Seiran Academy

Chapter 13

Mianko’s pleasant mood died early Monday morning when she found herself in the quiet of the library searching for a book that would help her through her history class. No one else in the class looked up information before they learned it, but if she learned it first class would be a review to her. It helped her memorize the articles and dates. She came every Monday to the library… well, sometimes she came every day. She enjoyed the quietness of the library, and she regretted that she had been neglecting it lately. She had been neglecting it because of the Dark Trio. Every time she thought she had them pegged and she had time to escape, she was caught up in something else, even if it was just dinner under the stars with them.

Today she had no plans of being deterred, but she should have known by now how her plans often turned out. The first thing she found in the library, heading towards the music section, was Fatima and Thomas Evans. Minako gritted her teeth and very much against her will followed them and hid in the stack next to them. Were they brazen enough to make out in the middle of the library? He was a teacher for God’s sake! If he was caught it could mean his job.

Had that not been her very fantasy many times? Making love to Thomas in the stacks of books, books that were very often untouched. For such a prestigious academy the students sure had a knack for not checking up on their knowledge.

“My father is willing to accept you,” Fatima told him in a thickly accented voice. Minako would never have said a Middle Eastern voice was sexy before, but coming from this girl’s lips it was. Even Minako felt a little thrill through her body at the sound of the voice.

“He is?” Thomas’s voice sounded like that of an overeager schoolboy being told he could have the last piece of chocolate in the entire world. “It would be perfect.”

“Will the school allow you to go to India to play your cello?” she asked enthusiastically. Her voice held that she did not care if the school would allow him to her or not, she was most certainly going to drag him down with her.

India? Minako’s stomach quickly was tired up into knots, her whole being shook by this almost revelation. Thomas was going to go to India?

“Yes,” he breathed. There was no question, no hesitation, the answer was yes.

Minako nearly knocked the stack of books on top of the couple in her hurry to exit the library. She ran to her classes, ran through the halls, and ran away from the Dark Trio as they spotted her and tried to catch her attention.

“She’s so on and off,” the now transformed back into Belle scoffed as she ran past.

“I think I see the reason,” Sage said casually, spotting Thomas meeting with Fatima after school was over, and right before the orchestra practice was meant to commence.

Nemesis huffed and walked away without a word and followed Minako’s hurried footsteps. Unfortunately her hurried footsteps would only bring her to the music room where one Mr. Evans was going to conduct his class. Perhaps for the last time?

Minako was sullen all through practice and Nemesis made a show of ignoring her pain, and pretty much her, as he played beside her, often showing her up with complicated finger movement. Minako played blandly and was reprimanded by Mr. Evans several times for her lack of concentration. It all went over her head. All she could think was that she had to keep herself from crying.

The end of class came and Minako lingered behind them all, making a show of moving as slowly as possible. When Nemesis offered to wait with her she pushed his hand aside and said there was no need snappishly. Nemesis walked out of the room and left Minako to her sulking.

“Mr. Evans,” she called after him when he turned to leave the room, leaving Minako to her own devices that evening. He hesitated, stopping in the doorway and not turning towards her. “Mr. Evans…” she said again, trialing off, her whole body sagging from a weight she did not know was there.

He turned towards her then took a quick step back. Her face was contorted with her pain and tears were flowing down her cheeks. Thomas Evans reached out for her and she did not pull away. She let him pull her into his arms and hold her as she cried into his shirt. He barely heard her the first time she spoke and she had to say it again, but the second time she was as audible as the music that stormed from this room every afternoon. “Don’t leave!”

He was at a loss of what to say. “Minako…” What did she know? How did she know? Of course she knew. How could he be so stupid? He knew the one person who traveled to the library, like clockwork, was Aino Minako. She would never have missed a date with the library if she could help it, and she could. She had come to gather a book and she had found him and Fatima. That had to have been the noise he heard in the other stack that he had not been fast enough to reach.

“Please don’t go,” she begged of him.

“Minako, I have to go, this is a great opportunity for me.”

“No!” she wrenched her body away from his and stepped back staring him directly in the eyes. He was surprised to see such passion in such a dispassionate student. Her emotion was driving itself to the surface, boiling upwards until there was nothing but her raw feeling son the surface. He knew what she was going to say to him before the words ever came from her mouth, and still it took him by surprise. “Thomas Evans, I love you. I won’t know what to do if you leave.” He had no time to respond to that, even if he could have. She kept barreling on, as if this would be her only opportunity to tell him all she had been feeling. “I’ve loved you since I first met you. You were always the light in my darkness. You were the only thing I could turn to. You never knew you were helping me, or how you were helping me, or even what my problem was, but you were there. And it was enough… just… enough. I need you here with me.”

“Minako, I have to think of my career,” he said coldly, though nothing inside of him felt cold.

“Fine, but first, just tell me…” No, I can’t tell you. “Just tell me you don’t love me.”

“Minako, you are only sixteen,” he explained to her.

“Tell me!” She was crazed, she was desperate, and he could not give her what she wanted, at least, not that.

