Chapter 4 - Part one

4.

On the next day at school I told Mia, that I had to disappear for a while at the lunch break and that she didn’t had to come with me.

“I wouldn’t be able to go with you anyway” she complained. “Our homeroom teacher wants to talk to me.” You could see her regret not being able to come with me.

When it rang for the break I ran out of the classroom, down the stairs and almost fell down if I hadn’t held on to the railing.

I ran directly towards the school-garden and didn’t stop until I reached the bushes. There I looked around if someone was near me who could see me fighting my way through the bushes. When I was sure no one was watching me I went through it and just a few moments after I found myself at the field.

At first I was stunned again by the beauty of this place but I remembered fast why I came here.

“Where is that hanky?” I muttered.

Systematically I combed the field but I didn’t see any sign of my lost item.

“That can’t be true. Did he remember wrong?”

Because I didn’t know what else to do I went to the flowers and knelt down before them to look at them. I really thought they were beautiful. I wanted to pluck one of them so I reached out with my hand when I noticed a white textile under the flowers. I softly pulled on it. It was the handkerchief.

Lucky me, it’s still clean. I thought, but I still wanted to take it home to wash it again.

All that searching just lasted 20 minutes so I still had 40 minutes until the break was over. I knew that I had to get back but this field was so peaceful I just couldn’t leave it yet. Next to the flowers i laid down on the ground, still holding the hanky in my hand. I lifted it in front of my face and inspected it more carefully. It was strange that the incident of how I got to the hanky seemed oddly familiar but I just couldn’t get a hold of the reason why it was. If I had seen the face of the guy who gave it to me then maybe I would know why it was like a Déjà-vu. My gaze met the stitched name. MARU. I really was curious about who MARU was. I thought about it for a while before I got up to leave the field. When I walked towards the bushes someone else came through it. It startled me so much that I stepped back, stumbled over my own feet and fell down on the ground.

When I recognized the person who was standing in front of me I got a fright. It was the guy from the Club. “You!” I said stunned. “So you really go to our school.”

He reached out to help me up.

“Seems like it” I heard his quiet answer. After I got up he let go of me and put some distance between us. I didn’t know what to say but because I had the feeling I had to have a conversation with him I blurted out the first words that came to my mind: “How did you know about this field?”

He smiled. It was such a sweet smile. This guy knew how to make hearts beat faster. “Almost every break you can find me here. All the flowers in this field were planted by me when I was still a kid. Together with my dad.” He shortly looked at me but turned his head away fast. “What are you doing here?”

“I just searched for something I lost here yesterday.” When he heard my words he swung his head around towards me.

“Yesterday? So it was you.”

“You saw us?” I panicked.

He nodded. “You should really take care where to be seen smooching with others.” I think he didn’t want to sound mean, but it seriously was a borderline comment. Why did he sound so harsh?

I blushed by the snappishness this comment was said with. “We weren’t doing anything like that.” I didn’t know why but I felt the urge of clearing the misunderstanding. I shouldn’t care what a stranger thinks right? But I cared! “He’s my brother’s best friend. We aren’t like that. He just tried to calm me down after telling me what happened after... you know in that Club...” He nodded again. Now his face was showing a soft expression. He got a glance at the handkerchief in my hand. “You searched for that?”

Before I could reply he came towards me and took it.

“Hey! That’s not yours!” I rebelled.

“You mean it’s not yours. Believe it or not, it’s mine.”

What did he just say?

“What, You are Maru?” I stared at him stunned.

He didn’t answer. For a moment it seemed like he was absorbed in thought. I wondered what was going on in his head. Before I could ponder on possibilities I remembered what happened two days ago. The way Kento attacked this guy. His frightening eyes. How the opponent slumped to the ground and could just speak in staccato speech. I still could see the cut in front of my eyes. All the blood. The thought made me feel really sick. I was speechless when I saw him standing in front of me. Wasn’t he feeling any pain? I hoped he didn’t, I already blamed myself about this incident, about his injury, about everything. I shouldn’t have overreacted, my brother shouldn’t have overreacted, over a simple kiss!

What now?

I wanted to ask him how he felt, if he even wanted to talk to me. The thought that he wouldn’t want to be involved with me an unpleasant feeling broadened in my stomach.

Hold it. This guy was a stranger!

Why did I have the feeling of not wanting this guy to turn his back on me? Something on him made me feel drawn to him. When I got a better look at him, the dark hair, the green eyes, he seemed vaguely familiar. The more I looked into his eyes, the deeper I was drawn inside their depth. Just when I thought his eyes were showing yellow spots, I heard a blop and a little animal jumped out of nowhere between us. A striped kitten, no, a tiger cub, with a strange colouring. Instead of gold with dark stripes it had light pink colouring with almost non-visible white stripes.

I felt dizzy, a moment after everything went black.