The New Student: Chapter Four

“Ojiichan, I’m home!”

Aoi breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her. She didn’t know whether she was happier that she was home or that she could now remove her horrible, itchy wig. She did so now and she was sure she heard her scalp give out a shriek of relief. It had become quite warm that afternoon, so she had been uncomfortable under the synthetic hair piece and she now scratched her head fiercely, groaning with pleasure at the sensation.

“You’re not going back on my head,” she muttered, glaring balefully at the wig in her hand. She couldn’t go through another day of that, so as soon as she had greeted her grandfather, she was going to go to her bathroom and cut her hair into a similar style to the wig. Her natural hair could grow back, but if she had to go through another day with that wig on, she was sure she would go insane.

She took off her shoes and put on a pair of the slippers that were just inside the doorway. As she did so, she heard a shuffling noise and glanced up to see the elderly man approaching, a frown of concern on his wrinkled features.

“Aoi, are you okay? How did it go today?”

She smiled gently at her grandfather, Tanaka Hideyuki. She and Kaoru had lived with him since they were seven years old, following the deaths of their parents. At that time, their grandmother had also still been alive, but had sadly died three years later, leaving only the twins and Ojiichan to inhabit the large house on the outskirts of town.

Her grandfather, in addition to being on the board of governors for Kurogin Gakuin, was a well-respected businessman and community leader, and was well-known in the area for his kindness toward others.

She walked over to him and hugged him, kissing him on the cheek, smelling the familiar scent of peppermints. His forehead was creased with concern and she smiled faintly as it bought to mind Tsucchi telling her earlier not to worry because she would get wrinkles.

“Everything was fine, Ojiichan. The kids are okay; your granddaughter even made some friends!”

Ojiichan’s frown didn’t lift at this news. “I was worried when the police called saying that they may have found out you were at a school in the area.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Aoi said reassuringly. She wanted her grandfather to worry as little as possible about her in the next couple of months. One of her reasons for taking part in self-defence classes had been so that her grandfather would not worry that she couldn’t protect herself if she needed to. “The last place I’d be expected to hide would be at a boy’s school.”

He shook his head, still frowning. “I still think you should have let me hire some bodyguards for you.”

“But that would call attention to me, wouldn’t it? Everyone knows how protective of me you are; hiring bodyguards would be expected. This way, I can blend in with the boys and nobody will be any the wiser.”

Hideyuki’s face softened as he looked at his beloved grand-daughter. Though he knew that she was right, when he had made the decision to hide her at the school, he had initially thought that he would be sending her with people who would be able to protect her. It had only been at Aoi’s insistence that she would be more likely to stay below the radar without them, that he had reluctantly agreed.

Aoi had had a hard time over the last three months. She had been closer to her brother than to any other person, even himself. She and Kaoru had been inseparable, as was often the case with twins. Kaoru had been a wonderful grandson and he missed him terribly, but he knew that Aoi’s pain went even deeper than his own.

He suspected that Aoi had locked the agony of losing her brother inside, as she knew that he himself was worried about her, and he felt the leaden weight of guilt that she had put his welfare before her own. He had known that she hadn’t really wanted to go to Kurogin; she would far rather have stayed with him. However, he knew that the one place that she would be at most risk would be at home. As much as he would have preferred her to stay with him, he knew it was safer for her to be away from home as much as possible.

He cleared his throat, leading the way into the living area. “So what is your teacher like? And who are these friends that you have made?”

Aoi’s eyebrows shot up as she followed him inside. “I’ve had some teachers over the years, but Yankumi is in a class all of her own; she’s a little – shall we say – eccentric? She has helped me to settle in.”

“Yankumi? You call your teacher this?” he asked, picking up the cup of green tea that sat on the table. He had a slightly disapproving expression on his face at her informality.

She waved a hand dismissively. “She insisted. Her name is Yamaguchi, but her students gave her a nickname, so she goes by that.”

He still didn’t look convinced. “Young people nowadays; I don’t know. Anyway, how about these friends? I didn’t realise there were any other girls there.”

She shook her head nonchalantly. “Oh, there aren’t. They’re boys. Anyway, how did your day go, Ojiichan?” she added rapidly. She was trying to gloss over the fact that her new friends were a bunch of boys. There was no way, her grandfather being as protective of her as he was, that she was going to tell him that they looked like a delinquent teenage gang.

“I don’t know if I agree with that,” he said a little stuffily. He was old-fashioned and to add that to the over-protective stance he had taken since Kaoru’s death, she hadn’t thought that he would be too happy that she was hanging out with a bunch of boys.

She shook her head innocently. “I don’t know what you mean, Ojiichan. I’m just one of the boys. They don’t treat me any differently. It’s quite refreshing, actually,” she insisted truthfully.

