Chapter 2: By the Time They Realized, It Had Already Begun

Chapter 2: By the Time They Realized, It Had Already Begun

“Go on, now. And make sure you pay attention in class, you hear me?”

“Have a good day, Taichi!”

“The same goes for you, Rina! Save the chitchat and run along to school!”

“Okaaaay...”

And so, with his family’s cheerful voices at his back, Taichi headed off to Yamaboshi. This time he wasn’t lucky enough to encounter any friends on the way there, but he arrived safely nonetheless.

When he stepped into the classroom, however, he caught sight of Kurihara Yukina and was reminded of how unwell she had seemed yesterday. At least she hadn’t called in sick today, but still... He wanted to ask her how she was feeling, but she was on the phone with someone.

“I’m telling you, you have nothing to worry about. Just come to school and we’ll talk about it in person, okay? Bye.” She hung up the phone and let out an aggravated sigh.

Before Taichi could walk over to her, however, Kiriyama hastily cut in. “Hey, are you okay?!”

“Settle down, would you? It’s 8 AM. And I’m fine.”

“Morning, you two. How are you feeling?”

“Morning, Taichi.”

“Morning, Yaegashi. Even you’re worried about me now?”

“Of course I am! You really scared us.”

“Okay, well, I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up: I’m as fit as a fiddle.”

“You sure? You’re not lying to us, are you? Because you literally passed out yesterday!”

“I did not pass out! I just came really close, that’s all. Why would I lie to you?” Kurihara replied with a grin, as if to allay Kiriyama’s worries by emphasizing her own good mood.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re doing better—”

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!”

Out of nowhere, Kurihara let out a scream and tumbled out of her chair to the floor.

Taichi failed to process this. “Huh?”

“Yukina?!” Startled, Kiriyama hastily offered her a hand to help her up—

“No!”

—but Kurihara flinched away. Almost like she was afraid of Kiriyama.

“Yukina, what’s the matter with you?! Tell me what’s wrong!” Kiriyama shrieked in a panic. And after the past two days, Taichi could only imagine how concerned she must have felt for her best friend.

“What... what’s...?” Kurihara stammered deliriously as she stared around the room.

Meanwhile, the commotion had drawn attention from their other classmates.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“You okay?”

“Wait, what happened?”

Then Kurihara turned back to Taichi and Kiriyama.

“No... NOOOO!” she screamed uncontrollably. Then she leapt to her feet and bolted from the room.

“Yukina, wait!” Kiriyama yelled as she gave chase.

In her wake, hushed whispers broke out all around the classroom.

“Is she okay?”

“What was that about...?”

In the end, Kurihara returned to the classroom partway through first period, accompanied by Kiriyama. Once class was over, Taichi (and several others) approached her.

“I heard you weren’t doing too hot this morning, Yukina-chan. What happened?” asked Nagase, her tone carefully balanced somewhere between lighthearted and serious.

“Oh, um... Yeah, I was really out of it,” Kurihara replied, her face pale, her smile stiff.

Talk about an understatement.

“Maybe you should go home for the day,” someone else suggested.

“Yeah, you should rest up so you’ll have the energy to sit through finals week,” a third chimed in.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry for scaring you, but I’m better now, and I’m ready for the rest of the day,” Kurihara insisted, dropping her textbook onto her desk with a firm thump, as if to say this conversation is over now.

Third period was scheduled to be held in a different classroom, so after second period ended, Taichi, Nagase, Kiriyama, and the rest of the class headed out into the hallway.

“I’m getting kinda worried about Yukina-chan,” Nagase mumbled quietly. The girl in question had left the classroom ahead of them, accompanied by some other friends.

“Something’s definitely going on with her,” Taichi replied. Not that there was much he could do about it, of course, but it still weighed on his mind.

“This morning she was trying to hide out in the girls’ bathroom, so I took her to the nurse’s office instead, and like... she was totally zoned out. Like, that’s not normal,” said Kiriyama, her brow furrowed.

