Run Girl Run

Hina was revising alone in the library.

If you said this to Hina about one year ago, she would’ve just laughed at you. Actually, she would have flipped her hair like the queen she was and asked her entourage to escort you, the rabble, out of the way.

If you told Hina that she would have these conflicting feelings about herself—doubts about her ego, wondering whether the past several years of social climbing had been worthwhile—she would’ve straight-up punched you.

But seeing herself now, Hina would just be punching herself.

She kept herself occupied. Every day after school, Hina trained. She ran and ran until her lungs burned. Continuously doing 400-meter laps, breaking personal bests; she was faster than she had ever been—the undisputed ace of the track team.

But even still, it didn’t fill the aching void she felt.

‘Focus,’ she scolded herself, pulling herself away from the track and into history she didn’t care about, jamming her highlighter into the history textbook. ‘The Meiji Restoration. Modernization. Forget about them.’

“Hey, Hina.”

“Wah!!”

Hina jumped in her skin, her knee slamming rather painfully against the underside of the table. Her highlighter skidded across the page and left a jagged yellow scar over the Emperor’s face.

Standing there was Sato Hayami.

Hina’s shock instantly curdled into defensive rage.

“Stay away from me.”

Hayami persisted. “But I need to talk to you. I-It’s about something important.”

“I said stay away!” Hina seethed, consciously aware that this was a quiet space. “What, did you come to gloat? Why else would you come other than to see me like this?”

Hina scraped the seat across the floor, grabbing her belongings in a burst of fury.

“Hayami, I already got the message. Loud and clear.”

She marched out of the library, leaving Hayami in the dust.

At least, that was the plan.

Hina didn't stop at the hallway. Hina walked with the speed of a track athlete until she reached the gymnasium.

Hina sat behind a stack of blue tumbling mats in the corner of the gym equipment room. It acted as her backup sanctuary.

She should have started a cologne and perfume movement when she was the school darling, because this place absolutely stank.

But at least it was empty.

Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.

Hina froze on the text section she was highlighting.

The sound suddenly stopped.

‘Probably just the building creaking against the wind or something,’ she told herself.

Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.

Hina froze again. She wasn’t hallucinating anything, right? It was a sound Hina hadn’t heard since she was in primary school.

With a sense of impending doom, Hina peered over the top of the blue mat.

Standing five feet away, blocking the only exit, was Hayami.

She was holding a wooden drum on a stick, twisting it back and forth between her palms. Two little beads on strings whipped around and hit the drum heads rhythmically.

Thwack-thwack-thwack.

“...Are you kidding me?” Hina whispered.

Hayami twisted the handle faster. THWACK-THWACK-THWACK.

“I’m studying!” Hina hissed.

“Sure you are.”

Hayami stopped the drum. The silence was deafening.

“You u-used to steal this from me,” Hayami said simply. “T-Taking turns to see who could make the best s-sound.”

“I did not!”

“When we were ten, my Nai-Nai sent it from Taiwan. Y-You cried until I let you play with it.”

Hayami gave it a little half-spin. Thwack.

“You said it sounded like raindrops, and raindrops made you fall asleep.”

“Well, I was a different person back then. Obviously!” Hina scrambled up. “Why are you following me? Did you stitch a GPS tracker under my skin? You have a camera crew behind you documenting the ‘tragic fall of the mean girl’, don’t you?!”

Hayami’s expression softed as they traded glances. “So y-you acknowledged t-that you were mean?”

“Only because you deserved it!”

“A bold claim,” a smooth, baritone voice cut in through their conversation.

Hina froze. Slowly, she turned her head.

Akira, of all people, was leaning against the doorframe.

“It seems there has been massive miscommunication from both sides…”

“Gah?!” Hina shrieked. “You?! You and Hayami are both such freaks! I can’t believe I used to worship you!”

“Nothing’s changed, darling,” Akira drawled, inspecting his glove. “I’m still the same idol you worshipped. I just picked a side.”

He looked at Hayami, nodded once with a confident assurance, and turned his focus back toward Hayami’s bully.

“And it wasn't yours.”

Hina’s brain broke. “That’s it! I’m out!”

