Chapter Two

The advance class is filled with a bunch of prats. That's fine because I'm not looking to socialize. None of them would understand a thing about me. I have work and homework, which is a pain. I really only have to deal with them on the way to class and at lunch, like now. My classmate was busy talking about grades again. My eyes wandered-

There was a strap on the floor. Someone dropped that. I kept walking. There was a time where I would have picked it up, but I'd rather not deal with classmates making dumb jokes about me picking up a toy. Class was already such a bother-

"Oh! Somebody dropped this." What? My head whipped around. I knew that voice. I froze. There was a girl, bending down to pick up the strap. Her friends looked on. My eyes fixed on her slender silhouette.

"What's that?"

"The infamous mascot? A phone strap?" My stomach flipped. My heart thundered, my pulse was racing. I could hear blood roaring in my ears. No, no, I was definitely mistaken- Turn around, turn around-

She wouldn't be here.

Then I saw her face, her eyes on the strap in her hand.

Yoshioka….?

"If we put it here like this, the owner might find it."

Really? Was I just seeing things?

"So that's the kind of girl you are, huh, Futaba?" Futaba….

It's Yoshioka. Futaba Yoshioka.

She was here. She was here. Why was she here? Should I go up to her? Right now? No, I shouldn't be feeling like this- I'm surprised, that's all- and I felt bad about not picking the strap up, maybe, because I thought about it and didn't, and she did, because she was always so nice-

"Naaaah, it's not something really important to do, right?" I stared. Her voice was loud, and condescending, and harsher than I remember. Weird, and fake-sounding. She laughed really loudly- it was immediately annoying. I stared, now in surprise more than anything else.

What the hell-

She went on, tone a little less grating, "But I've experienced something like this before, someone picked it up and left it that way for me-" And then, as she walked away, she made a face and waved her fingers in front of her friends. "Check out this color, I think it looks terrrrrrrri-ble, I don't know why I bought it but I'll probably use it again anyway!" She started laughing again, loudly, the whole way down the hallway.

This is… really…. Yoshioka, right? There was no way she had a doppleganger with the same name, right? Somehow, the air around her changed a lot….

"Earth to Mabuchi?" my friend called. I blinked, and turned away. He smirked and nudged me. "You checking them out?" I snorted derisively.

"No, I forgot something." It wasn't just me who had changed. I laughed scornfully at myself for whatever I had started to think a moment ago. She has too. What was I thinking? We weren't in seventh grade anymore.

Yoshioka Futaba was definitely not the same girl I had liked in seventh grade, that was for sure. In fact, she was probably the weirdest girl in school- and I was not alone in thinking that.

"Yoshioka Futaba would probably be cute…. If she wasn't so….. Yoshioka!" It probably didn't bother her that all the boys said that. After all, she hated boys. Always had.

Still, this Yoshioka…. I really couldn't believe it. She ate more bread than a flock a pigeons at the park. How does someone so small eat so much? She was always a mess, whenever I saw her- waving her arms around and babbling- she couldn't be less attractive if she tried. She was still sort of pretty… but the noise….

I wasn't trying to pay attention to her. Sometimes, I just happened to see her. She walked past me in the mornings, at lunch (with her arms full of bread), after school…. I could hear her coming before I saw her. She never stopped talking. How did she do that? It wasn't really the talking that bothered me- it was the fact that she never seemed to be talking about anything. Her choice in friends didn't make me think really highly of her, either. They always had smirks on their faces and sly remarks that reached my ears every once in awhile as I passed them in the hall. But Yoshioka would keep walking, a smile on her face and some more chatter.

And she never, ever noticed me. She just sauntered on by day after day with a giant smile fixed to her face. That didn't bother me. I did not expect her to remember me. But it reminded me of her smile, the smile that warmed my heart, back then, that day we waited for the rain to stop.

It wasn't the same smile.

Not that I wanted to see that smile. It wouldn't affect me the same way now, anyway. I had grown up.

But it started to make me wonder…. If she remembered me- if she realized I was here, what kind of face would she make? I would… kind of... like to see her reaction.

It was the second semester already, when I left class to walk to lunch. I heard her, from down the hall. At first, when I had realized we passed each other, I would look away and walk along the lockers, preferably with some fellow students between us. After all, it wasn't like I was trying to get her attention. But, after awhile, I realized she didn't even look at boys, even if they spoke to her. So it became a little bit of a game for me. I would walk right past her, knowing she wouldn't look, and wondering how long it would take for her to notice. We would probably graduate before she did-

"I'm weak with guys-As long as I have you two, I don't need bo-" As I passed, she waved her arms, or tripped, or something else clumsy. The next thing I knew, she bumped into me, her bread falling-

I caught it. I looked at her sidelong. She was looking down at my hand and took the bread back.

"Sorry…" After all of this, she wasn't going to look at me- I kept walking. Funny, how that almost seemed to bothered me. I had to say something-

"The bread almost lost its taste." The game was over. It was stupid. Ann annoying game. Games were for kids. I was being stupid. There was quiet behind me… she had probably gone back to her yakisoba. I continued along the hall, and down the stairs.

Still thinking about her bumping into me.

She had completely forgotten me… which was good. She should have. It's been three years. What sort of idiot would remember? She hadn't noticed me all of first year…. Why should she now? I walked out the door.

"Ah… Mabuchi!" My classmate. I turned.

Yoshioka was standing there, looking at me. Her eyes wide and bright. All of the sudden, she knew. I could tell from the look in her eyes- she remembered me. My chest suddenly felt warm. A smile tugged across my lips. She had followed me.

You finally noticed me? Slowpoke. My classmate walked around her and past me.

"What are you buying this time? " I turned back and caught up to him. "Going to the co-op? Me too!"

She noticed, she knew, she remembered.

"What's up, Mabuchi?" My head jerked- I shot a look at my classmate.

"What, me? "

"You're humming, and that's weird." I frowned. He raised an eyebrow. "Did something good happen?"

"Humming? No way, dude." In my mind, Yoshioka stood staring at me again, her eyes shimmering. "There wasn't anything that could make me hum…"

"But you were just humming-" Yoshioka, watching me. My cheeks were hot. I ducked my head so he wouldn't notice.

No. That makes it seem like I'm excited that she saw me. That I'm happy because-

No. No, of course not. It just means an end to my little game in the hall. It was getting boring, anyway.

There was an eraser on the floor. I nearly kicked it as we walked by.

Another recent memory popped into my head- Yoshioka, putting the phone strap by the window. It was a nice thing to do.

"Tch." I turned back.

"Mabuchi?" Leaning over as nonchalantly as I could, I swiped the eraser off the floor. It looked familiar, and as I put it on the windowsill, I had a strange sense of déjà vu.

Maybe it's just my imagination.