Behind The Lens - Takashi Morinozuka

Chapter 12 - Meetings

"What do you think is going on?"

The raven haired male glanced over at his smaller cousin, a concerned sigh slipping through his lips at the hushed question.

"I don't know, Mitsukuni," he whispered back, eyes glossing over, "I don't know."

Said blond turned his attention back to the blackboard at the front of the room, brows furrowed in frustration. Though nothing else was said, uneasiness seemed to settle over the classroom as silence ensued.

...

Have you ever been so anxious that your body felt like silverware scraping on plates or nails on a chalkboard? Your spine seems to feel discomfort and chest taught with the ropes of anxiety, pulling tighter and tighter on your lungs until you can't breathe. Blood flowing at such a pace it pounds inside of your skull, and your veins flinch at every pulse.

Anxiety was a demon- one Kanna wished no person would ever have to witness as it reared its ugly head, casting a shadow over you.

Hiromi going missing caused the twisting feeling to escalate more than it had for the longest time. The last time she felt this anxious it was because she was separated from her mother at the mall when she was a child. Only after a staff member had found her and reunited the two did the tightening stop, though now this was something she had to tackle alone.

Buzzing by her hip jolted her attention, hands flying down to fetch the device. Her finger nail getting caught in the zipper emitted a few curses as it snapped- though not being enough to stop the same finger from pressing a green button to answer.

"Hello, this is Akiyama speaking." Her voice rung out, the outside air absorbing her word as she exited the building and walked into the main courtyard.

"Yes, good morning Miss Akiyama," A male voice spoke through, "I represent a software company, we've been emailing recently about our new software. I'm calling on behalf of one of our directors as he'd like to have a meeting with you to discuss further business and collaboration"

Kanna's breath hitched in her throat, swallowing the lump in her throat before talking again, "Of course! Just text me the details including location and anything I may need to bring." The sudden change in topic and mood was almost too drastic to comprehend properly.

"Of course Miss," clicking of a keyboard was faintly resounding in the background, along with another phone ringing, trying to grasp its owner's attention, "I assume that it is okay to send the details to this phone number?"

She began to nod before realising the gentleman couldn't see her, a word of confirmation squeezing out of her dry throat. A few more minutes passed as details were shared, the slim girl making her way over to the clean stone benches, swapping the hand her phone was in to write down notes in her diary with the other.

Her unusually uniform handwriting became cursive as she rushed to get every detail down, ending the call once all was said and done. Thankful for work to distract her, the pummeling in her chest ceased and reason began to work at the puzzle in her mind.

She didn't go to get food with Hiromi on Friday like usual, however somewhere in the hours of conversation with Takashi she was told that her best friend was the one who conjured up the plan to begin with. So the change of plans couldn't be her reason for distance, but what else was there?

Crunching of gravel in the courtyard snatched Kanna's attention, a mop of brown hair peeking over the top of a hedge. It was class, so a student wandering in the same area she was currently seated in left her perplexed.