The Boy With The Blank Stare

Chapter Five: Secrets

"Hey! Saihara!" I turned around to see Momota calling me over, he and the others were sitting around the classroom. The teacher had yet to arrive.

"Hi Momota" I said simply and he groaned "did you manage to conplete the homework? I had to stay awake all night just to finish it" woah really? I wouldn't consider him to be the studious type. I nodded "yeah I didn't get to sleep either"

Akamatsu sighed "I only got about half of it done, seems your one of the smartest in the class Saihara since only like a quarter of us managed to even get halfway done"

I shrugged "I am pretty decent at math and I read a lot so I can read faster and comprehend more easily than most others who don't" I stated simply "what mainly took me a while was the essay"

Kiibo groaned "don't remind me, back in the day Ouma would have made so many robophobic remarks about the teddy bear" everyone chuckled a little at what seemed to be a shared memory.

"Why doesn't he now?" I asked and Kiibo looked down "it was a long time ago...it was pretty awful...I'm sorry, I also feel like it should be Ouma who talks about it rather than any of us...he was the most affected as you can probably tell"

I nodded. It made sense.

"Still he has gotten better over the years" Amami commented and Akamatsu nodded smiling "yeah! He might still not talk or play pranks lile before but this is a serious improvement to how he was like when...it...happened"

Kiibo smiled "we got Momota to thank for that one" I raised an eyebrow "I don't understand, how was he like before? How did Momota help?"

Momota sighed "after what happened Ouma was completly unresponsive. He just had that sort of look where he couldn't even process the world around him...like he was dead...he was a vegetable and didn't even seem to be able to do anything despite his only disabilities being the fact he can't walk anymore or his blindness"

I looked over at Ouma who seemed to just be sitting there listening to music "so that's improvement" Akamatsu nodded.

"Yeah Momota helped a lot, he talked to Ouma and managed to somehow bring him back to us when nearly all gave up on him...slowly but surely he began responding or turning to our direction when we talked to him...he hit some rough patches I must admit though...I think he's conquered the best he could of those feelings though"

"What feelings?" I asked curiously and Amami just sighed "for a period of time...Ouma kept trying to kill himself...or self harmed...yet...I like to think we all helped him stop...and we all had to accept that Ouma will never be who he was before the incident. He can't be. But that doesn't mean we can't help him find a new identity"

I nodded "that makes sense...and he does use sign language so he does talk...sort of" I mentioned and Akamatsu nodded "yeah we are all learning how to use sign language so we can understand what he is saying, Momota still thinks one day he is going to talk again though"

Momota nodded "he's come this far, I won't give up on him" I smiled "you guys all seem very close"

Kiibo nodded "yeah we all got close after what happened. And I guess that's something to be taken note of...though I would have rather us come together in a different way than through that"

Akamatsu nodded "yeah, me too" all of a sudden then the door busted wide open and the teacher walked in. They seemed...drunk.

"Oh boy it's near that time of year again" Amami sighed, I raised an eyebrow "around two times a year the teacher does a lot of drinking..."

Huh? That's weird. And Amami also seems to have no ill feelings towards that behavior either...

"Ok a you failures of a future generation *hic* get your a** in that chair *hic* or I will put you in a wood chipper" my face paled and I quickly went to my seat.

"So you homework from yesterday...is worthless sh*t...so put it in the paper shredder *hic*"

Everyone stared at them in disbelief. Except Ouma who had only just noticed class started.

"Today...your going to clean the classroom...cause this classroom used to belong to the elementary school *hic* as I assume you all remember...i'm going to take an aspirin..." the teacher said and left.

I am slowly but surely losing faith in the public education system.

-/-/-

"Hey guys look! I found an old photo" Akamatsu called, we had been cleaning for the last few hours.

"Woah looks it's our class photo from third grade" Amami stated "still honestly can't believe we are back in the same room after they switched the high school and elementary school buildings last summer"

Akamatsu nodded and looked at the photo more "aww look Momota is in his old astronaut shirt!" Akamatsu pointed out and Momota laughed "oh yeah forgot about that shirt".

"Hey look Harukawa still looked like little riding hood on steroids even back then!" Amami joked and Harukawa responded with pointing to him in the photo "yeah your no better, you litterally have an avocado on your head in this photo" Amami laughed.

"Good point..." he said laughing and I found myself looking at Ouma in the photo. He seemed so full of life compared to how he was now.

"Hey who are those guys?" I asked pointing to some people who I had yet to recongnize, specifically the girl with the red hair who was right next to Ouma smiling like she was a jester.

"Oh that's Chiasa, she along with Ouma and some of the others in the photo used to be in a large pranking group called DICE, they would always be getting scolded by the teacher heh..."

Momota nodded as they seemed to be reminscing over memories of those in the photo.

Used to...what about now? Where did they go...why would they leave Ouma like this?

I didn't notice how that same photo had some old and dry tear stains.

Hey guys Aki here, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in drawing the cast of V3 plus DICE as third graders or like the photo I described. If so please private message me for details.