***
It was after school, and at the back of the cafeteria sat Eiichi.
The sun was just beginning to go down, casting a pale gold light over gray clouds, against the trees and structures, laying out long, leaning shadows over the grass and chilled concrete. The shadows of trees swayed in the wind, making the lights dance over the grass.
He had been raising his cigarette to take another drag, when suddenly his head perked up.
“I don’t wanna talk about what happened last night,” he muttered at the trees across the driving pad.
“I know,” Noda spoke.
She stepped out from under the shadow of the awning behind him. She must have come around the side to sneak up on him.
She walked up next to where he was seated on the edge of the loading bay, and smoothing the back of her skirt flat against her legs, sat next to him, her shoes dangling just above the concrete and swinging divergently next to his static ones.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
“Who else would it be? You’re the only one who knows I’m here now.”
She had been thinking about it. He couldn’t think of anything else for her to be so excited about right now, but her concerns for his request were genuine.
“Don’t you have club activities right now?”
“I decided to take a break.” She raised a knee and crossed her fingers over it. “Last night took a lot out of me.”
“Really? I thought you were all go.”
“Yeah...yeah, I guess I kind of am.”
Boy, was she ever the comfortable one.
“So, how was your day?” she asked.
He didn’t want another explosion like before.
He took a moment to respond. “Eventful...”
“Really? What happened?”
“I just...kind of helped a minor dispute, that’s all...”
Noda leaned back and he could tell she was holding back a barrage of questions.
“That’s something you seem to do a lot. I still can’t see why you have such a bad reputation.”
“That’s because it’s not something I do a lot.”
He really didn’t need her poking at him right now.
“I was surprised to find you still here. I thought you went home every day,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess I’ve been knocked off track a little as well.”
“Wanna’ talk about it?”
He exhaled a cloud of smoke that was more like a sigh, “I don’t know...”
She let this one slide.
Helping Yukichi had been just another crazy step out of his day-to-day routine. Before it had been Noda just pushing, pulling, and prodding on him until he couldn’t take it anymore, but this time he had fully acted of his own accord. He was starting to feel like things were coming undone. Just one read of Yukichi’s output had told him he needed someone to step in, but still, this was not how he did things.
Noda suddenly got something in her head she wanted to do and got down from her perch. She stepped further out onto the pad and into his view. The sunlight lit up the outline of her braids while her hands clasped behind her back, a playful beam of curiosity aimed at him from behind those spectacles. With her braids swaying, the trees hissed and the lights danced from behind her.
“If I promise not to talk to you about last night, will you let me show you something?”
He looked at her. She was scheming something again, but her output wasn’t feeding him any images just yet. She had promised not to talk about the bust. However, she was very amused with this.
“Please tell me you didn’t find something else that could get us into more trouble.”
“You’ll see...” She smiled.
His shoulders sank. “Can I at least finish my cigarette first?”
“Oh come on, you do that all the time, you can stand to skip it once.”
Reluctantly, he stamped it out on the loading bay and held it in hand to throw away later.
As Eiichi pushed himself off the pad, Noda eagerly backed away a few steps.
“Come on.” She coaxed him forward.
Noda led Eiichi back into the main building and up several flights of stairs. They even went straight up past the second year floor, and he became curious himself after they brushed past some first years heading down the way they came.
“What’s this about?”
“It’s not a surprise if I tell you.”
The anticipation was not exactly killing him.
The top two floors of the school contained more club rooms. A majority of the ground floor was storage rooms and faculty offices, with only a few club rooms for students, and of course the library and cafeteria. Most of the available spaces for clubs were on the last two floors. They continued up, past these, and were soon on the dark stairwell leading to the roof.
“Don’t we need a key to get up here?”
“Because I’m involved in so many clubs in this school, I was able to request one. The roof is used for other club activities, like the astronomy club, and sometimes the yoga club meets up here, so they allow special access.”
Like Noda said, she had a key, and went to work with unlocking the access door.
She pushed it open and held it for him, like she was presenting something.
Eiichi stepped out to find a large, empty roof pad, hazed over by more of the pale gold light. There was tall fencing all around the edges, standard issue for every high school to curb the suicide rates. There were a few heating and cooling generators, and some benches along the perimeter. There were even a few square flower beds with grass down their centers and additional benches on either side. The place looked more like students were allowed up here.
Beyond the fencing were large, gray clouds over the city, mountains and horizon, with the sun now peeking through. The wind blew a bit more intensely up here.
Eiichi stepped out and eyed the space. A reading from Noda told him this was it. To be honest, he was a little surprised.
“Well, what do ya think?” Noda sounded cheery.
“And you brought me up here because...”
“Well, you said you didn’t like anyone, and you don’t seem to like being around people all that much, so I thought this would be a nice place to...you know, clear your head. Do your...smoking thing or whatever.”
“It’s a bit of a climb.”
“Yeah, but it’s better than the smelly back of some cafeteria.”
He could sense there was some other ulterior motive to all this, but he didn’t want to bother with it. She had gone out of her way to do something for him. At the least, he should be appreciative.
“Now you’ll be like Shizuo-kun!” she blurted. “Or the delinquent smoking on the roof of the school in anime and manga!”
This was definitely not the ulterior motive, but it still caused Eiichi to frown.
“You’ve just gotta’ create an image for everything...”
“It’s what I do.” She winked.
He turned and let his eyes scan over everything. He could hear the trees hissing from below, as well as the traffic outside campus, which he could have done without...but it wasn’t bad...
“How did you know about this?” he asked.
“Do I really have to—”
“Okay, I get it, ya know the school like the back of your hand.”
Noda smirked at him, feeling rather pleased with this.
He approached the fencing on the right side of the doorway and looked out between the chain link.
She joined him and placed her hands on it, leaning and looking out toward the clouds.
“Kozuka-san, why do you smoke?”
She pried worse than Torio.
“Because I like it.”
“What made you start?”
“No reason. I enjoy it, it creates time for me to think, and keeps people away. After a few tries, I found out I liked it. Why do you like juice so much?”
Noda’s head whipped towa
rd him. “How would you know that I like juice!?”
‘Good question.’
She was getting a little close and he had to lean back.
“I saw you guzzle down two cans yesterday!”
She relaxed and gave this some thought.
“I think I see where you’re coming from...but...my vice isn’t going to kill me.”
“Anything to excess can be unhealthy. If you drink too much juice, you’ll get diarrhea.”
Her output seized up and he had to keep a straight face.
“You just had to make it gross, didn’t you...” She was wondering if she could ever drink juice again after hearing that.
He smirked. “I’m well aware of the consequences, but everyone has to die of something. The thing is, I might quit one day. Depending...”
“On what?”
The wind swept his hair back. “If I can find a good enough reason to.”
Noda turned her head and joined him in watching the light shining through the slow moving, gray structures floating over the mountains.
“Well, I hope you find that reason.”
“Asako-san...”
“Yeah?”
“Just for the record...I don’t dislike all people.”
He could feel her smiling next to him. “I know.”
Eiichi P.I., Vol. 1 Page 15