“I can’t tell you that,” he admitted. Her eyes cleared, seeing the light of what he was saying. He sighed and turned towards the doors, but instead of leaving her he closed the door and then moved to the next one. When the doors were closed he took her face tentatively between his hands and tilted it upwards. She closed her eyes and she allowed what was going to happen next to happen, despite all of the reservations that were deep seeded in her stomach. His kiss was sweet, something she was not used to. His lips were chapped, his hands were blistered, and still it was the most romantic thing she could have picture. It was a soft kiss; there was nothing forceful about it. It would have looked like two twelve-year-olds first kiss together exploring their feelings, and still it made Minako’s heart soar while her stomach plummeted further.

He wrapped her in his arms and ended the kiss, just holding her tightly to him. “This is not allowed,” he explained to her.

“I do not care,” she retorted.

All was silent except for the sounds of two tripping heart beats. To her surprise Minako was the first to pull away and look up at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “That is so unlike me.”

“And I hope you will accept my apology when I tell you that I am still not staying.” It was put so blandly that Minako’s heart finally plummeted as low as her stomach.

“Why?”

“Minako, you are sixteen, and anything I feel for you is wrong right now,” he explained, “and besides, your parents would kill me.”

“Then take me with!” Minako begged. Mr. Evans’ eyes widened and she continued on. “I don’t want to be with my parents, I want to be with you. I will give them up, I’ll give everything up, just let me be with you!”

“Minako, you don’t mean that…”

“You have no idea what I mean!” Minako pulled fully away and stepped back. “You have no idea what I feel. You are just going to brush me off, though your feelings for me are apparent, and go to her.”

“Minako, you just don’t understand adult relationships,” Mr. Evans brushed off her words as if he were swatting at a fly. Did he not understand? Could she make him understand?

Did she still want to make him understand? With a regal tilt of her head, a cock of her brow, and her arms firmly crossed against her chest, she snapped, “I believe I know about adult relationships better than you ever will. Love doesn’t conquer all, how could I be so foolish, but running away, as you yourself are doing, doesn’t do anything either.”

Minako stormed out of the classroom, and to her dismay, ran straight into Nemesis, who had been eavesdropping at the door the entire time. What she did not expect on his face was the burst of fury, but she could not slow down to make him understand, or to even deal with his usual temper tantrum. She stormed down the stairs, afraid Mr. Evans would pursue her more than she feared his lack of pursual.

Nemesis did not catch her until they were at the bottom of the stairs, not until she was locked with him in the stairwell and his hands were slamming her against the wall, roughly but protectively, though his anger was still on the surface. “You long to run away?” he snapped at her. “Is that all you are looking for. You snap at him telling him not to run away, but that is all you are trying to do with him. You want someone to take care of you, and you want it now.”

“You don’t know what I’ve gone through!” she screamed at him, her voice echoing off of the tiled walls.

“And you don’t know what anyone else on this planet has been through!” Nemesis sneered her way. “You assume because you’ve had horrors that you are the most important crushed butterfly. Here’s a newsflash for you Minako: other people have been through worse things than you. Do you see us running away? How would we ever grow a backbone?”

“Do you fear going home because of what will be done to you?” Minako’s voice trembled as it came out but had reluctantly gone softer. She was no longer screaming at high pitches, she was calm in her insecurity, which was a lesser place to be. It was a place where people began to let go of themselves. “Do you fear every summer or winter break because your father can’t keep his hands off of you? Do you fear your mother because she will tell you that is why he married her in the first place, so he could fuck your only daughter. My mom doesn’t love him, nor does she love me. She loves her position in society. She loves the political sense of pride, she loves the extravagance. She paraded me on purpose in front of those men and knowing she would not be chosen for her looks, she was chosen for my looks. I was the display and I had not even known it, but all of those men there that night were there to choose a bride; I was the bride.

“Your father was there that night.”

“My father likes them young.” This tidbit of information did not even seem to bother Nemesis. He shrugged it off and stepped away from Minako further, turning his back to her. “You would not have been the first little girl my father would have had his way with, but most of those victims were willing.”

“That’s awful…”

“Yeah, but those little girls are forced to be prostitutes and solicitors because of some dire situation in their life…” Nemesis turned back towards her and reached out, grasping her shoulder and shaking her. “In two years you can escape.”

“And go where?” she asked him solemnly. “I still have to go through college. I still…” She paused, not wanting to think of it. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing good,” he said flatly. He stepped away from her and she knew she was going to receive no answer from him. “Just think about what I said Minako.”

She stopped him, grabbing his arm before he could walk away. “Why don’t you pity me?” She did not particularly want his pity, pity only left to more suffering. Pity was a reminder; every time you looked into someone’s eyes and caught that glimpse of pity you knew you were not a whole person.

Nemesis pulled her grip from him and patted her hand before stepping away. “I have the utmost sympathy for your situation,” he explained, “but to pity you would be to take something away from you. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. You have to believe that, or you will wallow in the pity and self-sympathy. Sage told you he would protect you, and he will, but do not expect me to coddle you and treat you like a child. Either you fight back or you let yourself be taken.” He turned away and turned back one last time. “And try to stay off Mr. Evans, or else I might get jealous.”

What neither of them even though was that Mr. Evans had gone in pursuit of the young girl and stopped on the stairs at the sound of voices, and heard every echoing word.