Horizon:Volume 1 Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Innocents in Remorse Way
It occurs within the afternoon sunlight.
The movements of the thoughts that seem to escape one's grasp.
Where could their destination be.
Point Allocation (Family)
A single figure was seated atop the stairs.
Her long hair fluttering in the wind, that person was Kimi.
Sitting on the stairs, she was propping her face up on her palm, looking downward all the while.
Below her.
There was a large stairway, the second schoolyard, and another stairway. In the second schoolyard, the clubs of the physical strand were performing mock battles/undergoing combat practice as part of their respective club activities.
However, Kimi was directing her gaze beyond them and their actions.
What she was looking at lay beyond the school campus. A straight path forward in the natural divisions.
In front of the road, paved with resin meant to imitate stone paving, a single boy stood.
The lines of his uniformed figure slender, he was Toori.
Kimi looked at his back as he stood there, unmoving. She said this, sighing as she spoke.
"If you're scared, it's fine if you go back, Toori - Because you're my idiot brother."
Kimi spoke those words, hugging her knee to herself. And after a while, at the place she was looking at, Toori started to move. He would wind around, repeatedly start to sprint with his body slanted forwards, start to poledance low on a streetlight's poles..
"Hehehe. My idiot brother. Just as I thought that the atmosphere was right, you punch it right in the face."
It was just as Toori had poledanced too much and had started to slowly crawl up the streetlight's pole like a bug.
A voice could be heard from behind Kimi.
"What's Toori doing? Huh? Is that a new type of game? Or should I blow him off it?"
"Teeheehee, Sensei. I had heard that you were drinking in the cafeteria, but what have you come here for?"
"Well, maybe...I'm just enjoying the cold air."
A figure clad in a jumper, bottle of sake clutched underarm, sat to Kimi's right.
The figure fixed her hair, which was slightly mussed.
Kimi frowned at her.
"Hehehe, Sensei. You can't comb your fingers through your hair unless it's for fashion. Toori does it a lot, but it'll damage your hair, so leave it to me."
As Oriotorai was seated next to her, Kimi combed her hair with a comb she took out from her bosom.
Oriotorai left her hair to be fixed by Kimi as she wished, but she relaxed her face, which was flushed with blood as a result of her drinking.
"Heehee."
"What is it? That's really creepy, Sensei."
"Ah, no, I was reminiscing about how a granny close to here would do this for me."
"A granny...Could it be that you come from the Izumo district?"
'Hehehe'. Oriotorai narrowed her eyes as she laughed.
"Well, I've been to lots of places, but I'm probably the most happy here."
"Teeheehee, Sensei. Please don't tell me your life story even after suddenly getting all drunk and treating people like grannies."
"Isn't it fine? Or maybe I should say, for me, this is a day to be celebrated as well."
"Oh, what a coincidence, this is day of celebration for Toori as well. It would be nice if he wanted to celebrate more tomorrow, though."
Hearing Kimi speak, Oriotorai nodded. She turned her gaze to Kimi.
"You're kind."
"...Wait, don't look this way, the comb won't pass through properly, will it?"
'Sorry, sorry'. Oriotorai apologized, but she touched her neck with her empty hand.
She fingered the chain hanging there before moving on to the other chain, which dropped towards her chest.
"Keep going, keep going..."
Her words were directed to the subject of her gaze, Toori, who stood atop a pole.
Kimi combed the back of her hair.
"Hehe, will Sensei be my idiot brother's ally?"
"Whether or not the idiot brother's ally, I don't know, but I will become Aoi Toori's ally~ Or Kimi, or anybody else's. At the very least, I'm definitely the ally of everyone in my class. - Ah, but, teaching staff can't be directly involved in inter-student battles, so when it comes to that, you'll have to forgive me, alright?"
'Yes'.
Kimi nodded. She stood up to comb the other side of Oriotorai's hair.
"...Oh? Ah, as I thought."
"What is it?"
"Before, Masazumi crossed over here, coming from Tama, over there. Somehow, it seems that she was trying to pass through to the halfway point of Remorse Way from the natural division, but she's a girl who always seems to cut through weird places..."
Kimi lightly touched the comb to her chin, inclining her head.
"Teehee, but well, I wonder what the vice-president intends to do? Going to a place like Remorse Way..."
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