Only Obsession
Chapter 03
I placed the hairdryer back into its place in the vanity and threw the wet towel into the clothes hamper before jumping onto the bed. Keigo-kun's blazer was lying by my side. I made sure to keep it dry when I walked home in the pouring rain. I hope he didn't get sick or anything. It would suck if he did, especially because of me.
I sat up and shook my head so hard I can feel my brain shaking inside me. I need to clear my thoughts. Who cares if he got sick? I didn't ask him to give me his umbrella or his blazer. He was the one who gave them to me willingly, so even if he got sick, it's not my fault.
"Young Master!" The butler fussed as Keigo walked into his mansion. He was dripping wet from head to toe, a puddle formed on the expensive marble floor of his home. He just shrugged off the offered towel and went straight to his room to dry off, ordering everyone to leave him alone for the evening and bring dinner to his room. He dried off all the paperwork he brought home from school and ordered a maid to iron them neatly before going to take a long warm bath. It wouldn't do to leave those important documents wet for a long time without drying it ASAP, what if the ink runs?
He sighed and sunk further into the warm water. He just wants to stay this way forever in the warmth. His mind raced back to Izumu. How is she doing right now? He hoped she doesn't catch a cold. He remembers that she is very sensitive and weak towards the cold. It was something he learnt back in Europe when they were still children. He closed his eyes and thought back to that moment before everything between them changed.
Four-year-olds Izumu and Keigo were out in the snow. It was the peak of winter and snow was still falling. She had insisted that they play outside. It was such a shame that Izumi had caught a cold and Mune-chan was still too young to be outside without a guardian. Although Izumu and Keigo tried their best to persuade him, Mune-chan wouldn't step out of the house in fear of being scolded. In the end, they gave up and went to play alone.
"Kei-chan! I will make the biggest snowman ever for you!" Izumu had said and started rolling a snowball.
"Ore-sama will help and be part of the creation of this giant snowman you speak of," he said haughtily and rolled the snowball alongside her. They managed to roll two huge snowballs, one for the body and one for the head.
"How will we lift it up?" Izumu asked and stared at the snowball that was twice her size. Keigo frowned and tried to think up a way.
"We'll carry it," he said matter-of-factly and placed both hands on either side of the snowball, his arms hardly able to lift it up. Izumu helped him, but they still can't lift it up. Izumu started sobbing into her jacket sleeves and Keigo panicked.
"We can't lift it up," she sobbed. "I am sorry, Kei-chan, I wasn't able to keep my promise."
"Ore-sama doesn't need the biggest snowman ever! Ore-sama promise to make you the biggest snowman ever when ore-sama gets older because ore-sama can," he promises. Izumu's sobs started to slow down.
"Really? Kei-chan, you promise?"
"Yes, I promise," he said and took off his glove and extended a pinky.
"What's that?" Izumu asked.
Keigo stared at his pinky, "Oka-san said people do this if they make important promises to each other."
Izumu wiped away the last of her tears and took off her glove too, linking pinkies with Keigo. She smiled.
"Kei-chan, I will wait for the snowman," she said. Then she sneezed.
"Izumu-chan, did you catch a cold too?" Keigo asked worriedly, his eyebrows creased together.
"No," she said, "Atchoo."
"Let's get you home," he said, placing his glove back in his hand and removing the other one. He took her gloveless hand in his and they walked home together. She came down with a fever for three days after that.
Keigo smirked at the memory and opened his eyes, looking down at his hand. The wrinkles from being under the water too long were showing, and the water was getting cold anyway. Thinking back, he realized how ridiculous she was, insisting that they play and came down with a three-day long fever. But then again, that was one of the reason he loves her so much.
He got out of the bathtub and wrapped a bathrobe around himself before going back to his room. His dinner and the neatly ironed papers were on his desk. He removed the tray and placed it on the floor and shoved the paper into his desk drawer before pulling out a fresh piece of lined paper and a pen. He wrote briefly into the piece of paper and folded it neatly into an envelope before sealing it. The envelope was soft pink and had a flowery design. Then he pulled out a bronze treasure box from under his bed and placed the envelope inside along with the thousands of other similar envelopes, all addressed to the same person but were never mailed.
