I Need You || K. Shinsuke [ON HOLD]

Chapter 1 - Nice to Meet You

"I'll be going now."

"Have fun at school, Shin-chan!"

I closed the door and started heading to Inarizaki.

6:37 am

Today marks the first day of school, the start of my second year. It seems that time flies fast, almost too fast, if I'd say so myself. My first year felt like a breeze. I don't even remember experiencing anything memorable. Well there's volleyball but other than that, my life wasn't that eventful. I shrugged as I remembered our school motto:

"We don't need memories."

They're right. There's no point in dwelling on the past.

I decided to shift my attention to my surroundings. Hyogo is famous for being an agricultural prefecture, so it's normal for us to walk on roads lined with trees. Some of them were even starting to bear fruits.

As I was observing, my eyes landed upon a stray puppy from right across the street. The puppy looked like it was having a nightmare since it was shaking and whimpering while its eyes were closed. I know this because I had my own pet dog back when I was a child.

I was contemplating whether I should approach the puppy since I had an adequate amount of time before the opening ceremony starts at 7:15. Until I saw where it was sleeping. The puppy was laying directly below one of the oldest trees in the street. One of the branches was on the verge of breaking and it threatened to fall right above the puppy's frail body. It was quite a big branch and the poor creature would probably be injured.

The snap of the branch shook me back to reality as I saw the branch fall. It was only a matter of seconds before it reached the animal. I didn't have enough time and I know that running across the street would be both pointless and dangerous because of the street traffic. Sadly, no one was there to save the poor creature. I felt pathetic because I couldn't do anything. I watched in horror and looked away as I braced myself to hear its cries.

But I never heard them.

I looked back and saw that the puppy was nowhere to be found. I shifted my gaze and saw that a girl was able to carry it away. How she made it in time, I'll never know. I could've sworn that there was no one on the other side of the street. She carefully put the puppy down and this gave me the opportunity to observe her more. She was wearing our school's uniform and she had a petite figure. She had black, straight hair which reached just a few inches past her shoulders. The next thing that I noticed shocked me.

Unfortunately, she wasn't left unscathed. The sharp edge of the branch seemed to have made contact with her arms because she was bleeding. The wound didn't look deep but she was still hurt.

Because I felt like I was at fault, I decided to cross the street to check if she needed any help. However, she didn't seem to notice me. She quickly turned around and cleaned the blood using her handkerchief. She applied pressure to the wound and made her way towards the pharmacy. I watched as her figure faded and entered the store. She's probably going to buy medicine and bandages.