If the camera had indeed been disposed, we needed to look for another evidence that would prove it wasn’t suicide. This, and how to confirm who the culprit was were the thoughts that had been running in my head since this morning.
I had a lot of time for such thoughts as we were left to do self-study for the first and second period. I was beginning to miss Yana when a grade school student came to our classroom, looking for her. Hearing her name, I approached the kid and snatched him away from my classmates who were trying to pinch his cheeks.
He was Yana’s brother, it turned out, just as I remember from her birthday photos.
“I’m just delivering this to my old sister,” he said with a poker face so I wasn’t sure if I should laugh at his joke.
“Your sister has been excused for the SB meeting. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets this once she comes back.” I smiled, staring at his light, wavy hair and plump cheeks. It was like seeing a young boy version of Yana, but with less curly and darker mane.
Soon enough, my dear seatmate came back just before P.E.
“Ah, that was Justin,” she told me after giving her the package. “Good thing Mom discovered that I forgot my P.E. uniform at home. The perks of having a brother attending the afternoon class.” She then let out that theatrical laugh of hers.
“He’s a nice kid. It’s quite a long walk from his building to here. And he had to come to school early just to give it to you,” I said.
“It’s fiiiine. Mom usually spoils him so much anyway, because he’s the youngest. Plus, he’s always making fun of me.”
I laughed a little remembering how he called Yana ‘old sister’ instead of ‘older sister’.
I looked around and was surprised to see we were the only ones left in the room. Our classmates had already headed out to the gym.
“Rin, could you please lock the door?”
Before I could say anything, Yana was already removing her necktie and unbuttoning her blouse which made me fly to the door in an instant. I didn’t expect she intended to change here. I remained on my spot, facing the door instead.
“Why are you still standing over there?” Yana said to me. “You have to change now, too, or else we’ll be late.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, and returned to my seat looking down so I could give her some privacy.
My back to her, I was already changing my uniform when Yana chuckled. “It’s pretty nice to be left here. We don’t have to wait in line in the restroom just to get changed, right?”
“Uh, yeah…” I finished quickly, having a feeling she had been staring at me. Or maybe I was only getting too self-conscious.
We were already heading to the gym when Yana suddenly asked me. “You have a sister, right?”
“Yeah, but we’re not close,” I said, trying to analyze her choice of topic.
“I only have two brothers, so I don’t know what it’s like to have a girl best friend living under the same roof. Is it how it feels to have a sister?”
You have no idea, I thought, and shook my head.
Somehow, talking about my sister had made me feel uneasy. Sure, it wasn’t the most interesting thing to talk about, but it wasn’t supposed to be difficult either. It was only about my sister, and even though I didn’t like her, I didn’t especially hate her either.
“How do I put it…” I sighed as I gathered my thoughts. “Let’s just say on the outside we look okay, but when we’re left to ourselves, it becomes different. It’s like there are things we let each other see—the usual stuff. But apart from that, we really don’t know each other.”
Yana looked confused so I quickly added, “It’s just us, though. I’m pretty sure other sisters are getting along much better.”
She seemed to ponder about it for a while and then said to me, “You seem sad about it. Why don’t you tell her?”
“Sad? Me? Tell her about what?” I said, getting defensive all of a sudden. But of course at that moment I wasn’t aware of my reaction.
“Oh, c’mon, Rin.” Yana was giving me an I-know-better-than-you-do look.
I gave in and thought about it for a moment as we reached the cemented path outside of the high school building.
“I don’t know… Sometimes I feel like she’s getting tired looking after me,” I said. “I remember one time, she was whining at Mom for always leaving me in her care. It can’t be helped. We were still young when Mom went to work abroad, and Dad has always been away from the start. It’s just Grandma with us and we can’t depend on her for everything.”
“I’m sure you two have fun times together too,” Yana said, feeling the loose strands from her ponytail. It had always been a challenge for her to keep her bouncy hair in place.
“We used to play hide and seek when we were little,” I said, stopping her to help re-tie her hair. “But as we grew older we ended up not getting found... Well, of course, that’s just a figure of speech.” I let out a small chuckle to lighten up the mood.
Yana swayed her head side to side to test the strength of the band then we resumed walking next to each other.
“Maybe it’s because you’re already used to being together, that’s why you don’t bother looking for each other anymore,” she said, looking solemn. “And that, too, is a figure of speech,” she quickly diverted, nodding proudly at herself.
I laughed at her enthusiasm. “I wonder… She’s in college now and I’m not really sad that she’s away from home.”
We kept on chatting along the way and Yana beamed when I mentioned that my sister used to be in the Student Board.
“Hey, did you know that SB members have a secret hiding place? I heard the seniors talking about it so I asked them, but they told me to wait until my junior year—which has just made me a lot more curious. Your sister might know, Rin. How about you ask her?”
A secret hiding place?