The Infirmary Incident

The lunchtime bell went off and everyone began putting their stuff away and grabbing food. Others got up and left to eat elsewhere.

“Taji, you got your own lunch or are you going to the cafeteria?” Asked Kingo

“I have my own, what about you?” I replied.

“I gotta grab something from the cafeteria, I won't be too long, try not to miss me for too long.”

I watched Kingo dash out of the classroom. Despite being an annoyance to me, he still is a good guy. Having him around really helps me get through the day quicker, would be rather boring without him.

I grabbed my bento box out of my bag and began to eat. I was staring straight forwards at the new transfer student. For some reason, her pure black hair was extremely eye-catching. I was unable to resist staring at the back of her head.

“What are you staring at there Aguni?” a voice spoke from behind me.

Behind me was Sawa Satoko, my childhood friend. Despite knowing her since we were little, I have rarely spoken to her. Most of the time she is just bugging me and forcing me to do stuff with her, luckily since we started high school she’s been doing it less and less, at least my parents don't force me to hang out with her now.

“Nothing, just eating and minding my own business, what do you want?” I asked.

“You were very focused on something, wanted to see if you were dead or just being a creep.” She answered.

“You’re bothering me, can I eat in peace?”

“No, you can’t, but I’ll leave you to carry on being lonely soon. Just wanted to say that my parents and I are coming over for dinner today. Wanted to give you a heads up.” she told me with a grin on her face.

I always hated whenever our parents did this and now I can’t but hate it even more. She always had some crazy bizarre ideas she would force me into.

“What time will it be at?” I asked

“Right after school, they told me to walk home with you and go straight to your place. Which is why I’m letting you know. Trust me I don’t want to walk home with you either, makes me look bad.” She replied while looking down at me with disgust.

“Right, great to hear.”

She wandered off to her group of friends as soon as I finished talking. This is really bad, I was not expecting this to happen instantly right after school. My room is a massive mess and I left all my magazines laying around. She already thinks of me as being a creep, let alone when she sees my room in its current state.

I can already imagine her look of disgust as she insults me ‘You damn filthy pervert, you are beyond belief, I will make your life a living hell for this.’ Oh my, oh my. I really need to think of something quick. This can’t allow this to happen, I just want a peaceful school life without having a tarnished reputation by Sawa.

“Taji, where’d the new girl go?” Kingo asked as he casually walked back into the classroom, completely oblivious to my mental breakdown.

“Huh, what?” I replied while searching around the classroom, there was no sign of her, however, this isn’t what I should care about as of now.

“Whatever, I was just wondering if I could steal her chair to sit at your desk,” he replied still completely oblivious. I wonder if he is this stupid or if he just chooses to not get involved with my physically visible mental breakdowns.

Kingo sat backwards on Lei Mei’s seat and stared at me while drinking his apple juice.

“What you thinking so hard about, Teij?” He asked.

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m bored and you’re not talking about anything.”

I really wonder how I ended up sticking around with him for so long.

“I’m thinking of nothing.” I kindly replied.

“What are you stupid or something? You gotta be thinking about something,” He raised his voice.

“I didn’t mean literally.”

“Oh… Should have made it more obvious. What are you doing tonight? I got a new game for the Bintendo Witch, wanna come over and play?” He asked cheerfully.

“What game is it?” I asked eagerly.

“It’s the latest WokEmon.”

“No way?! I have been looking forward to playing that since they announced it.”

“Me too, I got it yesterday, my older brother waited in line for hours just to get it on release.”

“No way, that’s so lucky.”

“I know right, you down?”

“Damn, I wish I could, we are having neighbours over for dinner right after school. Won't be able to come today.”

“Ah, there's always tomorrow,” he replied with a frowned face.

“Yeah, for sure.”

I felt a little bad, he seemed pretty excited to play it. Nothing much I can do about this now. I need to find a way to sneak out of school before the end so I can go back and clean up my room.

Our next class is physical education, I can probably fake an injury and go to the nurse's office and try to convince her to send me home.

*Ding, ding, ding, ding!*

The bell rang, time for our next class. We got to the changing rooms and changed into our gym clothes. The weather has been pretty good today so I will have plenty of opportunities to pretend to hurt myself during football.

We got onto the pitch, I tried to act like I'm trying so that no one gets suspicious of me. However, apparently, everyone wanted to play competitively today. Me being pretty average at most sports as a whole had no chance against all these guys who take sports seriously. Quite unfortunately for me being in one of the lower classes I had more muscle heads rather than actual smart people, Kingo being a great example of this.

