Chapter Two

-Friday Morning-

Shoko prodded the tiny marshmallows with the tip of her spoon, sending them in slow circles across the small wave of milk the disruption created, and waited intently for them to still.

It was 5:23 in the morning and she was looking for answers in her cereal. It wasn't like she could find them elsewhere, and after a fairly sleepless night, her mind was not quite in perfect order.

The many little pieces of cereal began to slow, the final current disappearing.

"Show me the way," she muttered. "Tell me what to do. I completely give my fate over to you."

They stopped, quivering, and she leaned closer towards the bowl, trying to open her mind to the message that must surely be there. An oval blob with a straight line coming from it, then another, sparser line going down from the tip of that to a bobbing circle.

She frowned. It looked like someone fishing.

"Go fish?" she wondered aloud. What was that supposed to mean?

She considered this for a few more moments, and decided that the good-for-nothing cereal was playing games with her. She took a bite with a small measure of vengeance, startling the picture into disarray.

It had gone soggy. Lovely. But maybe that was the message. 'You are soggy. Soggy Shoko.' She didn't like the sound of that. Shoggy Shoko? It flowed better, but left her wondering what Shoggy could mean. Nothing good, by the sound of it. She might as well just be soggy. Though how could a person be soggy?

She pushed the bowl of cereal, a favored breakfast food she had used what little force she possessed in order to acquire on a regular basis, away from her, towards the center of the table. The bowl looked a little lonely, she thought. Her mother usually arranged some flowers for the centerpiece, but she was away with Father on a trip to see some eccentric friend in Brazil. The ones she'd left behind had wilted and been thrown away, leaving the table empty.

But then she decided that was fine with her. The cereal deserved to be lonely. As lonely as Shoko was. Nonetheless, that irrational part of her, the product of sleep-deprivation and emotional desperation, made her fetch the salt and pepper from the counter and put them in a companionable position next to the bowl. Better, but she knew the housekeeper would be down moments after Shoko left to rinse the bowl and stick it in the dishwasher.

She suddenly felt very depressed. 'At least the salt and pepper still have each other,' she thought, and her spirits lifted a little as she went to go shower and try to make it look like she hadn't spent the night wide awake and the morning talking to cereal.

-Friday Afternoon-

After a long day, despite having been clumsily lost in thought for most of it, Shoko emerged from the confines of the music school in mostly working order, considering the past twenty four hours. There had been a couple of times when she'd been called upon in class and it had taken her longer than it should have to supply an answer, but as per usual, no one had tried to talk to her. She had been mercifully spared the sight of Len, and her mind was perfectly clear and free to tie itself in knots over her impending doom. Her stomach turning over in a jelloid dance, she felt unusually lightheaded and anxious. She knew she should probably walk faster, lest she make Kahoko wait a long time, but her feet were stalling, certain this was all going to go disastrously awry.

'You should have thought of that before you said yes,' she chastised herself grimly, but the self-reprimand was unnecessary. She had thought of it - to be honest, she always thought things were going to go disastrously awry - but the problem was that for once, she'd ignored it. Because for some crazy reason she thought it might go well.

The reasoning had since abandoned her.

'Trust in Kahoko.' She certainly wanted to, but for all her treasured memories of the concourse, Shoko didn't know Kahoko that well, and unknowns had tripped her up often enough in the past for her to avoid them like the plague.

Nearing the gate, she spotted the back of Kahoko's head, and her pulse sped up. She should have told Kahoko she was sick. Should have found a way to get out of what would inevitably be an extremely painful couple of hours that ended with Kahoko making a mental note to avoid Shoko, and Shoko wanting to throw herself out a window in self-resentment.

"Shoko-chan!" Kahoko called, catching sight of her and waving happily. Her mouth went dry, and dread filled her. This was awful - what was she going to say? It was just Kahoko and Shoko - no one else to carry the conversation while Shoko regrouped and tried to find something to say that wasn't completely stupid.

"K-Kaho-senpai," she gulped out. "How was your day?"

"It was good - I had a test in math, which I think I did terribly on, but I'll just have to wait and see. What about you?"

"Mine? It was, um, okay. I mean, good. Nothing much happened," she responded distractedly, most of her attention on keeping her lunch down. Past experience told her that throwing up on someone was not a good way to establish friendship. Just one of life's hard-learned lessons.

Kahoko nodded.

"School can be a little dull sometimes, it's true. Are you feeling better, though? You really didn't seem well yesterday."

'I have yet to find a cure for such an illness, and my cereal certainly wasn't any help.' But again she held her tongue, reluctant to unload her ridiculous feelings on Kahoko, who probably never had problems like this. Shoko was the only one with her head in the clouds and too little self control.

"Ah, yes, I'm much better today, thank you," she lied instead, feeling a little guilty but unsure what else to do, lest she worry Kahoko.

