You're Here

"What do you want, Amamiya?", asked by a certain person. He's standing 5 foot 7, having a messy dark-brown hair, wearing a white blazer and white polo with black neck tie as his uniform. With his hands on his pocket.

"Ara-ara, you're here, Toby-kun," replied by a girl sitting on a wooden bench holding a famous historical novel. Standing around 5 foot 2, her specs could not be completed with her stunning silvery-white hair and glittering amethyst-colored irises. She's wearing a white suit on top of a Gothic dress and skirt reaching to her knees.

"Tell me. It's seems that all of their memory's back. They all remembered Hikaru yet pointed out the situation as it just happened yesterday. Spill everything you know, Amamiya."

"Aren't you excited a bit too much, Toby-kun. Let's distill the information first so you could understand," replied by Hina who were signalling a gesture to Toby.

"Huh? What's with that? Is this really going to be a long talk?", he said to himself. "Sit here first."

"Oh, did she mean sit down? Oh well. This might be a long discussion," he's talking to himself. He sat down the bench next to Hina, breaking the usual Romance trope by being some kind of indifferent.

"How did things finished after my fall from the rooftop?", he asked, " What happened to my body and the creature. Did that lunatic teacher get away with there? What are you been doing all the time since that incident? That's what I'm asking you, actually there's more to it but I supposed it will overwhelm the conversation."

He looked into her eyes without any hint of anything suspicious other than waiting for her reply. "Hmm, it's seems you have so much questions that probably will make us caught into some overcast," she finally said.

Toby looks above and noticed something in particular.

"She's right. If I flood her with much questions and wailing, we will get to nowhere. It seems like those dark clouds will pour small tempest rainfall before she could finish revealing everything." With those thoughts in mind, Toby spent no time in entertaining filler words and adhered his attention to what Hina will say.

"Firstly, I cannot explain to you what sort of sight have I seen after the fall. Yet I could assure you that after that, your body were put in good hands that led you home safe," she uttered.

"Good hands? What sort of thing is that?", he vaguely ask, yet despite that, Hina continued her story as if she were following some objective rules.

"The shadow dispersed in the thin air upon reaching the ground, carrying with it the supposed corpse of Hikaru Sato and brought it to the scene where the crime supposed to happen."

He putted his fingers to his chin and starts to process the information clearly, "Wait. That's why Hikaru's body was found in the Kiesu Street again, right? Then who killed him? The teacher?"

"What happened to that teacher?", Toby continued to ask.

"Hmm…" Hina's groping her chin while looking upwards, making a thinking pose.

"About that… I don't know, tee-hee!", she strike a pose.

"Oi! Don't just ignore my question," Toby said.

"Well, if you're really that interested, Toby-kun…" She closed the book and stared back unto Toby. "Hmm… As for Mr. Kou, after the fall, he leaned back to check whether you died or not. Then he said, 'Haha! You're now into our hands Kiriyama,' or something like that. He then approached me and I was like 'Kyaa! Don't come near me! Pervert!' Then after that, he just letted a some kind of '*tch!*' sound and went downstairs while cleaning those rubbles."

Hina ended her story with a bit of pizzaz to clown on Toby.

"I'm sure of it, she's lying behind her teeth. There's no way someone like Mr. Kou in that state wouldn't be able to clean the mess easily and got out without any clues left behind," he said to himself.

Despite the internal monologue, Toby didn't show any hostility on Hina's words to avoid stepping in the line he should not pass through.

The sky starts to get darker than before and could bring rain any moment.

"I cannot trust her words. The incident regarding Mr. Kou might be used to hide something for her. When I checked in the other teachers, they said there's no such thing as Masamune Kou exist in their staff list, neither the faculty does. In case he have resorted to some hospitalization after those injuries, his records were nowhere to be found in any clinics nor hospitals inside the Fujisawa region."

All of this measures was taken by him before approaching Hina to confirm the existence of post-encounter Mr. Kou. Apparently, Yamato's sister were working in the hospital so it's easy for Toby to garner information.

"She might be hiding something like disposing that teacher after the fall."

Yet after that, he still did not show any reluctance towards Hina, just like he oath to listen in her words.

"Then why people forgot about the existence of Hikaru when he died. But all of a sudden, the truth have been set free after that encounter. How did that happened?", he asked to Hina.

Suddenly, without any warning, Hina stood from her seat and jumped straight into his face.

