in concern before blushing and looking away.

“Owie… Hm? Ah!” Yuko realized that her skirt had flipped up as a result of her fall. Her panties-clad rear was on full display, not to mention how dirty her legs and clothes were, given all the mud that’d gotten on her and all the rain she’d been soaked with. Needless to say, it was an undeniably embarrassing appearance.

“Kyah! U-um… Just forget you saw that!” Yuko exclaimed, desperately pushing her skirt down as she tried getting back on her feet.

“R-right. I didn’t see anything anyway, it’s too dark.” Tanabe stuttered, his face still turned away.

“Yeah! It was too dark! Nevermind then! Nothing happened here!” with a wry smile, Yuko was back on her feet and ready to put this awkward situation behind her. It was then that she heard…

“Hehe…”

“Hm? Laughing?” Yuko directed her attention back to the girl behind the tree.

“Ah-!” the girl suddenly ducked back out of sight, startled.

“No, wait! I’m not mad!” Yuko called out, continuing back toward the tree the girl hid behind. “Was that funny? C’mon, let’s talk!”

“Mm…” the girl peeked out from behind the tree once more, and looked cautiously at Yuko.

“That’s right, everything’s okay.” Yuko smiled as she finally reached the girl’s side.

Now that she was close to her, Yuko could more clearly make out the features of the girl in the darkness. She seemed to be a girl just a little younger than her.

Is she a student from the middle school, perhaps?

That was one of Yuko’s first thoughts when taking a good look at her. The girl seemed fairly young, with delicate pale skin and long blond hair. Her crimson eyes gave off a feeling of confused trepidation. Despite her refined features, she’d wrapped herself in some kind of blanket to protect herself from the rain. Still, she was totally drenched.

“Let’s go find somewhere to get out of the rain, okay?” Yuko spoke to the girl gently.

“Hey, I think I see one of the park’s streetlights over there.” Tanabe pointed to a faint light between the trees. “If we head that way we should reach one of the main trails, and can find a place to escape the rain.”

“Sounds good!” Yuko nodded. “C’mon, let’s go, okay?”

Yuko reached her hand out to the girl who, after hesitating for a moment, took hold of it. The trio pushed their way through the shrubbery and soon made their way out of the woods.

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After making their way back to one of the park’s main paths, Yuko, Tanabe, and the girl followed the streetlights until they found one of the park’s alcoves within a small rest area. The decently-sized wooden alcove stood there with a small wooden table and some chairs underneath. The three rushed in under the overhang and let out a sigh of relief as they stood there dripping with water and covered in mud.

“Haah… feels great to finally be out of that rain.” Yuko sighed, before rolling her aching shoulders.

“You said it…” Tanabe let his hair down out of his ponytail to give it a chance to dry out a bit.

The blond girl they’d rescued meanwhile quietly took a seat at the table and rested her head in her arms, face-down on the table. Yuko and Tanabe both looked her way with an expression of worry. They waited there in silence for a bit before Yuko finally decided to try and speak to the girl.

“So, um… what’s your name?” Yuko cautiously asked.

“…” the girl lifted her head, locking her eyes on Yuko. After a moment, she lowered her gaze, as if thinking about how to respond.

“Um… Eli… sha? Eli.. cio…? El… Nh…”

Yuko and Tanabe glanced at one another, confused at the random syllables the girl was quietly muttering. Unsure of what to make of it, Yuko began to speak gently once again.

“Are you… trying to say your name?” she asked.

“Mm-hm…” the girl meekly nodded.

“Does that mean you can’t remember it?” Yuko’s worries began to increase.

“Mm-hm… Only… the start…” the girl mumbled. “Eli… something…”

“She… can’t remember her name?” Tanabe asked, a bit unnerved by the exchange. Yuko turned his way and nodded with a troubled expression.

“In that case, let’s call you Eli for now, okay?” Yuko asked.

“Okay…” the girl nodded.

“I’m Yuko Maeda, and this boy here is Tanabe Murakami.” Yuko motioned toward Tanabe, who smiled at the girl. “We’re both students at the high school here. What about you, Eli? Do you go to the middle school?”

“School…” Eli narrowed her eyes, as if trying to think about the term she’d just heard. “School… I don’t go.”

Once more, Yuko and Tanabe glanced at one another. They were both beginning to grow even more uncertain about who this girl in front of them really was.

“You… don’t go to school? Or do you not remember what school you go to?” Yuko asked.

“Um… both?” Eli tilted her head.

“Mmh…” Yuko was unsure what to do.

“How about this?” Tanabe spoke up. “Can you tell us anything about yourself that you do remember?”

“I… don’t remember…” Eli looked downward in shame.

“When you say you don’t remember, um… Does that mean you’ve lost your memory?” Yuko finally asked what had been on both her and Tanabe’s minds.

