Eventually, Kamikishiro did convince that first year kid - his name was Tanaka Shiro - into going out with her.
When she attacked, no one could stop her. One time, I just had to tell her, "I just don't know what you see in him."
She often called me up and asked me to hang out with her.
Yeah, you could call it a date. We'd watch movies, eat out, shoot pool and bet money on the game. We'd also do other stuff too, but you know how it is.
"Well, you see... He's an archer."
"An archer? On the archery team?"
If I remember it correctly, we were on one of those slow moving Ferris wheels at an amusement park. It was like a picture postcard of those cheesy high school dates that you see in manga.
"Yeah. First time I saw him, he was still in Junior High and was in some contest. You ever seen one? They all line up and shoot. The first one to miss loses. It was pretty damn cool. He did pretty well, but eventually lost. However, his eyes... When he stared at that tiny little target so far away, there was this glitter in them. Gave me goosebumps. And then, he'd let the arrow... And swoosh!"
"Sounds kind of shallow..." I said, somewhat disgusted. All that had nothing whatsoever to do with Tanaka himself or with his personality. Of course, he'd be reluctant.
"I'd must rather play around with someone like you, Kimu-kun. You're more fun. And I got no plans to take up archery myself. But I can't shake the feeling that that kid is meant for bigger things."
"And I'm not, you mean? Ouch," I grimaced. The words 'someone like you' made things crystal clear. Nothing I could do when she put it that way.
"Yep. You're like me that way. I'm a mess. And, frankly, so are you, Kimu-kun."
"Can't deny that," I said, chuckling. It was true. If it wasn't, then why whould I be dating a girl who I knew full well had another guy on the side? Still, I was falling for her pretty hard by this point. Yet I never even considered trying to get her to break things off with Tanaka. It wasn't just a mess, either. It was in freaking train wreck just waiting to happen. And on top of that, she was hardly the only girl I was seeing. Yeah, we were exactly the same.
"I'll be honest. Shiro-kun doesn't get me at all," she said, sighing bitterly. "He tries not to hurt me, but he always talks kind of standoffish, and that just hurts me more. He just doesn't get that at all."
"Huh? Can't say I do either."
"I'm just getting in his way. I don't think he really needs to be in love yet."
Sometimes, I found her nearly impossible to understand. It's easy to do the typical guy thing and just bitch that girls are all complicated and stuff, but her level of complexity was clearly at a notch or two above the other girls her age. I'm pretty sure most of them wouldn't have been able to follow either. As it was, the only friends that I knew she had were me and some girl in her class called Kirima Nagi.
That girl was even weirder than Kamikishiro, so I guess that's why they got along. Truthfully, Kirima was better looking than Kamikishiro but I always did like Kamkishiro better. Even now.
"That's it exactly! See, we're the same," she gave me a tiny smile, leaned forward, and put her lips on mine.
It was no big deal. It was not exactly the first time we'd kissed.
"You do that with Tanaka?" I asked curtly.
"Hell, no" she grinned, denying it instantly.
She was always at her most attractive when she wasn't outright trying to be sexy or act cute. I never figured out why.
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I was pretty sure that the letter was a prank, but something about it just kept bugging me. I decided to skip class and head over to the town when I'd gone to high school. Call it a hunch, but whoever had sent the letter probably lived there. My family still lives there, but I didn't swing by; I just headed straight for Shinyo Academy. I didn't think any of the current students were behind it, but my legs took me in that direction anyway.
"Ah! Akio! Over here!" someone called as I waited for the bus to arrive.
I turned around and found a girl who'd been in the same class as me during my first and third years - Miyashita Touka. The first thing that I noticed was the huge Spalding bag over her shoulder.
"Hey, what's up?" I replied.
"What're you doing back here? It's not even New Year's yet!" Miyashita was a cute girl, but I'd never made a pass at her - which is probably why we were still friends.
"Yeah, no reason in particular. You?"
"You didn't hear? I failed exams. I'm a ronin. On my way to cram school as we speak."
"Oh, right."
"Yep. Guess you forgot all about us when you moved up, huh?"
"You sound bitter. Fighting with that designer boyfriend of yours?" I asked, knowing that she'd been dating an older boy in that line of work since her second year.
"Do not even talk to me about him! He never even calls!" she said, pouting.
"He's probably trying not to disrupt your studies."
"Nah, he studies more than me. He's trying to get some sort of award. Makes me sick."
"Hmmm."
"What about you? Got a college girl yet?"
I made a face. "Nope."
"Aw, that third year girl still dragging you back?"
"She was a third year then. She'd be twenty now."
"You're... You're counting her birthdays? She dumped you and vanished! Give up on her already!"
"It's none of your business," I spat.
She looked pissed, but she grabbed my hand.
"W-what?"
"Come with me. We're going to a cafe."
Still pissed, she dragged me into a nearby cafe by the name of Tristan.
"What about cram school?"
"Screw it. I'm gonna fail again this year anyway," she said recklessly.
She plunked herself down in a booth and shouted at the counter, "two black coffee!" She then turned on me to tell me exactly what I already knew, "You're an idiot."
"I know," I replied petulantly.
"No, you don't! You think you're some sort of hero, don't you? What with that mess two years ago," Miyashita announced. She'd always been like this, some sort of self-righteous and inclined to stick her nose into everything.
"I do not. That was just..."
"It wasn't you, was it? Her lover. You didn't even know who it was you were taking the fall for, did you?"
Two years ago, after Kamikishiro had vanished, they found a blanket, pillow and electric heater in a storage room near the gym, where nobody ever went. It was obvious somebody had snuck into the school and had been living there. At first, they thought it was a drifter, but then they found an accessory that had belonged to Kamikishiro (according to one of the girls in her class), and it turned into a student body scandal.
I don't know what kind of people Kamikishiro's parents were, but their daughter had disappeared and the school suspected her involvement in illicit activities, yet the parents made no protest at all to the accusations. In her continued absence, the school made preparations to forcibly expel her. At which point, a certain male student announced that he'd been her love, and all hell broke loose after that.
"She didn't bring any outsiders into the school. Don't expel her," he'd said.
The teachers didn't even pretend to believe him. But the students made a huge fuss about it and just to calm things down, the school suspended the boy and relented on Kamikishiro's punishment.
But Kamikishiro never did show up again. Her name was even kicked off the rosters at graduation, due to a lack of credits. It all amounted to nothing in the end. There was never really anything to the story. As a result of the commotion, the boy got his comeuppance, though. He received a series of Dear John letters from all of his many girlfriends, telling him that he was a loser and that they were dumping his sorry ass.
"...No, I knew who Kamikishiro was seeing," I told Miyashita with a faint smile.
"Liar."
"No, really."
"Then, who? Who'd she drop you for?"
"An alien. He took her with him back into space."
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than a slap echoed through the cafe. Miyashita had belted me one across the face.
"Get a grip on yourself! Be a man, and just move on!" she said, furious.
It wasn't like she had any special feelings for me, mind you. She was just that kind of girl.
"S-sorry," I said, rubbing my cheek sheepishly.
But I hadn't been joking. That was exactly what Kamikishiro had said to me.