Marionette

Skies, Chapter Forty Three - Shintsū [心痛]

When she'd eventually arrived at Shigure's place, her uncle was not only surprised at her condition, but concerned as well. Instead of starting a usual training session, he'd decided she really needed some alone time to pull herself together again, so he'd called a taxi and had them drive her home.

Which was honestly what she needed right now.

He hadn't asked anything, nor had he said anything particular either.

He just took one look at her, and seemed to already know training wasn't going to do her any good that time.

He also seemed to know that asking her about it wouldn't help her, either.

So, Amaya returned home in time to find Reiko in the middle of gorging on the leftovers in the fridge, her notebooks out as she watched television – Oddly enough, what was playing seemed to be in English.

And much like Shigure, Reiko had only taken a look at Amaya and decided not to ask any questions.

She just brought over the container of Takoyaki, setting it on the dining table for Amaya before she returned to her movie.

The painful, heart-wrenching feeling inside of her chest hadn't once lessened.

Instead, it sat there, making even the act of just doing anything painful.

That was what she got for letting that hope free.

Nothing ever worked out for her, whether she let things go naturally, or did her absolute best to try and fix things. And whenever she'd try and do something for herself for once, she always received a slap across the face instead.

She was just so tired of all of this.

And in all honesty, she felt like maybe, it would be better if she just stopped caring.

Maybe it would be better if she just disappeared.

She'd stop getting hurt so much if she could.

But for now, she had to make sure they thwarted whatever nightmare Class A wanted to force on them.

She could think about what was best for herself, afterwards.

Wordlessly, come morning Amaya completed her usual morning chores, gathered her belongings, and left for school. She didn't once look over at the other apartment building when she'd left, nor did she look up from the pavement the whole time – She kept herself moving, her headphones in place as she tried to shut the world out.

She wondered how she was going to cope sitting in class all day when even just thinking about it was so painful.

She had her answer, however.

Amaya would avoid him, though she'd never once truly avoided him in her life.

She never felt like she had a reason to, even when she didn't want to answer some of his more prying questions, or the few months when it felt like they hated each other when she first came to Tokyo.

At least, until now.

And now, she would get those locks changed, after all.

Amaya arrived at the classroom building later than everyone else, however Koro-sensei hadn't gone to start homeroom yet.

He was still in the faculty room, while mostly everyone else had gathered in the classroom.

She hadn't missed the glimpse of red when she'd walked across the clearing.

She detoured to the faculty room, ignoring the voices of Isogai and Maehara as they tried to greet her.

'Oh. Good morning, Amaya-san.' Koro-sensei greeted the girl as he reached the door before she could actually knock, peering down at her quiet form. 'Is there anything Sensei can help you with?'