Introduction (Part 2)

Monday.

It’s time for school.

Welcome to Shiragamine High, a place for learning as they say. Although I only sleep in class or skip classes. But, today is special, since I’ve experienced something out of the ordinary yesterday.

I’ve spent my morning thinking about Mysterious Cherry Blossom Girl’s note. Why is she inviting me on a date again, when she just met me yesterday? Anyway, I have to find that girl then ask her about the letter.

As I’m deep in thought, a girl’s voice broke my concentration, “…up! Hey, wake up!”

I blinked for a while, trying to focus my eyes. Once my eyes have woken up, the one who woke me up is no other than my senior, the energetic England-born student—Evelyn Newcastle.

“Yo, Newcastle-senpai…” I raised my hand, greeting her.

Ignoring my greeting, Newcastle-senpai pinched my right ear and said, “Don’t you ‘yo’ me! Let’s go to the cafeteria now!”

I rubbed my hurt ear as I reply, “Owowow, cafeteria? Oh, it’s break time now?”

“Yeah, you sleepyhead. Let’s go now!”

Newcastle-senpai grabbed my collar then drags me out of the classroom. While Newcastle-senpai is dragging me, I can see my classmates’ gazes on us. Ugh, I dislike their gazes. Not wanting any more gazes, I freed myself from Newcastle-senpai’s grip and quietly follows her.

Seeing me following her quietly, Newcastle-senpai smiled lightly then clings to my arm and started to hum. I sighed as I matched my pace to hers and proceeds to the cafeteria.

When we arrive at the cafeteria, the ordering booth is crowded with many students that I can’t even move. But Newcastle-senpai, being as agile as ever, could move between the crowd and able to secure some bread and milk for us. I give her a thumbs-up when she showed me her winnings.

After we found a seat, Newcastle-senpai starts to gobble her breads and quickly finished, while I haven’t even opened my bread’s package. Seeing me looking at her, she said, “What? I can’t help it!” I sighed as I continued to open my bread’s package.

After staring at me for a while, Newcastle-senpai suddenly asked, “You looked less gloomy than ever, did something happen?” When I heard her question, I chuckled and shrugged. Seeing my reaction, Newcastle-senpai started to pressure me, “Something happened, eh? Come on, tell me! I’ll report this to Mr. President if you didn’t tell me!”

While Newcastle-senpai is pestering me, I can see Mysterious Cherry Blossom Girl’s hair fluttering near the cafeteria’s entrance. I can never forget her hair color, as it was very beautiful. Determined to chase her, I wolfed down my bread and milk. As I run away, I said to Newcastle-senpai, “Senpai! I remembered that I have something important to do! I need to go now! See you around!” Surprised that she’s being ditched, Newcastle-senpai shouts, “Hey! Come back here, you damn junior! You haven’t even told me your story!”

As I’m running, searching for her, I thought of many questions. Why is she here? Did she attend this school for a long time? Why I haven’t seen her when we’re in the same school?

After looking for a while, I finally spotted her since I can’t miss her hair color. After looking at her for a while, her appearance is rather different than yesterday’s. Yesterday, her hairstyle was straight and long. But today, it’s twintailed. Did she change her appearance? Why?

Seeing that her surroundings are not good for making contact, I decided to follow her until it’s safe to make contact. Based on what I see after watching her for a while, it seems that she’s been in this school for a while since some student recognized her and even greeted her. Why haven’t I met her if that were the case? Well, let’s just observe for a while.

The girl is wandering around the school like there is nothing to do, but sometimes she glanced at my direction. Did she realize that she’s being followed? No, shouldn’t be. Since I concealed myself carefully. Or probably she had another follower? Come to think of it, this is what you call “stalking”, right?

After the girl wandered aimlessly for a while, she arrived at a seemingly isolated place—the school backyard. Since she stopped, I think this is the right moment to make contact. When I try to approach her, a loud voice shouted behind me.

“Stop! You damn stalker!” Hearing the voice, I stepped to the side but slipped on mud instead and falls to the ground. Seeing me down, the previous voice shouted, “He’s down! Grab him!” Well, since what I did is indeed what they call “stalking”, I am not resisting their arrest.

After I’ve been tied, someone with a grumpy tone, seemingly the one who ordered me to stop earlier, asked me, “Why are you stalking Natsumi? You’re a fan or something? Speak or we’ll call the teachers!”

I, still avoiding eye contact, feign silence. I do this to have a better awareness of my surroundings. I’ve been caught and I need to be able to defend myself.

Seeing that I’m being silent, the one who interrogated me, seemingly angrier than before, raised her voice, “Come on! There’s four of us! You can’t easily run away from us! We have you surrounded in every direction!”

Still looking down, I keep feigning silence and due to what my interrogator said, I’m surrounded. Since my interrogator is female, I can safely assume that the other two is female too. Well, I think this is the time to fight back, “Four of you? Heh, you’re all girls. How can you possibly overwhelm me?”

Another voice, a seemingly mature one, said, “How did you know we’re all girls? You’ve been closing your eyes and looking down the entire time!”

I didn’t say anything to reply her.

The mature voice owner only sighed and then the angry voice owner starts to talk again, “Look at people when they’re talking to you!” I responded to her demand with a chuckle, then the angry voice owner clicked her tongue.

A third voice, a seemingly shy one, said with a low voice, “Leave this to me…” Then proceeds to hit my head with a book. Feeling the pain, I immediately retorted and instinctively raised my head, “What was that for!?”

