Evanescence

The Prelude

As if trying to compensate for a mostly uneventful time in the hospital, Fate bombarded me with a series of startling moments, keeping me on the edge of my toes at all times.

When I entered school that day, I thought a curse of misfortune was cast upon me. I wandered around for an hour, only to find myself barging into the room of a Freshman class. My sudden appearance made the poor science teacher—obviously a new one— drop her things in panic. After I had introduced myself, believing it to be my class, the teacher gave an exhausted face palm. She had finally realised her mistake, remembering my name from her visits to the faculty room, and sent one of her own students to escort me.

Unfortunately, I knew not where my actual classroom was, so we had to go to both the Principal's office and the Admissions Office. The process we had to go through was troublesome, and so I took the opportunity to at least introduce myself to my escort. With all these distractions, we had easily eaten through an hour with enjoyable chatter and tedious shuffling, something I had to apologise to her for.

By the time I had been escorted to the right classroom, my companion had warmed up to me enough for an invitation to join her club.

Otonashi Haruna. Newspaper Club.

Once we entered my actual classroom, a sea of eyes turned towards the black-haired young man in casual clothing. But the teacher was expecting me, having been notified beforehand. Instead of burdening us with questions, he did not ask too much, immediately understanding Otonashi's explanation without much qualm. In fact, he was even excited to see a new student in his class.

I sat in class for some time, seeing why this teacher—Tadashi-Sensei—was known in the school as an effective instructor. Instead of droning on mechanically, he moved across the room, with his voice full of life. He seemed to enjoy explaining to children different scientific concepts, especially when these explanations are in his own words, and not directly quoted from any particular source material.

Of course, with the talk of science, I couldn't help but get enthusiastic and engage in conversation. The whole period was half-composed of Tadashi-Sensei and I chattering about science the same way children talk about their favourite kids' shows. When lunch break rolled in, he bid his farewell, but not without asking me to come by the science lab some time after school.

As planned, Otonashi waited outside my classroom door. The kind girl volunteered to show me a few places in the school, but I already felt bad for having her walk with me during my morning shenanigans. Instead, I asked for her to lead me to the least populated rooftop of the school.

When I was younger, I would watch the sunset from the rooftop of Sakurazaki's elementary school building. During the early Spring days, the Kanzakura cherry blossoms would fly on the breeze, the white-pink petals bathing themselves in hues of gold and red. Those were the days when I still had my two closest friends by my side, ready to catch me when I fall or push me when I hesitate. We called those days—late February to early March— as 'ours' for they represented our favourite colours in harmony, like Japan's way of giving tribute to our friendship.

The rooftop was quite empty, and after bidding farewell to my kind companion, I took a seat on a bench that overlooked a field. White lines ran down and across it, forming the bounds that I knew far too well. Though the grounds itself was not particularly stunning, it was nice just to see the presence of a field.

Leaning forwards, I saw a few people asking others. Pockets of students were forming, probably unaware of the newly marked field. Perhaps it was once a Tennis court or Baseball field, but now it was clearly one that was for the beautiful game. If only I could get my feet on that field and get hold of a ball.