Third Year Rumble (Fanfic)

Chapter 8: Field Trip

Kyoto was very cold at night, Yakumo thought.

It was already the fourth day of her class' field trip. On the whole, the days had passed very quickly between visits to the monuments and temples, an excursion to the National Park – the deer were so cute when they came to eat out of her hand – souvenir shopping with Sarah and the girls in their free time and so forth. In general Yakumo had spent most of her time with her female friends, much to the disappointment of the boys in her class. On the other hand, Hirayama-kun had spent the greater part of the trip alone; technically he was in a group of five too, together with Kitagawa-kun, Sotomura-kun and two other boys, but since all of them except him happened to have girlfriends the group was hardly ever together, seeing as the other boys wanted to spend as much quality time with their girlfriends as possible. He didn't seem to mind being alone though; during the daytime Yakumo occasionally caught glimpses of him wandering about the ancient temples and the beautiful landscaped gardens, observing them silently with his usual aloof expression. Every now and then he would pull out a notebook and scribble something in it, earning himself quite a few curious glances; Yakumo had barely refrained from smiling when Miki had wondered aloud whether he was writing a love letter to a secret crush. She knew very well he wasn't writing any letter; in fact he wasn't writing at all, he was jotting down musical notes for the pieces he was constantly working on. Funnily enough, even though lots of things about him were still a mystery to her, lately his behavior made a lot more sense than before, especially since she had started making an effort to learn more about him.

After their collaboration at the culture festival they had grown a bit closer – nothing too pronounced, but the time they spent together had increased, if only by a little. For example, at some point Yakumo had found out that he sometimes stayed in school after class to practice his pieces in the music room, and ever since then she would stop by every so often when she didn't have her club or part-time job to go to and listen to him playing for a while – his music never failed to move her just as much as the first time she had heard it. They didn't talk much during that time and when they did it was mostly about general subjects; Yakumo had yet to find any more clues as to how Hirayama-kun had discovered her special ability. Nevertheless, she somehow enjoyed this time she spent with him; she liked that he respected her privacy and never tried to force confidences out of her, or even worse smother her with his attentions like most other boys of her acquaintance. And even though she was just as incapable of reading his thoughts as ever, gradually his personality became less of an enigma as she discovered bits and pieces of information about him during their conversations. It was mostly small and apparently insignificant things, like how he had first become interested in music after hearing Karasuma-san's pet canary sing; or how he disliked spicy curry but still ate it together with his friend – he had been quite amazed when he heard from Yakumo that her sister had done the exact same thing. Oftentimes she thought that although most people would find his attachment to Karasuma-san kind of creepy, she had never once thought that; rather, it reminded her of her own attachment to her sister. Oddly enough, even though she was still ignorant of many things about him, she felt she could relate to him in a way she had never felt before and had never imagined she could feel with a man.

What could this feeling be, she frequently caught herself wondering lately. It wasn't the same as the feelings she had for Harima-san, but somehow it seemed…significant. Could it be that there were many kinds of love or attachment after all? Yakumo had never considered this before, but now that she thought about it, it certainly seemed that different people loved in different ways.

Take, for example, that conversation she had with the girls two nights ago. It was the second night of their field trip, and they had retired to their rooms. Yakumo and the girls had changed into their nightclothes and were just about to turn in, when Miki emerged from the bathroom with a mischievous grin on her face. "Hee hee…don't tell me you think we're going to sleep, Yakumo-san…" she said.