Disclaimer: I am not a professional translator, please take my translations with a grain of salt. Thank you
Masterlist here
Aki woke up in her bed at home one morning, the sunlight shining vigorously through the opened curtains.
The cherry blossom season was over, and the sun was shining brightly as summer rolled in.
The season for class changes had already passed, and summer vacation was just around the corner.
As usual, Aki ate breakfast alone, changed into her school uniform, put some makeup on quickly, and headed to the front door.
Just as she was about to leave the house, she swore she heard a cry.
“Help me.”
Did she hear a voice?
Eh? She had everything she needed, right..?
Surprised, she looked around.
“Find me.”
The voice was soft as a whisper, but had a bell-like tone to it. Aki immediately recognized it.
“M-Mi...sao-chan..? Misao-chan, is that you?”
Nothing changed. The entrance to her house remained as it was, and Misao didn’t appear.
Maybe she just imagined she heard Misao’s voice? That’s what Aki tried to tell herself. After all, three months ago, Misao had gone missing.
“It’s already July...”
She then noticed the clock on the wall and let out a gasp.
“I don’t have time for this! If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late!” She threw open the door and hurried off to school.
~
Aki made it on time to school on foot, as she, like a minority of the students, were able to live at home. Students all over the country attended her school, so most of them had to live in dormitories.
Even though it was early in the morning, the sunlight was quite harsh.
The dormitory students often said stuff like, “you’re so lucky to be close to home!”, but Aki envied everyone who went to school from the dorms. Moreover, due to the distance between her house and school, she wasn’t allowed to take her bicycle.
It was only about a ten minute walk.
After passing by the intersection of her school road and highway, she saw other students clad in the same uniform as her beginning to appear.
The dorm students began to join them, and greetings began to arise.
“Good morning, Aki!”
Aki turned to reply. “Good morning.”
There was a smiling girl in her uniform with two buttons of her shirt unbuttoned, and her skirt being quite short. Her brightly dyed hair was silky and long, with her bangs pinned. Her makeup was darker than Aki’s, and her eyelashes were on fleek.
It was her best friend, Ayaka, who was also a dorm student. She greeted her every morning like this, even on rainy days, and the two had been in the same class since their first year, where she had said the same thing. She was a really nice girl, but she didn’t have an interesting story.
“You’re so full of life, Ayaka.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Anyway, are you confident about the final exams?”
The results of last week's final exams were due back one after another starting today. The fact that Ayaka was so energetic in spite of that must mean that she had a lot of confidence in herself.
“The what?” Ayaka tilted her head to the side. She paused for a moment, before nodding to herself. “Oh yeah. Right. Those happened, didn’t they?” she laughed.
“I hope I did okay.” Aki said with a sigh.
“It’ll be alright, Aki! You’ll see!”
Aki wasn’t sure why, but Ayaka’s words cheered her up.
Once they were at the entrance of the school building, they changed their shoes to their classroom shoes, and headed to their classroom on the second floor of the building.
A few students roamed the corridor. They were the only ones who got to school early.
Being a student from home, Aki always made sure to arrive early in case something went wrong.
Ayaka, a dorm student, didn’t have to get up as early, but she matched Aki’s pace anyway. When Aki had questioned it, she had only laughed and said, “I don’t mind getting up early. It gives me more time to do my makeup!”
The two girls were the first to arrive to their classroom, 2-B among the students.
However, their teacher, Kurata-sensei, was there.
“Oh, good morning, girls.” Kurata-sensei said. He was in charge of english class, and was a very beautiful man with a mysterious aura to him. He had a reputation for being strict when it comes to his work, but he was very popular with the students because he was known for his cleverness. “It's not even homeroom time yet." His voice was as gorgeous as ever. He fixed the position of his desk a little bit.
“We were just passing by the classroom earlier and got curious if you were here.”
“Hey, there’s a notebook.” Aki noticed.
“You guys are being lax. Who was on duty to clean the classroom yesterday?” Kurata-sensei grumbled and pulled out a notebook from the inside pocket of his suit and checked it, because lately the boys have been playing baseball or something.
“Ah...it’s no good, huh.”
After noticing Kurata-sensei staring at Misao’s desk after looking at his notebook, Aki spoke up. “Do you mind?” She didn’t specify what she meant, but their teacher seemed to understand.
“Of course.”
“...Did you ever find out anything?”
“No. I’m sorry.” Kurata-sensei shook his head. “If I find anything out, I’ll let everyone know immediately.”
