Chapter 2

Monday Afternoon, April 20th

The bell rang for lunch after a long morning and I hurried to put the final touches on my notes, such as they were. At least my time hadn't been totally wasted. While the professor had droned painfully along, I'd broken out my colored pens to perfect my artistic skills.

"Not too shabby," I congratulated myself with a smile. I might have messed up the proportions a little, but all in all, I thought it looked just like her. Maybe I should try a different pose after lunch. From behind, on her hands and knees like a dog, or...

"Minase!" Imari pounced on me the way she always does. "Are you hungry? Do you want to eat here today? Or we could go outside and sit under the trees ... Say! What's that?"

"It's nothing!" I said, quickly closing my notebook.

She wouldn't accept that, however. "Let me see! Was that a drawing?"

"A drawing?" I tried to look incredulous. "Of course not! I was taking notes. What were you doing?"

"You never take notes," Imari said, ignoring my attempts to deflect her interest. "Let me take a look!"

She tried to steal my notebook and we played tug of war while our classmates filed out of the room. It was embarrassing to argue with her this way, but I knew that if Imari saw what I'd been doing all morning I'd never hear the end of it. She took a dim view of fooling around during class and now she refused to let go no matter how hard I pulled.

"Stop, before you rip it," I said. "Fine. I admit it. Okay? I was drawing in class."

"I knew it!" she squealed, relaxing her grip now that she had my confession.

I relaxed as well, taking a deep breath and frowning at her. Imari could be so stubborn sometimes. I braced myself for a lecture on paying attention to the professor. She could be even worse than my sister and Yukiko was a world champion nag when it came to my education.

"Hey! Give it back," I yelled as she snatched the notebook out of my fingers. I hadn't been expecting that.

"Do you think you could hold it down over there?" Saeki said, giving us a cold look.

She was the only other student in the room. As usual, she'd remained at her desk eating an apple and reading one of her wacky books. I didn't pay her sarcasm any attention and Imari was too busy flipping through the pages looking for my drawing.

"Don't look," I said. "Please, Kurumi. It's a drawing of you."

"Really?" Her cheeks turned pink even as she blinked at me. I only used her first name in emergency situations and it never failed to make her smile.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'll be embarrassed if you look at it. I'm not as good an artist as a girl like you deserves."

"Oh!" Imari looked speechless, perhaps for the first time in her life. I worried that I might be laying it on a little too thick and I caught Saeki shaking her head in disbelief.

"Just give it back to me," I suggested, playing it cool as a cucumber. "Please?"

I held out my hand, not trying to steal my notebook back, but patiently waiting for her to see reason. Arguing with Imari never got anyone anywhere, except in the hospital maybe.

"Well, I don't want to embarrass you," she agreed. "But you really need to pay more attention to ... Huh? Minase! You jerk!"

"Uh!" I winced. The notebook had fallen open to my drawing just as Imari was about to hand it over.

"That's not me!" she yelled. "You liar! You sex maniac!"

"Stop! No! Ouch! Imari!"

She began beating me on the head with my own notebook, rolling it up as if swatting a fly. I tried to protect myself, but it was useless in the face of female outrage. Imari had gone from happy to angry in the blink of an eye.

"Ouch! Oh! I'm sorry!"

"When you get kicked out of school, don't blame me!" she finished, throwing the notebook on my desk. I rubbed my head and watched her huff out of the room.

"Nice girlfriend you've got there," Saeki observed with a giggle. "A match made in Hell, it looks like."

"Shut-up," I said. "She's not my girlfriend."

"More like a sister, huh?" She picked up my notebook before I could stop her, finding the picture that had upset Imari. "Hmph! Not much to get excited about, is it?"

"Don't you have broom to fly or something?"

"I was trying to study, but you ruined that idea," she replied. "Why do you hate magic so much?"

"What?"

I'd been caught off guard by Saeki's question. The tone of her voice hadn't been mocking at all. She seemed genuinely curious.

"It's not real," I answered. "I don't hate it, I guess. I just don't believe in it. Magic is a waste of time."

"But drawing pornographic pictures in class isn't?" She laughed and I felt my face growing warmer.

"I'm the vice-president of the art club," I told her, as if that could excuse me.

"And I'm the High Priestess of the Rose and Cross Society."

"The what?"

"That's the real name of the Black Magic club from twelve years ago," she explained. "It was never sanctioned as an official club. You won't find it mentioned in any of the school records, but the Society existed all the same."

"We're back to that?" I sighed, wondering why this girl felt such a huge need to convince me that her hocus-pocus was real. I knew Saeki was obsessed with magic, but her fixation bordered on insanity if she couldn't even have a normal conversation without bringing up the subject.

