Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Fifty Nine - Hahen [破片]

A knock at the front door at 7am was what greeted Amaya come the morning after Kayano's last attempt at assassinating Koro-sensei. A shrill cry from Koko's corner of the living room was Amaya's warning as to the presence of others at her house, and with a flurry of feathers Amaya found herself face-to-claw with her brain-addled bird's airborne form.

7am, with little sleep, little progress through her mess of thoughts and of course, with no intention to go to class at all. Amaya was determined to avoid the rest of the school term as if it were a hoard of angry, vicious dogs hellbent on chasing her up another confounded tree. But it looked like whoever this was at her door had other plans; It certainly wasn't Karma. He'd sooner bombard her with an onslaught of annoying emails than knock at her door and wait like a civilized person with a firm aversion to crossing common boundaries.

She'd barely been back for ten minutes after her paranoia-filled decision to escort her siblings all the way to the front gate of their school that morning, and now there were people here.

Luck was really not on her side when isolation from others was considered.

'Whoever this is had better not be here to piss me off.' The albino grumbled sourly, with no heed or concern for her lack-lustre appearances or her pet bird currently preening her haywire hair.

After her night of dwelling upon her near-flip at the gym and her dissonance with a sizable portion of Class E, Amaya's care-factor had been reduced to almost nothing.

However, at the sight of one lone Maehara standing beneath the awning of her front door to avoid the rain, Amaya instead found herself remarkably perplexed. There was no Isogai nearby at all, and he definitely wasn't in school uniform, oddly enough. Just every-day wear and a remarkably sodden umbrella at his side.

On a school day, no less...

He wasn't a damn truant like her. What on earth was going on?

'Yo, Maya-chan!' The playboy greeted with an airy grin and a rough wave, though Amaya was too confused to take much notice.

But the bird atop Amaya's head promptly dropped the tuft of her hair in his beak and bristled with what sounded like a strangely displeased chirp.

'Umm, what's going on?' She couldn't help but ask. 'Why are you here?'

'Of course, I'm here in person to update you on what happened yesterday.' Maehara answered with a brief chuckle as he set his weight on one foot. 'I did tell you I would, remember?'

'And I said I didn't care, remember?' Amaya quipped with a sigh.

'You're just saying that because you don't want to care, not that you don't.' Maehara corrected her.

Amaya had no recourse but to shake her head in dismay.

But it wasn't worth trying to correct him.

'Fine, whatever...' She huffed as she stepped away from the door. 'You're lucky you're on my friends list, otherwise I'd be slamming the damn door in your face by now.'

Granted, her "friend list" comprised of just three names without including Karma, but that was besides the point.

Judging by the amused chuckle that promptly fell from Maehara's lips, he was not the least bit concerned by her prickly mood.

The door was shut behind Maehara's form, bringing the albino to let out a sigh as she trudged wearily towards the kitchen. Koko's bristling mood only seemed to worsen when he noticed that Maehara was in fact, inside, and a series of displeased clicks were all Amaya could hear from atop her head.