~
After Kurata left the classroom, Ayaka started squealing. “Kurata-sensei’s suit was brand new!” She said excitedly, leaning forward.
“Hm. Is that so?”
“Yeah! Didn’t you see it?”
“I saw it, but I don’t really care.”
“Ehh. That’s not right. It was so cool!” Ayaka trembled in joy.
Ayaka was a fan of Kurata-sensei and always said things like this...Well, yes, Aki had to admit that he was tall and looked good in a suit, but Ayaka was always talking about him.
“How do you never get talking about him, day in and day out?”
“Because he’s so amazing! He’s kind, witty, handsome...haa, getting up early was the best decision I ever made! Thank you, Aki!”
As the two talked, a voice spoke up. “Yo.” A boy walked into the classroom.
His name was Yuuki Tohma-kun.
He was always smiling, good natured and...well, a bit flirtatious. He had sharp eyes and a number of piercings on his ears. He could look bad and scary sometimes, but he usually appeared cool.
“G-good morning.” For some reason, Aki’s tone as a bit high pitched.
“Kurata-sensei was talking about you earlier.” Ayaka called out to Tohma.
“Ah, sensei was?” Tohma replied in a slightly annoyed tone. He and another boy had been on classroom cleaning duty the previous day. “I wasn’t the only one on cleaning duty yesterday.”
His tone of voice was a bit familiar, before Aki realized it was almost the exact same as Kurata’s had been.
“It’s just a desk. No one’s going to die or anything. Why does it matter to you, anyway? You’re not the chairman.”
“Well, I can’t forgive anyone who bothers Kurata-sensei!” Ayaka said with pride.
“Hmph. I’m not bothering anyone.” Tohma said and went to his seat.
“It’s because of guys like him that Kurata-sensei has to work so hard...” Ayaka sighed.
As Aki talked with Ayaka, a girl with a ponytail walked past them and said, "Good morning, Aki-chan, Ayaka-chan.” From the ponytail alone, Aki knew who the girl was without having to look at her face. She had a sense of style and was clearly a beautiful woman. “Oh. Tohma. I didn’t know you were here already.”
Saotome ran towards Tohma.
Everyone in class knew the two of them were dating.
They never cared if there were people around, they were always in their own world of lovey-dovey gush and honestly, there were times when Aki couldn't even look at them!
“Hey, Otome. Can I come visit the girls dorm sometime?” Tohma asked immediately, starting to play with her hair.
“Ehh. It’s forbidden for boys to come over. They’ll get angry if they find out.”
“But I’d like to spend more time with Otome.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but~”
...Things such as these were an everyday occurrence.
The so-called “mysterious paranormal activities” continued to occur all around the school, and rumors of it being “Misao’s Curse” was starting to be talked about more frequently.
It was just a rumor, but...everyone seemed to believe it.
However, what surprised Aki was that Yoshino was the one most sensitive to the rumors. Of course, she still acted irresponsibly and joked about the rumors, but for some reason, whenever Tohma talked about it, her face would twist to disgust rather than playfulness.
“I’m not going to let you bother me until I’m dead!”
Yoshino had said that before, but she seemed to be a bit...off, about it.
Summer vacation was just around the corner by now.
One day, Aki paid extra close attention to Kurata’s class so he wouldn’t get angry like before.
Suddenly, there was a strange sound. It was faint, but also very clear.
“What..?”
Kurata also noticed it, and walked over to the area where the sound came from to investigate. It sounded like it came from the built-in shelf in front of the classroom.
“Ah, this...” Kurata sighed. It was the vase he had brought to class.
Somehow, it appeared to have cracked.
“That’s weird...I just bought it...is it a defective product?” Kurata mumbled in wonder.
Out of nowhere, the desks started to shake, and the pens and pencils began to scatter all over the place.
“Get under the desks!” Kurata shouted.
Everyone immediately did as they were told.
“It’s huge! It’s huge!”
There was a huge shaking. Even as Aki crouched under her desk, her body felt like it was being jolted all around. It was an earthquake unlike she’d ever experienced before.
“Do not move your head out from under your desk!” Kurata, who was hidden under his podium, shouted.
There was sounds of items rattling around.
The earthquake was lasting a very long time. It was almost as if a giant cyclops had grabbed the school and started shaking it from side to side.
Students started screaming.
There was the sound of wood breaking. Glass shattering. Violent cracks that sounded like concrete cracking.
Aki wondered how long it would last. She thought that if it didn’t end already, then it would just continue to shake until the world broke and perished.