When she finished that sentence, Hayami assumed, quite fairly, that she’d just push past the pair and run out of there. She failed to account for how much Hina was not a normal person because she opted to jump out of an open window.

Hayami gasped. “Hina, wait, this is the second fl—!”

Too late.

Hina vaulted onto the sill and flew through the window!

With a panic they haven’t collectively felt since meeting each other, Hayami and Akira rushed over and peered down helplessly as Hina turned into a red paste on the grou…

Wait, what?

‘Was that a barrel roll?’

Yes, it seemed that it was. Just a casually flawless execution of a barrel roll on grass, no big deal.

Hina didn’t seem to think so either, as she sprang to her feet and broke into a sprint, notably away from the pair.

“You know what?” Akira smiled. “She’d make for a great idol.”

“AKIRA!!”

\\

Hina slammed the stall lock shut. She sat on the toilet bowl, her feet above the ground ensuring it so no one could see her even if people came looking for her.

She was in the fourth-floor girls' bathroom—the one rumored to be haunted by a weeping ghost. Surely they would never expect her here.

That was when she heard the door open. Then she heard two pairs of shoes sliding against the floor.

Then she heard grunts just beside her bathroom stall.

“H-Hey don’t be too rough!!”

Her cheeks reddened. ‘Oh my god, two people were going at it right beside my stall. Or maybe it was two girls?!’

Hina wished it were as simple as yuri action.

A shadow fell over her. Hina tilted her head back to look up at the top of the stall door.

Hayami’s entire terrified face blinked down at her from seven feet in the air.

“H-Hi, Hina. I-I just wanted to say I’m sorry…”

“You gotta be kidding me!!”

‘Why?’ Hina thought, a terrifying vulnerability welling up in her throat. ‘Why are you trying this hard for someone like me?’

It was overwhelming. It was too much. Had Hina forgotten what friendships were like? Where she didn’t rely on transactions to garner devotion? Where despite seemingly irreconcilable differences, the other party would still make the effort to mend time’s wounds?

Not wanting to answer the uncomfortable, Hina drilled through the stall door and ran for her life.

Hayami stared at Akira, not believing for a second she agreed to stand on his shoulders to do something like that.

He looked at her sweetly. “I mean, it couldn’t be helped, right?”

“Hina, wait!!”

Hina didn't wait for Hayami. Instead, she hit the hallway corner at Mach speed and vanished up the staircase.

Students who wandered the halls could only look on in awe.

“Damn, she’s fast!” Akira cursed. Thankfully for him, his long legs ate up the distance effortlessly.

Less could be said about Hayami’s efforts. “W-Wait for me!”

She was falling behind. The gap between her and Akira was widening. Ten meters. Twenty.

“I… I can’t…” she wheezed. “Akira, g-go! Catch her!”

Then Akira stopped. Actually, it was more like he skidded to a halt.

He turned around.

“W-What are you doing?” Hayami wheezed. “She’s getting away!”

Akira’s eyes bored into hers. “We either do this together… or not at all.”

“But… your lessons…” she gasped, clutching her side. “W-Wouldn’t you want to finish them quickly s-so that you could go back to your own life? I’m just… I’d just be slowing you down.”

“What is Lesson Two, Hayami?”

“W-Why go over something I already know?”

“What. Is. It?”

“R-Respecting others!” she said immediately. Akira could be scary when he wanted to be.

“Then you should know I can’t teach you to respect a rival if I don’t respect my own teammate enough to wait for her.”

He reached out and adjusted her glasses, which had gone crooked in the chase.

“Because Lesson Two applies to me too.”

Heat crept up Hayami’s neck.

The students lining the lockers whispered at the sight.

Hayami felt the breath leave her body.

“Y-You respect me? You don’t see me as a klutz?”

“I mean, I still do,” Akira clarified, smirking. “But I suppose… you are worthy of a modicum of respect. And don’t you forget it, because it’s the last time I’ll ever say such a thing out loud.”

He grabbed her wrist.

“Now, are you quite done dying? We got a girl to catch.”

Hayami shook her head to clear the fog. “G… G-Got it!”