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On the big screens of the city, there was a brunette posing in a bikini. She had brown eyes and a slim body, fit for an idol of some sort. She held a soda can and excitedly said, “you should all buy this! It’s refreshing and has tons of flavor, a perfect drink for your perfect summer parties!”
She giggled and waved at the camera, still holding the drink in one hand. Past the group of girls watching the commercial, someone was riding a bike to their school. Oliver Havilah sped past others and almost knocked himself into a trashcan. He saved himself in time by sharply turning to the poles awaiting him.
He hopped off his bike and chained it up to the pole. Students were passing through the school gates before him and he quickly fixed his uniform tie.
“Oliver! Hey!”
“Kris!”
Kris Tsuneo waved, “just in time and before the bell! Come on, we gotta go in and put our stuff into our lockers. I’ll tell you about the recent stuff!”
“Recent stuff?”
The two walked together into the school building and to their lockers, which were right next to each other. Kris shoved his things into his locker and began explaining what was going on, “so we’re going to have a new transfer student! I overheard Miss Perfect talking about it yesterday.”
“..Miss Perfect?”
“Scarlet! The Council President!”
Scarlet Rose was your local blonde beauty and genius. She came from a rich family who were donors to the school. The girl usually kept to herself unless she was working with the Student Council and she always looked too busy for the other students. Oliver bumped into her a couple of times.
She was kinda intimidating for someone so small.
“What did Scarlet say about the transfer student?”
“She’s from Germany and I heard she’s super cute! She’s gonna be in our homeroom, that’s what I heard Scarlet saying. I don’t know her name though.”
“I hope she’s nice,” Oliver pulled out his sketchbook from his locker alongside his other things and he and Kris made their way into their homeroom. When they entered, they got into their seats and talked until the bell rang and the rest of the students filled in.
The teacher came to her podium in front of the class and rapped her piece of chalk on the board. She said, “students! Pay attention. We have a new student joining our class today and she’s from Germany. She doesn’t know a lot of English, so go easy on her with how you talk to her. Be polite.”
A girl with brown hair and blue eyes and a strange white hat came in. Her hat looked similar to a baseball cap. Her jewelry was flashy and glittered when light hit it, she had a friendly smile and a warm aura around her. Kris was on the edge of his seat.
“Look at her, Olive! I told you she was gonna be cute.”
“I’m looking, I’m looking.”
She introduced herself, “I’m..Sasha. Sasha Grace. It is nice to meet you!”
True to the story that she was a German transfer student, she had a tinge of an accent and seemed to be lost in thought about what to say. The teacher patted her on the shoulder, “you can sit next to Kris. Kris, raise your hand.”
He eagerly held up his hand and Sasha took her rose gold bag and set it next to her at the desk. The teacher began the beginning lessons of the day and the students stopped their chatter and got to work, following her instructions.
Oliver and Kris were best friends and had met during their second year of middle school. Kris had moved from Japan to live with his father and was eager to make many friends. Oliver was your usual artsy boy, too focused on his drawings of his favorite game characters to really have friends.
They met during lunch when Kris sat next to him and noticed his drawing. The character was a famous lady from an equally famous RPG. Kris knew who she was and asked Oliver about it and the two instantly got along because of their shared love for the game.
Now they were here in the last stretches of high school and almost adults with bright futures ahead of them. Kris had told Oliver some devastating news when they first came back to high school after a long summer break.
“I’m going back to Japan when I’m done with high school to live with my mom. She doesn’t like the fact I’m far away from her.”
It wasn’t much of a shock, what can you do with divorced parents?
Oliver wasn’t really ready for that fact even if it was fast approaching. The two had promised to visit each other as much as they could, but it didn’t fill the void in Oliver’s chest.
“Your school is different from my school.”
Sasha stood next to Kris and Oliver when they were waiting to get their lunch food. Kris tilted his head, “what do you mean?”
“There are no ladies standing outside of the school with cigarettes!”
..this girl was awfully blunt.
Oliver said, “that’s Katelyn, she doesn’t come to school unless she has something to do here. She’s a year above us. She’s a senior. I don’t know how she passed the other grades, but she’s going to graduate once the year is over. Don’t bother with her.”
“Is she rude?”
Kris groaned.
“She’s insane! Katelyn used to bully me last year, I don’t even know why.”
“She picks a target every year..” Oliver gave Kris a pitiful smile. “Pray you’re not on her radar this time. She doesn’t notice me because I’m way too nice.”
“You’re an asshole, that’s what you are,” Kris glared at him. Oliver glared back. Sasha blinked and looked between the two before saying, “you two are..friends! I had friends who were like you back home. They are funny and they are cool.”
“Say, Sash - if I can call you that - why are you here?” Kris grabbed an orange from the array of fruits and led the way for the others to find a table. As they sat down, Sasha replied to him, “my parents thought it’d be..better if I got an education away from home. For experience, they say.”