“Oh my god, Misao is really angry with us, isn’t she!?” Yoshino screamed.
“Shut the hell up, dumbass! What are you talking about?! The whole curse thing was just a joke!” Tohma shouted at her.
Aki could feel a headache beginning to form, but despite that, she still heard a voice.
“Help me.”
There it was. A familiar girl’s voice.
“M-Misao-chan..?” Aki gasped out loud. “Misao-chan, where are you?!”
“Misao’s here?!” Tohma whipped his head around.
“I can hear Misao-chan’s voice!”
She knew she heard it.
“I knew it! It really is the curse of Misao!” Yoshino shouted.
“It’s not over yet!”
“Kyaaaaaah!!”
“Th-the glass..!”
“Calm down! Don’t get out from under your desks!”
“But if I’m below the desk, I can’t hear Misao-chan’s voice!”
Items were starting to fly around.
"Aki, stop talking nonsense!”
“That’s bullshit!” Tohma cut in.
Aki tried to deny Tohma’s words, but her headache grew stronger.
“Find me.”
It was definitely Misao’s voice...but then, Aki realized something.
She was the only one who could hear her.
The shaking grew more intense. It was so bad that Aki was suddenly sure that the entire school building was being destroyed. Desks and chairs were flinging around like ping-pong balls.
Aki genuinely believed it was the end of the world.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional translator or have taken classes.
Masterlist here
As homeroom class ended and their official classes began, the results of the final exams within their first and second class periods.
Aki’s results were...for math, slightly above average, and conversely, in Japanese, she was a little higher than average. She wasn’t at the bottom, and the results were about the same as they usually were for her.
Aki felt as though she didn’t do bad, but she definitely didn’t do good either.
At least, though, she didn’t have to take a follow-up exam, which was where Ayaka seemed to be right now, just like everytime she received a score by their teacher in second period.
Of course, Aki knew that later on Ayaka would be laughing about it and text her with a cute emoticon later saying “it’s okay! That was just a warm-up! My next english exam will be the real deal! I’ll show Kurata-sensei!”
She was always so enthusiastic about it, even though the results were similar in math and Japanese.
“Kisaragi Ayaka. Please try a little harder next time.”
Aki’s seat in the classroom was the second to last desk near the back by the window, which had the best outside view.
After returning the answer sheets, Kurata-sensei began to explain the questions on the final exam. He wrote the english words on the blackboard and began to explain.
“Even if you see a word like this for the first time, you can guess the meaning by breaking down the elements, like this.”
Ayaka quickly recovered from the shock of her scores and stared at Kurata-sensei, who was standing at the podium.
Aki, not feeling like listening to the explanation seriously, glanced over at the vacant desk where Misao-chan had once sat.
Everytime she saw it, she felt a lingering sense of sadness. She let out the softest of sighs so no one would hear her.
She wondered about the voice she heard that morning. Did she hallucinate because she was thinking of Misao?
Or, maybe she really did hear Misao’s voice..?
The window seat really was the best spot to think during class. The courtyard could be seen from her spot. Though there were no students out there right now because of class, there was a contractor on a stepladder who was taking care of some plants.
It...really had been three months since then. Aki thought of Misao, who was in her class as of the start of this year for the first time, for their second year.
Quiet, unobtrusive...if anything, she was a somber girl.
Aki was never close with her, but she was always interested in Misao, who was always alone. She really did want to be her friend, but that wish didn’t come true at all.
Misao wasn’t the type to run away from her home or teachers or anything of the sort. She was only in class for about two weeks.
That’s what Aki believed.
Misao was a quiet girl, and she had a strong sense of responsibility. She definitely wasn’t the type to disappear without telling anyone.
Aki recalled once overhearing Kurata and an older teacher talking about how she might have possibly been involved in an incident. Kurata often tells the class not to worry too much, but it’d been three months since Misao went missing.
There were rumors in her class that Misao was dead. Such words made Aki feel a harsh pang in her chest.
And yet...she had a feeling that they were right. She hated the idea that Misao had died though.
It shouldn’t have happened.
She wanted to be friends with Misao...
“...Huh?” Aki noticed Kurata’s voice had suddenly stopped, and for some reason, everyone in her class was staring at her.
"Don’t try to act all courageous and cool by ignoring my class.”
“Y-Yes!” Aki’s voice cracked from her surprise. She hadn’t realized Kurata standing right by her.
“This information is important for your exams. You better listen up.” Kurata said harshly.