Marionette

Oceans, Chapter Twenty Four - Kushami [くしゃみ]

Emotions are made out of water - That was one thing that Amaya recalled her mother to have said.

Whether it be from a dream or a buried memory that rose to the surface in her dreams, it really did not matter right now.

If sadness felt like ice-cold water, and anger felt like water was boiling from the inside out, then Amaya was certain that happiness was a warm, comforting caress of waves against her heart. A gentle mid-point where it filled her with comforting warmth that felt much like an embrace.

Amaya felt this was certain when Karma'd smiled at her like that.

It didn't matter that he couldn't fulfil his part of the bet just yet because his parents were home for the rest of the week, even though she felt rather disappointed about it. In a way it didn't even matter to her that he was likely going to forget all about it, either.

That small, single moment he'd smiled at her like that was enough to wring almost everything out of her and leave her with the happiness that it had brought her.

And yet it left a bittersweet feeling in the bottom of her heart.

Everyone seemed to just presume she was overly happy because of the way that prank had unfolded, and it seemed even Karma was on that bandwagon too, but it didn't really matter one way or the other - She wasn't going to say or give away the reason why she was in such a good mood.

Because that would be admitting to herself that she was lonely, deep down inside.

It had been over seven years since she'd met Karma.

It had been Eight years since she had moved to Tokyo alone with her siblings, becoming a stand-in mother despite only being three years older.

And futher to this, it was reaching close to nine years since her Mother had died.

All this time Amaya had thought she was perfectly happy living this way despite delinquent inconveniences that she might have created herself, at least until that smile he gave her shook her right down to the core.

It made her happy, and yet it proved to her just how lonely she really was.

Karma's smile reminded Amaya that soon, she'd have to ask Mako's parents to have the twins stay at their house for a week.

He reminded her that soon, she'd have to go pay her respects to the woman she killed.

Like she did every year - During the first week of every June since that fateful day.

Irina had made a very humble apology on Thursday afternoon, informing the class that she had no experience as a teacher, but the very least she could teach them was how to sweet-talk foreigners. A kind of reconciliation had been reached, possibly because Amaya had done such a marvelous job of humiliating the woman just the afternoon before, so nobody was really all that angry at her anymore. Though more likely, Karasuma had decided to give Irina a bit of an understanding of the way things work at Class E, and Irina had finally given in to reason.

The nostalgia that Irina's appearances instilled within Amaya did not disappear, and in fact seemed to become worse now that Irina wasn't looking down on them anymore.

Though Amaya just observed, minding her own business for the most part and doing her own thing.

Throughout Thursday, Amaya had spent a fair amount of time with Isogai and Maehara, while Karma seemed to go skip class a lot of the day for no reason at all.

It wasn't anything abnormal, though, so Amaya didn't think too much of it.

Koro-sensei had insisted on checking Amaya's vitals during the break time between fifth and sixth period, since it had been a whole week since he'd checked last. So, after a minute's worth of carefully scrutinizing Amaya's condition, the yellow creature was more than pleased to announced that her blood-pressure had receeded from that very dangerous high to a more healthy level, however he insisted that she still try and minimize the stress she had in her life to keep it that way.