Liar, Liar, the Mage's Desire Vol. 1 (A New Oumeno)

Emotionally Detached (1)

      "Himiko! Himiko, wait up!" Tenko shouted as Himiko left school in a rush, clutching her schoolbooks tightly against her chest. She turned to see both her best friends, Tenko and Angie, rushing up to her amongst the crowd of students departing the school to head home. "Himiko...why...didn't you...wait for us?" Tenko asked, out of breath. 

    "Well...I just wanted to get home so I can do homework," Himiko quickly replied, then turned back around.

   "W-Wait! Himiko..." Tenko ran in front to block Himiko's path. "Himiko, you've been holing up in the library for, like, three days, now! And, you're slipping back into your old, apathetic ways! Can't you just tell me what's wrong?"

   "Yes, yes! After all, Atua says that too much homework can be bad for you," Angie warned. "You should spend more time out in the sun, Himiko."

   "Nyeh...you guys can see me anytime you want," Himiko said, brushing past Tenko. "We live in the same house, after all." She didn't say anymore as she walked off. 

   "Something's bothering her, Angie! We have to do something about it!" Tenko exclaimed. 

   "Well, if we can't get to her, I know a certain someone who CAN," Angie replied happily.

   "Noooo...not him," Tenko grumbled, her shoulders drooping.

   "He is the only one Himiko will listen to if it's not us," Angie pointed out. Tenko rolled her eyes and sighed. "Follow me!" Angie chirped as she grabbed Tenko's wrist and pulled her along.

   ***

   When Himiko arrived at Casa V3, she went straight to her secret, magic room underneath the gazebo in the backyard. There, she threw her books onto her table and began doing her homework. She had used the library as a ruse, telling Tenko and Angie that she had been going there in order to keep her magic lair a secret. She sat and stared blankly at the math problems in front of her, frustrated that she didn't understand any of the problems. She thrust her head onto her hand and tried to focus, but she found herself spacing out. She groaned as she shook her head from her daydreams. 

   "Nyeh...stupid math...stupid school...stupid...everything," she muttered to herself. "It's all a big pain!" Himiko sighed sadly and thought back to what happened three days prior, the thing that made her want to close herself off from others. It wasn't a big deal. It shouldn't be a big deal. And, yet, here she was making a mountain out of a molehill about it. "Stop thinking about it," she forced herself. "Stop it! Stop it! It's not that important!" The problem is that the more she thought about it, the sadder she became. She didn't want her emotions to interfere with her current problem, so she decided to bottle them up, just like she always used to before she became friends with Tenko and Angie, and became Kokichi's girlfriend. She thought that she should take care of her problem by herself, since it was hers and nobody else's. In order to do that, she cut herself off from her peers. She took a deep breath and tried focusing again on her math.

   "So, there you are!" came a cheerful voice from the bottom step of the stairs in Himiko's magic lair. She didn't need to look to see that it was Kokichi, but she turned to face him anyways. The annoying thing about Kokichi being the only other person besides her who knew about her secret lair was that he could pop in anytime whenever he felt like it, even when Himiko wanted time to herself, like right now.