Zaira
Silence descended into the air around us as Kyoya escorted me to the nurses office. The halls were mostly deserted, but I found myself walking closer to him when we would come across people. The moment they saw us they would start whispering. I couldn’t help the feelings that whipped through me in when it would happen. Kyoya, despite everything, just continued to walk.
Even though he didn’t say a word, standing closer to him made it easier to take.
I couldn’t help but feel suddenly grateful that he would be escorting me after school as well. This was all the information I needed to know that I wouldn’t have been able to get through the halls on my own.
When we reached the nurse’s office, Kyoya paused to make sure I was next to him.
“Th-thank-you,” I muttered, focusing my eyes on his hand as he reached for the door. I knew that if I looked at his face it’d be harder to say. “F-for bringing m-me here, th-that is.”
Kyoya was silent, his hand pausing on the handle. Then, in a tone as soft as mine had been, he replied.
“It wouldn’t have been right for me to leave you there, you’re my responsibility after all.”
His words sent a bit of pain through me, although I didn’t quite understand why. It was the truth, I was his responsibility, if he left me alone he wouldn’t be doing what he was supposed to do. Despite knowing that, however, it hurt.
“Excuse me,” he called out, finally pulling open the door. “Akaike-sensei? Akiyama-sensei?”
As I stepped inside, I caught sight of a dark-haired man sitting at a desk towards the end of the room. When Kyoya called out, he’d looked away from papers on his desk. Recognition immediately appeared in the nurse’s expression and he jumped to his feet.
“Ootori-san,” he greeted, his eyes then looked past Kyoya to me. They widened for a moment in confusion, then I once again saw recognition appear in them. “And Bello-san, what can I do for you?”
I guess that it was pretty easy now to figure that if there was an obviously foreign girl walking around with Kyoya that it was me.
“Zaira isn’t feeling well,” Kyoya replied and I guess it wasn’t a complete lie. “I decided it would be best to bring her here rather than class.”
The nurse immediately offered a bright smile and gestured a hand towards one of the multiple beds in the office.
“Yes, yes, a great decision. She’s free to lay down until she feels better. We wouldn’t want her getting sick.”
So that was what Haruhi had meant when she said that she doubted anyone would turn me away now that I was connected to the Ootori name. I’d expected it, certainly, but it was still a bit shocking. No questions asked. Even if Haruhi had told me I was a bit pale, wasn’t that a bit much?
“Th-thank-you,” I murmured, then glanced from the nurse to Kyoya.
Noticing my look, he gave me a slight nod and turned back around.
“I’ll be heading to class, now. Rest and feel better.”
With those words, he left. The nurse continued to give me an expectant look, so without further ado I approached the bed he’d gestured towards when Kyoya had asked about me staying.
“Do you want me to turn out the lights, Bello-san?” he asked as I laid down.
“No,” I told him immediately, then calmed my voice before continuing. “You have work you need to do, I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It’s no problem, really! If you need-”
“I don’t!”
The nurse didn’t say anything after that, probably not wanting to upset his precious patient. I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed by his reaction to my refusal or to be relieved that he left me be. Without saying anything else, the nurse pulled the curtains around the bed I’d laid down in shut. I immediately felt myself relaxed now that there were no eyes on me. For one of the first times since arriving at school I felt the stress of the announcement drain away. As a result of that combined with my normal lack of sleep, I felt my eyes begin to slide shut.
“Honestly, Yamauchi-kun, if it isn’t one thing it’s another.”
The first thing I heard when I opened my eyes was that one name. I instantly felt myself tense, realization that the so called ‘bug’ Kyoya had wanted me to avoid was only a curtain away.
“Sorry, Akaike-sensei,” Ichiro replied. “It’s not like I plan on ending up in here every other day.”
The nurse laughed and I could hear him the sounds of him rummaging around, most likely in a drawer. As he did, I sat up, careful not to make a noise.
“At least it wasn’t your sister this time,” Akaike joked. “Although I suppose cutting your hand during biology just might be more embarrassing.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ichiro protested immediately.
Having successfully moved to the edge of the bed without being noticed, I hesitated before my next move. A second later I pushed away my worries about being seen, and moved the curtain just enough for me to peer out. Ichiro sat only a foot away from the curtain, his back towards me. The injured hand was being held by the nurse, who had a wet cotton swab squeezed between the ends of a pair of tweezers and pressed to the top of the cut. I couldn’t see Ichiro’s face, but I imagined it must have been screwed up in pain. The cut looked quite deep, although from what I could tell it seemed rather clean, as to be expected of a scalpel.
It was slightly difficult to push away my initial reaction upon seeing the blood, but my need to see what was going on made it possible.
“Oh?” the nurse asked, moving the tweezers and extracting a hiss of pain from Ichiro.
“Y-yeah.”
The nurse looked hesitant and his gaze flickered up to study Ichiro’s face. Seeming to find whatever he was searching for, he sighed and dropped his eyes back to Ichiro’s hand.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with that news, now, would it?”