Looking eye to eye, Toby felt the same essence he felt when their eyes met that closely in the middle of the alley. She had a serious glance without any glinting of her awe-strucking irises that transcend those of the cosmos.

Her usual demeanor changes as her façade falls off in front of indifferent reaction by Toby.

She isn't smiling like before, her lips were shut. Her eyes wasn't like the cosmos anymore, it's like a black hole that destroys everything that it touches. After a few seconds, her glossy lips starts to open and she's uttering something.

"Do you wanna die for real this time, Toby Kiriyama-kun?", she said in a different, more deeper tone.

Flashbacks went in his eyes and his heart beated faster than normal. "What really the hell is with this girl?", he said to himself realizing that Hina's isn't joking right at that moment.

Suddenly, before the situation intensify, Hina pulled off and her usual modest maiden personality came back, "Ara, What's the problem, Toby-kun?"

Huhahuha* breaths heavily*

"What the hell just happened? She's … What the Fuck really is that!?" That's the first time he something like that, as if he have found the true essence of fear. It's not the same as when he encountered the tard-face monster, neither his fleeting moments when he died for the first time.

"That thing… It's more impending than the creeps of Hell," he said to himself.

Right at that moment, water droplets starts to fall from the sky and the rain caught them who were in the open field.

"Ara-ara… It seems like the clouds reached its limit. Well, thank you, Toby-kun for accompanying me here. I have a great time with you."

She walks away before Toby could respond from the daunting. She forgot her umbrella, so it's quite reasonable if she went back ahead to avoid being drenched before coming back to their classroom.

Unexpectedly, Toby has an umbrella in his hands, clinched between his fist.

He already foresaw that this will happen, so after coming back to his senses, he stood up and follow through Hina.

"Amamiya. Answer my question. Why did everyone forgot about Hikaru?"

That's the only thing he asked, no filler words. Just right through the answer. He said it also in a very deep, serious voice that immediately caught the attention of Hina.

"Let's say, Hikaru Sato-kun was very popular person and loved by many people, right? Unlike you."

"Huh?"

"It's just that humans were terrible beings in facing the reality of someone they admired or love passing away without their notice."

"Continue, Amamiya."

"Instead of accepting his death, they thought of actions to cope with his departure. And there they came to one conclusion… To avoid the fear of losing someone, aren't you just need to forgo or detach with that person, right?

"Forget that they existed in the first place makes sense when you don't want to remember their untimely death. We humans doesn't want to feel as if we're powerless, and that's our disadvantage when it's time to face our death or the death of someone we love, because we don't have any power… to change our fate."

Hina ended her explanation, but Toby is ready to utter his words.

"So that's why everyone forgot Hikaru, huh. Then why I'm the only one who can remember him? Why someone like me, powerless and ignorant, have the ability to change my fate? Why do I need to suffer death and still not being able to face it on it's face? That's all the words I want to ask of you, Hina Amamiya!"

Yet, Hina didn't uttered a word and just looks back with a grin on her face. After that she went ahead back, leaving Toby in that overcast.

Few minutes have passed and Toby went back to the classroom. He needs time to regain his poise in his self.

When he went back, he's greeted by a rather indifferent Hina. She's not in her usual nice-girl act and just there, a stunning model student.

Toby didn't mattered and went his way to his seat.

…

2 weeks have passed with that and Toby and Hina didn't uttered a word to each other since that conversation in the Annex building.

But to be honest, it's not like they didn't talk each other, they still greeted each other, lending out eraser if necessary, asking for page number, you know, like normal classmates.

It's just that Toby didn't made his move to ask her questions that he supposed to ask 2 weeks ago.

Hikaru's funeral have passed where many people attended but Toby didn't shed a tear, only just few times. It's to affirm his promise to Hikaru when he met him in the afterlife.

A week have passed after that and nothing changes. It's the same old, mundane day where no spark occurred between the two.

At 2pm, June 27, Toby is walking at the corridor of the building.

"Someone's following me," he said to himself after noticing an unfamiliar presence following his back.

"Is this some kind of ambush or something?"

He turned back and there he saw the one who's following her.

"A girl with long black hair, her eyes were like those of burning embers of fire. Her uniform is from the winter version of the school's uniform, just like the one Amamiya have. And that striking pose with her hands in her back and leaning towards me. This gives me a rather uncomfortable essence."

Toby offered us with the brief description of the girl he just met.

"Who are you?", he asked.

"Hmm… That's rude of you, Kiriyama-senpai." In a cute and innocent way.