(Chapter 2. Not much to say, but Anita is a representation of my friend Werecat13. Thus, basically, I'm pretty sure that Anita is Werecat13's character. Basically. I think.

Please enjoy Chapter 2! It's a little angsty(er), but it's also starting to introduce some of the more major characters.)




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Oh shoot! Haruka thought desperately as she hit the ground under someone else’s weight. This is really bad! What will Okaa-san say when she sees me all dirty from being toppled over by some idiot?

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” a female voice whined from on top of Haruka. “I really, really, didn’t mean that, I swear someone pushed me! I’m so sorry, can I ever make up for it?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Haruka responded awkwardly and fairly breathlessly.

“Really, I’m sorry, if there’s anything I can do…” the girl babbled on, but Haruka hardly listened; her attention was driven away by a silver mouse or rat (she wasn’t really good at recognizing the differences between the two) that scampered up to her face and now stood there, staring right at her.

She could have sworn it smiled at her. It even seemed to wink at her before she heard the girl who had fallen on her say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I should just get off of you now, I’m sorry, I really am, it just slipped my mind…” and so she rambled.

The weight lifted off Haruka’s back, and she stood up, tried to flick off as much dirt from her shirt as possible, and looked at the girl who fell onto her.

The girl had fairly long silver hair with the front of it pulled to the back in a ponytail, which she was now nervously and repeatedly pushing behind her ear, and lavender eyes. She looked to be Haruka’s age, just starting high school, and wore the uniform as normally as Haruka wished she could.

Haruka interrupted the girl’s apologies with, “Don’t worry. I’m fine, my uniform’s clean, no harm done.”

The girl seemed even more worried about this. “No, I guess not, but what if…” She bit her lip and turned away.

Haruka laughed lightly. “Look, we could ‘What if’ everything forever, and we’d still not answer all the questions. It’s okay, I don’t mind.”

“No, it’s not okay,” the girl insisted anxiously. “There are so many terrible things that could have happened, and then…” she trailed off uncertainly.

“Really, there’s nothing wrong,” Haruka insisted. “Those terrible things that could have happened didn’t, and all that matters is what did, and nothing horrible came from what happened. So calm down and don’t think about what didn’t happen, because it isn’t relevant, and thinking about it won’t do anyone any good.” Haruka only just realized that she seemed to have some good advice, especially for just trying to get the girl to stop apologizing pointlessly.

The girl stopped to ponder this piece of advice for a moment, then smiled and looked up at Haruka for a split second before she fell to her apologetic state. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I was so rude, I just crashed into you and I didn’t even introduce myself, I’m such an idiot for forgetting that, oh, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to forget like that, I just—”

“You really don’t need to apologize like that,” Haruka pointed out. “I know you’re sorry, but you only need to say it once. If you need to say it again, then the person you’re apologizing to is probably an idiot for needing a constant reminder of your regret. Now,” she added, “are you going to tell me your name or are you just going to apologize?”

“Oh, I’m so—” She interrupted herself, smiled, and responded, “So—Oh, I just can’t help saying it. Um, my name is Nanami Sohma…”

Haruka blinked and stared at Nanami. “You’re a Sohma, too? Must be a really big family…oh, before I forget,” she added, “my name’s Haruka. Sohma, but you probably already guessed that…”

Nanami’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you’re Haruka? It’s nice to finally meet you—your reputation precedes you.”

“Really?” Haruka hadn’t known that. She wasn’t exactly social, so she didn’t know too much about anything, but that also made it pretty hard for her to be very popular.

“Yes—I mean, you are the most likely person to take Hatori’s place,” Nanami pointed out. “Well, actually, half of that is just because you’re about the only one with such specific goals…”

Oh, Haruka thought disappointedly. That’s why. She really hated the decision that her parents made for her. They decided that she’d be the family’s doctor even before she was born. She didn’t think her parents were even expecting her when they said that their daughter would take Hatori’s place, but they thought that she’d be able to actually learn something under his guidance before he died when they decided on that.

“Oh, I’m not really the most likely person, am I?” she asked.

“Well, of the people who’ve said that they’re going to take his place,” Nanami admitted. “And you’re actually not such a horrible candidate anyway, I think. I mean, I’m not in charge of it, I just hear a little bit of side conversations and gossip about it. From what I can tell, the only thing standing in your way is that everyone says that you’re never prepared…”

“There’s a reason for that,” Haruka admitted coolly. “I’d rather leave it saying that the problem’s caused by the insane idiots who set the goal.”