I could actually see Ichiro’s entire body tense up when the question was asked.
“Why would it?” he muttered, his head turning away from Akaike. “There’s no reason for it to.”
Akaike continued to move the cotton swab down the cut, making sure to clean it out. He must have been trying to decide how to handle this.
“You talk to me a lot, as often as you’re in here,” he said slowly. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but there has been a name that has come up pretty often in our conversations recently, hasn’t there?”
Ichiro stayed silent with his face continuing to look away from the nurse. Myself, I couldn’t decide what to think. He couldn’t mean...
“And if I’m right about this as well, that is the same name that was all over the news this morning…” Akaike continued. “As well as all over campus the moment students began to arrive. There is even a large amount of staff discussing the news.”
He did mean...
Ichiro still didn’t respond. Akaike sighed once again and put the cotton swab, along with the tweezers to the side.
“Are you still going to say that this doesn’t have anything to do with that news?” he asked, his tone this time sounding as if he didn’t really expect an answer.
I couldn’t figure out what to think. We were just friends. That’s all. That’s it.
Nothing more.
I saw the hand that Akaike was holding clench as Ichiro let a very uncharacteristic swear.
“Fine, fine, it may have had something to do with it,” he muttered. “It may have happened right when one of those stupid obsessive fangirls asked,” at this moment his voice became high to represent the girl’s, “Ootori-sama, are you really engaged?”
“Yamauchi-kun…” Akaike said, his voice taking on a soothing tone. “If you don’t unclench your hand, you’re going to have it covered in blood again.”
Ichiro paused, his head turning back to face the nurse. For a time he simply looked down at the hand, then he slowly loosened it. Akaike grabbed a cloth from nearby and set about wiping away the newly appeared blood.
“And?” the nurse asked.
“Then he had the nerve to offer to escort me,” Ichiro continued after a moment had passed. “I’ve never felt so relieved to be as clumsy as I am. Sensei simply said it happens all the time and that I would surely be able to handle this on my own. It’s like he wants to rub it in!”
His entire body seemed to tense even further, sending more blood bubbling from the cut.
“Yamauchi-kun…”
“No wonder he came along on what was supposed to be a date… Damn, he must have been laughing at me…”” Ichiro continued.
“Yamauchi-kun…”
“And Zaira-chan…” he paused, his voice breaking slightly. “Zaira-chan… she’s clueless. I want to blame her but… dammit!”
“Ichiro!”
Startled, Ichiro looked at Akaike, who sighed in return.
“Relax, I know I started it, but if you don’t relax we’ll never be done. By all rights you should probably get stitches. Perhaps it would be best if I called your parents…”
“No,” he responded immediately. “They’d worry too much. Just bandage it up and I’ll stop by a clinic that isn’t connected to my family on the way home. My driver won’t tell them if I tell him to. Just make it good enough to last till then.”
Akaike was silent for a moment, then nodded.
“Fine, fine, I’ll just bandage it. If you don’t relax, though, it won’t work. Also, if you want it to last all day, then you’ll have to keep from getting so worked up!”
Ichiro gave a slow nod, turning his head away once again.
“I understand.”
Akaike seemed to remember something then, and paused with a bandage in one of his hands.
“... besides, you wouldn’t want to get too loud.”
“Huh?”
The nurse hesitated for a moment, then went back to putting the beginnings of the bandage beneath the center of Ichiro’s palm.
“Well, you saw the closed curtain, right?”
Ichiro simply nodded and turned his head back to the nurse.
“It wouldn’t be a very good idea to wake up the one sleeping there. I checked on her a bit ago and she didn’t seem to be very deeply asleep.”
A bit of panic began to well up in me. Akaike had looked away from the bandage and I could almost swear his eyes met mine for a brief moment.
“It’ll be fine,” Ichiro began, then cut off. “... she…?”
Akaike seemed to hesitate once again, then gave a small nod.
“Why didn’t you say so?!” Ichiro demanded. “What if sh-”
“Shhh!”
At the same time that the nurse cut him off, I attempted to move a bit further, using my hand on the back of the bed frame to support myself. However, my balance is about as good as Ichiro’s luck when it comes to avoiding the nurse’s office. Instead of moving the curtain so that I could try and see better, and perhaps catch a glimpse of what Ichiro’s face looked like, I found myself falling forward.
The next thing I knew I was sprawled on the floor with the curtain laying across my back.
“Zaira-chan?!”
“Bello-san!”
I’ll admit it, I completely panicked.
“I… I’m okay n-now!” I sputtered and jumped to my feet. “I-I’m going b-back to c-class!”
Without waiting to see what they said, I darted towards the door.
“Zaira-chan!”
“Sit back down or I’m calling your parents, baka!”
Ichiro was arguing with the nurse as I managed to get the door open and slip out. Not completely paying attention to where I was going, I darted down the hall. I was fully aware of how hard I was shaking.
It was a bad idea to move. I should have just stayed back and listened.
No, I shouldn’t have listened at all. I should have left the moment I woke up.
I should have gone to class this morning.
