Chance encounters

It's spring again, which marks the start of a new school year. For most students this means the return of classes that they’ve managed to escape from for a short while. But for the first-years this means the start of something new, exciting and filled with possibilities. You should give it your all and do as much as you can! Because if you-

“Could you stop talking? I didn’t agree to walk to school with you so you could talk my ear off. And anyway, it’s already the end of April, why are you talking about this?” - asks a boyish looking student, clearly irritated by the clishéd monologue.

Her dark hair is about shoulder length which compliments her deep brown eyes. Her physique is quite slim and a bit on the shorter side with some masculine features. She is Hirano Rin. Judging by her appearance alone you would be convinced that she is a boy, and she wouldn’t even correct you if you called her one.

“Well I wouldn’t feel the need to tell you all this, if you had actually showed up to school in the past three weeks.” - answers the student next to Rin.

She looks like a textbook proper student. All her clothes are perfectly set and you wouldn’t find an item of clothing on her that isn’t in the school’s dress code. She has a bit longer hair than Rin, but it’s easily noticeable that she spent a lot more time on it. Which, actually could be said about her entire appearance. Her name is Miyuzumi Yuri. She is the top student among the freshmen and the class representative.

“That’s not true, I did go to school! ….I just might have not gone to the classes.” - protests Rin, but even she knows it’s a weak defense.

“I mean it might not be any of my business, but come on, if you at least attend them, you would be in less trouble.” - suggests Yuri.

“Hmm” - Rin takes a few moments to think. - “I mean I guess I can try a bit harder…. oh wait, don’t we have PE today ?” - Yuri nods in response, then tilts her head a bit. - “I don’t have my PE clothes with me.”

“Eh?... Well I guess it’s better than nothing, but then you have to go to the rest of the classes!” - Yuri declares and without any more excuses she could come up with, Rin has to accept her fate.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, and then Yuri suddenly says:

“So, what about lunch break, will you go to your usual place behind the gym?”

“I guess so.” - answers Rin.

“Hmm, I’ll try to get out of the class representative meeting early and meet up with you, but I can’t promise anything.”

“It’s alright, I like being alone.” - says Rin in a bit of a disinterested tone.

“Ugh, there are nicer ways to tell someone to go away you know.”

The two of them enter through the front gate of the school and as soon as they pass by the running tracks they see a sizable crowd in front of it.

“Mikoto-senpai!!”

“Do your best!”

“Look, look here senpai!”

And all sorts of calls for attention can be heard.

They don’t escape Rin either and she reflexively looks at the source of the voices. Then she sees it. It’s like time has stopped flowing and she can’t move or look away. Even taking a breath seems impossible. There on the tracks a lone figure is standing still. Or it should be moving, but time isn’t affecting it either. Frozen in time, Rin can see a person with short blond hair and quite fit physique. Even at this distance you can see that sweat has built up on his face, but it doesn’t concern him one bit, on the contrary, his face radiates determination, like the only thing on his mind is to achieve his goal. This image burns into Rin’s memories and then suddenly everything starts moving again.

“-in...Rin!” - She suddenly comes to her senses and looks at Yuri, who has been calling her name.

“What?”

“Wow, you were lost in thought pretty deeply, what were you looking at?” - inquires Yuri, while trying to look in the same direction as Rin was. - “Ah, it’s Kei-senpai. That explains that big crowd.”

“You know him?” - asks Rin, still fazed by that experience.

Yuri takes a few moments to examine Rin’s face and then answers:

“Well you would know about him too if you had attended more often.” - Yuri pauses for a bit, then continues - ”But, his name is Mikoto Kei. He is basically the school’s prince. He’s handsome, kind and athletic. He even has his own fanclub as you can see. He is also in the track and field club. The only place he’s lacking is in his studies, but others are fine overlooking that. Hmm, that’s about all I know of him… oh and there’s a rumor going around, that he and the student council president are dating since they are childhood friends and spend a lot of time together. Why are you asking?”

Suddenly Rin feels her cheeks get warmer and she answers while trying to look away:

“Ah well… no reason. Ehm come on, let’s get to class.”

Rin starts walking away while unsuccessfully trying to get her mind sorted. Yuri just stands in one place for a few moments while looking at Rin, then looks back at Kei, after that she just shakes her head and starts walking again. A few seconds later a faint thud could be heard, but the two of them were too far away to notice it.

But before that happened, the running student was in deep concentration:

“The only things I feel right now are the wind on my face, the burning sensation in my legs and the rhythmic beating inside my chest. Everything else is just white noise, unimportant. I have to keep going, I have to keep moving, faster, I feel like I can still go faster. I can barely notice it but a very faint grin comes across my face. But as much as I like being in this state I feel like I’m forgetting something. Something I wanted to keep in mind ...Oh well if it means that I can stay like this a bit longer I’m willing to...“

“Hey Kei! Do you want some sweets?”

A sudden voice breaks through Kei’s intense concentration and catches her completely off guard. So much so that Kei forgets what she was doing and successfully trips herself. With no hope of stabilising her body all Kei can do is to shield herself with her arms as she falls.

She is Mikoto Kei. Her introduction has already been delivered by Yuri….except for the part that almost no student at the school knows. Despite her princely appearance Kei is very much a girl. Because of her athletic nature and a bit masculine complexity, everybody assumes that she is a male. A normal person would realise this misunderstanding, if not immediately, but after one or two girls confess to you, it really should give you an idea. Well not for Kei. She never even realised that those were love confessions. In short she is quite dense.

