Megami Saotome

◆ Tsukasa

“Kanjou wa kirakira, ima wa kirakira…”

I slam my hand onto the phone, with the intent of stopping the wake-up alarm. Mom used to tell me to put a song I hate so I’d be forced to wake up in order to turn it off, but I prefer waking up to a song I like.

Except, of course, I miss the button and the song continues playing.

“Anata dake ga subete sa, kono amai sekai uso ni naru you na, sore iga no koto nante keshite shimaou…”

I finally find the button and the song stops. I get out of bed and stretch.

“Good morning, world!” I exclaim, right before letting out a mighty yawn. “From today on… my second year at Shinkō Academy begins!”

I pick up my phone and message Chiho and Tae:

OMGkawaiitsukachan:

girls where r u all

Chiho is first to answer:

tomiebestgirl:

I’m in front of your house right now.

tomiebestgirl:

Please remember to take your medicine, by the way, Kacchan.

Oh, right!

I forgot it in NY and look at the mess I made. Thankfully we weren’t in public! Those guys were really muscular, by the way. It was hard to get the blade in, let alone find the heart between those giant ribs. But it was Senpai or them, right? It is said that people have superhuman strength when it comes to saving the ones they love. Or superhuman luck. Who knows.

I scramble in the bathroom until I find the bottle. I slip five pills in my hand—as the doctor said—and swallow with a cup of water.

When I started taking haloperidol, as Mom said it was named, the doctor had recommended one pill every morning. But the dose has been adjusted over the years, and now I take five of these every day.

In the rush of the preparations for the trip, I forgot it, and now… ugh. Maybe I would’ve hurt them less if I was on meds. But I can’t know.

That’s fine. Those guys were filler NPCs, they probably ran on scripted delinquent speech, superiority complexes the size of a small universe and the existence of the female gender. With that I shrug the whole thing off and finally go join Chiho and Tae at the front door.

“Hiya, Rainbow-chan!” Tae exclaims, giving me a big hug. “Been a while, right?”

“Yeah.” I smile. “You were traveling with your parents, right? Where did you go?”

“We went to Okinawa!” Tae cheers. “Oh, ya should definitely go there, Rainbow-chan—‘tis Paradise.”

“Tae, why are you suddenly mixing Okinawan dialect now?” Chiho was puzzled.

“Well, I got a tan, a few inches, and new makeup, might as well get their accent, too!” I notice at that moment Tae’s skin really is more orange and leathery than usual. Oh, Enomoto-senpai is SO going to love this when he sees it.

And her boobs got bigger, too. If that’s even possible. Tae does not obey the laws of weight proportional distribution physics, apparently.

Chiho’s painted her nails purple with jet-black designs and is wearing a touch more eye shade than usual. Her eyeliner is neater, too. She clearly wants to look good for her first day as a senpai.

“You look good, Chiho-chan,” I compliment her. “Did your grandma help you with makeup today?” Chiho’s grandma used to be a professional model makeup artist.

She blushes—hard. “Um, yes, I mean, no, I mean…” she stutters, and Tae laughs. “I mean, yes, she did,” Chiho finally manages, between Tae’s chuckles.

“That’s nice.” I smile to myself at their antics. “I also put a lot of effort into my makeup today. After all,” and I puff out my chest in pride, “from today on I will be Tsukasa-senpai!”

“Y-You’re taking this way too seriously, Rainbow-chan,” Tae sweatdrops. Then she grins. “Wait… you want to look good for your boyfriend, huh?”

“B-Boyfriend?” I choke on AIR. “Haibara-senpai is not my boyfriend, Tae!”

“Spiritually he is! You have 11/10 couple energy if you ask me!” She grins harder.

Suddenly my phone buzzes. I pull it and stare at the screen.

Mail received.

I open the email. The moment I read the sender name my eyes bulge out.

“What…?” I gasp. I open the email.

From: Yukiteru Haibara (yuki_null@exchange.com)

To: Tsukasa Aishi (sugargirl.eatslove@exchange.com)

Subject: Good morning

Good morning, Aishi-san.

Today classes begin again, and Shinkō Academy welcomes another new batch of students.

I admit I am nervous, after all, this is my final year. But I know that, at least for now, I have you with me in the student council. And for that I thank you deeply.

I hope to see you soon at school.

— Yukiteru Haibara

Senpai. Emailed. Me?!

Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god…

“What is it, Kacchan?” Chiho bends over my shoulder. She squeaks. “Haibara-senpai emailed you? But… how did he get your mail address?”

“We, um, we swapped contacts in NY,” I explain. “Now we have each other’s email address and phone number.”

“That’s sus.” Tae grins mischievously. “You sure you’re not dating or what?”

“I AM!” I shriek. “Yet,” I add, to throw her off. “I thought NY would do him good, but look what happened…” I sigh.

