Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 8 Chapter 2 (section)

== 2.01 Momo and Rau ==
The Visual Design class had a different flavor than regular class.

For some reason the blackboard was decorated by flowers and on the far back wall there was an exhibition of pages torn from sketchbooks and things made during the lessons. Objects of unknown purposes peeked out from every locker, and the broom closet had easels instead of cleaning supplies in it.

"Even just speaking of color, we can divide its expression to many attributes and characteristics… with one such method of expression being the usage of tone and hues. The tones are vivid, strong, bright, dark and so on…" 

On top of the podium, teacher Yamamoto Rau advanced the lesson. Her good looks went to waste because of her usual gloomy way of speaking and the dark circles around her eyes.

The lesson was about "color".

Tanaka Momo, sitting near the window, opened not her textbook but her sketchbook. Leaning her head on her palm, she drew something with her marker.

"There's a color naming system making use of this… when you name things like vivid blue, light purple, dull yellow and so on, there are also indigo blue, peach, skin color, and there are also colors that carry certain images, such as grayish blue and royal purple—these two kinds. Next, each color has its own effect… we have discussed before about how warm colors seem to expand and cold colors seem to retreat and shrink, but this is also—" 

Expansion and reduction.

Momo's heart was right now in the process of doing exactly that.

When looked at the figure in her sketchbook—a portrait of a boy collapsed in a commonplace residential district—she felt anguished as if her chest was constricted.

"Color can also have a deep relationship to people's psychology. Seeing certain colors, one can feel love or hate, happiness or sadness and feelings of this sort… this is called the emotion effect. Underline that part."

There were the squeaks of highlighter pens in the class.

Momo alone was using a marker not on the textbook but in her sketchbook.

Coatl Head.

The drawn symbol told nothing about the change happening to her.

"…"

Raising her face, she looked to the other side of the class.

She had gone to the girl sitting there for advice no matter what happened ever since she was little.

Although they were in the middle of a lesson, she wasn't wearing her trademark horned hat. If Momo were to define her sepia-colored using what they learned in class just now, it would be a dark greyish yellow, or perhaps the color of bamboo tea. 

That classmate, often called just Sepia, was Momo's childhood friend. Although they were friends enough to enroll into the same school, lately Sepia had been avoiding her.

She could surmise the reason for it, but Momo didn't find the chance to speak with her about it.

"…Haa."

She had plenty of other friends, but she didn't feel like going to anyone other than Sepia for advice.

She wanted to talk about the mysterious freeloader that appeared where she worked part-time.

She had cooperated with him yesterday to complete a job.

Also—the fact that right now she could only think about him and was strangely anxious about it.

She had so many things she wanted to talk about, but Sepia didn't even glance at her today.

"I'll guess I'll leave it at that for today…"

The bell rang just as Rau finished the class.

"Tanaka Momo."

The gloomy gaze of the teacher bore at her.

"You have not listened at all to the lesson and only scribbled in your sketchbook… come to this classroom after school."

''Shuddup, I don't feel like doing that right now—''

She couldn't allow herself to actually say that, so Momo just frowned.

She spent the rest of the day sulkily until school was over.

"Hey—"

She called toward Sepia, who was leaving the class.

Yet Sepia only glanced at her and left with a trot.

No matter how many times she called out to her, it was the same. Normally Momo would get angry, but even if she could hope again tomorrow, today she was terribly hurt.

Although she had something to talk about, her friend wouldn't even listen to her.

She shed tears in class because she couldn't endure it any longer. Crying, she grabbed her bag and left the class quickly.

She passed by her teacher Yamamoto Rau. She hanged her head so that her puffy eyes wouldn't be seen.

"Goodbye, sensei."

"Don't skip out on our meeting like that."

With Momo's shoulder grabbed, she stopped in place. She only then recalled that Rau had told her to meet in the classroom.

"…Well, I'll at least get you some tea."

What face was she making right now?

Hearing Rau's kinder-than-usual voice, she thought of this.

"—I'm so sorry… I'll focus on class properly next time…"

The tea poured into a cup used for washing brushes was awfully bitter.

"I'll reflect on this…"

Sitting in a chair in the classroom, Momo shook her body. She wanted to go to her part-time job ASAP.

Sitting at the table instead of the podium, Rau took her mug and sighed deeply.

"You… just how much do you belittle school?"

"I dooon't. I really respect you, senseiii."

"Are you only capable of either disturbing the course of the lesson or not listening to it at all? I have some confidence in my classes, so it's due time I scolded you for real."

"…I'm sorry."

Rau's classes definitely weren't boring. Furthermore, she understood the hearts of her students more than any other teacher. Momo apologized honestly and bowed.

"The other teachers also found it weird… that Tanaka Momo was being so quiet."

"Just by being quiet…? What kind of tyrant do they think I am?"

"Is something worrying you?"

Rau asked her directly with a disinterested tone. Momo mumbled in response.

"I'm not really sure, yeah… maybe there is."

"That's way too ambiguous… did something happen?"

"Sensei, do you also give counseling to students?"

"Stop saying nonsense… it's just because of how you were in class today. You're always 'bright'-colored, but suddenly you came 'pale', so obviously people would be nervous."

"Hmm."

"What did you draw in your sketchbook?"

"…Nothing, yeah."

Grabbing the cup with both hands, Momo lied. She felt her cheek directed at the window turning hotter.

"—Oh, I see."

Seeing Momo like this, Rau spoke with a disappointed voice.

"So you fell in love."

Momo's hand attempting to carry the green tea to her mouth stopped midway. She looked at Rau with mechanical movements.

