Chapter 2 Kurosaki Utaha 2
It is the first day of school for high school in Beihua City.
The weather seemed to be brighter than usual, so that the freshmen would not have a bad impression of high school life - this was what Jinpei Matsuda thought as he left home.
As soon as he reached an intersection, the sky darkened visibly, and a light drizzle wet his cheeks. He couldn't help but quicken his pace, praying that the rain wouldn't get too heavy before he reached his friend's house. But just as he was about to reach his friend's house, he encountered a situation that he absolutely couldn't ignore.
·
"Hey, Hagi, did you hear me? Today is the first day of high school. Are you already planning who you're going to give your button to when you graduate?"
The voice of his good friend Jinpei Matsuda, which came close to his ear, brought Kenji Hagiwara back to his senses. He was opening his umbrella when he left the house, and recalled the brief, dreamlike encounter with the orange-haired angel.
"Um?"
He reflected on what the other person had just said, and then thought of the uniform jacket he had buttoned up without a single button remaining at his junior high school graduation ceremony not long ago, and couldn't help but smile bitterly.
"How could that be? I haven't even met any girls in school yet. Besides, I don't necessarily have the opportunity to choose on my own."
After he finished speaking, he raised his head and looked at his friend walking beside him for the first time today. Then he paused in surprise: "Xiao Zhenping, did you just get into a fight?"
The curly-haired friend next to him had a small blue bruise at the corner of his mouth, and his uniform jacket was soaked by the drizzle from being exposed to the rain for a long time. His hair seemed to have been scratched, but there were no other signs of injury... It looked like he had won the fight.
"Yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you." Matsuda Jinpei snorted unhappily, "I just beat up some bad guys who were bullying girls."
"several?"
"Four, two are high school delinquents, and two are social thugs."
Hagiwara Kenji's eyes turned suspicious. "But Jinpei-kun, not only did you defeat them, you were barely injured?"
He thought for two seconds and came up with the answer: "Did I just happen to be lucky enough to run into a patrolman passing by?"
"No, there's no patrolman going there in the morning." Matsuda gave him a disapproving look. "It's the place where stray cats gather on the street in front of your house, Hagi."
The feral cat haunt he was talking about was a two-story apartment building abandoned after a murder. He didn't know much about the case, only that the truth hadn't been uncovered. From his window, he could see the overgrown yard in front of the apartment building, infested with feral cats.
So he nodded: "What happened?"
"When I passed by this morning, I saw a girl squatting in that yard feeding a cat. Judging by her uniform, she was from our school, but she might be a delinquent. She looked pretty cute, and she was surrounded by those guys," Matsuda said. "Those guys must be regretting choosing a target like that now."
After hearing this, Kenji Hagiwara felt that he understood.
"Xiao Zhenping, you stepped forward to defend her, but you were outnumbered, and ended up being saved by her?"
"No... she probably wasn't planning on saving me." Matsuda glanced up at the sky speechlessly. "She probably only attacked them because they accidentally kicked over her bowl of cat food."
"...What happened next?"
"Then she handed me a handkerchief to wipe my hair, and then she said she didn't like fighting and called an ambulance. Then I came to find you, because she looked refreshed."
Call an ambulance... How badly was he beaten?
but……
"Isn't this caring?" Hagiwara laughed teasingly. "It's a girl's handkerchief, and you actually used it to wipe your hair?"
"Any comments?"
"How come?"
Matsuda curled his lips. "But now that I think about it, even though her hair color is very unusual, she shouldn't be a delinquent. Her handkerchief also smells like my laundry detergent... Who knows? Anyway, she's not a bad person."
As they spoke, the two of them had already entered the school gate and were directed to their classrooms by the signage for new students. The school had sent them a notice the day before with information about class placement, and they happened to be in the same class.
Two teenagers wearing sportswear and carrying tennis bags suddenly ran past from not far ahead, splashing water all the way.
"Tennis club, are you still practicing even in the rain?" Matsuda glanced at the backs of the seniors running away, then turned to look at his friend. "By the way, Hagi, are you planning on joining any clubs?"
Hagiwara shook his head regretfully.
"I chose to go back to the home office, or a club that doesn't require me to participate in activities most of the time. I want to work at the auto repair shop on the street behind our junior high school, and the manager has already agreed."
"Eh? Part-time job?"
"You can start working part-time starting on April 1st after you turn fifteen. Save up a little money so that if you need to buy something in the future, you won't have to ask your sister for help in an emergency."
Moreover, his family's financial situation has not been very optimistic since the bubble economy and financial crisis when the auto repair shop he ran suddenly went bankrupt.
The hourly wage of high school students working part-time is lower than that of people over 18 years old. Although that meager income cannot provide support for the family, it can at least relieve some of the pressure on parents.
"That's true... I'll think about it. We seem to be in this classroom—"
Matsuda muttered as he turned to the classroom door, then suddenly stopped in his tracks and stared at the orange-haired girl who was fiddling with her phone by the window with her head down, her eyes widened.
"Ah! It's her!"
·
It’s him!
Kurosaki Utsuki bit her tongue calmly, trying not to react to the unexpected situation.
What surprised her was certainly not the curly-haired boy who was approaching her quickly, but the "promising future" who had just come in with the curly-haired boy and was now staring at her thoughtfully.
She had been involved in many fights. When she was in Karakura, she had been in a lot of trouble because of her orange hair and her twin brother with the same hair color. As a result, she had dealt with all kinds of perpetrators and victims.
