||DISCONTINUED|| Candid Aberration [Katakura Keiichi||Nijiiro Days]

Chapter 1: Colors of a Rainbow

Students gossiped about the latests in the classroom. I passed that noisy room with a few strides. Glancing at an eccentric orange-haired girl, she bumped on my shoulder, dropping one of my manga volumes.

"I'm so sorry! I was thinking deeply to myself today," she squatted down to picked it up and stopped midway as she saw the title.

"Horimiya?" She mumbled enough for me to hear.

Beginning of the school year, I already have someone who thinks I'm weird. The orange-haired girl stares at me with wide eyes and they were... glistening. She finally picked it up and dusted it. She stood up on her position and she gave it to me in a gentle manner. I took it from her.

"I'm looking for this manga in a long time!" She smiled that it reached her ears, "everytime I buy, it's always sold. You're so lucky!"

I gaped at her. Seriously, what is she on about? I don't know what's happening, I'm terribly confused.

"Sorry, again. I'm Asai Yukiko, nice to meet you. And you are?" She gives out her hand for me to shake.

"Sora Ao," I replied.

She still has her hand out for me to shake. She frowned slightly. She grabbed my hand and shook it with hers.

"Don't be shy. It's just me," Asai points at my volume of Horimiya, "it's the first volume, right?"

I nodded.

"Can I borrow it?"

I don't know what exactly to say. So I stayed silent.

"You don't have to act like that. I don't bite. Can I borrow your book?" Then she fiddles something in her pocket and took out two phone straps of Rin and Len.

"Here, you can have Rin," she places the phone strap on my palm, "I got it for free in a convention. I still have other characters, so don't worry about it,"

On instinct, I gave my manga to her, "thank you for the phone strap," I clutched it close to my chest.

"The phone strap was able for you to say yes?" She asks, quite baffled.

"No. I will give it you even without you giving me the phone strap. I just don't understand the situation,"

She walks forward to get closer to me. Asai leans into my ear, "this is our secret. If my boyfriend finds out that I gave it to another particular person--" then she winks at me and walks past and down through the hallway full of students.

I still didn't understand what happened until today.

*****

Ao enters the rooftop with blinding lights. There was a gust of wind and it blew her hair. She saw a maroon-haired girl happily eating a cinnamon bun and an orange-haired girl munching on her bento.

"Ao-chan! Over here!" Yukirin waves at her for a signal.

She walks at slow pace towards them. Ao slowly makes out that Nozomi wasn't eating happily, she was eating ravagely on breads. The gentle girl was crying so much that it was serving as salty sauce to her bun.

"What's wrong with her?" Ao set place on the bench her friends were sitting at. She took out her own bento and a can of soda she bought in the cafeteria.

Yukirin sighed beside her, "she hasn't been able to talk since we ate lunch here. Nonnon keeps crying,"

Ao looks at the empty lunch box below the bench. There were also three plastics of bread or bun accompanying the lunch box.