Spring Awakenings

Corner of Memories

Thursday, 5/1/12, Yasogami High School, Afternoon

The lunch bell sounded more like an angel's choir for Rise as she cautiously sneaked out of her classroom and toward the stairs to the main lobby of Yasogami High. After two days of torturous self-reflection, Rise had come back to school that morning with her guard up should she run into any of the Investigation Team. Naoto was in another class, but she and Kanji shared their whole day together, which meant having to just subtly ignore any of the bigger boy's attempts to engage with her. She had been lucky, however, in that she always sat near the front of the class whereas he had a back seat, which meant if she entered late and left early, she could avoid him easier. Everyone else inhabited the 3rd floor, so it wasn't all that difficult to avoid them on a given day, so long as she didn't go near the roof.

Rise kept a watchful eye as she rounded the corner right near the stairs, ready for any unpleasant surprises. Sighing once she saw the coast was clear, she made a quick dash down the stairs to the first floor, hoping that she could just pick up her lunch and get going to some corner somewhere. She didn't exactly think that was healthy or rational, but these weren't rational times, she figured.

The idol hadn't mustered the energy to maintain her usual cute style over the past couple of days, and it showed: her hair, normally bouncy and flirty in pigtails, was tightly coiled in a simple braid, its luster severely reduced. She had applied some lip balm, but without any eye makeup, it was easy to tell from her red and puffy eyes what she had been up to for the past couple of days. In many ways, she looked more like an average schoolgirl than ever, but she didn't have enough in her to laugh at the irony that this look was happening at the start of her career comeback and not when she first took a sabbatical.

A surprisingly full foyer awaited her as she completed her odyssey to the double doors that separated Yasogami from the rest of Inaba. Her next stop was the shoe lockers, where a cutely wrapped bento box of tofu made lovingly by her Grandma awaited her. As she twisted the door open, she saw a strange object sticking out from in between her shoes. She reached inside and felt it cautiously, recognizing the familiar texture of a piece of notebook paper. Great, another love note, she figured.

She pulled out the paper, noticing that it had been folded rather meticulously. She picked at an edge until she could finally begin to start unraveling the paper, which was soon pulled out to its full size. There was some writing on the front, clumsy and blocky letters that betrayed the gentle nature with which the paper had been folded.

Rise you wont look at my texts or talk 2 me so i gotta write this note MEET ME AT JUNES AFTER SCHOOL i gotta talk to you

Kanji

Rise rolled her eyes, her slight jubilation over having avoided her friends thoroughly sniffed out, although she wasn't sure if she was more relieved that it wasn't another horny boy begging her for a date. The note was right, she had not checked any texts coming from the group; last she saw it was just from the guys and not the girls, who were probably the most pissed off at her. She was still mad at Yu for making the hasty decision to not come and visit for Golden Week, so he was getting the full on silent treatment. A message from Kanji, however, was unique, because he rarely went out of his way to text, since he would be the first to admit he wasn't too sure how to use his phone. More importantly, after the harsh words she had said on Monday, Rise figured that Kanji wasn't going to be very interested in saying nice things to her, and she wanted to avoid a confrontation with the explosive second year at any cost, hence not looking at what he had texted and avoiding him all day.

Still, she thought, he really must be desperate if he's sneaking notes into her shoe locker. Out of curiosity more than anything, she pulled her phone out of her bookbag and looked at the unread messages, feeling a twinge of pain at skipping over Yu's name to get to Kanji's. Somehow, his spelling got worse over text, but the message came across loud and clear.