School Girls' Stories - Year 2

A/N: 7 shopping days left! Anyway, this was originally going to be a much longer chapter, but I\'m growing tired, and I promised a chapter a day, so I\'m putting two up today to make up for the lack of one yesterday. So, this chapter is a bit split, and yes, I did leave you with a cliffhanger that did not get answered in the last one, but... it will be answered soon, just as the school year ends, because, it is very close to coming to an end. Year 3, their final year, is almost upon them!

Chapter 46 – Train to Tokyo

“You did not have to come with,” Fuji explained as the train glided through station after station, taking the two passengers on a trip in to Tokyo. “I am not going to be much company for the next twenty-four hours, I promise.”

Devilin shrugged his shoulders, leaning his head against the window and gazing up at the roof of the train. The train, for being on the way to Tokyo, was empty. Only Fuji and Devilin and four other passengers sat in the uncomfortable seats, leaving plenty of room for the people who would step on the closer and closer they came to the big city. “Someone has to look after you in the big city,” he explained to her.

“What will you do if I am accepted?” she asked. “You most certainly can not live in the apartment I will be staying in while I am going to school there.”

“Why not?”

“What will your uncle think of that?” Fuji pulled out the book with the practice exam in it and began going over the answers once more, re-adjusting the ones she had answered wrong and trying to teach herself the problems all over again. She seemed to be having the hardest time with history. There was so much history, and her mind was too befuddled with thoughts to try to remember dates, names, times, countries. History was not just a local justification; she had to learn about the world.

Devilin gave off his casual God-like shrug and turned to face Fuji. For a moment all of her worries and her readiness were gone as her stomach tied in knots at the look of those red eyes, then she began to reprimand herself for being lost in the moment of his … whatever he felt for her. “I don’t care what Teiyoku thinks,” he nearly spat. “The man is an ass, and I should have been making his life more of a Hell than I did the last year. Besides, if you go, I’ll follow, he won’t need to know I’m there.”

“You will distract me,” Fuji admitted honestly.

Devilin gave off his devilish grin, still leaning back, just watching the girl bowed over her books and papers. “I will try not to be too much of a distraction,” he insisted.

For a half an hour the two rode in silence while Fuji went over her notes. The knots in her stomach started up again, but this time it was not the dashing smile offered to her by Devilin, it was the eagerness and trepidations of taking this exam. This exam was very important to her future, the most important step she could be taking. If she did not receive the highest marks possible she would not be accepted because Tokyo University would frown on her having skipped a grade to come there. It was unethical; she deserved more discipline, especially if they read that she had been thrown out of a public school to go to the private school. It was usually in much the opposite direction.

“How did you convince Teiyoku to let you come with me today?” Fuji asked after the silence had gone on too long and her distraction seemed a much happier place to be than in her mindset of worry.

“I didn’t,” Devilin admitted. “I told him I was going to look for Danko’s whereabouts, though I know exactly where she is.”
“You do? Why did you not tell me you found her?” Fuji’s stomach flipped in the opposite direction and she was beginning to regret Devilin stepping onto the train with her. He only seemed to be tying her in more knots than she was already in.

“She doesn’t wish for you to know where she is,” Devilin admitted bluntly. “Think I could get into a high school near Tokyo University?”

“Do not change the subject on me,” Fuji insisted, her fist slamming onto the padded seat, causing Devilin to jump. He had never looked so startled as he did with Fuji practically in his face. “Is Danko all right?”

Devilin went back to casual as… well, casually as he could. He leaned back again, closing his eyes and hiding himself away from those gems that were now boring into his soul. “Depends on what your definition of ‘all right’ is,” he said bluntly. “She’s alive and living with family in Osaka right now,” and that was the last he had to offer.

Fuji let out a sigh and hugged one of her notebooks to her chest tightly. “She should have done that a long time ago,” she admitted.

Devilin peeked through an eyelid at her, curious for a moment. “What do you mean?” He knew the truth about Danko better than anyone could, but he never knew how much Danko had let on to Fuji in their brief months of friendship, or how much Fuji figured out from power of deduction.

“Her mother,” Fuji said honestly. “If her mother had been around more she probably never would have been raped, she probably never would have been as vindictive, and she probably would have been kinder to the world around her. It is a tell-tale sign of people with abusive parents, and I do know she only lived with her mother until her mother married that Cocaine addict and moved into the apartments near… Kyoei.”

“You should be a psychologist,” Devilin muttered, half-asleep, half-awake. Train rides always made him sleepy, and he never rode a train as much as he did when he stayed in Japan.

“Yuki told me the same thing just the other day,” Fuji explained, suddenly distracted once more. Her head was turned away from Devilin and looking further on the train as someone passed through the cars. Devilin sensed the distraction and it was enough to have him sitting up. He was a jealous type of guy, and he wanted Fuji’s attention either on her books, or on him, and he knew she did not have her attention on either of those things. When he looked up he could not help but feel his own stomach run around in knots for enough time to have him feeling sick. How the hell did he find us?

“Amatsu,” Fuji said, nearly exasperated as he stepped further through their car and stopped, grabbing one of the handles that hung from the roof and standing directly in front of Fuji, completely ignoring the presence of his rival.

“I thought you would be on this train,” he said. “It is the only one that will get you to the entrance exam on time.”

“How do you know what time the entrance exam is for?” Fuji asked incredulously.

“I’m taking the same one as you,” Amatsu admitted.

“You are taking the Toudai entrance exam?” Fuji balked. Amatsu just smirked smugly. “Since when did you have any interest in going to Tokyo University?”

“Since my parents decided I should become better than them and my brother,” Amatsu said, denying the real reason that made him go and only relieving some of the details of his family’s conversation. “They are afraid I will end up like Tattoi if I continue on this path, so they convinced me to better myself.”

“You can better yourself at any college,” Fuji pointed out.

“Ah,” best wishes to honesty, “but you are going to go to Tokyo University, and it will be easier for me to win you back if I am there too.” Amatsu turned his head slightly to a reddening Devilin. “Hello Devilin, good to see you again.”

Fuji sat up straighter, her back suddenly rigid. “You are… wait…” She never had a chance to finish her sentence. The train began to pull into a stop, and while Devilin had been pushing himself to stand, the doors swung open and the first real town of people began to swarm in. Amatsu waved casually to the couple and walked through the crowd back to his original car, and left Devilin and Fuji to stare after him in wonderment.