“… I think so.” Eli mumbled.

“So it really is amnesia…” Tanabe gave Eli a look of pity.

“Yeah…” Yuko frowned. “But how could something like this happen…?”

“I don’t know…” Tanabe shook his head. “But still, whatever happened to this girl, Eli…. It seems pretty serious. We should probably contact the student council and have her taken to the clinic.”

“You might be right…” Yuko lifted her hand to her chin.

She began to realize that this was a situation they couldn’t really do much about. This was a lost girl with amnesia. The two of them really didn’t have anything to go on when it comes to figuring out how to help her. In which case, the most obvious option would be to let the student council, the group that runs the eastern district, figure out what to do with her.

In the end, she’s probably a student of the middle school. If a student there had gone missing, I’m sure they’ll be able to identify her in no time.

After thinking things through, Yuko nodded to herself.

“Yeah, once the rain lets up, we should take her to the student council.” she nodded. “Even if they’re done working for the day, I could probably get a hold of Kanna at least.”

Just as they seemed to have settled on a plan of action, however…

“No… student council… bad…” Eli whispered to herself, as she hugged her legs, trembling.

Yuko and Tanabe were taken aback by those words.

“Wait… Eli, what do you mean?” Yuko asked.

After glancing at Yuko, and then moving her gaze back to the table, Eli quietly spoke up.

“Those people… chased me… and attacked. I was scared… They called themselves… student council…” Eli grimaced.

“They… attacked you?” Tanabe blinked in disbelief.

“Are you sure? It was the student council? That’s what they said?” Yuko asked, just to make sure she understood.

Eli simply nodded, hesitantly. Yuko and Tanabe grew quiet.

“… What do you make of this, Yuko?” Tanabe asked.

“I don’t know… I mean, aside from Kanna, I guess I don’t really know the council that well, but…” Yuko clenched her fist. “Would they really… attack another student like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I have heard rumors that some members of the council can be pretty hostile towards rule breakers, but I’ve never heard about them attacking anyone.” Tanabe spoke. “Even when dealing with troublemakers making violent outbursts, the most they’d do is try to subdue them before any larger fight breaks out.”

“Right…” Yuko nodded. “Do you hear that, Eli? You might be mistaken… I’m sure the council would be able to help you.”

“No! No council!” Eli desperately shook her head. “Mean! Bad guys! They attack!”

Yuko and Tanabe were at a loss over how to respond.

“… Well, what should we do?” Tanabe asked, after a bit of time had passed in silence.

“… I don’t know.” Yuko sighed.

This was a situation wholly foreign to the both of them. Weird occurrences like this hardly ever occurred at this school, especially with how organized and peaceful everything tended to be. It was clear to both Yuko and Tanabe that this situation wasn’t going to be simple to resolve.

The three continued to sit in the alcove beneath the wooden overhang as they waited for the rain to settle down. It was already quite late at night, and they had to figure out what they were going to do for now.

“It seems like the rain’s finally letting up…” Tanabe noted, glancing toward the sky.

“We have to figure out what to do with Eli. We can’t just leave her out here…” Yuko glanced her way with a troubled gaze.

“Yeah… The dorms wouldn’t just let her in, would they?” Tanabe sighed. “Even if we tried, someone would probably call on the student council.”

“Yeah, so what should we do…?” Yuko placed her hands together and began to think.

We have to find somewhere Eli can stay the night, but we can’t take her back to the dorms, or anywhere else with other people, until we figure out why she’s so scared of the student council…

Yuko glanced at Eli, looking her over in the dim light from the nearby streetlamp.

Like us, she’s really a mess right now… It’d be great if we could get her a bath, but… that probably isn’t possible.

Yuko sighed. After a few minutes of silent thought however, she suddenly perked up, having remembered something.

“Ah, I know a place…” she muttered.

“Hm? You do?” Tanabe asked. Eli also turned her attention to Yuko.

“Yeah, in the back of this park, on the other side of the lake, there’s a small storage shack that probably isn’t used very much.” Yuko explained.

It’d been a while since Yuko thought about that place, but back in April when she first met Kanna, Kanna had taken her there, and that was when the two first began collaborating to resolve the incident going on back then.

“Sounds good.” Tanabe nodded in understanding. “Let’s head over there now, while the rain’s still light.”

“Right.” Yuko nodded, standing up. “Eli, we found somewhere for you to stay. Come with us, okay?”

“… Okay.” Eli nodded, having heard their conversation.

Rising from her seat, Eli took hold of Yuko’s hand, which had been offered to her. Tanabe rose from his seat as well, and took Eli’s other hand in his. The trio, hand-in-hand, made their way deep into Rigel Park, all while the light rain continued to pour onto them.

Yuko’s kind generosity on this rainy night would mark the start of her involvement in yet another bizarre incident…