Chapter 4 - last part

“How about we bring her to the infirmary?” He stepped towards me but before I could react “Maru” grasped and lifted me up onto his arms. “I’ll do it.” Shosuke said but Maru put him off. “I already have her. You should run and tell the nurse.”

This guy just lifted me up as if I wasn’t weighing anything!

Silently, step for step, he walked towards the infirmary, taking care not to shake too much. He was behaving as if I was really precious and he had to take care that I won’t break.

At some point I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Could you please start your explanation” I asked in a gruff voice. Maru looked down at my face and a little grin was seen at his mouth’s corners. I had the feeling that he almost never showed joy in his facial expressions. But it made my heart race.

“No.” he looked away. I was shocked. “What, no?” why was he behaving so proud?

“What do you want to hear?” he sighed. What was he thinking? He knew what I wanted to know! Why was he avoiding my questions? He had something to hide, yeah he did. Not everyone could make an invisible tiger appear. I understood why he had difficulties in telling me, but that was unfair. He owed me an answer. I understood myself how annoying I must have been, it could have happened that the guy would distance himself from me, that I could forfeit a chance with him, that he would think of me as exhausting and would avoid me. Why did I wish that he wouldn’t do anything of that? Why did I find myself being drawn to a stranger? At least it made it more difficult for me to convince him to explain everything. Even if I was convinced that I deserved to know the truth.

“Why was there a tiger?” I said through clenched teeth. He looked around if someone was near, stopped at the nearest door and went inside.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I shouted when I realized that we were in the storage room of the school between unused chairs and desks. Immediately he covered my mouth with his hand to cushion my voice.

“I definitely won’t explain anything which shouldn’t be of anyone’s business, to you if there are people around!” he replied irritated. Aha, I thought, it was a secret and what was more important: I wasn’t crazy! There really was a wild cat! And it didn’t cause a panic. How could that be?

A product of our combined fantasy? We could have been connected through telepathy and for some reason we imagined colourful tigers together. That sounded too strange, I sighed.

Then maybe a magic tiger, which just shows itself to people it liked. I feel flattered, I thought to myself, angered by myself, that I even thought of such idiocy.

I sighed again.

Maru also could have been an alien with his colourful tiger! Maybe I was...

“Heh”, I heard a suppressed laughter and looked at the face of the guy who was still carrying me.

Was he laughing at me? Did he just snort? What was he thinking? When he saw my confusion and how I slowly got mad too, he explained: “Sorry, but I could see that you were going through some weird logics in your mind.” He couldn’t hold back and started to giggle openly. His body was shaking and I shook with him. it was strange that he still held me, but until now I was too distracted to tell him. “You can let me down. I’m feeling fine already.”

He tried to recompose himself and thoughtfully looked down at my face. Wasn’t I getting heavy?

If he didn’t want to let me down then I’ll do it myself, I thought. It was hard to move in the princess-hold. The easiest way down, I thought to be when I put my arms around his neck to get a hold and then put my feet down singly. When he noticed what I tried to do he held onto me tighter. “Stop moving around so much or I’ll drop you!” he complained.

“Then let me down” I replied automatically.

He slowly put me down on my feet and I noticed, with my arms around his neck, how tall he was, at least one head taller. I was standing on my tiptoes to be able to hold onto him. I released his neck but he still held onto my hips with his arm. The moment I felt the ground under my feet again I slightly swayed but still restarted my questioning. “So what’s the business with the tiger?”

When he heard my question he winced. Before I could realize it he already grabbed me and lifted me up on a table where he sat me down. He put his arms right and left beside me and we were now at eye level. “What are you doing?” I asked startled.

“You were swaying and explaining to you while I have to hold you, and without being able to talk to you on eye level makes it kind of hard for me.” He showed me a smile which exposed that he gave in. “Whatever I tell you now, will be a secret. You aren’t allowed to tell anyone, not the guy from before, nor your best friend. Understood?” he asked. When I nodded he continued. “I am harbouring a tiger inside of me. Whenever I can’t control my feelings it bursts out. It feels exactly the same as me, it’s so to say the mirror of my emotions. But it’s not the only way to call it out. When I am in a dangerous situation I can call upon it myself and use it as a weapon. Even if no one is able to see it” he wavered when saying that and directly looked into my eyes “well no one other than you, the damage the tiger causes is still physical” he continued. I thought about what he said carefully. If that was true, and it had to be, I saw the tiger after all, then he was harbouring a supernatural tiger. It was a reflection of his emotions he said, so the changing colours and sizes were probably a part of it also. Every colour had to have a meaning! Right when I wanted to ask he looked at my ribbon. “You have a recommendation but aren’t in the special class?” he asked.

What did that have to do with everything? Weren’t we talking about his tiger? Did he want to change the subject again? I just wanted to remind him why we were talking here when the door opened. “Here you are.” Another person with a black shirt was standing in the door. “Kuro-Sensei is looking for you.”

“Tell him I’ll come soon.”

This new guy looked at me and grinned. “When did you get this aggressive Ryuu?”

So Maru wasn’t his real name. I thought so but Ryuu and Maru didn’t have any similarities. It all seemed confusing.

“Wait outside, Hiro” Ryuu seemed tensed with this Hiro-guys appearance. Without saying anything more Hiro left the room and closed the door after him. Ryuu sighed. Just now I noticed that he was still standing so near to me, leaning towards me with his arms right and left to me. When I finally realized the red colour rushed into my face and made me blush so deeply. His friend must have misunderstood completely. I hoped Ryuu would explain it to him afterwards. “Anyway, I have to leave now, I can’t tell you more right now, and believe me, it’s better like this.” He sounded determined.

“But...” I started but he interrupted me.

“Don’t tell anyone, when you see me somewhere when people are around don’t come to talk to me, just ignore me. I will do the same.” With this he turned around and left the room.