Planning an outing

"Good luck at school today, Souma." Mom smiled at me meekly before I left for the day.

Sadness doesn't go away when we find new things to do. It comes back when we try to rest for the day, and it doesn't let us sleep at night. What a horrible thing... to feel so upset about events that you have no control over.

Shimizu— well, he kept insisting I call him casually— Hikari, made me think. He made me think about a lot of things I wasn't paying attention to earlier. Saeko must have had friends in her university. She must've left behind unfinished things, maybe assignments or something. Whatever college students do, or maybe she had hobbies I didn't see at home.

But before all of that, I needed to figure out one most important thing. Just why does Hikari know my sister at all? I kept thinking while walking towards my class.

"Oh, Souma, you're here pretty early." Hikari looked up from his phone.

"Why is he here already?" I immediately turned to Yamato for answers, who only laughed awkwardly.

"Well, you see..." Yamato starts, "He said you two became great friends yesterday whichItotallydontbelieveknowingyourpersonality- but! It's not like he's doing anything bad."

I sighed deeply, "What do you want now?"

He looked up from his phone again. "You're not in any clubs, right? If you have to stay after classes end, it'll be very annoying, you know?" He looked out of the window before continuing. "The weather is clear these days, lucky!"

Yamato suddenly perked up with interest. "What? what? You guys are planning a trip or something? But Hikari, I really don't think Souma is up for it..." Right, Yamato was being considerate again.

"It's fine Yamato, he knows about Saeko." He made a shocked noise. "I was thinking of checking out her university a little bit, and it was his idea. And you," I turned to face Hikari. "Why do you keep following me? Don't you have your own friends in your class?"

"I don't have any." He said with a smile. That can't be true. He continued talking. "You don't have to worry, Souma, I have all the time on my hands. We can go whenever you want to! I'm not against skipping school either, though I'd get in trouble for that."

"We're not skipping school. And not today, her college is far so it'll be nighttime by the time we return. I don't know about you, but I'll have to ask my Dad before I travel that far by myself."

"Then, how about the weekend? We'll get all the time we need." He tilted his head to the side.

"Are you stupid?" I put one hand against my forehead. "What's the point of going there if none of the students are there? I don't think they even open the gates on Sundays."

We bantered there a little and Yamato kept staring. The school bell rang, "Ehh, I need to run to the end of the hallway!" Hikari placed his hand on my shoulder and nodded. Then he ran out and I'm sure I heard a teacher yell at him for running in the hallways.

"He'll be back here during lunchtime, won't he?" Yamato asked.

"Probably." I sighed, "I have no idea who he is. But he suddenly shows up to the funeral and then acts as if we're friends. It's weird, right? I shouldn't talk to him just because he's acting so suspicious."

"But Souma, I think he's a funny guy. And he's got no social cues at all! He didn't even acknowledge my presence, how rude!" Yamato made a fake crying sound. "Still, if he's taking care of you then I don't mind at all."

"Taking care? He's only being absurd." I scoffed and turned to look away.

"Going to her campus would make you feel better, right? I couldn't think of anything to help you out, you know. I thought, maybe giving you some space would help you clear your mind... but I guess you're not the type to forget it. You want to face it head-on."

He... was really worried about me, huh? I didn't want him to see my expression so I pretended to look outside the window and hid my face behind my sleeve. "The teacher sure is late today."

The weather is nice these days... I shouldn't delay it much since I agreed.

There were many things about my sister that I never bothered to know about. One new thing I found out recently, is that she was associated with Hikari Shimizu somehow. He's not at the age to casually become friends with her, and definitely not old enough to have been dating her. I'd be pretty grossed out if that turned out to be true.

After talking to Hikari some more, I realized the guy is an actual moron. I didn't know much about criminology, but stalkers, kidnappers or serial killers are supposed to be geniuses. They need to deceive the police, hide evidence and all that, for which they'd have to be smart.

I very reluctantly exchanged mail ID with him and he left no occasion to text me something stupid. The first few texts went like this:

       //You know, Souma, at first I was going to put up a disguise and sneak in there.//

          /Do you want to look suspicious in every situation possible?/

       //What's the point of an investigation if we don't even have disguises?//

He definitely doesn't have the mind of a stalker.

I saw him sitting on the staircase and his attention wasn't on me. It could've been the perfect moment to run past and avoid him, but... I talked to him first, "Hey," He looked up, "I need to know where you live, and how many trains we'll have to take. Saeko was doing her major in economics, and I know she had an important class on Monday. So let's go next Monday. More students will show up if the class is important."

He didn't say anything and kept staring. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing, just..." He looked up, turned his eyes sideways and wasted a few seconds, "For someone who keeps crying about how little he knows about her, you sure know a lot." I couldn't think of what to say after that. He keeps saying things that I can't respond to. But, it's sort of nice.

"Souma, I just remembered something! I told you to call me by my name, and you haven't said it once. Say it now."

"What? No— That's not even important—"

"It's very easy, Hi— Ka— Ri—! In fact, my Mom didn't have any creative names, probably. But, you need to get used to it, Souma, or people will think I'm harassing you." You are doing exactly that.

"You don't need to be so serious about things like this... Hikari." That was sort of embarrassing.

"That's right, that's right. That's how you do it." He smiled sheepishly.