Chapter 5

The Fifth Chapter

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I woke up late to the sound of my final phone alarm. The amount of indulgence from the previous night had led me to exhaust myself. It was another morning of waking up in a ring of my own sweat that had clung to the sheets overnight. The alarm should have woken me up in time to find Izu that morning, but since they did not I wouldn’t be able to. My body felt sluggish and over-exerted. Because I had been putting so much of myself into being around Izu, it had an adverse effect on my sleep. I needed to change my mindset as soon as possible, focusing on Izu and why I wanted to follow her rather than the impact Ria would have on her. That need conflicted with my desire to throw my heart into my actions.

I went into the bathroom to throw some water on my face and brush my teeth. Looking into the mirror was something I preferred to keep to a minimum. When I did, I saw tired eyes and messy hair, which I wouldn't be making an effort to repair. I threw my uniform on and gathered my things in a rush to get out the door. What I wanted was to find Izu before class, but what happened when I looked at my phone's screen to check the time was that I wouldn't be able to. The coffee I drank that morning tasted especially bitter with the resentment I felt towards my physical stability.

I had a quiet walk to school which I took at a leisurely pace. The timing was so off for me that day that I would be coming in too late to my first class to join in without suspicion. Even so, I didn't think it would be noticed very much if I wasn't there. That wouldn't be the first time I had come in late to classes, for similar reasons. My classmates in general weren't the type to care if I was there or not, given that they didn't have any type of relationship with me. Only one person could potentially be bothered by my absence, the class rep. I was sincerely hoping that I would never get a talking to from her, fuming at me for not being around when I was supposed to, and disregarding my teacher's time during our first period. If she didn't bother me about it and stuck to glaring at me when I came into the classroom, then I'd be in the clear and get away with it. That was what I had anticipated, so I let myself take my time and enjoy a few minutes alone. Having stayed up so late with nothing but Izu on my mind, I took a moment to occupy my brain with static instead.

It was only as I reached the entrance to the school building that I remembered the note in Ria's locker. I had missed my opportunity to watch her find the note in her shoes. The area around the doors was completely empty, as the hustle and bustle died when classes started. Atmospherically, I very much liked how it felt to be here when it was quiet like this.

I approached my locker and put my shoes on, looking around to see if anyone would pop up to take this peace away from me. Knowing that the area was clear, I walked toward Ria's locker. Of course, I opened it to find it nearly empty. However, there were also what seemed to be remnants of a mess left behind again. It looked like those girls had managed to go into it yet again to leave something behind for Ria this morning too, after all the effort Izu had put in to clean it the previous day. That made me question if Ria could have found the note at all. My feet in the same place Izu's had been, I wondered what would go on that evening. Would something be happening that day, or had the opportunity been squandered?

There still being plenty of time before the end of first period, I decided to go back to Izu's bench. Instead of sitting on it right away, I looked around. I didn't want to have to look around a wall corner to see Izu here, I desperately wished there could have been another way. Going into the trees behind the bench, I tried as much as possible to find a new hiding place, failing all the way. The task of observing the girls would have to be stunted, making them further from my grasp.

Finally letting myself sit, I imagined what a moment between Izu and Ria here would look like. At the time, it seemed to me that Izu was going to try to be friends with Ria in order to get her out of the bullying situation. Scaring them off by proximity in order for them to not want to involve themselves in someone so close to the school's Izu-sama would be a plausible way to dissolve what was going on. I thought of the two girls having a pleasant conversation about anything, a type of girl-talk a boy like me would never be involved in. It felt undeniably cute to dream of such a thing, and if I got the chance to be there I would have enjoyed watching such an encounter very much. My mind was set to a cheerful mood much like the setting of the place– the girls' voices, upbeat and calm, were soothing my tiredness. It took a great effort to not get swept up in my delusion as I made myself leave the bench to join class, shortly before the bell for the next period rang.

