Chapter 1 - Part two

When we were on our way home two hours later, something came to my mind. “Where’s the hanky?”  a terrified sound in my voice. How could I forget about it? It wasn’t even mine.

“I still have it.” Mia gave it to me. “I didn’t know that you had one with you.” Her gaze showed how surprised she was, both because i sounded terrified and the hanky I was carrying with me when normally a normal paper tissue was enough.

“Normally I don’t. I just met someone and he gave it to me before.” I looked at it more carefully. At the same time I still continued the conversation with my friend, because a thought struck me about what she just said about her boyfriend, no, ex-boyfriend.

“Mia, what’s with Kento?” I asked when I remembered how she said, she assumed his behaviour for longer.

“After you ran out I went straight up to him and slapped him as hard as you did on the same cheek, and I poured a bucket of water which was still standing around from the cleaning team over his head. Do you think, I was too hard to him?”

“I think that was the least you could do” I grinned at her.

After a little indecision she changed the topic. “Nao, who was the guy who gave you this hanky?”

“I don’t know. I had a lot of tears in my eyes and didn’t dare to look up.”

“That’s so typical of you. Means you don’t know what’s his name, nor how he looks like. Great.” You could hear her suspicion in her voice.

“Well maybe we are lucky and he’s one of our schoolmates. And maybe he is even crazy enough to file a missing item’s report for his handkerchief. Then I can at least thank him.” We had to laugh about this. I smoothed down the hanky and wanted to put it away in my pocket, when I saw something in its corner.

“Mia, look. Something is stitched here.”

“Wow, seriously. MARU. Is that a nickname? Does such a name exist?”

“I don’t know. I never heard of it. Maybe the name of his pet?  A lot of pets are named that way.” I had to smile. “Let’s care about it tomorrow. I am really hungry. Thanks to our spoiled lunchtime I almost didn’t eat anything.”

“Didn’t I apologize enough yet? How often do you wanna hear how sorry I am?”

“I can’t get enough of it.”