The Echoes of Spring

It was nice outside, the sun shone down on me and the birds happily sang songs of spring. The walk to school was always way too long, and today was no different. I fiddled with my backpack trying to rest my shoulders from the encumbering weight of all of the books and other materials inside it, removing one strap every few minutes and stopping along the way to catch my breath. All sorts of people walked past me with hurried looks on their faces oozing with stress and worry, but I never understood their feelings. Why bother getting so stressed out over what happens in life when it's so short anyways?

I strolled along the sidewalk wearing my usual white shirt and dark blue jeans, the cars next to me on the street created a cacophony of motor sounds and honks that filled the air along with plumes of smoke that made my eyes water for just a moment. The highschool I went to was only two blocks away from San'ya in Tokyo which was remarkably unremarkable. It was the type of place where no shops opened and where nobody hung out at, it was the definition of a derelict ghost town. Which is why the sight of a lonely girl with two speakers next to her holding a red guitar intrigued me so much. She was standing in front of a microphone that was shoddily held together by some duct tape while the sunlight from the now fully risen sun reflected off the metal strings of her guitar, blocking my vision as the crowd of people walking past her shielded her from my gaze.

Hesitantly I approached the rag tag musical equipment, making sure not to stand out and positioned myself a few feet away from her, curious as to what type of show she'd be putting on. Her two speakers were decrepit and at least ten years old while her guitar was visibly worn and very used. She had dawned on a mask that covered most of her face except for her stunning eyes and small specks of glitter that she had scattered across the sides of her nose and forehead. The people next to us continued walking, almost ignoring the girl, taking small glances at her, determining that she wasn’t worth their time and looking back down at their phones. Some didn’t even look up, nearly missing the equipment on the ground. But none of this seemed to bother the girl. She just continued plugging in the wires from her guitar to the amp and then stood up, fixed her gaze down at the guitar hanging down her chest and strummed the pick in her right hand down towards it.

A high pitched sound escaped from the speakers which caught the attention of some of the passersby on the sidewalk prompting them to look at the pretty girl, she immediately continued playing, this time much faster and with much more skill. A pleasant melody now emerged from her guitar, the few people that had stopped, accepting the fact of her existence continued walking, but before they could distance themselves away from her she approached the microphone, placed her mouth right up against it and started singing. Singing about the colors of the sky at sunset, the chilly wind that blows the leaves away in the beautiful spring, and the pleasant sunlight against her own skin in the summer. Her voice was fragile and soft, almost cracking when she reached the higher notes, but all of it put together was simply majestic. I leaned forward, drawn in by her sound, the sound of an angel standing right there in front of me.

It felt like hours had passed of me standing there, enjoying her song, enjoying her whole being until the performance suddenly came to an end. She moved back away from the microphone and bowed. There was nobody else there to bow to except for me, when she looked up we made eye contact, and my god were her eyes beautiful. Being a bit flustered, I looked down at my shoes, when I finally looked back up again she was already packing her things up and getting ready to leave. The time had gotten pretty late and I was already going to be tardy to my first period class so I put my heavy backpack on again and looked at her one last time while I started quickly running towards the direction of the school.

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The outside courtyard of the school was completely empty, a few birds stood around poking at the ground searching for food while the wind blew past the leaves on the trees, creating a lovely chime. I made my way to class as fast as possible, almost running at places, but being extra cautious not to make any noise with my shoes grinding against the polished floor.

I knocked at the door of my Mathematics classroom and quietly waited for a signal to come in. The teacher acknowledging my presence welcomed me in, I hastily opened the door, bowed and made my way to my seat that was located on the far left end of the room next to the windows.

The lesson wasn't anything to write home about and as I discovered later I hadn't missed much except for a few equations that I could easily search up online. Settling in, I pulled out my thick notebook and opened it on a random page, skipping past my many doodles and drawings that I had plastered on many of its pages.

"Can you show me the notes from earlier Takahashi?" I quietly whispered to the guy sitting in front of me. He didn't respond. "Yo, are you there?" I tapped at the side of his shoulders to further indicate my desperation. He begrudgingly looked back at me, giving me a side eye, and after staring directly into my soul, he ripped out a page from his notebook and passed it back to me for me to copy off of. The moment I got a hold of the thin and brittle piece of paper the teacher looked back from the blackboard that was fully covered with white chalk and all kinds of Greek letters forced into impossible to understand equations and raised his voice.

"Mashimo, Takashi, what are you doing?" Mr Kaito spoke with his usual angry tone and deep voice that always gave me the creeps which made me flinch a little. Takashi froze in place not knowing what to do while I looked around the room vying for any way to get out of this mess. "I won't ask you two again, if you don't answer me you can expect a call home and a visit to the principal's office."

Sweat had begun to build up on my brow and the backside of my neck. The moment I was about to open my mouth the wooden door of the classroom opened, ending the awkward silence. A female figure walked in, bowed and stood at the front of the class looking directly at the teacher. Mr Kaito, who was visibly upset that someone had interrupted his lecture, looked down at the girl before smiling. “I almost forgot, we have a new transfer student joining us today from… Miyazaki prefecture, isn't that right?” The girl nodded and walked up to the front of the classroom and announced her name.

"My name is Mizuhara, I am a transfer student from Miyazaki prefecture, nice to meet you all." Her voice sounded oddly familiar, too familiar, in fact it had the exact cadence and rhythm to the girl that was singing outside earlier. She was even wearing the same clothes, there was no doubt about it, that girl was our new transfer student here.