Nanami tilted her head slightly in confusion, but never responded—the gang girl who followed Haruka onto the school grounds came forward and asked, “So, Nanami, what do you think of high school so far?”

Nanami returned her head to its normal position, but grinned pathetically in response to the question. “I’ve only been here for about half an hour and I’ve already been pushed into someone, and I’ve already been scolded and I’ve already learned a lesson,” she summarized meekly. “I guess it’s pretty good, but I’m not sure I have the energy for it.”

The orange-haired girl laughed loudly. “Oh, it’s not that tiring.”

“Yeah, but how much of last year did you skip?” Nanami asked.

“Hmm, now that you mention it…”

“So you had it easy. I don’t. I’m actually trying to pass,” she pointed out sheepishly.

“I had it easy?” the girl with the orange cat asked disbelievingly. “All that effort I spent in my gang, and I had it easy?”

“Well, your school life was easy…”

The girl huffed through her mask. “Do you have any idea what they thought of me for that?”

“Uhhh…well, that was your decision, right?

“Yeah, I guess it was. If I’d actually cared about school, then I would have stayed in school and I would have quit my gang or something. Actually, I probably wouldn’t even have started a gang if I really cared about school…” she added thoughtfully.

“Anita-san,” a voice from behind Haruka began, “what are you doing?”

Haruka turned around and saw the speaker. She was a third-year girl at the school with the normal uniform and a knee-length skirt that almost met the end of her dark brown hair. Her facial expression was severe and aimed above her small reading glasses at the gang girl.

The orange-haired girl sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m just trying to be social, Kats. You act as though I just threatened to pull out my lead pipe.” She leaned against the wall.

The third-year girl turned her gaze to Haruka. “I assume you to be Haruka Sohma-san?” she asked.

“Uh, yes, that’s me,” Haruka responded awkwardly. I’m not that popular, am I?

The girl nodded and added, “I’m Katsuo Sohma. She probably hasn’t introduced herself yet, so I’ll tell you that she”—Katsuo nodded to the orange-haired girl—“is Anita. And that’s Nanami,” she finished, gesturing toward Nanami. “We’re all Sohmas. Isn’t it interesting how we’re all from the same family but you’ve never heard of any one of us?” Katsuo asked casually, as though she was trying to make a joke, but her face remained stern, and her attempt was hardly successful.

“Um…yeah, it’s weird…” Haruka agreed awkwardly.

“It really is a big family,” Katsuo went on. “The main house is supposed to have well over fifty people, and there’s probably about a hundred fifty people outside the main house, too.” If Haruka didn’t know it, she’d think that the third-year student was bragging about her family to some incredibly low-class, my-only-family-is-my-brother-and-sister kind of person. The only thing keeping her from this idea was that she came from the same family.

“I mean, really,” Katsuo continued, “almost all of the family lives outside the main house, but I think that you’re the only person I know who lives ‘outside’…”

Oh, Haruka thought. That’s why. She thinks that I basically am low-class because she’s in the main house and I’m not.

“Kats,” Anita warned sharply.

Katsuo turned to Anita and asked her, “What? I’m just talking to her.”

“Oh, so that means that you don’t get a scolding but I do?” Anita questioned.

“No offense Anita-san,” Katsuo retorted, “but I think that your situation is very considerably different from mine. I mean, I don’t know why you try to go on with this. If I were you, I’d be glad that she wasn’t considered to be my—”

“That’s not why you’d scold me,” Anita shot back. “You would scold me because you’d be paranoid that I’d let something slip, and here you are, practically telling it to her face.”

Haruka felt very out-of-place now, and also fairly curious as to what they were talking about, but the argument seemed to be over if she should know this or not, and the answer seemed to be no, so she didn’t ask.

“Oh, Anita-san,” Katsuo began, “you just don’t get it. Isn’t is so much more likely for her to hear about this from her dear old si—”

“Kats-chan,” Nanami ventured to interrupt.

Katsuo turned to Nanami. “What?” she demanded.

Nanami flinched, but took a breath and continued, “If you keep talking like that, then you’ll be the one to tell her, and Ani-chan won’t even have a chance to talk to her about it.”

“So?” Katsuo challenged. “Can’t we just er—”

Anita seemed to fake-cough loudly several times, but they turned into real coughs that effectively distracted Katsuo from whatever she was saying when she rushed to her side to help her out.

