Everything went by so fast. Images flashed before her once more, temporarily bringing her out of the water experience. Despite her extreme need for oxygen now, she still focused whatever remained of her consciousness towards those flashing images.
The first showed a flower field, full of blooming buttercups. In the sea of yellow flowers, laughter could be heard from three children in a distance. Jun could not make out who these three were, but at least they were approaching her side of the field now. Soon, she could make out their voices clearly.
"Izumi wait up!" A girl yelled out.
"Come catch me if you can!" The boy responded, running about in circles with arms spread out wide like an airplane's wings. Being the closest one to Jun's point-of-view, she could see his auburn hair and bright green eyes. This was the little boy from the first vision, though slightly younger. The third person, another girl who had not spoken yet, caught up with the boy and tackled him down. She too had auburn hair, fixed in twin tails and the same green eyes with a bright smile on her face. Laughing, she and the boy ended up rolling in the flowers.
"Caught you Onii-chan!" She yelled merrily. It wasn't clear yet who she was, but Jun got the feeling that she might be the 'Maya' from her first vision.
"I didn't ask you to catch me!"
"You two! Wait for me! You guys are so fast!"
The third person caught up to the duo, panting as she fixed her dress. The wind blew her black hair back, revealing a young girl's face. The moment Jun saw her face, Jun froze in shock.
That girl was-
"Hurry up Mai-chan! C'mon, let's go to my grandma's house for apple pie!"
"Yay~! Apple pie, apple pie~!"
"Like I said, please wait for me!"
The trio ran off again, laughing and chasing each other under the sun. Jun felt the vision leaving her already but she couldn't care about that.
Isn't that girl... my sister Maika?!
******
Without a second's delay, the twins, Mori-senpai and Honey-senpai had already gone after Jun. Haruhi and the others stood by the sidelines, concern shared among themselves for Jun's safety. Nothing else happened for a few tense seconds. Suddenly, a head emerged from the water. Surprisingly, it wasn't the twins, or Jun.
It was Ren. He swam towards the sides of the pool, his bangs falling into his glowing blue eyes. He still looked pissed off, but at least he wasn't burning with rage.
"F*cking tell me if you can't swim, idiot..." Ren cursed under his breath.
"Ren! Are you okay?" Haruhi reached out a hand and with Kyoya's assistance, the two pulled Ren out of the pool. The twins were up next, sharing identical looks of confusion.
"What... just happened?"
"Right before Jun lost her consciousness I switched with her." Ren squeezed the water out of his clothes and hair, clicking his tongue, "Damn girl never told me anything about not being able to swim!"
"Then how are you able to swim?"
"I've gone to swimming classes before when I was six," Ren replied as he got a towel to wipe himself dry, "Couldn't do anything about it, my mum told me it'll come in handy if I ever fell into the water. Thank god she forced me to go."
Grabbing Jun's stuff, he began to walk away. The Host Club exchanged glances uncertainly.
"Uh... Ren? Where are you going?"
"Home, where else can I go?" Just like that, Ren left the scene. Once he was out of earshot, Haruhi got herself a paper fan out of nowhere (courtesy of Renge xD) and smacked the idiot trio hard on the head.
"Ite?!"
"Itai!"
"Owww!"
"If it weren't for you guys disturbing Ren like that, Jun wouldn't have nearly drowned!" Haruhi placed her hands on her hips with an unhappy look on her face. Tamaki suddenly teared up and sniffled.
"Haruhi hit me... Mama! Haruhi hit me what should I do?!" He ran to Kyoya. With his best smile, Kyoya looked at Tamaki and...
"Go kill yourself," ...said those evil words. The atmosphere dropped several degrees after that.
"Th-The Demon King had spoken!"
"Milord is so screwed!" The twins hugged each other as they shivered together while Honey-senpai ran for Mori-senpai.
"Takashi, Takashi, Kyo-chan is so scary~!"
"...." Mori-senpai said nothing but picked the little shota up and placed him onto his shoulder.
"You guys..." Haruhi sighed to herself. Her eyes trailed back to where she saw Ren leaving, thinking back to the words he had muttered earlier.
