Sea of Cirrus

Alto continues his run across the hallways after he gets to the first floor, his sweat gets everywhere and among the student in the hallways, but he still can’t find her and in the corner of his eye, he finds a female teacher coming out of the principal office putting a gaze at him.

“No running on the hallways young man!”

「Ah! I’m sorry ma’am!」He was startled as she shouted at him, and he slowed down his step until he stopped from exhaustion just beside the large windows on the side of the corridor.

As he finishes his sentence, he heard the same chirps from the sparrow before, he looks up to the window and notices an extensive filament that has a silky- very delicate texture to it, grouped together and forming a white sheet that covers the whole sky. It’s a long strand of the cloud named Cirrus.

They looked like Sana’s hair… He then looked around once again and it doesn’t look like he can see her anywhere.

Defeated, Alto sighed and decided to go to the school’s canteen to get himself some food. Taking a short walk outside, he looks around the compound to see if there was any sight of her and of course, it was all just snow all around the courtyard, not to mention the tree are also covered with snow with a weirdly warm air that came from the sunlight, accompanied by the chuckles of a seagull from the Otaru port that flew pass him.

Joining the line with the other student, he kept looking around to see if she is around, and still, to no luck he arrived in front of the canteen’s display cabinet that are filled to the brim with various snacks. Though there is one among the crowd that caught his eye, he took a glance at a row of melon breads that has a particular shape…

Is that…a bunny ear…?

…

That’s…actually pretty adorable…

He grunted, it is as if the melon bread were taunting him with its cuteness. Was it their mouth that is made out of chocolate sauce that looks like the “W” alphabet? Or a big blob of chocolate sauce topped with a drop of vanilla sauce as their eyes? Or is it especially their long bunny ear? The answer is all of them, Alto is weak with good-looking food and silly, cute things, and the melon bread checks both of that boxes out.

…wouldn’t hurt right? He looks around the canteen before gulping and letting out a blush, not noticing that he was already in front of the canteen lady.

“So…are you going to keep staring at the melon bread?”

「Ah! Well…」flustered, he tried to get a hang of himself by getting his wallet out of his pocket, then before he tells the lady what he wanted, he remembers Sana once again.

Maybe…I can share this with her….

「I’ll take two of the melon bread please!」he shows the canteen lady a peace sign, or accurately, he will take two of the melon bread. Looking at him before taking the melon bread, she eventually gave Alto what he wanted.

After he gave her the money, he takes both of the melon bread and holds it in his right hand before he goes to look for Sana again. After he scanned the whole canteen and found no trace of her, he look for the outside as there are quite a handful of students hanging out there, probably because of the warm weather he felt earlier.

A breeze of cold air greets him after he gets out of the building, followed by the warm sunlight from before and the sight of a vast blue sky littered with a stroke of white, a messy masterpiece from long strands of feathery ice crystal, it was much more than what Alto sees from that small window earlier. His blue eyes sparkle as they reflected the sight of the skies above, he then came back to his senses when a deafening chirp flew right past him.

…there she is.

From afar, he saw a group of girls chit-chatting while looking over the baseball field behind the metal fences. Apparently, they’re watching a baseball match between the boys from class F and class A, from the fact that he saw Yamada holding the bat. Among the group, he saw similar strands of white, it was as if it was brought back down to the earth while it waved softly from the gentle winter breeze, she was smiling and giggling.

Looking down at the melon bread he bought, he blinked slowly and lowers his eyebrows while his pupil seems to be drooping. His grip on the melon bread seems to be tightening just as his chest is right now, and he suddenly felt like the air around him started to get cramped as the sun are blocked by the thin cirrus clouds.

…why did I think that she was also a loner just like me?

As the sunlight comes back again from the cloud’s shade, Sana’s friend left her alone to watch over an empty cooler box while they came back to get more water from their class.

『...ah』she breathes out and lets water vapor out from her mouth before sitting on top of the cooler box.

『I’m tired…』she whimpered before burying her own head into her skirt.

…

The corridor echoed with his footstep as Alto is walking back to his class while eating the bunny ear melon bread that he bought earlier. Sliding his classroom door wide open, he saw Umi that are working on her notebook, she seems to be struggling with it so he leaned in closer to see what she was working on.

「What is it this time?」

“E-eh!- God you startled me!”

「Ah, sorry.」Alto then sits beside her while munching on the melon bread which makes Umi stares at the cute-looking melon bread that he’s holding.

“Is that…bunny ear?”

「Yeah, I actually got two. Do you want it?」out of nowhere, Alto showed her the second melon bread with all of its features in full display which makes Umi's eye sparkle.

“Sure…-woah! It’s so freakin’ cute! Where did you get it from?” she immediately grabbed it and looks at it closely.

「The canteen, of course, they are 250 yen each.」

“T-two hundred!- yen-?”

「It’s alright, you can have it. Besides, it’s already so fulfilling you know?」

“I-i see, thanks for this one really.”

「No worries, you’re working hard on…isn’t this our chemistry exam?」

“It is, I got a remedial and she got me to redo the entire exam in which I failed at.”

「Jeez…that’s tough, I think I also barely passed this one」

“Even YOU barely made it, just goes to tell how hard the exam is”

「Uh…yeah it is such a handful, especially since the last 10 questions are…actually on the last chapter of the chemistry book she told us to read because it has a good practice problem and stuff…」

“Huh? It was and you have read it?”

「Yeah, but she never bothered to give us a lecture on that one so I thought it won’t come out but it did.」

“Gosh…I swear to god she’s weird af…But did you actually figure out how to name these alkenes and stuff?”

「Not yet…I was focused on the other material for the exam-」

“Hehehe”

「What…?」

“You know…if you learn that and practice with these problems, wouldn’t you be set on for the college exam later?”

…she wanted me to teach her…

「Haha, it’s alright I can always learn that material later. Do you need a perfect score for a remedial, that badly? What a pushover…」

“Huh!? You’re the one who is a pushover! ‘Just do what you can” my ass! You write two whole pages of Japan’s history even though we are only asked to do the main idea of it!”

「...no? I didn’t?」

“I saw your answer sheet goddammit! Come on…just this once!”

「Haha, do you think that's enough to convince me?」

"Come onnnnnnn!- the deadline is like superrr close!"

「...hmm」

… I thought it won't hurt, it's going to be on the college exam anyways…but…

「Sure thing…though I have to go to the library first, I’ll teach you about it tomorrow.」

“Let’s gooo!!! Thanks a lot! You’re so easy to convince Mr. Pushover! ”

「I’m not a pushover!」

…at least that would clear off another material for the college exam, I don’t have to worry about it.

Eh… but which college am I going anyway…?

…

…and the fact that Sana is…can I even meet her face to face if she’s always with the other? Asking for her number straight away is hella awkward as well…

Good god… there are just too many things going on in my mind right now…

The school bell rang once again as the break time are over.