"Your girlfriend seemed interested. Whoops!" Saeki covered her mouth with a tiny shrug. "Sorry. I mean your friend Imari."

"Well, she's not!" I insisted. "So just stay away from her."

"Touchy!" she said, giving me another infernal giggle. Saeki had a soft, light laugh that reminded me of my grandmother's wind chimes for some reason. I'd loved that sound as a child, but now it only annoyed me.

"And stop spreading those stupid rumors," I added. "Nobody believes in that stuff."

"People are free to believe or disbelieve what they want," she said. "But even the most outlandish rumors have a grain of truth to them. Until Schliemann discovered Troy, everyone thought that the Iliad was nothing but a work of fiction."

"That's different," I muttered.

"The same with Machu Picchu," she went on. "It was only a legend until Hiram Bingham discovered it. Like the professor said, nothing is a complete truth or lie until you've verified it yourself."

"I know that!" I said, but I didn't remember our teacher saying any such thing.

Probably because I'd been busy doing something else, like practicing my manga skills. It sort of sounded like something he'd say, however, and Saeki had a valid point, but it still wasn't a good excuse to start believing in black magic and demons.

"Then you have no reason to make fun of me, do you?" Saeki said with a triumphant smile. "Who knows? Maybe if you keep an open mind, you might discover something too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, but Saeki had already returned to her seat and she ignored me.

I didn't want to talk to her anymore anyway. I opened the lunch my sister had packed for me and started eating alone. I'd expected Imari to return and join me, but I guess I must have really pissed her off and it served her right. I'd told her not to look at my notebook, but being hardheaded like she was, the girl never listened. Oh well, I wasn't too worried. We'd gotten angry with each other hundreds of times and always ended up getting back together. I just hoped that Saeki had been joking about that girlfriend business. If everyone thought Imari and I were dating, I'd never hook up with a hot chick!

"Minase!"

And there she was, bounding into the classroom on her skinny legs and smiling as if nothing had happened. I almost felt relieved, until she grabbed the last pickled carrot in my lunchbox and washed it down with my last rice ball. What a pig!

"Guess what I just heard?" she whispered, and for such a practical girl, Imari loved to gossip. Someday, I thought, it would get her into real trouble.

"I give up," I sighed. There wasn't any point in playing games and she made me wait until she'd sat down in the chair next to mine.

"It's about Dr. Kitami," she confided, glancing suspiciously at Saeki.

"Ummm ... She's really a man?"

"What? No! Don't be silly," Imari said. "She's way too beautiful to be a man."

"Really?" I rubbed my jaw. Everyone said the new doctor was attractive, but I hadn't seen her with my own eyes yet.

"I heard..." She lowered her voice even more, leaning closer. "I heard that Dr. Kitami has been seeing patients."

"Great." I shook my head. "A doctor who sees patients, that's amazing."

"Not like that!" she said with a giggle. "I mean, she's been seeing some of the male students..."

"Okay."

" ... in the infirmary..."

"And?"

" ... in private," Imari whispered, wiggling her eyebrows. "With the door locked, you know?"

"Someone told you she's been having sex?" I blurted, and was quickly shushed in reply.

"Shhhh ... It's a secret," Imari said. "I heard it from one of the upper-classmen. She heard it from her best friend, who got it from her boyfriend."

"Her boyfriend and Dr. Kitami..."

"No! He heard it from another boy who wasn't supposed to talk about it!"

"So now the whole school is talking about it," I said, chuckling. "Well, it must be true then."

"I know!" Imari giggled. "Isn't that disgusting? A teacher doing it with her own students!"

"She's not really a teacher though," I reminded her. "She's a doctor."

"It's the same thing," Imari insisted. "She's part of the faculty. I can't believe anyone would be so desperate for sex. She might even be a nymphomaniac!"

"How many guys did she do it with?"

"I'm not sure," she answered, pursing her lips. "It must be a lot. Everyone is talking about it."

"Hmmm ... Maybe I should go to the infirmary," I thought aloud.

"Excuse me?" Imari narrowed her eyes.

"For my headache," I explained quickly. "You were hitting me, remember?"

"Because you deserved it!" she retorted. "And I know you don't have a headache."

"It's my head."

"You just want to see Dr. Kitami, don't you?"

"Well..." I shrugged, wondering what Imari expected. A beautiful doctor was having sex with students? There was probably a line stretching down the hall and out the front doors.

"I can't believe you sometimes," she snorted, crossing her arms and sitting back in the chair. She crossed her legs as well, looking all folded up like an origami Imuri.

"I was kidding," I said. "That rumor's even dumber than the one about the storage room."

