Her Life

009.

[A/N: updated! I was so happy seeing people liking my chapters and thought why not update? thank you so much for waiting.]

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Yep, I should've expected Kumiko-chan to do this.

Hana stands on the bridge, looking down at her sister.

"Onee-chan! What the hell are you doing?!" she yells, making the people around her stare.

"I'm trying to find something!" something?

What is this something she's trying to find?

"but... it's almost dinner time, you'll miss it." she says, dejected that she has to go home alone again.

And besides, Tetsu and Minoru will ask where you are again.

"it's fine, why don't you go home? It's starting to get dark." at this point she continued to try and find this 'thing'.

I guess I really can't stop her at this point, I better go home.

"hey, Hana-chan, where's Yamaguchi-san?" oh? Why is Kuma asking for Onee-chan?

"she's over the bridge." after I said that he went and ran.

Why is he running? I doubt Onee-chan would leave without the thing she'd been trying to find, he could still see her there.

"Hana!" I hear someone shout behind me.

I look back to see Shin running towards me.

What is up with people in a rush right now?

"yes, Shin? Why were you running?" I ask, surprised when he held both my shoulders while catching his breath.

"did you come across Kumai?"

"uh yes? He was just asking me where Onee-chan was." before I could ask why he was asking he had dragged me along with him.

Down to the bridge.

"it was a lie! It was a big fat lie!" I hear Kuma yell out when we arrived.

We were dumbfounded, for different reasons. I don't know about Shin but I don't get a single shit about this situation.

"I stole it." as if a switch was turned on, Shin let's go of my hand and shout out Kuma's name.

"Kuma!" I look at Shin to see him marching to Kuma. His face is full of anger.

"Shin."

I flinch when I see Shin shove Kuma and ask him what he's saying.

"do you know what will happen if you say such a thing to a teacher?"

Wow, do they hate teachers that much? But that's Onee-chan, she would never sell out her students... well I hope.

"you'll get kicked out!" okay, that's kind of too much.

My Onee-chan would never do that!

"I know."

"no you don't!" he yells out, he rudely calls out to my sister.

"you believe us? You're our teacher? Huh?" I sigh, he'll regret saying this.

"don't make me laugh! We don't believe what teachers say!" why?

Why don't they believe teachers? Sure I've had my fair share of encounters with teachers but not to the point of hating them and not trusting them, their hatred goes too deep for me to understand.

"going through this charade, forcing Kuma to confess... hey, you're gonna sell him out, right? You'll get rid of him to save the school's reputation, won't you?!" I squint my eyes to see Onee-chan staring at him.

This is the first time I've seen her so emotionless.

"say something!" he yells at her, however, my sister's gaze only fell past him and landed on Kuma, who has been silent this whole time, like me.

With eyes that speak of nothing, my sister asks one more time to process her betrayal. Shin shouts Kuma's name to stop him from talking but seems like guilt has caught up with him because he confessed without any hesitation.

"right." Shin looks behind him to glare at Kuma, while we all listen to his explanation.

"I see." my sister says.

But there's just one thing I'm confused about.

"How the hell is the Head Teacher so dumb to drop such big of money? What was he doing near the bathroom Kuma?" all three people's gazes dropped to me.

As if they are telling me to shut up, "oh, not the time? Fine, I'll shut up." I say, zipping my mouth shut and smiling at them.

Both Kuma and Onee-chan just stare at me, while Shin looks like he could kill me any minute now.

"I'm sorry." I mumble, my head slowly dropping.

I hear a silent chuckle but assume that it came from my sister so I didn't think of it.

"you've done enough, let's return the money." she tries to reason out with Kuma, using a soft tone.

"I don't have it." I look up, shocked that Kuma would have the courage to spend such big money.

Whilst I did, I notice Shin facing his back at us.

"don't kid around. It's 500, 000 yen." I don't really know how much 500, 000 yen is. Since I'm dumb and hate math. So I can't be all dramatic and exclaim how big of money that is.

"It was taken from me!" this caught Shin, he looks back to see me already looking up and staring at him.

He looks away, probably out of frustration or something... I can't really read him right now.

Our gaze landed back on Kuma when he starts to explain, "they took the money to settle the fight."

He explained how he bumped into unpleasant people and had the urge to fight, he was outnumbered and they had beaten him up, taking the money with them to 'settle' the fight.

"The money is gone." Shin says as if challenging Kumiko.

"what are you gonna do? Sell Kuma out?" I look at Shin in concern when his expression darkens.

"if you do that, I'll never forgive you." now I look at Onee-chan, she'd been too quiet to my liking.

What am I even doing here? It's not like they need my opinion on this matter. Even my presence burdens them.

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Without as much as a farewell, Hana leaves, missing out on Kumiko's claims of getting the money back. Missing this event, however, will dampen both Shin and Hana's growing relationship, but will strengthen something.

What she will regret though, is not seeing Kuma and Shin's reaction to Kumiko's action. She would've paid to see her sister punching Kuma and seeing Shin stiffen like a board.