Anything other than getting caught eavesdropping would have been a better option.
Once I was certain that I wouldn’t be caught by Ichiro in the chance that he’d escaped Akaike, I stopped running. My back then ended up against the wall of the hall as I slid down to the floor. Taking deep breaths to calm myself, I glanced around. It only took me a moment to realize that I had no clue where I was.
Of course I’m the person who manages to get lost in her own school, I thought, growing annoyed with myself.
I realized then that I was also unsure about exactly where I had been planning to go. Did I really want to go to class? Tamaki’s words flashed through my mind. He’s said if something happened then I should come to them.
Kyoya wouldn’t like the so called ‘bug’ being the root of the problem, let alone the fact that I’d actually run into him.
Slowly and shakily, I drew myself to my feet and began walking. There was no need to worry them about this problem, I would handle it on my own like someone my age should do. As for where I was going, it would just depend on where I ended up being when I figured out what part of the school building I was in. If I was closer to them, then so be it. Although in that case it would also depend on exactly how much courage I managed to work up between now and then.
Luck was on my side, however, and I ran into my class on their way to the gym. Most of the class began to whisper as I greeted Sensei, but the one of the few who I cared about simply called out to me to join her once I'd finished speaking.
“You don’t look any better,” Haruhi observed, her tone almost seemed disapproving.
“I-I’m fine,” I mumbled sheepishly in return.
At that same moment, Hikaru and Kaoru joined us. Hikaru, seeming to read the mood, tilted his head thoughtfully as if something had just occurred to him.
“Hey, I just thought of something,” he said a moment later, seeming to ignore the way the rest of our classmates were watching us. “If in Tono’s world Kyoya is mommy…”
Kaoru seemed to understand immediately what his brother had realized.
“And if Zaira-chan is our sister…” he added.
They both looked at each other before continuing with overly dramatic, surprised faces.
“What sort of family is this?”
I’m not sure if it was their plan when starting the conversation, but the comment caused a giggle to burst from my lips, followed by another.
“S-say the twincest twins,” I retorted once I’d stopped giggling.
Hikaru comically widened his eyes and stopped walking. It was then that I noticed we’d reached the changing room doors.
“Was that a joke?” he asked. “Or something similar to one?”
“Zaira-chan, tell a joke?” Kaoru echoed, a teasing edge to his shocked voice. “Impossible.”
I simply rolled my eyes and gestured towards the changing room.
“Go change,” I ordered.
They seemed even more surprised than before, but complied. Was it because I’d told them to?
“Are you going to participate?” Haruhi asked, startling me from the few thoughts I’d been mulling over.
Participate? I considered it for a moment then promptly dismissed the idea. That would mean changing out, which would mean being alone with the fangirls. Haruhi, being disguised as a boy like she was, couldn’t possibly go into the changing room with me.
“I’ll join you.”
Haruhi didn’t question the statement and the two of us headed towards the doors at the end of the gym that lead outside. Once there, we took seats in the grass surrounding the track. The sensei spared us a glance, but didn’t say anything to us. I found myself relaxing, although not as much as I had been earlier when alone in the nurse’s office. Haruhi was easy company, only moments after we sat down she’d pulled out a book I hadn’t even noticed she’d been carrying with her. It was a comfortable, relaxing silence.
Most of class carried on like this. I found myself realizing it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined it would be. Our classmates seemed to realize soon enough that I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer the questions they wanted to ask and began to leave me alone as they had. The whispers didn’t go away, but I didn’t imagine they would right away. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine the whispering staying around forever. Engagements between families weren’t that uncommon in our social class, even if we were only in high school. I think the only reason that it was made into as big a deal as it was just happened to be because it was Kyoya and I. Kyoya, who came from the Ootori’s, and I who had been revealed now to be the daughter of a very famous man. Most people until now hadn’t even picked up on the name, seeing as classical music wasn’t completely popular in people our age.
To sum it up, by the time school was drawing to an end for the day, nothing horrible had happened. Although, that didn’t count the eavesdropping incident before I’d come back to class.
I’d decided that, for now at least, I would try to push that to the back of my mind. It was a problem I would deal with when the time came. We were friends after all, everything would work out. The only reason he'd even been talking about me to the nurse enough for the nurse to know what was going on just had to be because we were good friends. Everything would be fine.
As all this went through my mind, I realized that the one thing I was missing happened to be the one thing I almost went nowhere without. My violin.
Had I brought it to school with me today? Of course I had, I was originally supposed to have Oke club before Kyoya had announced our trip to the resort. Where had I last had it, then… in the car? The clubroom?
The nurse’s office?
Just as I’d begun to panic, there was a knock at our classroom door.
“Zaira-chan?”
Ichiro.
“I picked up your violin…”
A/N: I told, told, told myself I was going to wait a little longer before posting this chapter! Buuuuut, appearently this girl doesn't listen to herself very well and here you go! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, it was a whole bunch of fun to write and so easy to write as well! Next chapter will begin the resort part, so I hope you look forward to next week!
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