Feeling that I might be getting angry, the one who hit me jumps back behind someone with a cherry blossom hair. Ah, it’s her… Wait, her hairstyle is now tied into side ponytail. Why did she change her hairstyle again?

Wait a minute, after I took a closer look, every single girl who surrounded me has Mysterious Cherry Blossom Girl’s hair color! And the same lavender eyes! Even their face structure is the same! I immediately retorted, “There are four of you!?”

The mature voice owner, who had a fluffy ponytail, said, “Well, yes, duh. You said it yourself.” Then sighed. The angry voice owner, who had the side ponytail, grabbed my collar and said, “You finally opened your eyes! Now fess up!”

Ignoring the angry-voiced girl, I look around to find the twintails-only girl whom they call “Natsumi”. After I find her, I immediately ask her, “Hey, can you speak?” “Natsumi” hesitated for a while, but finally responds, “Yes…” I sighed, then said, “All of you can talk!?”

The mature-voice owner answered my weird question, “Is it that strange to hear someone’s voice?”

“No, no. I’m sorry, that was quite strange. Please forget that,” I said as I let out a disappointed sigh.

Hearing my sigh, the angry-voiced girl shakes me and said, “Don’t you dare ignore me! Fess up now!”

I shook off the angry-voiced girl’s grip on my collar and looked at her with a menacing gaze, “If you want me to talk, untie me and answer my question first.”

Every girl present hesitated on my demand at first. But “Natsumi” untied me and said, “I’m sorry for my sisters’ behavior, please forgive them…”

“Sisters?” I asked while checking my wrists, searching for bruises.

“Yes. Four of us here are sisters. Is that weird?”

“Weird? Not at all, quadruplets are common, after all… Well not! You’re seriously saying that you four are sisters?”

The angry-voiced girl, grumpily answered, “Why does that matter to you!?”

“Well, I’m sorry for asking. But can I ask something?”

The mature-voiced girl replied to my question, “And what is it?”

“Did any of you go to an amusement park yesterday?”

Hearing my question, the sisters looked panicked at first then all of them replied with a nod. Seeing that all of them nodded, I scratched my head then closed my eyes with my palm, then desperately asked, “Do you have another sister?” The sisters looked at each other for a while then shakes their head.

I let out a big sigh. So, the Mysterious Cherry Blossom Girl might be one of these girls. But how do I point her out? I can’t be making mistakes now! But I don’t have any clue on her real identity! Let’s just call this off for now…

The angry-voiced girl asked, “If you’re done asking questions, now answer our question!”

“That’s the deal. Ask away then.”

The angry-voiced girl clicked her tongue, then asked, “Why are you following Natsumi!?”

“I’m intrigued with her.”

“Do you think you can get away with this!?”

“Perhaps. But for convenience, I decided not to.”

“Can we even trust you!?”

“I don’t expect you to trust me.”

Since I answered her with a quite short and simple answers, I might’ve triggered something within the angry-voiced girl as she clicked her tongue after she’s out of questions. After the angry-voiced girl backs down, “Natsumi” asked me, “Um, did you say that you are intrigued with me?”

I looked at her, then responded, “Yeah...”

“Why is that?”

While hesitating at first, I answered her question while scratching my head, “You resembled a girl that I’m interested with, so I thought you might be her…”

Hearing my answer, “Natsumi” stayed silent for a moment then clasped her hands and said, “Oh, so that’s why! I thought you were following me since you had some bad idea. Guess my sisters were wrong after all!”

The mature-voiced girl, who was watching for a while, said, “If you were interested with a girl, following her is a big no-no, uh…, what’s your name?”

When I’m going to introduce myself, the angry-voiced girl interrupted me, “Kazuki Shikishima… You’re quite famous here…”

“Natsumi”, having learned my name, introduced herself, “Kazuki Shikishima, huh… My name is Natsumi Setsunazaki, glad to be acquainted! As you already know, us four here are sisters.”

“Natsumi Setsunazaki, huh… Nice to meet you… Then who are the rest of you?”

The mature-voiced girl replied, “Fuyuha!” Followed by the shy girl, “Haruna…” The last girl, the angry-voiced girl, refused to speak, but Fuyuha pinched her cheeks and said, “Come on, Aki-chan! Don’t be so rude to him!”

“Aki-chan” shoved Fuyuha’s hand but still refused to speak. Fuyuha sighed then speaks on her behalf, “This girl’s Akino. She sometimes has trouble with speaking honestly, but she’s a kind girl. Please forgive her.”

Having been told her name, Akino retorted to Fuyuha, “Wha—! Fuyuha! Don’t tell that stalker my name! Also, why are you girls acted so buddy-buddy with him?”

Fuyuha replied to Akino’s retort, “But you refused to speak to him. So I took the liberty of introducing you to him!” Akino let out an angry screech then points at me, “And you! Don’t think for a second that we are friends!”

“I also think that I wouldn’t get along with you.”

“What’s with this guy!? That’s it! I’m out!” Akino shouted then grumpily walks away.

After Akino walked away, the school bell is ringing, signaling the end of break time. Natsumi, hearing the bell, said as she left with Fuyuha and Haruna, “Well, we’ll be seeing you around then, Shikishima-kun!”

Quadruplets, huh… It’ll be hard to differentiate them based on their appearance. And Mysterious Cherry Blossom Girl might be one of them. For now, I need to gather clues then point her out.

By the way, I think I forgot something. Well, maybe it’s not important, so let’s just leave it be…