“Well, this is Yukina-chan we’re talking about, so I’m guessing we can cross ‘too much studying’ off the list,” Nagase mused in a half-joking tone.

Just then, screams broke out somewhere up ahead, and Taichi’s heart nearly stopped. Startled, he looked in the direction of the sound.

There were two girls standing there—Taichi recognized them as fellow second-years, but they were from a different class, and he didn’t know their names off the top of his head. They looked at each other... then looked at the three members of the CRC... then back at each other.

“Hey, uh... what’s wrong?” Nagase asked—and a split-second later, the two girls scrambled into a dash with looks of terror etched onto their faces.

“Wh-... what was that about?!” Kiriyama glanced over her shoulder and peered around the hallway.

“More importantly... why did they seem like they were kind of... scared of us?” Taichi asked as the thought occurred to him. That was the sense he got, at least.

“Why would they be? What did we ever do to them? Those girls were from the track team, right? From Class 2-A?” asked Nagase.

“Honestly, I haven’t really talked to them much...” Then Kiriyama looked up as a certain realization hit her. “Wait, but... Didn’t Yukina seem kind of scared, too? She looked at us and screamed!”

“Are we causing this somehow? If so, then how? I can’t think of any reason why... except maybe...”

If something out of the ordinary was happening, well... they certainly knew of one particular entity that could be behind it. But... it had promised them it would never show itself again.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Taichi offered, attempting to stay optimistic. “Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“True...”

“Yeah, that could be it...”

The two girls nodded thoughtfully.

“Anyway, we’re gonna be late, so let’s book it!”

“Ack! You’re right!”

And so, with Nagase leading the way, the three of them hurried down the hall.

They had witnessed abnormal occurrences two days in a row now. But was the source purely external? Or... could they be somehow responsible? What if they were unknowingly sowing the seeds of disaster everywhere they went? The thought was terrifying.

Halfway there, they passed by two male students in the middle of a conversation. And since Taichi was now hyper-conscious of everyone, his gaze naturally drifted to them.

“——”

“——”

Apparently they were having a private chat. He could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. In fact, he couldn’t hear their voices at all... not even as he passed them at point-blank range.

What the? Confused, Taichi came to a stop.

The boys weren’t covering their mouths or anything; on the contrary, they were talking like they had nothing to hide. So why couldn’t he hear their voices? Were they just mouthing the words or something...?

“Pretty crazy, huh?”

“Yeah, dude, it’s insane! ...Huh? Did you need something?” One of the guys looked over and met Taichi’s gaze.

“Oh! No, sorry.” With an awkward smile, he hurried after Nagase and Kiriyama.

At lunch, Taichi realized he had forgotten to bring his thermos from home, so he decided to pay a visit to the nearest vending machine. The heaters were always on full blast during the winter months, and similar to the blazing summer, the dry air had a way of making him thirsty.

As he headed down the hall, he randomly spotted Inaba up ahead, walking along with two of her other female friends. As she approached, she picked at her ear canal with one finger... and as her boyfriend, this was not the most attractive sight.

Then one of her friends spotted Taichi—“Oh!”—and consequently, so did Inaba. For some reason, she had a pronounced scowl on her face.

The two other girls exchanged a look... then nodded in perfect unison.

“Okay, well, the two of us had better get going!”

“Yeah, we gotta go do something else! Sorry!”

Barely concealing their knowing smirks with their hands, they hurried away.

“Ugh... This is why I don’t like bumping into you at school. Everyone starts mocking me.”

“Oh, please. They’re not mocking you.”

As an openly confirmed couple, they were occasionally subject to this sort of misplaced kindness from their friends.

“Good grief. Why are they so convinced that I constantly want to be alone with you at all hours of the day? Good grief, I tell you. Good grief.”

“They probably enjoy seeing that little smile you get on your face whenever you try to play it cool. You know, the one you’re wearing right now.”

“Hyah!” She karate-chopped him in the chest.

“Ouch!”

“I don’t need your rational analysis, okay?! I’m your girlfriend! If I’m smiling, then you should be smiling even harder!”