“Yeah. Although I dunno how those delinquents were John Wick-ed if you and Haibara-senpai had no weapons, and four guys stabbed through the heart isn’t self-defense,” Tae says. “Do you, Rainbow-chan?”

“When I ran out of the alley with Senpai, I saw some bandits running in,” I lie. “Probably it was them who butchered the delinquents.”

“With a letter opener?”

“You thought they would use what, a machete?”

“I dunno. I thought American bandits fought with guns.”

“Stereotyping is awful, Tae.”

“I know. Something still feels out of place, though.”

We finally arrive at the bus stop and climb on. Chiho and Tae continue debating the details of the crime while I watch the street from the window.

The newly-placed two stars inside my collar tickle my neck slightly as the bus shakes.

***

We hop off the bus in front of Shinkō Academy just in time to see two figures heading in our direction. One of them is Enomoto-senpai, grinning from ear to ear, and the other is Haibara-senpai, frowning at him.

“Welcome back, Tae!” Enomoto-senpai exclaims as he throws his arms around her and hugs her. “I missed you, you know!”

“Awww, I missed you too, Kou-kun!” Tae squeezes him back and they kiss lovingly. Haibara-senpai cringes. “Enomoto, please,” he says, exasperated. “We’re in public.”

Enomoto-senpai pulls away from Tae and stares at Haibara-senpai confusedly. “Can’t I show my girlfriend affection in public?” He asks.

“PDA is… not well seen here,” Haibara-senpai says, rubbing his forehead in impatience. That’s hot, I think. “You’re a third-year now, Enomoto. Shouldn’t you know that?”

“Well excuse me for not having a girlfriend before to know!” Enomoto-senpai exclaims.

“Haibara-senpai, stop bullying my boyfriend,” Tae huffs, standing protectively between the boys. “Before the fanfiction.net groupies arrive.”

“Why?” Haibara-senpai asks. I slap my own forehead. Oh god, I forgot them!

The ‘groupies’ Tae is referring to are a group of students, mostly girls from the first (now second) and second (now third) years, who gather in an empty clubroom to write, read and discuss fanfiction. They mostly write BL and have a deep hatred of yumejoshis—what, according to the internet, are the girls who like self-inserting.

Just imagining them getting ideas on Senpai is… disgusting. I should get them out of the way soon enough so they don’t. After all, the canon ship is me and Senpai, and NO OTHER. Move away, fujoshis. Senpai is straight.

And that’s when Senpai finally looks at me. “Aishi-san,” he says. “I’m sorry for not noticing you earlier.”

“It’s fine,” I say, smiling. “It’s difficult to deal with persistent rule-breaking, right?”

“Indeed it is. As student council president for two years straight, I find the camera feeds to be… abhorrent. You have no idea of what I have seen.”

“Prolonged indecent activities in the P.E. shed?”

“How did you know?”

“I’m the vice-president, Senpai. The steering board gives student council members access to all camera feed records captured since this school was founded.”

“Ah.” Chiho blinks, goes dark red, and covers her face with her hands. “So you saw that, too!” She squeaks.

“That what?”

“N-nothing,” Chiho gasps, looking everywhere but at me. “…Did you see me?”

“Um, I think I skipped the page in question, but… I saw you a few times. Most of them you were reading Tomie in a corner while talking to me and Tae.”

“Okay.” Chiho smiles in relief, but the blush remains. Haibara-senpai coughs, causing me to look at him by reflex.

“Um, Aishi-san… I didn’t say that before, but…” he blushes and stares at his shoes, “you look… beautiful today. Even more than the other days.”

Enomoto-senpai blinks. “Aaah, what did you say about PDA, huh, Yukki? Awww, look! The stoic council president, blushing like a shoujo heroine!”

“Shut up, Enomoto,” Haibara-senpai mumbles.

He—

He said I was beautiful?!

AAAAAAAA—

Senpai, my beloved, my everything, my reason for breathing. Words cannot describe your heavenly existence.

I will end worlds for that blush.

I absolutely will checklist every crime off the Geneva Convention for your smile.

Do not underestimate a shoujo heroine in love, universe.

For I will erase you if he asks.

***

When I arrive in class, the teacher says we have a new transfer student. It’s a beautiful girl with long white hair and red eyes. Her socks are much taller than average—actually I think those are tights, not socks. The teacher writes her name in the board:

早乙女　女神

“My name is Megami Saotome,” she says, making a small curtsy to the class with her also much longer—knee-down—skirt. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

As she heads to her new seat, I can feel her eyes on me. I wonder if that’s because my eyes changed color again.

Or because she knows something’s wrong.

“Saotome?” Tae raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the name of the vice-president of the steering board?”