"But she swore it was true!"

"It wouldn't be a very good rumor if everyone knew it was a lie," I said. "You girls and your gossip."

"I'm not a gossip!" Imari protested, but she didn't seem convinced. "Am I?"

"You're a girl, right?" I shrugged, not wanting to get hit again. "You can't help it, Imari."

"I guess not," she sighed, and then laughed at her own silliness.

It was nice to be friends again and I glanced at Saeki to see if she'd noticed, but she seemed to be immersed in her reading. In the back of my mind, I'd been wondering if Saeki hadn't been trying to hit on me. I mean, an introvert like her probably had no clue how to tell a boy she liked him. Perhaps debating with me had been secret bookworm code for, "I love you, Minase. Let's have sex!"

Saeki definitely had the body for it and I stole another glance, drinking in her smooth legs and full breasts. Maybe I just liked blondes, I wasn't sure. Or maybe I liked that attitude of hers, kind of superior and stuck-up like she was a real know-it-all and the rest of us were just morons. Except ... Why would I like being treated like a moron? That didn't make much sense and I blamed the erection throbbing in my pants. All that talk about Dr. Kitami having sex had fired up my imagination, although I didn't believe word of it.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Imari wondered, frowning as I stood up from my desk.

"I need to use the bathroom," I replied. I didn't bother putting my lunchbox away, that could wait. I'd decided to see this sexy doctor for myself.

"Wait for me," she said. "I'll go with you."

"You want to use the boy's bathroom?" I laughed at her. "Sure. Let's go. I'd like to see that!"

Behind Imari, Saeki stifled a giggle.

"That's not what I meant," she said, scowling as her cheeks turned red.

"I'll be right back," I promised. "You can do me a favor and put away my lunch box."

"Ha!" She shook her head. "Put it away yourself. I'm not your maid, you know."

I waved over my shoulder. "Whatever," I said on my way out the door. "Just don't drink all my tea while I'm gone."

After teasing Imari like that, I'd be lucky not to find my teacup in the garbage can. She deserved it though. Wanting to walk me to the bathroom as if I was a little boy? She just didn't want me looking for Dr. Kitami and I wondered if Imari was jealous. A beautiful older woman, a doctor no less, already with a reputation for flirting with the students. If I'd been a girl, I would have been jealous. Maybe. Actually, if I was a girl, I'd probably be a lesbian, and in that case I'd still be looking for Dr. Kitami.

That feat of male logic made me smile as I walked past the boy's lavatory on my way to the staircase. I didn't even look back to see if Imari was checking up on me. If she was, I'd hear about it eventually and if she wasn't, it didn't matter. I'd learned early in our friendship that it was better to be forgiven later than punched right away.

The infirmary was located on the first floor and I took the stairs two at a time on the way down. Since it was lunchtime, the classrooms were mostly empty and the halls even more so. Even the first floor, usually bustling with activity, seemed very quiet. The faculty would be eating in the teacher lounge, but the infirmary would be open to accommodate students during their recess from class.

Or it should have been. I found the door closed, but heard muffled sounds from the other side as I reached for the handle.

"Oh! Excuse me," Rika Shiraki said, pulling the door open at the same exact moment. I almost fell right into her arms! Doors were definitely not my friends today.

"Hi, Rika," I managed to say, regaining my balance and stepping backward to give her some room. Talk about having a thing for blondes!

She was the prettiest girl in school, everyone agreed on that. Shiraki had a pleasant, unassuming demeanor, always got excellent grades, and was the President of the Student Council. As if that wasn't enough, her father was a high level executive with the largest electronics firm in the country. Why a rich girl like her wasn't attending some private school in Europe or someplace, I had no idea. Along with the rest of the boys, I couldn't help but idolize her. Unfortunately, Shiraki didn't even know my name.

"Hi, uh..." Her emerald eyes widened as she searched my face for clues.

"Minase," I reminded her. "I'm Taki Minase. We're in Section A together."

"I'll remember that," Shiraki promised, and I couldn't tell if she was smiling or pouting. Either way, her moist lips would have tempted the devil himself.

What a princess! With her adorable looks and sweet personality, she was the complete package. I'd forgotten all about Dr. Kitami and especially Imari's goofy behavior. If they were dogs, Shiraki would have been a purebred with a long pedigree, whereas Imari would be a common mongrel fathered by some stray mutt in the back of an alley.

Of course, I knew better than to share that opinion with anyone! If Imari found out, I'd wake up in a hospital missing some valuable body parts.

"Are you okay?" I asked, noticing her flushed face and a damp sheen of perspiration on Shiraki's forehead. She seemed to be breathing heavily, but that could have been because I'd surprised her.