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It had only been two weeks since the tragedy that struck the high school. During the study camp an awful accident had occurred which resulted in the death’s of a student and a teacher. Not much was known about the librarian, some would say he was rather eccentric and silly. While others would say that he had a dark side and had an obsession with bugs, particularly spiders.
The student who had met her untimely early end was the Queen of Popularity, Akane Aoi; and she was Yashiro Nene’s best friend. The whispers spread throughout their class like silent vipers; their venomous words of pity slowly broke the cream colored hair girl down.
She had attempted to find solitude in Aoi’s childhood friend, but he seemed to have lost his sanity. Talking to him had not been easy. He rambled on about how he would save Aoi and that Nene should join him and the President of the Student Council.
It concerned her, because Aoi was dead. They wouldn’t, no, they couldn’t get her back no matter how much they prayed and begged the gods. Nene tried to play along, hoping that it would help the grieving young man. Instead just the opposite happened.
Akane would go on and on about a ‘No.5’ and ‘No.7’. Eventually Nene slowly began to break away, not wanting to indulge his ‘out of mind’ fantasies. He needed to grieve, not make up some sort of fairy tale plan to bring back his dead love.
However, Nene herself was feeling skeptical. She couldn’t remember that day very clearly, it was all a blurry haze of color. People said it was the trauma and she unconsciously blocked those memories from having to relive the horror of seeing your friend die. The hurt and the pain of losing someone so close to her was overwhelming. But… There was something deeper to this grief.
She felt like she had lost someone she loved. That was impossible… Nene had never been in love with Aoi. She loved her friend platonically, not romantically. So why did she feel this way?
Eventually the girl sought comfort in another one of her close friends. He was still in the middle school division, although she couldn’t remember exactly how their friendship had begun, she and Kou were extremely close.
He too was deeply affected. Even though the blonde wasn’t close with Aoi, he knew of her and gave his condolences. But, he was seemingly close to the librarian. Nene always heard him muttering about ‘Spider-face’ and eventually connected the dots.
“Were you close to him?” She found herself asking one hazy afternoon. For some reason, as if her body was on autopilot, Nene would always walk to the girl’s bathroom on the third floor of the old school building to clean.
Kou appeared after a few days and would help her. He would ask questions every once in a while, but most of their time there was spent in silence.
Taken aback to the question at hand, he raised a brow.
“I guess?” He answered, but it sounded more like a question. Nene just shrugged her shoulders before giving the window a final wipe before she let the cloth fall from her fingers. Her magenta eyes fixed on the view outside. She looked so sad and hollow, as if a great hole had been ripped open and nothing could seal it.
“Senpai…” Kou breathed,
“Do… Do you remember anything from that day?”
Nene turned to face him,
“No, I don’t. Everything is super foggy… I mostly just remember what I was doing during the day but after that… There’s nothing.” She paused, looking down at her hands. They felt strangely empty, as if there was supposed to be another pair entwined with her own. She shook off the thought.
“But it’s weird. I feel like there’s something more… As if I’ve lost someone more dear to me than Aoi…” Her hands clenched into loose fists and she brought one to her chest. Her gaze out the window never faltered, while she continued to gaze out of the colored glass.
“But that’s silly, isn’t Kou-kun?” Her lips twisted up into a sardonic smile. The exorcist saw her expression in the reflection of the window, he clenched his hands into fists.
“No, it’s not silly.” He replied, with a thick determination. Nene finally turned to face him and when her sight found her friend, he was silent with tears streaming down his face. His eyes were squeezed shut, before they opened slightly,
“You aren’t wrong. There is more to it, and I have lost someone too.” He swiped an arm across his face as he threw down his cleaning rag with the other; before he turned on his heel.
“I have to go, Senpai.”
Nene watched in a somber silence at the back of her retreating friend. His words rang loud and clear in her head.
There was definitely something more to the tragic events that happened at Kamome High. In the following weeks, Nene was hit with strong emotions such as nostalgia that tugged so hard on heart strings she thought they would break. And every night she would wake up with someone else’s name on her lips, only to forget who she was calling out for seconds later.
There was someone else and it wasn’t Aoi or the librarian. She started to keep a dream journal, writing down what she could remember when she had those dreams. By her fifteenth entry, there was a hazy image she could piece together.
There was definitely a boy who she and kou hung out with, but there was no face or name. Nene attempted to talk to Kou about it and just as she had him alone, he would make up some sort of excuse to leave or slip out of the conversation. He hadn’t been his normal self either and he wouldn’t say why.
On a particular warm sunny afternoon after school, the sad girl found herself cleaning the girl’s bathroom at the old school. The unspoken and unanswered questions were particularly strong this day; she felt that someone else was supposed to be there with her. Pestering her to keep cleaning and to not give up. Someone who cheered her on and always goofed off while she cleaned.
Who had it been? Why were they there with her? And just why did she always come here anyways? The old school building was never used. It made no sense!
It exhausted her mentally, always collapsing into bed for the sweet lull of sleep to take her; only for it to never come.
The mop Nene had been sliding along the tiles came to a halt. The late summer rays shone through the window, it looked so inviting…
Putting the mop to the side and slowly made her way over to that window. She wanted to open it and see the sun shine through without the stained glass in the way. As she unlocked the latch and swung it open, a sudden strong breeze came through.
It was warm and tender, as if it enveloped around her like a pair of arms. Even if she was going crazy, this sudden comfort would not go to waste. She sighed as she rubbed her tired eyes with a delicate hand.
The warm, soft air caressed her face, her hair, and her ears. Ever so faintly a voice whispered,
“I love you.”
A cracked smile spread across her face. That voice was so familiar and it was the one that would whisper like a phantom in her dreams. While the hot tears splashed against her lashes, there were so many things she wanted to say or to ask.
‘What happened? Why is this happening? How do I know you? Do I love you, too?
Despite all of the unspoken words that pantomimed in her head what she found herself saying instead,
“I can’t remember your name with this…” At her barely audible reply, the warm air seemed to rest gently across her shoulders. A soft touch kissed her brow and with that the leaking cracks in her brain finally came flooding through.
There was a boy and he was short, with choppy black hair. He had a sarcastic bite but he meant no harm… His eyes that shone like a full moon, sometimes kind and others they glimmered with unshed tears. They were deep and expressive and fluid, like when amber swirls when it’s viscous. She had known him and yet she didn’t know him. Pinkies curled around each other in a promise which was broken and then a tragic ending for the both of them.
Her breath hitched as her memory seemed to have pulled up from it’s depths, a name.
“Amane-kun?” Nene breathed. There was no response, which was to be expected. But she had hoped that in that moment a miracle would happen. The dead did not speak and she had lost him so long ago. Upon this realization, all the strength in her legs betrayed her as her knees buckled and she went down sprawled across the cool floor.
She sobbed, hugging her arms in a feeble attempt at comfort. The sun had sunk below the horizon, it’s dying rays filtered through the shadows of evening. If she had been paying attention she would have noticed his presence. As the flickering light dipped in and out of the shadow a boy could be seen, nothing more than a faint image. But he was holding onto the girl just as desperately as she held herself.
Even though his face was hidden under the shade of his cap, the glistening tears that streamed down his face could be seen, if Nene had been paying attention she would have seen the movement of those cold lips,
"I'm sorry..."
"I'm so sorry..."
"I'm sorry, Yashiro."