"…Pardon?"

"Like I said, you probably like someone, right?"

"No, I mean, that's definitely not… eh?"

"What are you being so flustered about?"

Rau looked confused. Holding the now-empty mug, she rose up.

"I don't know who that boy is… but give it your best shot. There's a limit to how much you can daydream in class."

Perhaps satisfied at having figured out the cause, Rau gave her some half-hearted words of encouragement. As if saying she hadn't any interest in her students' love life, she drowsily combed up her silver-streaked hair.

Momo wordlessly grabbed Rau's suit. She could feel the plastic's unique sensation.

"What is it?"

"…"

"Don't make such a surprised faced… or was my guess wrong?"

As Rau tilted her neck, Momo was flapping her lips with no words coming out.

Were her teacher's instructions correct or not—she was unable to grasp that.

"Calm down. …No, it's not strange to be unnerved like that. It's normal."

"N-normal…?"

"It's something obvious for someone of your age. Everyone experiences love."

"Lo-lo-lo…"

"Love is just a name for it. It's just an illusion, a need of possessiveness… sometimes, it's sympathy or adoration."

"…"

"Fluctuating between them, questioning yourself, attaining euphoria and getting hurt; everyone's like that."

Momo, still grabbing her teacher's suit, glanced at Rau's black eyes returning the gaze.

"Don't worry. You're normal…"

Normal.

At least she should have called her average.

But now that she could even think like that—it meant the anxiousness swirling inside Momo melted away.

"There's no need to rush to an answer… being flustered won't lead to anything decent."

"Sensei…"

"You're all still young. You can just keep thinking for however long you'd like until you reach the answer…"

There was no need to hurry to reach an answer.

She could start slowly nurturing this feeling that she had for the first time in her life—

Momo wore her usual, bright smile toward the teacher called Yamamoto Rau.

"You're a good teacher, yeah."

This time Rau twitched. Seeing her agitated was rare.

"N-no, I'm just—"

"Hmm?"

"I just thought that there was something going wrong between you and a classmate… since it's also a teacher's duty to listen to her students' troubles… oh well—"

Rau showed an even rarer expression.

Slightly raising the edges of her lips, she looked troubled—as if she smiling wryly.

"It's just my job."

Momo judged her to be hiding her embarrassment.

"Yeah… I'm having a fight with my friend right now."

"I see."

"I'm just waiting for my friend to forgive me, yeah. I don't know what I did, but I hope she'll talk to me again sometime."

"I think that perhaps… you should take your distance for a while. That might be good."

Looking at Rau saying this, Momo had a certain hunch.

Perhaps someone worried about Momo and Sepia's relationship had given Rau advice behind the scenes. Perhaps she'd called Momo out in the first place to discuss this.

"Say, sensei. Where are you from?"

As Momo asked this with a smile, Rau raised an eyebrow.

"Why are you asking so suddenly…?"

"You're a foreigner, right? How do you say 'thank you' where you're from?"

For a moment the teacher with silver streaks in her hair stopped moving. As if letting her thoughts run—or perhaps recalling something nostalgic, she stared at empty air.

"Who knows… I've already forgotten."

"Booo. Then I'll say it in proper Japanese. Thanks, sensei."

"You should speak more properly. It's 'thank you very much'…"

Momo said her thanks and handed Rau the cup. About to exit the classroom, she turned around.

"If you're ever troubled by love, I'll come get your advice. Since you're so beautiful I'll bet you have plenty of experience, yeah."

Rau merely shrugged. Holding the cup, she sluggishly walked to the sink and seeing off the back of her teacher, Momo left the room.

Her feet carrying her out of the school and into the city felt much lighter than when she'd entered the classroom.

Turning around the corner of the station, she headed directly to the office.

The old building smelled of dust as always.

Climbing up the stairway with the cracked wall in one fell swoop, she stood in front of the rusted door.

"Handyman Kirari☆ OPEN"—

Opening the door and passing near the calling bell, she opened the glass door. Going through the corridor, she entered the needlessly-fancy living room.

"Eek."

A ferret came leaping at Momo.

Last night there was a request of "pest extermination". Yet the kind Kirari didn't get rid of it under the pretext of taking care of it, and was allowed to keep it by the requester.

As a result, her reward had been halved yet again.

Although she could have lied that she was taking it somewhere, that was what happened when she told the truth. That was the girl called Ikarino Kirari.

"Sepia. Were you a good girl? …You weren't."

Tanaka Momo had been the one to name it. Holding up the ferret she called Sepia, she looked around the ruined living room.

There were torn documents and scratch marks on the walls.

Perhaps they shouldn't have left it in the same room as its natural enemy. The beast they'd picked up before the ferret was breathing in his sleep.

"You have to get along, yeah."

Momo folded her knees, looking at Kusuriya Daisuke's sleeping face. The number of wounds on the boy's face increased; probably traces of his fight with Sepia.

Daisuke's wounds seemed to have been getting better.

However—the fact that with every day his complexion became worse was worrying. He insisted he was fine, but she couldn't watch him without growing anxious.

If left like this, he might wither away—

As this chilling delusion crossed her mind, she bit her lips.

"I hope you'll get better soon, Daiske."

Mumbling, Momo reached for the marker case on her waist. While holding the ferret in one hand, she put a green-colored marker to Daisuke's forehead.

She learned it in class today.

Green was a color used to express stability and liveliness.

And she obviously drew that symbol.

"Coatl Coatl Para Emile."

Momo recited this with a smile.

With the Coatl Head being drawn on his forehead, Daisuke's expression seemed somewhat peaceful now.