Chapter 3

The Third Chapter

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Now that my work was done, it was time to find Ria. I knew how bullies like the ones she had been involved with tended to act out. My personal experiences in middle school led to me being well-versed in such matters. My first task was to find her classroom, which ended up being an easy one. I slowly made my way to the first year's floor and looked through all the windows to find the correct room. They were all empty, so it thought it must have been that everyone had gone to their respective homes or clubs by now. I was able to find a bulletin board nearby, on which the class registers for this row of classes hung. A wide array of names spread before me. Ria's own name was under year 1 class D, listed as Ria Leino.

As I entered Ria’s classroom, I could hear voices coming from around the corner. When they came near, I positioned myself in front of that bulletin board and kept my eyes on it. The students went into the class C room for whatever was it that they forgot and quickly left the hall. With one close call already that day, I took it upon myself to be even more careful. After everything was clear, I entered class D. Immediately as I stepped foot into the room, it was clear where Ria's desk was. The desk was toward the back of the class, in the middle, and was covered in awful graffiti markings. Touching the surface, it was also made clear that someone had recently spilled a drink on it, as something sticky on top of it made me twitch upon my fingers hitting the wood. I came across a feeling of dread while looking at it. The sight was familiar to me, memories and thoughts of the past began to cloud my inner workings. The sensation quickly spread across the nape of my neck, the chills leaving me to become so anxious as to need to escape the room as soon as I could. Quietly opening and closing the classroom door, I slipped into the closest classroom nearby. As goosebumps spread down my neck to cross my arms, a sound echoed in the hallway. Footsteps approached, and there she was.

Ria had come with cleaning supplies to take care of the state of her desk. Her gaze was melancholic, in a bittersweet sense. I was then able to get a good look at her entire person for the first time. Ria's long blonde hair reached to her legs and was tied back in a light blue ribbon. Her eyes were greenish with a hint of brown, like the water of a forest pond. I assumed that she was only half Japanese, given those looks, although based on her name I was not able to ascertain her exact nationality. The girl's figure was lean, and she was also slightly tall. She seemed to have not yet filled in her figure, as girls would towards the end of puberty. Those features put together gave her a childlike, yet somehow also mature allure.

I watched as Ria finished cleaning up. She kept the cleaning supplies tucked away in the room, likely to use them again the next day. Then she sat at her desk, rested her small head on her arms, and turned it towards the outside windows. After this gesture began the sounds of her soft sobbing, which reached me across the way. I could have almost been swept up in the tears myself, however, I instead sat there attentively, watching her as she stared into the sunset. Orange and purple hues lay on her hair and made it glisten. As I stayed put and kept watching, someone else arrived without a moment's notice to witness this sight I thought would only ever be a shared moment between Ria and me.

Izu came down the hall to share the sight with the two of us. She walked past Ria's class, giving herself the opportunity to view the forlorn maiden in all her devastating glory. A lovely sympathetic look adorned her face as she crossed the hallway. Once Izu was gone, I silently slipped out of the room I was in and left Ria alone. I could only hope that she would soon awake from her dream and return home in a calm manner. However, I needed to leave her be in order to follow Izu, not giving up the unexpected chance to steal as much of her early evening as I could.

The sun was almost set, yet Izu was still standing at the school entrance. She stood by the shoe lockers aimlessly for a while. There was something I could see her contemplating, a woman deciding it was time to begin to take action. After witnessing the girl crying to herself at such a time, she knew what to do. It would be the start of something greater. The flower girl who could no longer be left to wilt and an Izu who had been captivated by Ria's sad yet intoxicating glow.

Izu perused the shoe lockers until she found Ria's cubby. When she opened it, candy wrappers and half-eaten food spilled onto the floor. Her eyes widened for a split second as the sight brought a grimace to her face. She began to carefully clean up the mess, having to go back and forth between a nearby supply closet in order to do so. Once the garbage had been dealt with, she slipped something out of her bag and into the locker. It was a very small note, which she slid into the back of one of Ria's shoes. I judged that she had been taking great care in preparing this, in case the bullies would harm the locker the next morning.

With Izu's task done, she sighed. It was a breath equal parts exasperation at the cleaning she had to endure, as well as the satisfaction of having completed what she had set out to do. Izu then took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped some sweat off of her forehead. The small crystalline beads had gathered there after all her work. She then put it away, grabbed her bag, and left the school. However, the square of cloth did not sit in her pocket as it should have. It fell to the floor and was left behind. I first waited a moment to make sure Izu wouldn't come back for the handkerchief, then I hastily picked it up. This was something I couldn’t leave there without taking with me. My desires became a rift inside my emotions I couldn’t help but cross, my perverted notions winning over common sense.

I let my curiosity win once more, as my hand delved into Ria's shoe locker to take the note out. The note's contents made my eyes spin as if I had found gold buried in a dark cavern.

“Please meet me at the bench behind the gym at 5:30 tomorrow.”