Unfortunately, that was a tall order; Taichi really couldn’t imagine himself grinning gleefully without it coming off as creepy.

“Well, I don’t want to hold you up if you were on your way somewhere.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I was just headed back to class.”

“Oh, okay. And also... please don’t pick your earwax in public. It’s gross.”

“I don’t do it all the time, alright? I’ve just been having trouble hearing people lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier there was this one guy whose voice I couldn’t hear at all for some reason... Does that make sense? Or to be more exact, there was an entire group of people, and I could hear everyone else, but not him.”

“Almost like he was just mouthing the words?”

“Yeah, exactly! You’re pretty quick on the uptake.”

“Actually... I had that happen to me recently, too.”

Was it just a coincidence, or... could there be some common cause?

“You did? Give me the details.”

In a blink, her expression hardened, and all cheer evaporated from the air.

As it turned out, Inaba had experienced the same bizarre “selective deafness” Taichi had, albeit with a different person.

Personally, Taichi wanted to believe they were just overthinking it, and even Inaba had conceded that “sometimes certain voices are harder to hear than others; you know, their pitch or whatever.” But there was also the incident with Kurihara to take into consideration, plus the two other girls... All these tiny oddities were starting to add up.

Add up to what, though? Wasn’t that supposed to be over now? Not that Taichi truly believed you-know-who was gone for good; he wanted to believe it, obviously, but at the same time, he wanted to be prepared for the worst case scenario, too. His desires were mutually exclusive.

For that matter, what about the people who experienced the phenomena before the CRC did? You-know-who did say they weren’t its first guinea pigs, right? So how did those people go back to their normal lives afterwards?

All this time, it never truly felt “over,” but soon, Taichi and the others would all have to come to terms with it. The story had ended, and now they needed to pen the epilogue. Everything that happened... Everything that changed... Everything they felt... They would have to find a way to carry it with them for the rest of their lives.

This idle train of thought came to a halt as he realized there were only fifteen minutes left until the final bell. The blackboard was now covered in chalk letters, and yet Taichi had barely copied more than the first line.

Next to him, Setouchi peered over at his notes and blinked in surprise. Then she tapped her notebook with her mechanical pencil and gave him a look that said want to borrow mine? Taichi smiled, shook his head, and held up a hand slightly to decline. No, he needed to take his own notes—no cutting corners. There was no point in worrying over a threat that might not actually exist.

His gaze wandered idly to Nagase and Kiriyama, both of them busily scribbling away. Seated ahead of them in a different row was none other than Kurihara Yukina. Their eyes met.

Kurihara flinched slightly, then immediately hung her head... as if to hide from his gaze.

After school, the five CRC second-years met up in the clubroom.

“Apparently, Chihiro and Shino are having a study session with their classmates,” Inaba informed the others.

“Interesting... Sounds like Chee-hee and Shino-chan have finally broken out of their little shells... Wait, why are they reporting their absences to you and not me?! I’m the president, dang it!” Nagase sniffled loudly and pretended to wipe away her tears.

Since finals were coming up, everyone pulled out their study materials—even Aoki, though the look on his face suggested he would rather be doing literally anything else.

And so the five of them scribbled in their notebooks, with some light conversation here and there.

“...Something’s been bothering me lately,” Taichi said finally, after debating whether to bring it up at all. Then he talked to them about Kurihara, about the other two girls from the track team, and finally, about the two boys whose conversation he was somehow physically unable to hear.

He wanted them to tell him he was overreacting—that he was just paranoid. Unfortunately, that was not what he got.

“Actually,” Inaba replied slowly, “you know, after I bumped into you at lunch... there was this first-year who came barreling at me down the hallway. He was completely out of control—like he was panicking about something.”

“Wait, what? So... did he crash into you or something?” Nagase asked.

“No, no. He came to a stop right in front of me and said ‘I didn’t mean to do that’ and ran off.”

“That’s, like, really weird,” Kiriyama mused, tilting her head with a pensive hand at her chin.