"I'm glad," the older girl responded, looking genuinely relieved. "I was worried you wouldn't be well enough for cake. Though for me, I think even at my sickest, I can still eat cake," she said with a grin.

Shoko laughed. "My stomach isn't so strong as that when I'm ill, but I think I can manage today. Um, where is the place we're going?"

"It's not far from here, so I thought we would walk there since it's such a nice day."

"Yes, it really is," Shoko agreed, her unease dissipating slightly as she inhaled, noting that it was as nice as it had been Wednesday. She'd been so busy thinking and worrying about today that she hadn't even thought to stop and enjoy what she normally considered a gift.

She and Kahoko set off away from the school at a leisurely pace, walking in pleasant quiet, disturbed only by the click of their shoes on the cement and the sounds of birds and passing cars. Shoko was gradually beginning to feel more comfortable when Kahoko spoke.

"Do you walk home from school a lot?"

"Ah, no . . . not usually. That day was unusual."

"Oh. I hadn't thought so, since I don't usually see you, but . . ." she paused, the corners of her lips tilting up as she glanced at Shoko. "You seemed really content when you were walking the other day. I thought you maybe enjoyed taking walks." She was looking curiously at Shoko, who started to shake her head, and then paused.

"Um . . . I do, actually. I don't do it often, because . . . I, um, I'm not really comfortable a lot of the time. But some days, I feel . . . ah, brave, maybe. And I get a little lost in the day. I . . . I really like days like that," she spoke quietly, trying to find the words to describe the daunting fear and the sweet peace she found when she was able to overcome it and seize a beautiful day. She reddened in dismay, knowing her words held the same awkwardness as always, but Kahoko nodded in thoughtful agreement.

"I understand what you mean. I'm glad sometimes you're able to do things you enjoy, though. Sometimes school drags on so much that it makes me feel a little . . ." she shrugged embarrassedly. "Suffocated. I think its important to have something refreshing to keep you from getting down." Shoko found herself nodding along. Her heart tugged a little as she listened to Kahoko's voice, clear and light, hinting at a vast understanding of people. Shoko was suddenly glad she'd come out today. She didn't think she'd rather be anywhere else than here, trying to be still and quiet enough so Kahoko's bright energy would surround her, undisrupted. And then maybe she could carry a little bit of it away with her.

"Ah, it should just be down the street and around the corner. I'm sorry to make you walk so long, I guess it's a little further than I remembered."

"No, its fine, um, I don't mind at all . . ." Shoko had forgotten her feet were even moving.

In fact, she'd been so distracted, she abruptly realized that she'd neglected to visit the lavatory before leaving school, and she very much needed to now. Her face set to the task of turning crimson. She didn't think she could wait until they got to the cake shop, and if she went there, she'd have to walk by all of the tables full of people with nothing better to do than eye the people passing by. She glanced at the nearby shop. A florist. Maybe they would have one she could use . . .

"Um, Kaho-senpai . . . I'm so sorry, I, um, need to visit the ladies room, i-is it alright if I stop in the florist's and, um, see if I can there?" She hated when this happened. She hadn't realized until just now it would even be a problem. 'Idiot, idiot, idiot,' she chanted to herself in humiliation. Kahoko nodded understandingly.

"Of course, I'll just wait out here," she said, gesturing to the outside flower displays. Shoko forced a nod, and darted into the florist's, berating herself all the way.

Until she realized she was facing another problem. She couldn't just ask to use their restroom without buying anything. Frantically, she looked around her. What would she do with flowers? She'd have to take them into the cakeshop with her, and people would stare, and Kahoko was waiting for her and she was wasting time and the florist was looking up at her and saying Hello and all she wanted to do was melt into the floor like the miserable puddle of shame that she was.

And then her gaze fell on a tiny bouquet of white daisies and she thought of the kitchen table, that grand concession to informality, and its blank, lonely surface. She shuffled over and tugged it from the black cylinder of water near the counter.

"Um, just these, please," she said tremulously, and the cashier rang it up with a smile. Shoko quickly dug into the pocket of her bookbag for her pocketbook, and clumsily removed a 1000 yen bill.

The woman took it, and stuck the daisies in a protective clear plastic cover. It was small enough to stick in her bookbag, and she thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't needed to take home all of her textbooks today.

"A-also, do you have a l-ladies room that I can use?" Her face would burst into flame at any moment, she thought. She envisioned the top of her head ablaze and the startled cashier dumping one of the cylinders of water over her.

'Perhaps that's how a person can be soggy,' she thought, too mortified to be amused.

"Sure, down the hall to the left there," the lady nodded toward a little corridor breaking into the wall a few feet away. Shoko thanked her and darted down it, feeling like she'd been in the shop for hours. What if Kahoko got impatient and went home?

The rational part of her brain told her Kahoko would never do such a thing, but Shoko was not quite in the mood for rational thought. She hurried faster, and a couple minutes later she quickly left.

"Thanks, and have a nice day!" the clerk called after her.

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