That’s true! Finally I click where I heard that name. Well if this isn’t nepotism, then I don’t know what is.

And Megami? Goddess? I wonder who had that idea. My mom says that names like this usually are given by two kinds of people: either excessively doting parents, or very, very rich people.

Considering where Saotome-san comes from, then it’s probably the latter. Goddess-like beauty, it is justified.

But I think she’d look even more beautiful covered in her own lifeblood, if you ask me.

Saotome-san raises her hand. “Sensei, I would like to ask a question.”

“You may, Saotome,” he says.

“I found that the school storage is filled with abandoned desks marked belonging to the first, second, and third years of high school. They seem used to me.” She takes a deep breath. “What happened to the students that used them?”

Hayashida-sensei sighs. “They… mysteriously went missing during the student council elections of the last year. Later, they were found dead—all from murder-suicide.”

Saotome-san’s breath catches in her throat. “Is that so.”

“Unfortunately.” He adjusts his glasses. “We lost many remarkable children that month. The parents had monetary compensation and were… relocated to witness protection.” His breath seems to pause when he says that last phrase. It probably is an euphemism for ‘were murdered’. Obviously. The school wouldn’t let this affect their rep, so… “If that answers your question, we must resume class.”

Saotome-san looks at me. I smile in a friendly way at her.

The letter opener is hidden inside the hollow in my table, in case of necessity. I sharpen it regularly inside a bathroom cabin—where there are no cameras—with a rock I found in the school yard.

I could even hide it in my backpack, since this school believes so much in its own infallibility as a ‘safe environment’ they never screen for weapons. But who knows if they might start. So…

If it’s for Senpai, I will use the environment to my favor.

After all, we belong to each other.

And when we are together forever, he will never know what I did…

For the ends justify the means.

Though mine are good, this phrase still must be remembered.

Even shoujo heroines have limits, after all.

***

Break time runs in, and as expected, every male in a large radius is head over heels for Megami Saotome. Hopefully not Senpai. Please not Senpai too.

She walks through the corridors just as Senpai leaves his classroom. He brakes, but ends up crashing into Saotome-san and both fall onto the ground.

“I’m sorry!” Haibara-senpai exclaims, with a panic in his voice I’ve never heard. Oh no. No no no. “Are you okay?”

Saotome-san looks up and makes a face I recognize from too much rom-coms. The “oh no hot guy” face.

NO. STOP. GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY SENPAI.

I want to carve that face off her head.

My fingers itch for the knife hidden inside my bra, but I hold it.

“I’m fine,” she says, accepting the helping hand and standing up. “I should have paid more attention to my surroundings.”

SHE TOUCHED SENPAI’S HAND.

SHE TOUCHED SENPAI.

That’s a crime in my culture, ma’am.

“You’re the transfer student, Saotome-san, am I right?” He asks. She nods. “Didn’t your younger brother transfer here too?”

Younger brother???

“Yes, Mikado is in class 1-A,” she says.

WHY IS SHE STILL HOLDING HIS HAND. GO AWAY AND BURN IN THE STAKE YOU WHITE-HAIRED WITCH. SENPAI IS MINE.

“Um, Saotome-san,” I finally say, “I think someone is waiting for you.”

Haibara-senpai finally sees me. “Oh, Aishi-san!” He exclaims, releasing Saotome-san’s hand and straightening his back.

“It seems you two have already been introduced,” I say, still smiling. GO. NOW. WITCH.

“Indeed,” Saotome-san says, glancing oddly at me. “Do you two… know each other?”

“Oh! Apologies, I didn’t properly introduce myself.” I smile. “I’m Tsukasa Aishi, vice-president of the student council. And this is the president, Yukiteru Haibara-senpai.” Also known as the man you should back away from NOW. “Nice to meet you.”

She smiles, although it does not reach her eyes. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance too, Aishi-san,” she says. Her eyes are still cold. Watching me. Burning holes through my head.

“Well, I must go,” Saotome-san finally says, turning around. “It has been a pleasure to meet you two.”

She turns around and leaves.

“Um, Aishi-san,” Haibara-senpai says, “your eyes were glinting murderously now or was that my impression?”

WHAT?

“Your eyes were probably out of perspective, Senpai,” I tell him. “Since Saotome-san is so voided of emotion, after being close to her for long enough everyone else seems crazy.”

“Is that so.” He smiles fondly. “Thank you, Aishi-san. I usually don’t talk much to girls, especially rich ones, so I panicked. Thankfully you came to save me.” He tilts his head twelve degrees, and blushes adorably. “I find it easier to talk to you than to other girls, for some reason.”

I blush. Oh, Senpai. My beloved Senpai. My only treasure. My perfect angel. My existential gasoline. Never stop being so adorable.

Because if you stop, the knife will come against you—then at me.