Nanami seemed torn between being relieved that Katsuo didn’t end up saying anything and worried for Anita.

A moment later, Anita stopped coughing, sighed, and managed to mutter, “Damn allergies.” Nanami’s face showed nothing but relief at this point.

The bell rang, and all the people who had gathered in the courtyard-like area (whose numbers increased after Anita’s almost choking) hurried to their homeroom classes and parents left through the front gate.

Katsuo was the first to turn around and head for the school building; she didn’t even say goodbye.

Nanami stepped forward awkwardly and said, “Um, I think we should go…”

Haruka nodded as Nanami trotted into the building. Haruka was about to follow her when Anita called to her, “Haruka-chan, can we talk for a moment?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Haruka went back to talk to Anita.

“Listen,” Anita began quietly, “I’ve heard some things about your parents, and I want to know something. They’re treating you properly, right?” She wore a very serious face—if Haruka wasn’t hearing her words for herself, she’d think that Anita was talking about someone who died or something.

“Uh, yeah,” Haruka answered uncertainly. “What did you hear about them?”

Anita opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. It would put a lot of hard work to waste, and despite how much I hate the goal that the work was made for, it’s against my code to do anything that makes anyone’s work ineffective.”

Haruka was confused and would have asked what she meant, but she understood that she had already gotten the best answer that she could get, so she asked, “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Anita answered, “Yeah, I’d like to know if you really agree with them and want to take Hatori’s place.”

Haruka shrugged and gave a false neutral answer: “I don’t know what my goal is, but I guess that I wouldn’t say no to being a doctor anyway. Although, really,” she added, “I really, really, hate their decision. They made it without my opinion whatsoever. I guess I don’t really like my parents too much,” she admitted. “But I’m perfectly fine living with them!” she added, slightly worried as to what Anita’s reaction would be.

Anita shook her head with an amused look in her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t do that unless they were actually doing something to you. From what I’ve heard, they’re the kind of people who might have you working pretty hard and taking all the money you earn for themselves.”

Anita said all this while looking somewhere on the ground behind Haruka, and wearing a pained and angry expression.

“Do you know something I don’t about my parents?” Haruka asked, confused.

Anita looked up, almost seeming slightly hopeful about something, but the expression passed in an instant, and she was looking at the ground again. “No…I guess not.”

I guess? Haruka thought. What kind of answer is that?

A neutral one, Haruka responded to her own question. Just like the one you gave to her. And if it’s anything like yours, then it’s probably a lie.

I must have some really serious mental problems, a third voice in Haruka’s mind chimed in. Maybe my parents dropped me on my head when I was young or something like that. They’re definitely capable of doing that…

Anita looked up at Haruka and interrupted her argument with herself with, “Hey, shouldn’t you be heading to class now?”

“Oh, right,” mumbled Haruka. “Class…”

She turned around and walked into the school building, but on her way, she noticed a gathering of about six people somewhere vaguely nearby the entrance of the school, all with mixed outfits, with some in the school uniform and others in other apparel. The gathering blocked the way into the school, and also had Haruka confused as to why there was anyone still here who wasn’t in school uniform.

Haruka opened her mouth to tell the group to please let her through, but before she even took the actual breath, every single eye in the group was looking directly at her.

Haruka instinctively slammed her mouth closed at all of the attention and stood rigidly, but then soothed herself to relax, take a deep breath, and begin, “W—”

“Oh, you are the girl whom Hatori was talking about all those years back?” a flamboyant voice cried out from somewhere in the group. Haruka soon saw the speaker: a man(?) with long silver hair and wearing at least two layers of dresses, crying out with majestic motions and conspicuous courage.

Haruka, confused by the man’s strange appearance, could hardly even get a sound out before she stopped it to reconsider her words, but was thinking, Who are you, why are you here in street clothes, what do you know about Hatori, and can I please get through to my school now?

The silver-haired man laughed out loud. “Oh, all that would be such a story, and if you really want to get to your classes, then you’ll completely ignore me and head on!”

“B—” Haruka began before she was interrupted.

The man shushed her before she could get a single word out. “Not so loud; the living might hear you?”

WHAT?

“Oh, come on,” a disgruntled male voice pushed from as far from the man with the dresses as he could be while still being in the crowd. Haruka saw him an instant later; a boy, wearing the school uniform and probably in his first year at the school, with hair, strangely enough, the same color as Anita’s. “Don’t you even know that we’re dead?”




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(Should I stop ending it like this?)