Different Meeting

as straight as a board

Kirigiri Kyoko sat straight on her chair, staring at the board in front of her class blankly, out of this world yet listening closely to her teacher's lectures.

It was boring, but she was the top of her class for a reason.

Besides detective work, all she ever does is sit where she was and listen.

The class spoke with each other, conversing with one another, smiles upright on their faces of different expressions.

Kyoko sat alone still, however. She found it difficult to make friends, and not to mention her face was another reason for her not being very attractive in terms of friend-making.

The school she was enrolled in was an all-girl's school, so she found it strange when she saw a seatmate of hers holding a letter which had a heart sticker to seal it.

"...will this really do the trick?" Kyoko overhead her say to another one day.

The other person cheered her on, smiling at her.

Kyoko didn't care for their matters, it was none of her business. But the fact that the girl was going to send that obvious love letter to another girl in the student body was kind of odd, for Kyoko only as the others didn't seem to detest the idea.

'Crushes are truly as common as I read,' Kyoko thought while eating the snack one of the maids prepared for her.

-----

Days later and the seatmate that opted to send that letter never mentioned it again.

It was as if something had gone wrong; that she wished it just never happened in the first place.

She still didn't care though. They were middle-schoolers who should prepare for Highschool, not mope around about some... Some girl(?).

But Kyoko was new. Only transferring about a week or two ago, she didn't know if anything that she had observed were normal here. Or maybe she just really wasn't used to being around only girls as she basically grew up with her grandfather dragging her around between countries.

She shook off the returning thoughts of her grandfather as she continued to walk in the halls.

Today she was surveying the Highschool halls. Her teacher gave her some files to give to the other teachers in the faculty, which is by default found in the Highschool section of the school itself. And being the diligent girl she is, she didn't protest, even when she was instructed by her grandfather to go back home early.

She continued to walk slowly, making sure to keep steady. She didn't want the overbearing files to collapse as a whole on the floor, that would cost her more work and less probability that her grandfather would let her off without problem if she says she did her teacher a favor.

But in all honesty, the papers were weighing down her arms.

She was quite skinny, and her carrying heavy piles of important papers didn't help her gain any more muscle.

She continued to walk either way. She memorized the layout of the
Highschool section's halls long ago, knowing she would come back sooner or later with another demand from her teacher. She calls it a 'favor' to lessen the tension.

But when she took another step in the hall she felt herself slip.

The floors of the Highschool section were cleaner and, mostly wetter, so it was probably why she tripped on her school shoes backwards.

But just before her back painfully hit the ground, two hands grasped her shoulders and she paused mid-way to the floor's clean tiles.

She luckily didn't lose her grip on the papers she was holding on all too tightly. The person who was able to catch her slowly brought her up to her feet as they walked to her front.

"Are you okay?" They asked, patting her shoulder to either dust it or just literally pat it.

Kyoko barely registered the words before looking up.

Looking down at her, was another girl. She was tall, and had a different uniform than Kyoko's.

"...yes!" Kyoko blurted that out a little too loudly as her shoulders tensed for no reason.

"Huh, really?"

Now that Kyoko had a good look of the girl, she noticed that she had red glasses on, a type of dull green eyes, brown hair, and a long blonde streak on the front that was horizontal on a bang.

The girl's eyes moved, turning to look down at Kyoko's ID, which was clipped on her own jacket's breast pocket.

"Kyoko-chan, eh? Nice to meet you!"

She was smiling down at Kyoko genuinely, saying things that Kyoko couldn't quite hear herself.

"Well, alright then!" Kyoko was snapped out of her dazed state with those few words.

The girl, who seemed to be from this Highschool section, looked at her wrist watch and sighed. "I gotta go." The girl fumbled in her jacket pocket before taking out what seemed to be an ID and handing it to Kyoko, who almost dropped the papers receiving it.

She then started to run fast past Kyoko in an impressive speed. "See ya' around!" She waved while running away.

Kyoko watched her go.

She wanted so badly to scratch the back of her neck, but she couldn't with how full her hands were.

Instead, she looked down and read what was on the ID that the girl gave her.

A small picture printed on it, was the girl herself.

Her eyes widened as she read the occupation part of the Highschool ID. 'Part-time Detective? So I'm not the only one...'

Kyoko scanned it further, now interested, and hummed.

"Samidare Yui, huh..."

- End