He shook his head, his expression softening at the slightly mischievous expression on her face. He was gratified to see it for the first time in three months and he vowed that if being at the school with those children would bring forth this change in her, he would keep his mouth shut, as long as she was safe.

They talked for a little while longer until the telephone rang; it was one of her grandfather’s business contacts, so she kissed him on the forehead and mouthed to him that she would go upstairs and get changed.

As she took the flight of stairs up to her room, the mischievous expression in her eyes and the smile on her lips faded, to be replaced by her usual sombre expression. She stopped abruptly as she reached the door to her brother’s bedroom.

She could remember running across the landing from her own bedroom to this one, on the first night they had stayed there after the death of their parents. She had been unable to sleep, having cried so much at the sense of loss and fear that she felt. Though they had both stayed with their grandparents many times when they were children, it had been a different matter staying there because their parents had died.

She had knocked quietly on her brother’s door; quietly so she wouldn’t disturb him if he had somehow managed to get to sleep. But no sooner had she knocked than the door had opened and she had seen the much-loved face of her brother standing there. His eyes had been red from crying, but were now dry. Her bottom lip had trembled as she looked at him, more tears falling from her eyes and he had hugged his little sister to him fiercely. Even at only seven years old, he had been protective of her.

He had led her inside his room, closing the door as he led her to the bed, lying down beside her. He had covered them with the blanket and hugged her to him. He had been humming as she fell into an exhausted sleep, a lullaby that their mother had often sung to them when they were unwell.

He had always been the strong one.

She rested a hand on his door, wishing with all of her being that her brother – no, the other half of her – was still inside, studying while listening to the too-loud rock music that he always had blasting from his iPod. She closed her eyes painfully as she thought of all the times that she had shouted at him to stop listening to the music while she was trying to study. He had always cheerfully shouted back that he had some ear-plugs she could borrow if she didn’t like it.

They had never argued seriously about anything. She had heard horrible stories from her peers at school, constantly bemoaning their fates at having arguments with their parents and siblings, but she and Kaoru had never been like that. Whether it was losing their parents at such a young age, she didn’t know, but she had thanked her lucky stars every day that this wonderful person was her brother. She had never dreamed that he would be taken away from her.

She fiercely clamped down on her feelings and walked rapidly into her own bedroom, closing the door behind her. She leaned backwards against the wood and looked around the familiar room as the tears that she held in, tried to escape.

She had redecorated the room when she was fifteen, the room having previously been very pink. She had been through the usual ‘princess’ phase when she was little, but had eventually grown out of it, the pink and white frills and lace being replaced by more traditional Japanese decoration.

She had spartanly decorated the room; a dark wooden framed bed had replaced the four-poster, enhanced by a similarly coloured coin chest, which resided at the bottom. A tall wooden wardrobe was situated in the far corner of the room. Her laptop was on the desk along the right-hand wall and a huge bookshelf sat next to it.

She made her way over to the bed, dropping her school bag next to her as she sat down. She picked up the photo that rested on the bedside table, almost blinded by the tears that filled her eyes. The happy faces in the photo smiled back at her; it was of her and Kaoru, taken when they had visited an amusement park together to celebrate their seventeenth birthday.

One of the main ways they had differed had been in the way that Kaoru could make friends so easily. He had always been surrounded by people, but on the day that the photo had been taken, he had taken time out to go to an amusement park with her, just the two of them.

They had had so much fun that day. It had begun as a warm day with the sun shining brightly, so they hadn’t expected the brief torrential downpour that had happened halfway through the day. They had both been soaked through, laughing like maniacs as they dried out throughout the rest of the day as the sun shone through.

The photo had been taken by a member of staff at the amusement park. She and Kaoru had their arms around each other’s shoulders; he was winking and grinning at the camera and she was trying to stick her tongue out – not very successfully, as she had been giggling uncontrollably at the time.

She took a deep breath, blinking rapidly to stop the tears from falling, trying to rid herself of the depression that she lately, more often than not, found herself in. Her shoulders slumped as she looked at her brother’s smiling face. She just felt so tired. In order to protect her grandfather from the way that she really felt, she tried not to show her emotions in front of him any more.

She shook herself and put the photo back on the dresser. Standing decisively, she walked into her en-suite bathroom, determined that she would no longer dwell on the bad things that had happened; instead, she would take one day at a time, which she had learned during her many counselling sessions, and not expect too much of herself.

She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled determinedly, showing two white rows of perfect teeth, trying to ignore the fact that the smile didn’t reach her eyes. If there was one thing she thought that she was learning, it was how to show only emotions that she wanted others to see.

