10001: Before She Falls

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“You’ll see once we are there.”

I already suspected it. “Does it have to do with Kayami-senpai?”

“Sharp as always.” Naoki-senpai put his hands into his Jacket. “Not so sharp when it comes to social things, however.”

“What do you mean? Did I do anything wrong?”

It was the moment when we came around the dorm and the late noon sun tinted his face in a slight orange, when his almost androgynous appearance really stood out. The soft lines of his face looked like a girl’s, the deep and inscrutable eyes like from an old, experienced man who had seen the world. It was mainly his girlish physique and his childlike height and that made him lean more towards the female side. “I don’t know exactly what happened between you and the girl with the handle ArcticLynx, but she was seriously and utterly terrified by you drawing the connection between her and this girl of your past. She must be really embarrassed by something you know about her.”

I swallowed. Did that mean, I was responsible for her feeling bad now?

He ordered the hood of his jacket. “But we’re not coming for her to speak about your past. I would even ask you to evade this topic. We are going to be there for her. After the announcement of our Kibansentou she probably experienced a lot of hostility. As for now she hasn’t read a single message from me and there is only one thing this can mean in the current situation: She is retreating into her turtle shell – the perfect breeding ground for overthinking and self-deprecating thoughts. Something we won’t allow to happen. We will pull her out there and catch her before she even realizes that she is falling. I don’t want her to feel alone or discouraged or that she even doubts if her decision was right. You know that it was … so we need all her willpower and all her determination. If she is a picture of misery on Friday, we will have lost the Kibansentou before it even started.”

I nodded. “And you’re asking me to come along because we know each other closer than you do!”

He shook his head softly. A slight smile played around his lips. “No.”

There was a long pause. I expected him to further elaborate, but Naoki-senpai remained silent. “Uh … and why then?” I asked

“You don’t seem to know the Kayami-san before you came to this school. She has always been a lone wolf, whether it’d be in classes, during breaks or from what I heard even in the club. The only person she always interacted with, was her brother. Maybe you see why I was so astounded upon seeing you two enter the conference room yesterday. I’ve never experienced her interact so casually with anyone – not even with her own brother. If there is a person, able to put her back together, it is you.”

I noticed my heart making a slight jump. Was I really this special for her? It matched with what she had told me at the canteen. With her not needing anyone. She actually was alone, all the time! I breathed through. The dorm we approached was much bigger than ours. Three floors, one of the biggest there was – an all-girls one. From what Rukami-senpai had told me, there probably were 30 girls living under this roof.

Kayami-senpai’s room was located at the ground floor. I already noticed the door from far away. The floor in front of it was littered with garbage, the white door smeared with what I guessed was lipstick. ‘Deceptive Whore’ was standing there.

I noticed anger boiling up inside me and even Naoki-senpai clenched his hands. “It’s even worse than I expected.”

He walked up to the door and knocked gently. No response. Then he took out his phone, typed onto it a few times and held it in front of the electric doorknob. I noticed a few lines running over the screen. I took several seconds to break the lock’s security, but suddenly there was an electric whirring to be heard. He pushed the door, but it opened only a crack. He shot a short look at me, then back at the door. “Hey, Kayami-san. It’s just me: Naoki Fujinami. I know you are there.”

Slow sniffing from the inside. A second silence. “Just leave me alone.” It sounded like she was sitting right behind the door, pushing against it with her back.

“Sorry, but I won’t. You’re not alone anymore and there is no way we will give you up now.”

Shaky breathing, she cried.

I wanted to say something as well, but the moment I took a breath and leaned in, Naoki-senpai stopped me with a hand gesture. “Please let me in. I just want to talk,” he said.

A heavy breath from the other side and fumbling. The resistance on the door disappeared. It slowly opened. Kayami-senpai’s face appeared, black rivulets of mascara had run down her face, her nose running, the eyes red from crying. She still wore her school uniform and looked just miserable. As soon as she saw me standing next to Naoki-senpai, her eyes widened, and she tried slamming the door. But there was something stopping her. All of us looked down.

“Ouch,” Naoki-senpai wailed, his foot jammed between door and frame, “That hurt more than I expected.”

My gaze and Kayami-senpai’s met another time. She rushed into the cover of the now almost shut door. “What is he doing here?”

“I’m worried about you!” I explained.

A pause, her voice was nothing but a croak. “You don’t need to.” Just hearing her like this made a big lump grow inside my throat.

“Kayami-san … we are not here to make fun of you. We don’t even have a remote idea about what you had to go through during today, but you don’t have to carry this weight on your own. Just talk with us and it will get better, I promise you. It is not a hint of weakness to allow someone to help you, it is actually very brave and shows how strong someone is.” Naoki-senpai pushed the door open, the resistance had vanished.

The blonde girl was just standing there in the half shadow. A deep breath. “Then come in. But please lock the door behind you.”