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I returned home that day without letting myself follow Izu to her own. That day wouldn't have been a good one to learn when Izu would normally go home, as it was apparent that she had stayed at school late to put that note in Ria's locker. My logic managed to win for the first time that day. But tomorrow, I would go exactly to where that note took Ria without regard for any kind of rationalism at all.

Stepping inside, I took off my shoes and set them down in the entryway. Next to them lay another pair, which had not been there that morning. I made my way around the mess that had been still left across our living space to step foot into my mother's room. Inside there were clothes strewn all over the place. Mother herself was on the bed asleep. Noticeably, she had thrown her clothes off and collapsed onto her bed to sleep. I grabbed what was on the floor and put them in her laundry basket. Then, I tucked a blanket over her and closed the door as I left the room.

I decided I would finally attempt to clean the place up. This house occasionally would start to smell because neither I nor my mother would put much effort into keeping things in order. We would both keep our personal spaces as we liked them and let things in the shared areas pile up. This led me to have to at least do the bare minimum every so often to keep our house from becoming a major problem. My mother would only come back to sleep and change clothes normally, sometimes staying home when I was at school, so she would never find it in herself to clean. It didn't particularly bother me, as I had made up my mind years ago that I could fend for myself without the assistance of someone like that.

After taking my bag up to my room as well as carefully setting Izu's handkerchief down on my desk, I got to work. I took out many bags of trash, washed the piled-up dishes, cleaned out our kitchen of expired foods, and the like. Once the place was cleared out enough to walk through without stepping over anything, that was enough for me. I gave every room but mine a pass with air freshening spray for good measure. The house started to brighter up after all of this, giving me a sense of post-hard work catharsis I was sure to reward later into the night. While many things had happened throughout the course of that day, finding the handkerchief at the end of it left me in a good mood. I had used that energy to get as many things as I could do in a short amount of time, wanting to expend my productive urges as much as I could while I still was able to.

Now that things were clean, I took some time to make a quick stew and some rice for my supper. The space around me began to take the aroma of foods the spices, doing away with the clean artificial smell of the air freshener. After putting at least half of the food away for my mother to eat when she woke up, I started eating myself. Sitting alone with my meal, all was quiet. Only the sounds of outside softly poured into the room. That day felt like one of progress in my home life, in a way I had not felt for a long while. I was able to cook a decent amount, but I didn't do so very often. Instead, I would often pick up convenience store food or order in when money came around from my Mother to do so (she left me envelopes on the kitchen table for this semi-frequently). This time in specific felt a bit luckier, as at least my mother had stocked up on some essentials recently for me to make what I was able to that night. That was such a rare occurrence that I found it in myself to even be grateful to her.

After I finished eating, I took my bath and went back up to my room for the night. My eyes couldn't take themselves away from the handkerchief. I picked it up and felt the fabric between my fingers. It was quite thin and delicate, as a feminine item like that ought to be. Taking an even closer look, I saw that it had very pretty embroidered patterns on the edges. A beautiful piece of cloth like this suited Izu-sama very well. Something like this being around would almost have made my mind want to look at it all night and become preoccupied. I didn't want that to happen, so I put it down on my bed first, wanting to complete my personal obligations beforehand.

My first order of business was to begin writing in my journal about the evenings’ encounters. I recounted the events I witnessed through Izu's eyes. Her downcast gaze as she watched Ria's tears struck very deeply. The emotions given to me from that moment burned in my chest. It was envy, in a way, that I felt. Or that was part of it. Something inside me was hurt by seeing Izu start to give attention to a girl like her. At the same time, I thought it was a beautiful thing, and wanted to continue to observe the situation as it progressed. She would continue to be a goddess to me, and I would be her devoted follower. These thoughts were rather prideful for a person like me, who had never once spoken to Izu or had been close enough for her to watch me. The feelings like these were all I had. However, what I didn’t know at the time was that there were already so many others who felt the exact same way. Someone like Izu would draw people into her gaze for eternity.

Having completed my journal entries, I took some time for sketches. I drew Izu's figure from memory a picture of when she passed by the window earlier that day. My pencil helped me create many images of Ria as well, both alone and together with Izu. These two girls consumed my mind as I depicted them over and over again for hours. Once the clock turned much too late for me to be awake, I took the handkerchief back out. I stared at it again and again, it began to represent a holy item, and I revered it. My hands brought it to my face, and I inhaled its scent. The scent of a goddess. A short while later, I finally managed to deposit it back into my desk door and put myself in bed. As the moon began to shine in the sky, I fell asleep.

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Izu's Dairy, August 22nd

Today was the day that I set my note for Ria in her locker. I will not let her shed tears much longer, and those that made her do so will be punished. Tomorrow, I will meet her, the girl I have been watching. Until then, I will imagine the best outcome, and pray for it all the same. I will watch out for everyone with great care. So that they may be healed of their sins and me of my own.

I.S.