She opened a drawer, which held a variety of girly paraphernalia and took out a pair of scissors. Looking again at herself in the mirror, she lifted her shoulder-length hair and began to choppily cut it in a style similar to that of the wig she had left downstairs. She wasn’t looking forward to the reaction her grandfather was sure to have at cutting her hair, but she was afraid that if she had to carry on wearing it, she would rip the wig off at an inopportune time due to the discomfort, and then where would her cover be?

As she cut her hair, she thought back to the way her first day at Kurogin had gone. She had been pleasantly surprised at how easily she had, on the most part, fitted in with the class, especially the small group of guys she had gone to the arcade with.

She had quickly realised that Yabuki and Odagiri were the uncontested leaders of the class; all the boys in 3D seemed to look to them for the way to act, and behaved accordingly. Yabuki came across as quite easy-going, though she had the feeling that wouldn’t stop him becoming troublesome if something didn’t go the way he wanted it to.

Tsucchi and Hyuuga also seemed to be easy to get along with. Tsucchi seemed to be a walking hormone, and spent most of the time they were at the arcade bemoaning the fact that he didn’t have a girlfriend, Hyuuga agreeing with him in a show of masculine solidarity. She had felt herself involuntarily blushing a few times at the ribald comments flowing freely between them.

She felt that Takeda – Take – was more serious and came across as quite sensitive. She felt that he was the conscience of the group and he seemed to have taken her under his wing, for which she was grateful. He hadn’t joined in with Tsucchi and Hyuuga in the talk about girls; she had found out that he was the only one in the group that had a girlfriend. He seemed very happy with her, his Maki-chan. He had even shown her a photograph of the girl that he carried around with him.

The one member of the group that she couldn’t get a handle on was Odagiri. She frowned as she thought about the second leader of the class and she paused, staring unseeingly at herself in the mirror.

Odagiri hadn’t spoken much to her while they were in the arcade, or afterwards, when they had gone to a shopping mall to get some lunch. She wasn’t sure what she had done, but he seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. She was sure she had sensed his eyes narrowed on her throughout the day when he thought she wasn’t looking.

She didn’t think that she had done anything suspicious; in fact, she thought that she had been quite good at acting like a boy; the other four boys hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss, anyway.

She debated whether she had been imagining any bad feelings coming from him; he seemed to be the quietest member of the group and had rarely spoken up first, so perhaps she was seeing conflict where there wasn’t any. She decided that she would try extra hard tomorrow at school and see what happened.

She dismissed it from her mind for now; there was nothing she could do at the moment. She resumed cutting her hair, happy with the way that the cut was progressing; so far, she hadn’t cut herself a bald spot, so that was a bonus!

As she finished cutting, she smiled and thought of the narrow miss they had had upon getting back to Kurogin for their last lesson. As it was a study period with Yankumi, they had known that they would have to return to school so the teacher would not miss them.

They had sneaked into the school through the kitchens at the back of the building. Luckily, the catering staff had finished their clean-up after the hectic and messy lunch period, so the kitchens had been empty.

It had been going wonderfully until they had turned a corner and seen Head Teacher Sawatari walking toward them. Thankfully, he hadn’t seen them, as he had been deep in conversation with Superintendent Kurokawa.

They had immediately thrown themselves into a convenient bathroom and held their breaths as they waited silently for the Head Teacher and Superintendent to walk past. They had heard the pompous posturing of Sawatari and had let out a collective sigh of relief as they went unnoticed.

They had rapidly made their way to the 3D classroom, only seconds before Yankumi had breezed in, none the wiser about them having skipped classes for most of the day.

Aoi had been unable to make eye-contact with the teacher as she had, after the lesson had ended, asked her how her first day had been, feeling guilty at deceiving the kindly teacher. She had instead mumbled that the day had been fine. She had said her goodbyes to the boys in the class and had swiftly made her exit, almost tripping in her rush to get out of there.

She placed the scissors down on the counter, having finished her styling. She nodded with satisfaction as she turned her head this way and that, happy with the front and sides at least. She picked up a small mirror and turned her back to the larger mirror. Looking through the reflection of the back of her head, she nodded, impressed with her handiwork despite herself. She ran her fingers through the hair at the back of her head, glad to see there was still no bald spot.

Turning abruptly back to the mirror on the wall, she placed the smaller mirror firmly back on the counter and leaned forward, placing her clenched fists on either side of the mirror as she looked intently at her reflection.

“Tomorrow, you are going to try your hardest, and you are going to get through the next two months. You are going to be motivated and you are going to pass your exams, and you are going to become one of the boys,” she added firmly.

Taking a last look at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t resist again fluffing her now-shorter hair and went back into her bedroom to change before she went down for the evening meal and Ojiichan’s disapproval that she was sure to face at having cut her hair.