“Ooh, I see. My parents just got divorced so I went to live with my dad.” He said it so calmly, peeling the orange and taking a slice to eat. Sasha looked mortified and Oliver patted her shoulder, “he’s like that, don’t worry. What class do we have next, Kris?”
“Art. Your absolute favorite.”
“Oh, thank goodness, I don’t want to face the fact I haven’t finished my history project..”
Sasha giggled, “is art your strong suit?” Oliver replied, “ah..you can say that.”
“Don’t sell yourself short!” Kris had eaten the entire orange at this point. “He can draw super cool mecha characters as if it’s nothing! I saw him draw a whole robot for class once, it got posted on the board outside of the classroom until they replaced it.”
They continued to talk with each other until lunch was over. Sasha was an avid fan of art as well, though her range of style differed from Oliver’s where she focused on fashion sketches. She mentioned there that she wanted to be a fashion designer.
“Are we gonna call later?” Kris asked as he and Oliver headed out of the building. Sasha was staying behind as she had to meet with someone.
“You got it.”
“Yes! Hey, you’re not too torn up that once we graduate I have to leave, right?”
“Why would I be? I can do fine on my own.”
Kris stared at him, “you literally started crying when I told you.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Oliver unchained his bike. He flipped his best friend off, “I might not call you tonight! You’re being mean to me,” he hopped on and adjusted his bag. Kris could only stick his tongue out as he watched Oliver speed away on his bike, rolling his eyes. Not out of frustration, but amusement.
He stopped by the city cafe where he worked and headed inside. He worked here to get some money to eventually pay for college and maybe even have enough to take a trip to Japan to see Kris. It wasn’t busy a lot of the time, but it had good pay.
The TVs in the cafe glowed as an idol was on stage.
“And here we bring you Yumiko Toshiro, the newest idol in her company! She is performing right now in her home city! Her newest album, Don’t Blink, has been a huge hit!”
She was the girl in the commercials he saw this morning. Yumiko. Her hands were stretched out as she sang and danced on stage, swaying and hopping along to the beat in her shiny clothes and perfectly fit shoes. Everyone at his school knew her and adored her.
And she even graduated from that school! She was a one-hit wonder.
Yumiko sang the very last note of her song and the lights dimmed. Everyone started clapping and screaming her name, demanding an encore. As the lights came back on and Yumiko was ready to give her audience what they wanted, she was stopped.
Oliver’s eyes widened.
The clink of a gun shell dropping was heard and Yumiko dropped to the floor, she screamed bloody murder and people from behind the stage ran over as fast as they could. There was another shot that echoed and there was suddenly chaos as people tried to exit.
“Oliver! Oliver, oh my - you saw it too!?”
His manager, Elizabeth, appeared and exclaimed, “Yumiko got shot on live television! Everyone saw it tonight!”
“Wh..is she gonna be okay!?”
“Look, they’re taking her off the stage right now.” Elizabeth pointed out and the two were stuck watching the idol get taken off stage and the cameras turning around to watch the audience being evacuated. It became breaking news as the reporter quickly began trying to fill in the blanks of what had just happened.
There was nobody else in the cafe but them.
Elizabeth whispered, “that poor girl..who in their right mind would do such a thing?”
“Can..can I be excused for a minute?”
“I’m closing the cafe down, don’t worry, you can leave. Go home. Be careful though, people are bound to start havoc! She was shot in our city..”
Oliver took his things and left as Elizabeth began cleaning up and closing the cafe. He got onto his bike and headed back home, messing with the key too much and leaving some scrapes on his hand as he opened the door. His mother came rushing to him.
“Sweetheart, are you alright? You aren’t hurt, are you?” she came to him and put her hands on his face, clearly concerned. He replied, “I’m okay, my manager sent me home. What’s wrong?”
“There were a couple of gunshots near the house. Your father called me to say he’s not coming back home because of the shootings.”
“The shootings? So..so it wasn’t just Yumiko?”
“The idol? Did you see her get shot?”
“On TV. It happened so fast..”
“Go to your room, I’ll call your brother. He’s coming home tonight whether he likes it or not.”
He was ushered away to his room upstairs and set his things down near his bed, grabbing his phone and scrolling through his contacts to get to one person. It rang once. It rang twice. It connected and Kris’s voice was heard through the microphone.
“Olive?”
“Yeah. Are you alright?”
“You saw it too, right? Yumiko got shot!”
“My mom said there were gunshots near our house too..”
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No! No, no, it’s too dangerous for you to go out. Are they going to let us go to school tomorrow?”
“I don’t know..if they don’t, I’m coming to your house straight away!”
“..okay, I’ll allow that.”
The call ended. Oliver laid on the bed, letting the memories come through of what he saw on TV. The way the girl fell on the stage and screamed, the echo of the next shot. It was incredibly vivid and it was all on TV for everyone to see. That scene was going to haunt him.