*Thud*

Since the running tracks are a bit resilient due to their rubber-like surface, the impact didn’t make much noise. What did however was the number of onlookers who were cheering Kei on a few moments before. A few gasps could be heard and some of the girls quickly ran up to Kei.

“Senpai!”

“Senpai, are you alright?”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Do you need a get better kiss?”

“Should I go get the school nurse?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m fine.” - Kei answers the barrage of questions and surprisingly enough she isn’t lying. Other than a little bit of bruising she is completely fine. She gets on her feet, streches a bit, then suddenly remembers why all of this happened. She quickly scans her surroundings looking for the source of the offer. It doesn’t take long before she spots a lone student walking towards her.

If that student could be described with one word, it would be beautiful. She has long, straight dark hair with deep blue eyes. Thanks to her tall, slender build, she carries herself with confidence. She has this aura of authority which makes all the noises stop once she gets to Kei. She is Watanabe Yaoi.

First Yaoi looks at the girls surrounding Kei and says:

“I think it’s time for you all to go to your classes. The bell is going to ring soon.”

The more courageous ones of the girls open their mouths to protest, but before they can, they are met with the icy cold gaze of the student council president.

“Yes, miss president.” - they answer dejectedly and after taking a last look at Kei they walk away.

After Yaoi made sure nobody was within sight, she shifted her attention to Kei. After a few seconds of just Yaoi staring at her, Kei gets a bit uncomfortable and says:

“...Wha- what is it Yaoi? Wait, more importantly, what sweets do you have?”- asks Kei, suddenly filled with anticipation.

“Oh no, I don’t have any. I just wanted to get your attention.”

“Ah, oh, so there isn’t any.” - says Kei, visibly upset by the lack of sweets. - “So what did you want to say?”

“Well you know we are having that test in first period...” - says Yaoi.

“Huh?” - asks Kei, completely drawing a blank.

“That’s the reason you came to run out here, right?”

“Ah….OH! Wait, isn't the bell going to ring soon? I completely forgot about it! ...But I wanted to run some more.” - murmurs Kei, while starting to walk towards the changing rooms.

“Come on, you have your club today don’t you?”

“Well yeah, but that’s after school, and the day hasn’t even started yet.” *sigh* “I don’t feel like studying at all.” - says Kei.

After Yaoi feels satisfied with her observation she says:

“Hey, if you make it through today’s classes I’ll treat you to some, how about that?”

“Really?! Thank you Yaoi! Now I feel like I’m ready for everything!” - declares Kei and suddenly filled with determination, she takes off running toward the rising sun.

Later at lunch break Kei quietly approaches the gym:

“Ah, I’m completely beat. Yaoi is at a student council meeting so I should be able to sneak some running in the gym.”

She walks up to the front door, but then she suddenly remembers:

“Ah, right, I only managed to get the key for the backdoor.”

Kei walks around the building, and as she turns around the corner, an unexpected sight awaits her...

But before we get to that, let’s see what Yuri was up to:

“So regarding the sports day, I would like to ask the class representatives to perform a survey and decide on which events the students want to participate in, then inform me about the numbers by the end of next month. Any questions?”

A sudden silence fills the slightly crowded student council room. The source of the speech was none other than the student council president, Yaoi herself. She has her signature unreadable half-smile ready.

I think it’s a bit too early to start preparing for the festival, but I can’t bring myself to say that out loud in this atmosphere. - Yuri thinks as she writes a few notes about the meeting in her notebook.

The other newcomer freshmen are all thinking the same, but they too keep their thoughts to themselves, and the others already got used to doing preparations well before any event. So with no responses, Yaoi starts speaking again:

“Well, then that’s all for now. Thank you for attending this meeting.”

Everybody leaves the room and goes about their ways, but Yuri stops for a moment to think:

“I’m pretty sure that was the fastest, most efficient meeting I have ever attended. I mean when I was part of the student council in middle school the meetings always took up the entire lunch break, sometimes even more. This one lasted about 15 minutes, but we got to everything. I knew Yaoi-senpai had a reputation for being a model student and everything, but I didn’t expect her to be this good at her job.”

Yuri collects her thoughts and takes off to meet up with Rin.

A few minutes later she arrives before the gym. To go to the back you have to go through a narrow sidewalk and some of the nearby vegetation has made it a bit harder to use.

Yuri is about to go that way when she starts to hear some faint voices.

Huh? I’m pretty sure only Rin uses this place. She’s been skipping classes here for some time, but she was always alone. - Yuri thinks, as she carefully starts moving closer.

Then before she could see what was going on she hears a crash around the corner. She quickly takes a peek to see what happened and sees something she probably wasn’t meant to see.

Her mind goes into overdrive and her entire face goes red.

“Eh?! Wha..what? No, high schoolers aren’t supposed to… and they are… eh?!” - Things like this are swirling around in Yuri’s head and she starts to feel dizzy.

A moment hasn’t even passed yet, but Yuri manages to remember her situation and ducks behind the wall before she could be seen. She tries to make sense of what she saw, but her mind goes in the same direction and she just gets more and more flustered.

As she unsuccessfully tries to clear her mind, she takes off running in the opposite direction. She doesn’t pay any attention to where she’s going so she soon bumps into someone. It was a small collision so neither party got hurt, but Yuri just quickly apologises and without even seeing who she ran into, she continues to run away.