I made my way to my classroom as unnoticeably as I could, feigning invisibility. Slipping in while my classmates were having social time, I sat at my desk and got out the materials for our second class. I took a quick look around just in case, and as expected the class rep was the only person who looked back. Yukari frowned at me for a moment but moved on. It was pre-determined that keeping her from being suspicious of me would require extra vigilance. Class started in the late morning and I made myself focus on the lecture with my renewed energy. The sun streamed through the nearby windows as pencils hit paper and our teacher paced around the room, textbook in hand. After a time, my mind wandered again. I thought again about Ria not finding the note and it brought worries back into my system. Once lunchtime arrived, I decided I had to go find her.

I quietly and quickly made my way to Ria's classroom, my classmates and the forever agitated class rep much too aware of my movement than usual. There was no time to waste if I was to find Ria before anything happened. It made sense to assume that she would never be alone during lunch if those girls tormented her during it. That intuition had been correct when I found her scuttling out of the room in order to eat peacefully. While I considered that a bullied girl like her in a manga would do something like eat in a bathroom stall, Ria instead hurried off to the school library.

Following closely behind her, I walked into the room to find it surprisingly empty. Other students preoccupied with eating and socializing wouldn't show up to such a place. Among the calm atmosphere and dusty bookshelves, Ria found a corner of the room to sit and take out her bento. She seemed peaceful, making it seem as if the morning hadn't been too much of a hassle. I couldn’t help but wonder if she considered only having a small mess to deal with in her shoe locker a win for the day. Ria ate her normal-looking arrangement of food and set the box aside. I had to take some steps back as she lifted herself up to begin wandering the rows of books.

Her thin fingers laced the cover of novels and manga alike. They stopped to take something out once she reached a shelf that looked like fantasy and magical tales. In particular, Ria grabbed a fairy tale novel. When she turned it around to read the back, my own eyes went to the cover. Its contents were of a girl down-trodden under her evil family members, taken away by an unbeknownst godmother to her own prince encounter. Even I would be familiar with such an old story. It was a charming sight to see Ria drawn to a romantic-looking book of the sort. It told me she was waiting for someone to sweep her off her feet like in the wonderlands of stories from our childhood.

Ria sheepishly took the book with her back to the corner she had eaten at. Sitting back down, she had a slight blush on her face as she crossed her arms and put her face inside them. After blowing off the steam of thinking of a beautiful reality for herself, Ria raised her head and sat up, reaching for her bag. That was when she took the note out for me to see. She stared at it for a long while, wearing her emotions on her face as she did. Her eyes told me of a hopeful feeling. Ria had wanted desperately for the note to be something like a love letter, rather than another means to be hurt yet again. I brought my thoughts to the fairy tale book. It was a childish desire, wanting to be the princess and main character of a world like that. But that did not stop her from wanting it, from dreaming of something more.

The expression eventually faded, Ria's eyes becoming distant as her face changed. Tears came from the corner of her eyes yet again as she began to worry about what was to come after school. She was terrified of the outcome of letting herself go to the bench that day. I wholeheartedly understood why she wouldn't trust the note. Ria had attempted to imagine a better world for herself, and while it was a passing success, she wasn't ready to let herself have the reality she wished for yet. I began to consider the possibilities. What was Izu going to do? My mind was enveloped in a maze of Izu's making. It gave way to a burning urge to find out, as Izu was everything to me, and not knowing for even a single second was a curse.

When I was able to get myself back together, Ria was gone. Sweat ran across my face as I rushed to my classroom in order to not be late getting back. The last days of my life at the time were filled with moments of me being much too careless. Even though I had been refreshed just that morning, I was starting to feel sleep deprivation across my entire body while my adrenaline was fading. My afternoon classes had been filled with me doing everything in my power to stay awake, or at least trying to nod off in short minute-long sets without being discovered.