The next day at school, our mock exams were handed back to us. I sighed in relief as I saw my grade. It was passable.
"Ishiki, what did you get?" Shishido-san asked and I quickly folded my exam paper in two.
"You first," I turned around and said. He shrugged and handed me his paper. I almost burst out in laughter.
"What?" He said defensively.
"G? With less than 2% passing grade!" I yelled and almost died laughing. People's heads turned in our direction and Shishido-san turned red.
"Don't yell it out! What did you get!?" He demanded and snatched his paper from my hand. I handed my paper to him. His eyes scanned the paper and then bulged, "How did you get a C!? Did you suddenly turn smart?"
"I studied hard to pass!"
"Nee, what did you two get?" Jirou asked as he skipped over to our table. I showed him my paper.
"What did you get, Jirou?" I asked.
"Eh? I'm so hazukaC~~~" he said and held his paper tightly.
"Show us!" Shishido-san said and wrestled it out of him. His mouth dropped when he saw the grade.
"What? What? Show me," I said and took Jirou's paper from his frozen hand. My own mouth dropped open and I couldn't utter a word for one whole minute. Shishido-san seemed to be the same as we were both frozen in shock.
"HOW DID YOU GET AN A?" I screamed. "HAVEN'T YOU BEEN SLEEPING IN CLASS!?"
"Did you study when you get home?" Shishido-san demanded and shook him.
"Why are you yelling at me?" He whimpered, but we didn't stop our assault.
"What do you do when you get home?" I asked again.
"I sleep…" He said and cowered from Shishido-san who was still shaking him.
"Oh my god… is this one of the seven wonder of Hyotei Gakuen?" I asked my head spinning in confusion. I had to sit down. I shoved Jirou's paper into his hands and sat back down just as the bell rang for the end of the morning break.
As the new teacher came into class, he made an announcement.
"Today, a new student will be joining you. She just came to school at this time because she was flying over from Europe this morning. Please come in," the teacher said. The door slid open and everyone's eyes shot over to the new student.
My eyes nearly popped out of my socket. What the hell is Izumi doing here?
Keigo coughed for the thousandth time today in the same class and it was driving the teacher crazy.
"Atobe-kun, do you want to go to the infirmary? You don't seem well," he asked. Keigo apologized and continue coughing.
"Then I will excuse myself," he says once he came down from his coughing fit. He fixed his bag and walked out of class. Everyone's eyes were on him as he closed the door behind him. He decided to take a detour and walked pass class 3-C. As he peered into the class through the windows, he saw Izumi standing in front of the class. So she's here already.
He smirked and continued walking; he had made sure his new spy was in 3-C, Izumu's class. It looked like it pushed through.
"My name is Ishiki Izumi and I am Izumu's older sister. I just flew in from Europe this morning, so I apologize for the delay in my arrival," she introduced herself and whispers broke out.
"I didn't know Ishiki had a twin sister."
"Izumu-chan never said anything about a sister."
"Are they really twins? They don't look much alike."
"She's so elegant and beautiful, are they really twins?"
I blocked out their continuous whispers as Izumi continued to introduce herself.
"I finished my third year back in July in Europe, but transfer procedures took more or less two months. So I will do a little repetition until the end of February and continue my studies here in Japan for high school. But it all depends on Izumu of course," she said with a grace I can never conjure. "That's all about me and I wish to learn things from all of you as well. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." She ended it with a bow and people clapped.
"That's very well done, Ishiki-kun," the teacher said. "Why don't you sit at the empty table beside Akutagawa-kun," she said. Izumi nodded and went to sit beside a sleeping Jirou. The teacher then went back to explaining the basic of kinematics, her voice droning on and on. I was hardly listening and paying attention. I can just ask Oshitari-san to help me out; he has done so plenty of times before when I was behind my studies. My head was buzzing with thousands of questions directed at Izumi.
Why is she suddenly here? Isn't she supposed to be in Europe with okaa-san? Why didn't anyone tell me she's coming? Did Daddy know? Did Keigo-kun know? Did Mune-chan know? Who else knows? Why didn't she tell me?