She had met a few brave men like the curly-haired boy before, so there was nothing to worry about if they met again. Maybe they would even play a second game together in the future - but this "promising future" was a bit awkward, even if it was only one-way.
Seeing that the curly-haired boy had stopped in front of her and looked like he was about to say something, Kurosaki Utsuki pointed forward decisively: "The seating chart is on the blackboard."
Although it was just a temporary distraction, it did work. The two teenagers looked towards the blackboard at the same time.
Hagiwara Kenji, who was relatively close, walked over to the seating chart, looked at the paper for a few seconds, and then pointed to the seat next to Matsuda with a bit of joy: "Xiao Zhenping, your seat is over there."
It is the right side of Kurosaki Utsuki.
Matsuda Jinpei responded, his attention diverted: "Hagi, what about you?"
"I'm nearby too." As he said this cheerfully, Kenji Hagiwara also walked towards the window. He gradually approached Kurosaki Utsuki's peripheral vision, walked around her, and finally sat behind her.
...It's too bad.
She should give up that spacious windowsill in the future.
"Kurosaki-san in front—"
Eh hey hey?! Why are you calling her suddenly?
Although she knew that he only knew her name from the seating chart, she still couldn't help but feel guilty!
Facing the tormenting gaze from behind her, Kurosaki Utsuki slowly turned around and met the eyes of the boy she had once met. Then she heard him say, "I'm Hagiwara Kenji, and we'll be classmates from now on."
In fact, Kurosaki Utaki also knew the other party's name - when she was looking for her seat earlier, she also remembered the names of several people nearby, such as Matsuda Jinpei on the right, and Hagiwara Kenji in the back row - but she never expected that this name would be equated with those two boys.
...I feel a little tired.
"I'm Kurosaki Utsuki." For the sake of a peaceful and friendly high school life in the future, Kurosaki Utsuki had no choice but to cooperate and replied, "Nice to meet you, please take care of me."
However, as if he was expecting her to say this standard greeting, Hagiwara Kenji smiled innocently and immediately continued, "This is not the first time we meet."
Kurosaki Utsuki was stunned, and Matsuda Jinpei, who was about to interrupt and introduce himself, was also stunned.
"Don't you remember, Kurosaki-san?" Hagiwara Kenji blinked. "On the afternoon of March 15th, when the rain was about to stop, on a road lined with cherry blossom trees in Tanimachi 2-chome."
Um? !
Kurosaki Utsuki's pupils trembled.
Wasn’t that the time when she tried “Persimmon Time” and failed?
No, no, no, but how could this be possible! How could she happen to meet the person who had witnessed her dark past in her new class, and this person also happened to remember her face?
She is so unlucky today!
"Hagiwara-san," Kurosaki Utsuki took a deep breath and showed the same innocent expression as the other person, "Did you recognize the wrong person?"
In the brief three seconds after she uttered the words, she quickly constructed a lie in her mind that was not easily exposed: "I just moved to Mihua a week ago, and I was not in Mihua on the 15th of last month." However, before she could finish her words, the sudden vibration of her cell phone grabbed all her attention.
Obviously, it was her job.
It was almost time to gather for school. She would have to wait and see when this unfortunate Hollow would appear and how far away it would be from her.
"Huh?" How could this happen?
Is this considered "when it rains it pours"?
Facing the puzzled gazes of the two teenagers nearby, Kurosaki Utsuki rushed out of the classroom, dodged several classmates, and before the teacher he passed by said "Don't run in the corridor", he had already entered the bathroom, entered the cubicle, locked it, used the small prop in his pocket to leave his body, and then returned to the corridor in the posture of the Grim Reaper. The whole process was extremely skilled.
It is estimated that the time when Xu will appear is within five minutes from now, and the location... is right here, somewhere in this school.
...In addition to dealing with Xu, she also had to think in advance about what easily acceptable reasons she could use to explain the damage caused by Xu this time.
"Is there a gas pipe in the school? It would be better to design it so that a gas leak causes an explosion. It seems to be quite common. Maybe the whole school will be closed for a week..."
Muttering softly, she leaped onto the windowsill, concentrating on sensing the nearby spiritual pressure. As a Quincy, she was extremely sensitive to it. Therefore, the moment the Hollow materialized, she immediately determined its location and drew her Zanpakutō, ready for a swift and decisive battle.
However, as she had complained before, her luck today was indeed not very good.
Accompanied by the girl's screams and the sound of shattering glass, the huge masked monster that had just appeared and almost broke through the roof slowly poked its head out of the women's restroom door, then broke through the brick wall and came to the corridor.
The chaotic screams that rang out again, the sounds of people running in the corridor without paying attention to the rules, and the worried greetings to the students who were affected by the flying bricks all mixed together, and the scene was extremely chaotic for a while.
But Kurosaki Utsuki, whose expression had been blank since she saw the monster, was completely focused on the person it was holding in its hands - the person with his head drooping lifelessly, as if he had tragically died in this "gas explosion", was actually her own body.
The Death Agent twitched his lips as he began to think about whether he would get paid leave if he got injured on the job. He finally drew his sword in anger and said, "What a joke!"
Put her body down!
But the next second, a sudden voice from the side almost made her stumble over her left foot.
"Kurosaki-san?"
Kurosaki Utsuki turned her head suddenly, and her originally angry expression disappeared the moment she saw the causal chain on the chest of the boy who spoke.
The future is promising? How could he—
How could he die without even noticing?!
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