"Damn girl never told me anything about not being able to swim!"
That one sentence already told Haruhi everything she needed to know. Nodding once to herself, she turned to Kyoya.
"Kyoya-senpai, can I talk to you for a second in private?" Without looking up from his phone, Kyoya replied.
"Yeah sure, what's wrong?"
"It's about Jun and Ren." At that, Kyoya looked away from his phone and turned to look at Haruhi. His eyes had gone sharp and the glasses glinted.
"Let's discuss this some place better."
******
"Onee-chan!" I called as I burst through the door. By the time I came back, I was already outside my front door. One second I was drowning, and the next I was already home. Ren switching with me was the only answer I could find to that mystery, meaning he had saved me from drowning. Now that I was fine and all, I had to get back to business.
"Oh Jun, you're back! How's the pool?" My sister called from the living room.
"It was fun, though a certain idiot trio were quite annoying."
While walking through the hallway, my eyes spotted the picture hanging on the wall. It was a picture of Maika and I celebrating her 5th birthday.
As expected, the black-haired girl in my vision really was that older girl smiling in the picture.
"What's wrong Jun? You look so serious." Maika's head popped out from behind her book in the living room, on the couch.
I kept my silence until I reached the couch, sat on it and faced my sister. Sensing the change in atmosphere, Maika put her book down. I maintained eye contact with her, just so she wouldn't run away.
Of course she wouldn't, but then again I had to make sure.
"Maika."
"Yes?"
"That time when you first visited grandpa at the countryside, you had two friends right?"
Maika's face seemed to have faltered a little, only just. She still wore her smiling face.
"Why yes, I had friends there. It's quite a long ago time ago though, why do you ask?"
"Because I keep seeing visions of these two people."
Visions? What are you talking about? Ren... hasn't been seeing them? Okay, so that was new. Ren usually knows everything that's in my head.
"Visions?" Maika widened her eyes, "Is it because you're not taking your medicine properly? Or should I bring you to the hospital?" Maika began to get up until I pulled her back down quickly.
"No Sis it's not like that! I'm perfectly fine!" She seemed to scrutinize my expression once before sitting back down again. I sighed.
"Nee-chan, please tell me who are those two people. Somehow, I feel like these visions are trying to tell me something and to know what it is I need your help."
JUN! IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS STOP!!! Ren suddenly yelled in my mind. His yell actually had me jerking backwards a little from the strong vibration. Even for Ren, this was the first time he actually snapped so violently.
What's wrong with you?!
JUST DON'T! Ren sure was acting weird... However, I knew I couldn't back down now. Seeing how Ren yelling would give me a headache, I held out a palm in front of Maika.
"Hold on a second sis," I got the medicine packet out quickly.
Jun you can't be serious!
I could tell that Ren was about to snap, so I quickly consume some tablets.
JUN YOU BITC-
Silence that I used to enjoy finally returned. How I miss that medicine that used to make everything right for me again. Well, I guess I would have to ask Ren later why was he so agitated.
"Okay, continue." I said to my sister. Maika seemed to hesitate before telling me, but she did anyway.
"The two you're talking about must be the Asao siblings, Asao Izumi and Asao Maya."
Ah, so the girl's name really was Maya. Maika continued.
"Us three used to go on adventures together when we were young." Maika closed her eyes, smiling fondly of her childhood memories. I recalled back the vision I saw, back at that field of flowers.
"I still remember them as if it was just yesterday. The scent of the flowers... the laughter in the air... everything was so simple back then. Every afternoon was a blast; in fact we were inseparable. I really miss those days a lot. But..."
Maika's smile disappeared, "It's never coming back anymore." The temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees. All hints of happiness shown on Maika's face seconds ago vanished completely without a trace. Without a doubt, everything suddenly felt so surreal.
"...Why?" I managed to speak. The ruthless silence continued until Maika, with her head hung low, said these words.
"Because they're dead." Finally she burst out into tears.
"Izumi and Maya... they're both dead!"
A/N: My writing motivation disappears as quickly as it comes so don't expect any fast updates from me hahaha, sorry for my laziness minna~ (=w=lll)