“Real talk, though, that reminds me... There was this moment where I made eye contact with Oosawa-san and she totally blew me off! Stared at the ground and ran away and everything!”

“Maybe she just doesn’t like you?”

“Hey! Be nice to your boyfriend, Yui! And for the record, normally she always smiles and asks me how things are going with you, so... I’m really not sure what I did to weird her out.”

“Sounds like things are weird all around. Scary,” Nagase commented brightly. “Me personally, I haven’t noticed anything. Well, except for the Yukina-chan thing. But we were all there for that.”

Unfortunately, her forced cheer rang hollow. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one was willing to say it out loud. Sure, maybe they were just paranoid, but... it felt like the mere act of putting it into words would subsequently make it real. Like some sort of jinx.

They told themselves it was all in the past... but they weren’t the ones who ended it, so they couldn’t rest easy.

“...A phenomenon?” Taichi muttered aloud.

He refused to say its name. One would think he’d have gotten over it by now, but to this day, the merest mention of a certain tropical plant was enough to make his pulse quicken.

At first, no one responded, and he wondered whether he should have waited.

“It said it was done with us. And it sounded pretty serious to me,” said Inaba. She was there with Taichi when «Heartseed» turned up to give its final farewell. “Not to suggest we should trust it, but... I’d like to watch and see for a bit longer.”

Inaba was always the de facto leader when it came to strategizing against the phenomena, and it was no mystery why. In Taichi’s view, she had the right idea... but on the other hand, he was concerned it was just an excuse to put their heads in the sand.

“But for now, let’s come up with a hypothesis. Supposing this was a phenomenon, what kind would it be? Again, purely hypothetical. Think of it as a creative exercise.”

Oh, now I get it, Taichi thought to himself. She’s striking a careful balance. Classic Inaba.

“R-Right. Hypothetical. Well, let’s think about it,” said Kiriyama. Her expression was stiff, but her voice was firm.

“Okie-dokie! My guess is it’s a ‘people randomly get scared of you for no reason’ phenomenon!” Aoki suggested eagerly, though his energy was a little forced.

“Just because Misaki-chan thinks you’re gross doesn’t mean something supernatural is causing it, Aoki.”

“Yui! I’m not making excuses, okay?! And she does not think I’m gross!”

“I definitely know what it’s like to have other people shrink away from you in fear. Nngh... I’m not sure I could handle it,” Nagase said with a grimace.

“Other people get scared of us... They fear us... And because they’re afraid, they lash out...?” Inaba mused. Clearly she was trying to find an explanation for why a first-year would randomly charge at her.

“Did it seem like he was going to attack you, Inaba? If so, then we’ll need to take precautions regardless,” said Taichi.

“It’s a hypothesis, dummy. I’m just considering all the possible interpretations.”

“Good gravy... Well, with a phenomenon like that, we might hypothetically need the couples to stay together at all times! For safety reasons! And since I’m the odd girl out, I can just follow along behind you and take notes!”

“Keep your fangirl fantasies to yourself, Nagase.”

“Oof! That one stung, Taichi!”

“Wait, but what about the ‘randomly going deaf’ issue?” asked Kiriyama.

“That could’ve just been a one-off thing,” Inaba replied.

“Yeah... It’s hard to see how selective deafness would relate back to other people fearing us.”

“There’s still a lot we don’t know,” Aoki murmured. “But then again, if we actually knew anything for real, then this hypothetical brainstorming would kinda stop being hypothetical, huh?”

He was right, of course.

“Alright then. As an experiment, let’s take it all into account,” said Inaba. “Since we’ve got ‘people fearing us’ and ‘muted voices,’ maybe the phenomenon’s about... I don’t know, ‘isolation from the world around us.’ Or if we add in ‘attempted assault,’ maybe it’s hostility from the world around us.”

At first it seemed absurd, but... the more Taichi ruminated on it, the more he started to come around. Sure, the phenomena may have started small, but over time they had steadily started to affect the world around them. Perhaps this was the logical next step.

