School Girls' Stories - Year 2

Chapter 33 – Secrets in the Schoolyard

Yuki gasped for breath, pulling her head back and trying to remember to breathe. It was hard to breathe with her nose so stuffed up and her lips constantly covered. Kissing someone while your nose was running was probably the least romantic thing, it did not help that both people were wearing bulky coats and hoping the skies did not open up with torrents of snow any moment.

Yuki turned her head and coughed and Shinwa laughed. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, “I just have missed you, it’s been over a month since we were even on a date.”

Yuki nodded, pulling a wad of Kleenex out of her pocket and wiping her nose, taking a step back from him as she did a very unflattering thing then threw out the Kleenex. “I know,” she said, “it’s just bad timing for you to think the schoolyard is suddenly a wonderful place for us to ‘be’ together.”

“Sorry,” he apologized again, watching her cough into her gloved hands. “Are you okay?”

Yuki shook her flushed head, her cheeks rosy from the slight fever she had begun to run sometime during the day. “I feel awful,” she admitted. “I don’t know why it hit, or how it suddenly decided to crush me in its deadly talons, but I feel like I’m dying.”

“Don’t joke,” Shinwa said slightly seriously, stepping up to her and running a hand through her hair. “When can I see you again?”

“You see me every day at school,” she teased in her snuffy voice.

“You know what I mean,” he laughed.

Yuki just shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “My mom won’t even let me go out to Fuji and Shai’s anymore. She says that Shai is ‘loose’ and that I am probably interrupting Fuji’s studies, so halfway I’m a bad friend, and halfway I’m the better person.”

Shinwa watched her, the joking gone from her eyes. She meant it, from the bottom of her toes she truly believed that about herself after her parents had told it to her. “Have your parents not realized you are not Kaori or Nakago?” Shinwa asked. “It’s not fair for them to punish you for their mistakes.”

“No,” Yuki admitted, “it is not fair, but… I’m all they have left. I mean, they lost both children, and no one can find them. My parents don’t even know if their daughter or son are alive. Or even together, which at least would mean they would be protecting each other. They would even be willing to look over the whole incest thing just to have their children back, but one’s a murderer, and one’s a whore. How much will they look over?”

“Do you really believe Nakago murdered Kago?” Shinwa asked, sitting down on the bench they had been standing beside. Yuki remained standing, looking up at the grey sky that only grew darker as the day went on.

“I have not really thought about it, to be honest,” Yuki admitted. “It was a horrible couple of days, something I’ve been trying not to relive. Nakago confessed, why would he confess if he did not do it?”

“Because he already knew how to escape,” Shinwa pointed out. “Because he may have been doing a decent thing that night.”
Yuki turned and looked down at Shinwa, her head spinning slightly. She did not know if it was from the thoughts that were pouring in her, or if it was the head cold that was threatening to burst in her head and knock her out. “Do you think it odd that Shoushin died early the next morning that Kago died?”

Shinwa shifted on the bench, not knowing exactly how to speak his mind in this situation. “I think Nakago confessed to the wrong murder,” Shinwa admitted finally. Yuki’s eyes widened, but she did not say a thing, just waited for him to inject his own reasoning behind this. “They knew each other, you know,” Shinwa said, looking up at his girlfriend. “Since we came to Japan Shoushin had to find a new crowd to chill with that would offer him what he wanted in drugs, sex, and anything else along those lines. Kago and Nakago were a part of that group.”

Yuki blinked. This was too much for her right now. She fell to the bench and sat brusquely, her head leaned back against the cool stone, her flaming cheeks cooling slightly with the sweet feel of cold. “I did not know that,” she said honestly, “but there was a lot I did not know about Kaori and Nakago.”

“Your brother never really did the drugs,” Shinwa admitted. “He only dealt and watched the others. Even when it came to sex, he was more of a voyeur. He watched, and imagined. I believe he was really faithful to your sister, even though he was denying how he felt. For being such a bad guy, he was a terribly clean guy. He could be taken in for a drug test and show no signs, though the people around him would fail in one drop.”

“Did you ever go?” Yuki asked. She shifted, hating herself for asking the question. “I mean, did you, um…”

Shinwa shook his head. “By that time I had stopped doing drugs, but I met Nakago, and sometimes we ran in the same circle. Kyouteki and I were trying to work things out again, until she saw Amatsu one day, then she just went heavily back into the drugs.”

“Okay…” Yuki said. She could not handle much more of this, her head hurt, it hurt so badly she was ready to curl up and just start crying. She wanted to go back to bed and start the day over, and it was only noon. No, she did not want to start the day over, she just wanted to stay in bed instead of forcing herself to come to school, since this was the only way she was allowed to see Shinwa any more.

“Are you all right?” Shinwa asked, reaching out for her and pulling her closer to him.

“Shinwa…” she said quietly, her eyes fluttering a bit, “I really think, I need to…” She blacked out, and it was the last thing she remembered.