Once the bell rang at the end of the day, I was filled with a brand new shot of energy very quickly. Then I got lucky when I noticed that the class rep had some after-school work to do, taking her away to the teachers' office and out of the classroom. It would be some time yet before 5:30, and I needed to kill time. I pretended to be asleep at my desk, staring at the window until the other students left the room, up to the moment I was alone. After the wait, I was able to slip out myself and head to Izu's classroom. The hallways were vacant, leaving me no crowds to disappear into. I had to carefully put my head in just the right place on a specific wall corner in order to find Izu sitting at her own desk. She was holding that familiar black book, a smile plastered on her face. Something seemed off about it, it was a type of Izu brand new to me. A gaze she didn't show to anyone on this planet. Pure ecstasy shined with that grin, making way for a rare look at Izu's true self.

Izu didn't say a single word while I watched her. She kept up that same look as she read from the black book and wrote in it as well. Her pen was elegant, and I imagined her handwriting to be exquisite to go with it. Izu seemed to move her pen like she was receiving great inspiration from the world around her. This went on for a while until it was time for Izu to go to the bench. She glanced at her wristwatch to find that it was almost the appointed time and subsequently packed her bag to leave. I followed her as she went outside, meandering around as a means to keep other schoolmates from taking the same path behind the building where the bench sat.

While Izu and I had ended up very close in making it to the area with the bench, both of us passed a wistful Ria. Izu moved on as if she hadn't been nearby, ever so slightly glancing in that direction with a side eye, as her steps took her away from the girl's blonde hair that had swayed with each step. After witnessing Izu's thoughtful motion, I had to create a new path for myself in order to bypass Ria and get to my hiding spot. Anxiety swelled in my chest, causing pain to shoot directly behind my eyes and into my forehead. I tried my best to distract myself from the irritation as I took my place peering around the building corner I had found that morning.

Izu had sat down with her calves crossed, her skirt folding around them. Even though I couldn't see much of her skin through the long skirt that it was, it was an alluring pose. She rested herself on her hands and stretched her head back a little as she breathed in the fresh outside air.

It took some time for Ria to slowly saunter over to the bench. She hesitated, holding her head low while keeping her eyes from directly facing Izu. Ria did not sit down right away, but instead stood right in front of the bench, her face pointing at her own feet. It was a tense atmosphere, which Izu seemed to try to dissolve as she moved closer to the edge of the bench and put her hands in her lap. Izu's eyelashes fluttered as they crept toward her eyelids. She closed her eyes for a short moment, becoming stone cold, and bringing calmness to the front of her being. Ria's apprehensiveness did not affect her in the slightest. In fact, she may as well have been completely accepting of Ria's nervous behavior. Ria's reaction to this was to very slightly let her guard down, she opened her previously clenched hands and gently lowered herself to sit beside Izu. She unconsciously put herself in a similar pose to Izu, however, Ria kept her eyes off the other girl while keeping the two of them distanced.

Izu didn't move at all. I found it very peculiar that she seemed uninterested in making conversation with the girl next to her. While Ria took it upon herself to sigh a couple of different deep breaths over the minutes that passed, Izu kept her own breathing steady. There were some instances where Izu would carefully gaze toward Ria to gauge her reactions, but they were few and far between. The looks Izu provided were calculated and invoked ice-cold feedback when I stared too harshly. I was much too captivated to consider that she was looking not at Ria, but straight into my own soul. It could also be said that the expressions Izu had given towards Ria in the same stretch of time were some of the warmest she had ever given to one specific, significant person.

The silence between the two girls continued for a long while.

At a time when the sky above them started to become orange, signaling the days' end, Ria spoke.

"Um, thank you for inviting me here. I'm sorry, but I need to go home now." She said this very quietly, her face angling towards Izu almost completely, but not quite. Izu did not respond right after. Instead, she set her hand on Ria's shoulder. Ria instantly became startled by this action, making a reactionary noise that she cut off just as fast. It caused her to look directly into Izu's face, where their eyes met for the first time.

"See you again." Said Izu with a graceful smile. As Ria took in those words, her eyes started to become covered in a glazed fashion. She stood up, tearing herself away from Izu's grasp, and ran home. Thus Izu was left at the bench, and sat there alone for another long while before I was able to follow her as she returned home too.