“Was that too dark? I’m sorry,” Inaba said after the room fell into a contemplative silence.

“Don’t be! We’re just impressed how well you can put together all the pieces of the puzzle, Inaban.”

“There’s no puzzle. It’s just a... a creative exercise,” Inaba insisted.

Though whether to them or to herself, it wasn’t clear.

Once the conversation ended, the five friends went back to their studies... but it was blatantly obvious that no one could focus. After an apology for “needlessly scaring everyone,” Inaba suggested they all pack up and study at home instead. It was a bit too early to call it a day, but no one objected... so Taichi and the others headed out of the Rec Hall and across campus.

“Hey, don’t feel bad. One of us was going to have to say it eventually,” said Inaba in an attempt to console him.

“Yeah, I guess... Thanks for all your support today.”

“Likewise. Thanks to you, we had a good, productive discussion. You should be proud of that.”

Sometimes she wears the pants better than I do.

“Maaan, am I really gonna study when I get home? ’Cuz I feel like the answer is no...”

“Does anyone else, like, really hate spineless men, or is it just me?”

“On second thought, I’m gonna study!”

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re the best thing that ever happened to Aoki,” Nagase commented to Kiriyama. “But if you’re not careful, he might just outscore you.”

“That will not happen! If Aoki gets better grades than me, it’ll destroy the power balance in our relationship! I have to be superior or else I can’t lord it over him!”

This seemed like a fun conversation, so Taichi decided to join in. “Maybe Kiriyama’s just the motivation he needs to—”

“...You there...”

But then there was a voice.

An icy, inhuman voice that sounded like it wriggled up from the depths of hell itself.

Directly behind them.

Taichi knew he needed to turn around... and yet his body refused to budge. He didn’t need to see the owner of the voice—its presence had already ensnared his heart.

Move!

Slowly but surely, he turned his head. The rest of his body followed suit.

There stood a male student he didn’t recognize—maybe a first-year—staring at them with empty, lifeless eyes... and yet his gaze was palpably intent.

“So... you’re the ‘fascinating’ ones, hmm...?”

It was an ordinary boy who just happened to speak in an odd, sluggish manner.

Hah. Yeah, right. If only.

“So this is what «Heartseed» has left behind...”

As soon as it spoke that name, all doubt summarily vanished. This boy was possessed by someone—something—that knew about «Heartseed».

Once again, the five of them found themselves under the lens of a supernatural eye. And worse still, they had already come to expect this “plot twist” where they let their guard down only to learn their horrifying ordeal wasn’t over. It was stale.

“Wh-... Who the hell are you?” Inaba demanded, her voice wavering slightly.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, we’re going to worry about it,” Taichi shot back. For as interested as these entities were in human emotions and connections, they seemed to have next to no understanding of human nature.

“What do you want with us?” Nagase asked cautiously.

“Oh, I just wanted to get a closer look... That’s all...”

“That’s all?” Aoki pressed.

No reply. What was it after?

“Very well... Just one question...” Whoever it was, its manner of speaking was much more direct than «Heartseed» or «The Second». “What do you think of «Heartseed»?”

“...What do you mean?” Kiriyama asked, quietly puzzled.

Truth be told, there was a strange connection between the CRC and «Heartseed». But to put it into words... What came to mind the fastest was anger, resentment, hostility—and yet there was more to it than that. After having known it for as long as they had, there were some conflicting feelings at play that couldn’t be summed up in a single word. Not that they were by any means fond of it, but when you took into consideration what their lives would have been like without its meddling...

“On second thought... never mind. I’ll be going now,” it continued before any of them had the chance to respond—and a split-second later, the boy’s head slumped forward and he staggered sideways.

Fortunately, he managed to catch himself before he lost his balance completely. Then he looked up again.

“Hmm...? Wait... huh? What the... Oh, did you need something?” he asked the five older students standing in front of him. Now that the light had returned to his eyes, he seemed perfectly normal. Just another Yamaboshi student.

