Plannin' Summer

In all honesty, the last week of school was a waste of time. Teachers knew students were burnt out from exams, especially ones with post-exam anxiety and stress, so they chose to not teach any new material. Most students were absent, since there was zero point in being present for eight hours doing nothing. Despite all that, I enjoyed these eight hours of nothingness, since I didn't spend them alone.

Mitoma-kun and I conversed for the better part of each class period. I took part in the conversations revolving around Karuta, whereas any other sport or topic was carried by him. At lunch, the two of us would meet with the girls at the central courtyard. I felt lingering stares from students who remembered what happened to me at this location, but the real damage had already moved away, so there was no point letting the past linger on.

Sports and music clubs practiced for upcoming summer tournaments, which meant Mitoma-kun and Natsu-san weren't present at all after school. The club president was with us to water the plants, but also left early for personal reasons. For the entire week, Rossi-chan and I practically had the clubroom to ourselves.

On the interactive whiteboard was a list of all the club members and their placement in the final exams:

1st-Year                                                        2nd-Year
Yuri Rossi: 1/198                                      Natsu Hanayo: 7/208
Natsu Hanamaru: 67/198                                                             
Mitoma Atsui: 66/198                                                                    
Kiyoshi Verano: 77/198                                                                 

Rossi-chan stood astute with the club's tablet and a laser-pointer in her hands. After tapping a few buttons, the whiteboard's display changed and she said,
"Okay Verano-kun, let's discuss... 'Operation Sprechchor!' Yay! Clap, clap, clap, clap!"
She couldn't physically clap with her hands full.

I sat on the tatami mat with my legs and arms crossed, and my head nearly horizontal as I furrowed my brow in confusion.
"Is the second word even a word...or did you make it up?"

"Every word you've ever heard is made up, silly. And yes, it's a word. It means 'chorus' in German. Not 'chorus' as in part of a song, but as in 'unison of voices.' Since we're making a new meaning for the butterfly weed via poem, we'll have to be connected with our voices. So, what do you think? You like it? I like it...a lot. Fufu!"

She was as giddy as a cat with the zoomies. If I had that laser-pointer in my hands, I bet I could get her to chase after the red dot with how ecstatic and energized she was. Her enthusiastic smile rubbed off on me as I approved of the name and method of cooperation between us. She was in charge of all of everything, I was just there to nod my head up and down.

She was on the seventeenth slide of her presentation.
"Firstly, I was thinking of sharing contact information. I know you have a flip-phone, so LINE's out of the question, but we can still email and call each other like normal. On screen, you can see my email address."

I raised my hand, waiting to be called on.
"Um, teacher," I played along with her persona. "When did you make your address? 'WhitelilyPixie' doesn't seem like somethin' you came up with upon enterin' high school."

"B-Be quiet!" she shouted almost immediately.
She turned her back towards me as she haphazardly juggled the tablet and laser-pointer to switch to the next slide. That slide displayed her phone number.
"Ahem. As I was saying, we'll text through email, but we should also call each other as an alternative to texting."

I added her number to my contacts, she'd be the third contact in the book.

"Next, we should discuss a place to meet up."

"M-Meet up?"

She shook head affirmatively.
"The best way to research is by being connected to the sources. We're going to be focused on flowers, so I'd like to go to places with flowers. Parks, gardens, even the average sidewalk has flowerbeds planted inside them. I also want to get you familiar with flowers and their meanings, so we can derive from them to make a new one."

"So, you'll be bringin' along your calendar and showin' me around? It's like bird-watchin, but for flowers."

She thrusted her arm forward and displayed a thumbs up.
"Good job! Now you're getting into it!"

"No I'm not––"

"So the meeting point! My parents don't allow boys in my house, so I can't show you the garden I have besides pictures. From what I've heard, you live quite far north as well, correct? In that case, we should find a location to meet up. Sometimes I want to bring Hanamaru-chan with us, and I'm sure Atsui-kun would love to join as well, so maybe a park would be nice? Wh-What do you think?"

"Perfect," I responded. "I know the place."
I stood up and walked towards the whiteboard.

Rossi-chan appeared perplexed, and with good reason. I exited her slideshow presentation and loaded up the search engine to pull up a map of Kyoto. I zoomed in towards the right where our location was, and further south was the location I had in mind. When she saw it, her eyes lit up like a red giant star. Her lips were radiant like her eyes, and they were infectious enough to cause one to appear on my face too.

"Perfect, very perfect," she sounded quite chirpy. "Then the last thing left to do is scheduling."

"Lass, I'm free every day of summer."

"Pfft–– Ahem!"
She developed a strained cough.

"Did you just laugh at my lack of summer plans? You did, didn't you?"

"N-No, no. Th-There's something in my throat, sorry. A-Anyways, yes, scheduling. I don't make plans with my other friends ahead of time, since most are impulsive and like to do things so suddenly. So I was thinking we make a schedule now, and if any of our friends want to hang out, then we can work around us."

"I'm not forgettin' that you mocked me like that. How strict are your parents with you leavin' the house? I'm sure your dad would rather you be home studyin' for his business or whatever than goin' out all the time."

"That may've been the case if I didn't make a deal with him early on in the semester."
She piqued my interest.
"We agreed that if I placed first in midterms and final exams for the first semester, I could spend the summer doing what I'd like. He was never going to force me to study his business, and I will still study it this summer, but as I said, that schedule will work around us."

Unexpectedly, the door opened, and the two of us inside turned towards it like owls. It was Hanayo-senpai.

"Ah, Yu-chan! Perfect, can I talk with ya outside? I need to show ya something I discovered on my laptop!"

"O-Oh, okay!"
Rossi-chan turned towards me.
"Be right back," she whispered. Returning to Hanayo-senpai, she said, "What is it?"

"There's this feature I found out as club president. Look, you see this..."

Aaaaand, they left.

With that cleared and sheared, we found it easy to make a schedule. We didn't plan an itinerary and weren't really specific on dates, but we agreed to meet at least twice a week. Our first meeting was the first day of summer break: Saturday, July 15th. That was two days away from a somewhat important date, though I didn't feel the need to discuss it with anyone.

In my futon the night before, I laid awake staring at the same ceiling I always stared at. That time was different, since I pretended it was a theater movie screen with my eyes as the projector. I couldn't sleep because I watched a movie of her. Every time I looked at her, plus every time I wanted to look at her. It all began with a calendar in the garden, and that was the moment I replayed the most, along with my first time seeing her.

➼ ➼ ➼

It was that calendar in the middle of the school's isolated flower garden that led me to walk towards the agreed location on that Saturday morning. I'd been there many times before, but that was the first time I'd be there with her.

First of many.