When Keigo entered the school infirmary, it was empty. The nurse wasn't around, so he drew the curtains around the bed at the farthest corner and lay down. His head was hurting and he was coughing. He also seems to be running a slight fever. Maybe it was because he ran home in the pouring rain yesterday, put off taking a warm bath and slept late into the night to finish some more paperwork. Maybe he should get a vice-president or a secretary; but then again, if it wasn't something he did by himself, he won't be satisfied by the result.
He took out his tennis club's files from his school bag and flipped the first page open. He should really start preparing for a special training regimen before that U-17 camp they were invited to in November. It was only early September and it was two months before the camp. The Nationals just passed, but the club shouldn't slack just because of that.
By the second period, Izumi was close to fainting. When the subject teacher asked what was wrong with her, she admitted that she still suffers from jet lag. The teacher excused her to go to the infirmary. This is my chance. If I can somehow go to the infirmary right now, I can question her before lunch. I bet people will crowd us and ask questions during lunchtime, so it's best to get her story straight before that. But if I leave too early after her maybe it will get suspicious, so I pretended to pay attention although my head was in Mars.
I wrote down the lecture on the whiteboard without actually understanding it. Maybe I should make a list of questions to ask Izumi before actually asking things face-to-face with her. I flipped to a fresh page and started writing down questions, thinking over each and every one carefully.
Keigo had long given up on trying getting some work done. It won't be productive, the state he is in now. He covered his eyes with his arm and tried to think instead. Where would a good place for training be? The mountains, the beach or one of his hillside mansions? Or maybe they should just go to one of the Atobe Corporation's sports facilities and do extreme training.
He heard the door slid open, but remained motionless. "Sensei, is that you?" he asked while his eyes are still covered. The curtains were pulled open a little and he could feel someone's presence next to him. He removed his arm and opened his eyes.
"Izumi!" He exclaimed and sat up straight.
"Keigo-kun, long time no see. How are you doing?" she asked and sat on the bed beside his. The curtain between the two beds was drawn so they could see each other.
"I am fine," he said. "What about you?"
"Same as always, you'll be surprised how much I don't change."
There was a comfortable silence as the two sit and thought about what they should talk about after not meeting each other for three years. The answer was obvious. It should be about Izumu; she was the only reason why they are so close to each other in the first place and one of the few people they share the same love for, but they still did not know the best course of action to approach the subject.
"About Izumu," Izumi decided to break the silence. "Have you settled things with her yet? I remember you mentioning that's what you came here for. Everyone even made such a fuss about it."
"I thought settling things with her would be easy. I thought I could somehow convince her to come back to Europe with me. I thought she would forgive me the way she always does whenever I was mean to her when we were kids. But things changed. She had grown tougher in the two years we were apart," Keigo sighed and lay back down in bed, his arm draped over his eyes again and went into a coughing fit.
"What happened?" Izumi asked, curious after Keigo calmed down.
"She… she said she hates me," he choked out. Just thinking about it is painful. "And I deserve it."
"She doesn't mean it," Izumi said firmly. "I don't know a lot of things about my sister, but I know she loves you. She can't hate you."
"I thought so too when I first came here."
"Sensei, can I go to the infirmary? I don't feel so well," I asked when the teacher caught mespacing off. The teacher gave me the go ahead and I packed her bag and walked towards the infirmary. I took out the physics notebook from earlier and ripped out a page with the questions on it and tucking it safely inside my skirt pocket before placing the notebook back in my bag and walking towards the infirmary.
"You're not the type to give up so easily, Keigo-kun," Izumi asked. "Why did you stop trying? I don't believe it's just because she said she hates you. There must be something else."
Keigo was quiet for a moment. "It happened last year…"
"What did?"
Before Keigo could reply, the door slid open again and a face poked in between the curtains. "Atobe-kun… and the new transfer student? What are you doing here?"
"Ahn? Sensei? It's just you…" Keigo said and handed her the letter of excuse from his subject teacher. Izumi did the same. The nurse looked over their letters and left them alone. They can't concentrate talking with the nurse in the infirmary, so Keigo went back to his files and Izumi tried to get some shut eye, her mind buzzing with questions. What happened last year?