“...No, it’s nothing,” Taichi replied. Not like there was anything else he could say, really.

“Oh, okay. Well, see ya,” the boy muttered, perplexed. As he walked away, they could see him tilting his head in confusion.

“For the time being... let’s go back to the clubroom,” said Inaba.

Her voice was flat and emotionless.

■□■□■

And so the five second-years filed back into the clubroom and returned to the same seats they were sitting in just a few minutes prior.

“Well, that sure wasn’t «Heartseed»... and I get the feeling it wasn’t «The Second» either...?” Kiriyama asked, looking in Taichi’s direction for confirmation.

“No, that definitely wasn’t «The Second». It’s... something else. Something new.”

Though his interactions with «The Second» were few and far between, Taichi was still considered the most knowledgeable, since the others had barely spoken to it at all. And yes, he was confident that the entity they spoke to was not «The Second».

“Okay then... For our purposes, let’s call it... I don’t know, «The Third»?” Inaba suggested, since it hadn’t exactly introduced itself.

Yes, this wasn’t «Heartseed» or «The Second», but a new entity altogether. The question was: Would this otherworldly being reveal itself to them purely on a lark?

No. No way in hell. Its presence could only mean one thing. And in the end, it was Nagase who shouldered the burden of saying it out loud:

“They’re putting us through another phenomenon.”

“Either that, or they’re about to,” said Inaba with a sigh.

“Whenever somethin’ weird happens to us, it can only mean one thing,” Aoki nodded quietly, as though he’d resigned himself to his fate.

“«Heartseed» said it was done with us,” Kiriyama muttered, clutching the hem of her skirt until her knuckles went white. “But I guess... it never said anything about any of the others messing with us...”

In which case, depending on how many more of these supernatural beings were out there, they could spend their whole lives trapped between one phenomenon and the next.

Inaba exhaled heavily. “We can’t keep this shit a secret forever. Or are they trying to see how many hoops we can jump through before we finally break down?”

The scariest part? None of them could say for certain that «they» weren’t angling for precisely that.

“Someone’s gonna start to notice, whether we want them to or not,” said Taichi.

Considering how many phenomena «Heartseed» and its ilk had caused thus far, surely there had to be some reason why no one had found out about it. Or was this their first time experimenting on Yamaboshi students? Probably not, Taichi thought to himself. «Heartseed» had admitted to experimenting on others prior to meeting the CRC. And another thing: How exactly did it occupy its time between phenomena...?

“Well, I don’t see any reason to let it get us down,” said Nagase in a firm, yet cheerful voice, and Taichi found himself admiring the way she always managed to strike a careful balance between optimism and pessimism.

She was right, of course. He didn’t need to mourn their circumstances, but neither was he required to look upon them lightly. Instead, he needed to accept them as reality... and from there, he could be an active participant in the decision-making process with his own vision of the future.

Empowered by this new philosophy, Taichi declared: “Let’s beat them at their own game. And this time, we’ll end it for good.”

There was no telling what these beings might try to do to them. Each new phenomenon was ramping up the stakes higher and higher. And this time, they weren’t dealing with «Heartseed». But nonetheless...

“If we put our heads together, the five of us can accomplish anything.”

He was going to take an active role this time. He was going to carve the path forward.

“Or, at the very least, I think we should try.”

For once, he had made his personal opinion explicitly clear.

Aoki donned a goofy grin and held up a triumphant fist. “Business as usual!”

“You know, I’m getting sick of them underestimating us,” Kiriyama snorted, folding her arms.

“Folks, I don’t mind you psyching yourselves up as long as you’re confident you can handle it... Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you can handle it,” Inaba corrected herself, shaking her head in amusement.

“What about you, Inaba?” Taichi asked, concerned.

Inaba generally ended up in a leadership position, which meant her needs were often put last. Even she tended to forget she had needs. Hence, it was up to him to remember on her behalf.

“Eh, I’m fine. I’m just glad all five of us are on the same side for this one.”