We made our way inside and Naoki-senpai did as she requested, while I followed her into the main room of the apartment. It had the same layout as mine, was a bit messy with all kinds of worn pieces of clothing scattered throughout the room. Her desk was crammed with electrical equipment. A soldering bolt, measuring devices, circuit boards, boxes with electric components. Transistors, resistors, diodes, microcontrollers and whatever else there was. A streak of sunlight cut through the scenery, wind from the opened door to the balcony made the long curtain sway.

I had scanned everything within just a single second. Then my undivided attention was just focused on her. Kayami-senpai sat on the edge of her bed, crossed her arms. I saw a box of tissues on the nightstand, took a few and kneeled in front of her. “Please look at me.”

She didn’t. I just noticed her hands clenching a little bit.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked. “You have all the reasons to. I didn’t …”

“No! Are you stupid? Why do you think that?” Now she looked at me, with a hint of incomprehension in her look.

I smiled and took one of the tissues to carefully wipe the black streaks from her cheeks. “I didn’t recognize you. Despite you being right in front of me.”

“I wore a disguise in order for you to not recognize me. How should I be mad at you then? You should be mad at me instead. I recognized you the second our eyes met at the café but didn’t say anything.” New tears welled up in her eyes. She grabbed the hand I was wiping her tears with. “You have to understand … I … I was scared that you could draw the connection between me and my handle.”

I looked at her. The beautiful deep blue of her iris was as pretty as never before, her eyes in front of me, tears streaming out of them. Out of an impulse I wrapped my arms around her. She was so warm. I had to swallow the lump in my throat in order to speak. “All that mattered to me was finding you. Now I did find you, so forget about it. It’s a thing of the past. We have to look forward and kick the people’s butts who did all this to you.”

Her small arms slowly wrapped around my back as well. I heard a convulsive sobbing and jolts from her breaths, while she pulled me as close as she could. She slipped from the edge of her bed to the ground. An uncontrollable crying finally escaped her. The damn was broken and everything she had been piling up flew out uncontrollably. I felt the wetness of her tears and snot on my shirt, while I myself desperately fought against the tears.

We sat there for several minutes, not speaking a word. Having her so close to me overshaded all the frustration, all the anger and pain. Being there for her was all I wanted in this moment. She let everything out and with the minutes passing the sounds erupting out of her got more and more quiet. When her breathing took on a normal pace, I slowly loosened my arms to look at her. “Okay now?”

She nodded and snuffled. Her face was again overflown with new slightly fewer dark streaks and streams of tears. While snuggling to my shoulder her hair had all shifted into her face. I shoved the long, golden mane to the back of her head that it did not come in contact with the black color. It was much heavier than I expected. “Wait, I have scrunchies on the drawer over there,” she said and took the hair out of my hands.

I stood up and made a step to the drawer she pointed at. Naoki-senpai was nowhere to be see. Did he just disappear? I took one of the several scrunchies scattered over the drawer – a white one – and gave it to her. She thanked me with a nod and routinely tied the long hair into a ponytail. Then looked up at me. “What are you grinning at?”

“I just thought that you looked cute with black as well as with blonde hair, wearing it open or tied up.”

A wry expression formed on her face. “I really tried to evade you seeing me this way.” She went across her cheeks with both hands. I handed her the tissues I got left and she took them to rearrange herself while looking into the mirror above the drawer. “Cute? God, I look like shit. Is your vision still blurred from the tears?” she commented mockingly.

I smiled at her. Probably it was blurred, but not from the tears. “Would you like to talk about what happened?”

She inhaled deeply. “I don’t think there is so much to talk about. They heard about my betrayal and went full crazy mode. Insulted me, a few even pushed me around.” She swallowed. “Nothing that would be worth mentioning.” I caressed her shoulder.

“We will make them stop.” Naoki-senpai came out of the bathroom. He carried the bag around and put something into it while walking. He placed it onto the floor in front of Kayami-senpai’s wardrobe, opened it.

“Hey what do you think you are doing there?” she shot towards him and pushed the doors shut.

“You are not staying here, where they can do what they want with you. At least for this week you’ll stay at our dorm,” he explained and opened the wardrobe again.

She pushed it shut a second time. “But that does not give you the permission to rummage through my clothes.”

“I have a girlfriend. The thought of panties and bras doesn’t arouse me anymore, so don’t worry.”

Kayami-senpai got red around the cheeks. “I’ll … do it myself! You two wait outside. Just give me just a minute, okay?”

She took about five minutes, but it was not that big of a deal. The most important thing was that she was part of our small dorm family now. After Naoki-senpai and I brought Kayami-senpai with us, the whole spirit of our team seemed to be lifted a notch … or at least for me it felt like it. The chair next to me was no longer empty and she wasn’t even mad at me. Even though she was a bit quiet she fit really well into the group.

Seeing her this happy around all of my new-found friends made me even happier as well. She laughed and smiled, and it was like nothing was ever happened. She had this beautiful smile and when she suddenly looked back at me, I swore to myself … if we managed to win against the Black Flags, I would tell her. I would tell Kayami-senpai how I felt about her.