I got a few touches on the ball and a few passes but the majority of the time I was getting tackled with ease, which did indeed cause my team to get frustrated. Luckily for me, this will be beneficial. I will try to get the ball and make sure to get tackled, once they tackle me I can be the most overdramatic actor to exist.

I managed to get one of my teammates to pass to me, I began charging toward the opposite team's goal. My team is already mad enough at me so I’d like to make them think that I at least cared a little bit. I put in the maximum amount of effort, I dodged player after player until I got slide tackled from behind. The studs from his boots stabbed into my leg. Although I wanted to pretend to get tackled, I ended up getting tackled for real.

I got carried to the infirmary room by Kingo and one of our teammates.

“You did great Taji, we won't let your effort go in vain! We will win the game for you!” Kingo yelled as he ran out of the infirmary room.

Great, now I’m finally free from having to deal with my classmates. Damn it feels way too quiet without Kingo here. Despite hating how annoying he is, it feels wrong when he isn't here to be annoying. I better get going home, hopefully, my ankle isn't too damaged.

I went to stand up, however, I was instantly forced down onto the floor. Gravity wasn’t on my side today. I guess I will have to wait for the nurse to get back. Damnit. This ruins my entire plan to get home quickly. What makes it worse is that I will have no choice but to deal with Sawa at home making fun of me.

“Are you okay?” A soft voice called out from behind the curtains.

There must have been someone else here.

“Aha, yeah I’m fine, just an ankle issue, tried walking and it didn’t go so well,” I replied.

From behind the curtains appeared Lei Mei.

“Let me take a look at it, I have done a first aid course before, so I can help with just easing down the pain,” she said politely.

“Oh really? That’s pretty impressive.”

She grabbed some medication from the first aid kit and handed it to me.

“Take those, it’s just painkillers,” she said.

I swallowed them down and Lei Mei went down on her knees. She took a look at my bruised ankle. As I was looking down at her from the bed, she looked up straight at me. Her big round glasses really emphasised her beautiful purple eyes. Although her eyes were no different from most people's, they for some reason stood out from the rest. What am I even talking about, I might be spending too much time with Kingo or it could be simply because her glasses made them seem much larger, bringing more attention to them.

“Could you wiggle it around a bit?” She asked.

Chills ran down my spine as she said that with full eye contact.

“Wiggle what around?” I answered as I turned red as a beetroot.

“Your ankle, I wanted to take a look at it to see if you might have broken a bone.”

“Ahaha, yeah, sure.”

I totally misunderstood what she was trying to say.

I slightly moved my ankle around and she deeply examined it. As I was moving it around I found a spot where it began to hurt.

“Okay, I’m going to touch this area and you tell me where it hurts, or make a sound if its hurts.” Lei Mei instructed me.

She began softly touching my ankle. It felt relaxing as if I was getting a massage until she found the spot.

“Ahhh.” I let out a sound.

She carried on touching that area

“Ahhhahh”

Without either of us noticing, the infirmary door opened and the nurse came in. She walked over towards us without either of us noticing.

“Ahhahhhahh”

“Okay, Aguni, I got told- What on earth are you two doing?!?!” The nurse screamed out.

This probably looked bad with me letting out sounds with a girl on her knees and head down between my legs.

“Oh, nurse. I was examining his ankle since you weren’t present. He seemed to be desperate to go out but wasn’t able to.” Lei Mei explained.

*Sigh* “Thank goodness it’s that, It would have been a different story if I caught you two love birds doing anything else.” The nurse answered with relief.

“What else would I be doing?” Lei Mei asked in confusion.

“Doesn’t matter, what does matter is why you were in the infirmary as well?” The nurse asked.

Now that she mentions it, she seemed perfectly fine yet she was in the infirmary.

“I don’t like sports so I came here to read a book.” Lei Mei answered honestly.

“Really? Please don’t use this as a getaway spot, I’ll let you off today because you are new still, next time please let a teacher know and they can possibly find an alternative. Now for you Mr Aguni, let's take a look at your ankle.” The nurse explained.

“Okay, Miss Nurse.” Lei Mei replied and bowed in respect.

She walked out of the infirmary and closed the door. Well, that was an interesting encounter, didn’t expect her to be this kind.

My ankle wasn’t broken in the end.