Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
⋆ ˚。⋆୨୧˚ CHAPTER SEVEN
PLAY TRACK SEVEN: GRAVITY
You, the reader, have bad days. All of us do.
Some have it more than others but the idea persists. Everybody has a bad day. That was Kumiko's dilemma right now, she was having a bad day.
Kumiko was having a bad day and she couldn't do anything about which was a chilling realization she had during the train ride home from visiting her parents. It was something she was forced to think about.
If you wanted to know about Kumiko's home life prior to her stay with her uncle, her parents were married but were always in separate prefectures.
Married but not together. They live on different ends of Tokyo which was a gigantic place, to begin with.
She always stayed with her mom, only seeing her dad once a month. It was a weird arrangement that brings you to the question, why don't they divorce? She wondered why but never got a response. Her mother wasn't even mad that she asked that one time, it was a common observation.
Why stay married to a man you barely see? Kumiko's mom said it was a hassle to get a divorce. Kumiko doubted the reason but didn't press on.
That brings you to the next question: why does visiting her father bring Kumiko's day to normal and turn it downright awful at times?
Her father was more of a stranger to her than her mother. Kumiko remembers the bored look that the man gave her when she asked how he was after not seeing his daughter for a while. It was the last visit before she moved to her uncle's apartment in the middle of her 2nd year of Junior High, she wouldn't be seeing him for a while.
All he said was okay before answering a call and leaving the cafe. He didn't really come back since Kumiko was the only one who ordered which made her honestly feel like shit since she had to pay for the meal.
Since Kumiko's mom was the reason why she visited her dad in the first place, the moment she started staying with her uncle she didn't have an excuse to visit until her mom messaged her to.
That was why this was the first time she visited him after a few months and nothing's changed. He, at least, stayed for a while and ate with her before leaving. They really didn't have a proper conversation but she didn't mind.
That was a lie. She did mind because something that day made that visit the most awful one to date. This was the final question you would ask, why? It was awful because Kumiko Karasuma thinks her dad is seeing someone else.
It was a simple text message from someone she didn't know that appeared while they both were eating and was able to turn the tone from mournful to absolutely dreadful.
'I miss you.' Those words will haunt her forever and bring her back to the ultimate question: why don't they just divorce?
It was truly a horrible day for Kumiko Karasuma.
Yuuma Isogai didn't know much about Kumiko Karasuma.
He knew she was in A-Class and was close to the student council president. If you asked him to describe her, he would say that she was odd.
Odd in a way that she goes out of the way to still talk to him even if he was in E-Class. Isogai assumed that she would've deleted his number after the encounter in the janitor's closet a few months back but to his surprise, she messages him regularly. From the start of their 3rd year, they try to meet up at least once a week.
It was a weird friendship. First of all, they go to coffee shops that are far away from the school so that they won't be seen by schoolmates and second of all, Kumiko somehow has a knack of knowing too much and giving away too little.
The first hint was that she asked him if he knew anything about the government officials in the school because she saw them go up the E-Class mountains. This was asked a while after he just gained a new teacher and due to circumstances, he obviously couldn't tell her.
The second hint was that she knew that Karma Akabane's suspension ended and was in E-Class now then proceeds to ask how he is. It was less extreme than the first question but he couldn't believe that she knew Karma enough that she would ask him.
Lastly, the third hint was when he answered them ("Sorry, I can't tell you..." and "He's fine but you know, it's Karma."), she just gave him a dead look which was completely understandable. All these tell him that Kumiko Karasuma was trying to get something out of him.
"It's fine, just wanted to know why my uncle was in the E-Class building," Kumiko said after all of that. Isogai's brain sort of short-circuited because she mentioned 'uncle.'
'Don't tell me...' "Kumiko-san, is your uncle a government official?"
"Yes, do you know him?"
Oh yeah, Isogai definitely knew the guy. Tadaomi Karasuma was his PE teacher and was helping them in a mission he couldn't tell her without getting in serious trouble.
"Yeah, we introduced a while ago. I knew the last name was familiar, I didn't know you were related." He mentioned, trying his best to skirt around the whole reason why they were introduced to begin with.
Kumiko chuckled, "the last name isn't that common you know." She knew something was up and didn't press on. He didn't know if this was a good or bad sign.
"How's E-Class anyways? I don't know what happens there since you know, you guys are on a mountain." It was the tone that Kumiko asked that was making Isogai sweat, "nothing much other than new teachers. They aren't bad."
Isogai was underselling them, they were probably the best teachers he had. He still had mixed feelings about a certain blonde teacher who arrived a few days ago after a particular incident.
Kumiko simply nodded and started packing her stuff, surprising Isogai. They've only been in the shop for 30 minutes, they usually stayed for two hours or so. "I need to run some errands so we have to cut our study session short."
"Oh, I'll stay here for a bit and get some homework done," Isogai gave her a small smile. "Thanks for the drinks."
Kumiko gave him a smile in return and said her goodbyes, leaving Isogai and his thoughts. He really needs to be careful when it comes to her.
While Isogai was lowkey panicking, Kumiko was feeling successful. Her uncle was involved in E-Class in some way and that made her feel excited in a way.
This school year was going to be fun.
kumiko's relationship w her parents is just distant, they don't care for each other that much. she's related to karasuma thru the mom, the mom is the older sister. if you have any questions abt the dynamic, feel free to comment!