The last phenomenon had caused a rift in their group, but Taichi wasn’t about to let that happen again. “This time we’ll talk it through like a team,” he declared firmly.

United, the five of them nodded in unison. Together they were unstoppable—

“If only we actually knew what we were fighting...”

“Dude, Taichi, don’t ruin it! Be a man! Hold your head up high and say ‘bring it on’!” Aoki shot back.

“Yeah, Taichi!” Kiriyama chimed in. “You know I’m counting on you way more than Aoki, so you need to pull your weight!”

“Uh, Yui?! You know I’m your boyfriend, right?!”

“Taichi’s right, though,” said Inaba. “We made a decent attempt at brainstorming possible theories, and I’m sure we’ll discuss it more going forward, but as it stands, there’s too much we don’t know about what we’re dealing with. Has it already started? And if so, is one of these assholes gonna come explain it to us?”

As she folded her arms in contemplation, Nagase looked up. “Well, «The Second» never showed itself, right?”

“Yeah... Now that I think about it, «Heartseed» was more considerate than any of us realized.” Inaba grimaced bitterly.

“Then maybe we should pay close attention to everything that happens and try to figure it out for ourselves,” Kiriyama suggested, and Taichi was inclined to agree.

“That sounds like a good start.”

From here on, their to-do list would only grow. But their main goal was clear: hold their ground, no matter what.

“I imagine no part of this will be easy. Especially with finals coming up,” Inaba commented.

“Oh crap!” Aoki clutched his head in despair.

Indeed, none of them really had room on their plate for more problems.

“So we’d better crush them fast,” she continued with a sinister smirk.

Taichi’s girlfriend was a feisty one.

+++

“I’m home!” I called as I opened the front door.

The house was dark and chilly. I let out a sigh.

“Great... Another hassle,” I muttered to myself as I kicked off my shoes. “Two was enough, but now there’s a «Third»...?”

But as I was putting my shoes away, I noticed my mother’s favorite work shoes were sitting there, too—

“Welcome home, Iori.”

“Whoa!” All at once, the lights clicked on, blinding me briefly as my eyes adjusted. “H-Hi, Mom. Didn’t see you there.”

“I only just got back. I would’ve said something sooner, but I was on the phone.”

Oh, I get it. She must’ve been too busy talking to switch on the lights.

“How was school today?” she asked. The sentiment was a warm one, but her tone was soft and icy.

Nagase Reika, age 37. Other people often described her as “ethereally beautiful.” We’d been through a lot (and I mean a lot) together, and we didn’t always see eye to eye, but for the most part we were as close as a mother and daughter could be.

“Fun like usual,” I answered, then headed to my room. Usually I didn’t mind her asking me about school, but after what I’d just muttered aloud, I didn’t really want to get into it.

She was generally the quiet, soft-spoken type, so I was hoping she wouldn’t press the issue...

“Is that true?”

Oh god, here we go. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“You were just saying something about ‘another hassle,’ weren’t you?”

“W-Well, yeah, maybe...”

“It sounds like something’s wrong. Don’t you want to tell me about it?”

“I mean... yeah, there was... some annoying stuff that happened...” Faltering under my mother’s sharp gaze, I knew I had to keep talking. “Look, how do I put this... Basically, we have to put up with some pretty stressful stuff every now and then. And right when we thought we were free at last... we found out it’s happening all over again. So yeah.”

“By ‘we,’ you mean your club?”

Luckily, she didn’t ask for specifics; all she wanted to know was who was involved.

“Y-Yeah...”

“Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Yeah, of course! We’re all working on it together.”

“Hmmm... Well, good luck with that,” she replied. Then her usually soft voice hardened. “But don’t do anything unsafe. If things get dangerous, you come to me.”

I recoiled slightly. I knew it was just proof that she cared about me, but...

“Don’t worry, Mom. I won’t do anything to scare you.”

“Every now and then, your behavior can be so... abnormal...”

My heart skipped a beat in fear. Was she onto me?

“But this time it feels... different somehow...”

“I’m fine, I swear! If anything happens, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”