Nara-chan no Sekai

Mayu Akkandabe is the most popular girl at Tokyo High School.

Mayu Akkandabe is the nicest girl you’ll ever meet.

Mayu Akkandabe is dead.

And Arashi Haruto is the main suspect.

A war erupts at Tokyo High School, a rift between the people who believe Arashi’s innocence and Arashi’s guilt.

Arashi must rely on the help of  Nara Yukio, whom he can’t stand to prove his innocence.

Yukio refuses to let Mayu’s murderer escape her grasp, however as the mystery  begins to unfold, Yukio begins to wish she had left it all alone.

[CHAPTER 3] 

Yukio :

I’m sitting on a sofa at Mayu’s old house, in-between Mira (Mayu’s grandma) and Mrs Kaguya. Mira is crying softly as she tells me stories about Mayu as a little girl, about her first school play, the time Mayu nearly fell in a water fall, Mayu’s first birthday.

Mrs Kaguya is silent, her whole body hnched over, her eyes staring ahead, lost and confused.

There’s a commotion outside, someone shouting. The living room falls quiet, everyone except Mira stopping their conversations.

“I’ll check it out,” a woman says, taking only one step towards the door before stopping as it flies open.

I watch in shock as Arashi Haruto runs into the room, his eyes wild as he stops and looks around at everyone. 

No one dares to speak, I feel Mrs Kaguya’s arms and legs tense. I glance over at her but most of her hair is shielding her face so I’m unsure of her reaction to seeing Arashi.

A few seconds later, Arashi’s dad runs in wiping his face, he stops beind Arashi, his face piched up in humiliation. “I’m so sorry…I tried to stop him.”

All of sudden it’s like a switch has been turned on, everyone stats screaming at Arashi. Some try to make a grab at him but he manages to move faster than them. 

The only people not speaking are Mrs Kaguya, Mira and me. I can’t think of the single thing to say. Slowly Arashi makes his way towards us. I study his face, wondering if he really has murdered Mayu, I know this doesn’t mean anything but he doesn’t have the eyes of a killer. They’re a soft, green colour, they kind of remind me of spring time.

Arashi’s voice snaps me out of the little trance that my brain has fallen into. “Mayu was a beautiful girl, I will dearly miss her and I’ll never forget her.” 

He stands still whilst the whole room falls silent, waiting for Mrs Kaguya to speak, even I feel myself anticipating the comeback, wondering why Arashi bothered to come, surely he knew it was a stupid and cruel idea. 

After an age of silence, Mrs Kaguya retaliates with just one word. “Murderer,” she hisses.

I look around at the reactions from the onlookers, most look disappointed, they were expecting a rant and a rave with lots of screaming and threats. Instead they got one word. 

Arashi nods once before leaving the room. After a few seconds of silence, everyone begins talking again as though nothing had happened. I watch Arashi’s father, he stands still for a few seconds with his eyes closed before a pained axpression crosses his face and he follows his son out of the room.

I’m sitting with Saki, curled up on the sofa, watching reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode’s. I don’t know why we put a comedy on, neither of us are laughing, we’re both just staring blankly at the screen. Mum and dad are still round Mayu’s….no,not Mayu’s. Mr and Mrs Kaguya’s house, Mayu doesn’t live there anymore, I need to get that into my head. 

The whole way through the wake I just kept expecting Mayu to skip into the room, do one of her signature, three-note giggles, then tell us that it was just a joke, that she wasn’t really dead. She didn’t skip through the door, in fact the only unexpected visit we got was from Arashi. 

“Saki?” I murmur, dragging my eyes away from the Television. 

 

“Hmm?”

“Do you think….Do you think that Arashi is the murderer?” I ask, watching closely for Saki’s reaction.

At first Saki doesn’t move at all, she just sits still, staring at the TV. I’m about to repeat the question when all of a sudden Saki jumps out of her seat and stares down at me angrily, “Of course he is!! How dare you even question that. Do you think Mayu just dropped dead by herself or something?”

“Well no, I just thought…” I start to say, startled by Saki’s melodramatic reaction.

“No, of course she didn’t. don’t be so fucking stupid, Yukio!” Saki shouts, leaning her face so close to mine that I can feel her breath ticking my nose. 

As quickly as she got wound up, Saki calms down. Her whole body just sags onto the floor, her face pressed into her hands. I know a lot of people at our school are terrified of Saki, she scares me sometimes too, but I always love her because I know this side of her, the soft side of her, the side that no one else gets to see. 

I slide myself off the sofa and put my arms around my sister. “It’ll get better,” I say, trying to make myself believe those words. 

Saki looks up at me, unshed tears glossing over her eyes. “It’s got to be him, right? It’s got to be Arashi.” I smile sadly but don’t answer, I’m not going to lie to Saki, nobody knows enough about Mayu’s death to find the murderer. Saki sighs. “He’s the only one with a motive. I mean she split up with him like a day before she was murdered. Can’t the police just arrest him already?”

I bite my lip, Mayu had broken up with Arashi shortly before her murder, though it had been more like two weeks before, not a day, and she’d told me that they were still friends. It just didn’t add up.

“They just need some more evidence, Saki, it’ll al be sorted out in a few weeks,” I say, pushing myself to my feet and rubbing my eyes. “I’m feeling kind of tired, I’ll think I’ll turn in for the night.” Saki stays on the floor, not saying anything just staring at her hands. “Night,” I mutter before leaving the room.

Lying in bad that night I mull over Saki’s words; she’s probably right, Arashi is more than likely the murderer. I just can’t imagine why he would kill her, they were so close even after breaking up. 

Arashi’s probably just some psycho, a psycho who’s really good at covering up his true feelings. The annoying thing is, even though I keep telling myself that, whenever I close my eyes, I see Arashi’s springtime-green eyes and can’t help but think that they’re the eyes of an innocent. 

[CHAPTER 4]

Arashi : 

I stand just outside the school, groups of friends walk past me, chatting and laughing. None of them see me, no one ever really sees me, though I think people may start looking for me more now, looking for me so that they can avoid me.

Sighing , I try to build up enough confidence to step into the school. I didn’t want to come in today but I 

though that anything would beat sitting at home with my father constantly sending death threats my way. 

Anyway, home’s getting really dull. I’m not allowed to do anything; I’m not allowed on the internet because my father seems to think that I’m going to search up girls in the local area to kill next. I’m not allowed in the garden because the neighbor might see me and remember that my father is related to a murderer. Nothing is allowed to spoil my father’s reputation. 

I stare up at school again, I always say that I don’t care what pathetic students in my year say and I don’t, but having an egg (shell and all) chucked at your head is pretty painful. 

“Arashi!!” I turn to the cry of my name, bracing myself for an egg in my face, instead I see Joi and his girlfriend. 

“Hey Joi, hey Aya.” I smile, glad I won’t have to walk in alone. 

Joi comes up to me and slaps me on the back, “it’s good to have you back so soon.” 

“I couldn’t stay away! you know me, I love school, I was having withdrawal symptoms whilst I was away!” I say, rolling my eyes. 

Aya sidles up to Joi and takes hold of his hand. “So, you’ve finally grown enough balls to stand up to these pathetic idiots?” she says, her hair bouncing in the time to her words. 

I sigh. “it’s always nice to know I have your support, pheeee, it really is!” 

Aya smirks. “Believe me Arashi. If you didn’t have my support, you’d know it.”

Joi shakes his head and smiles, fondly down to Aya. “We better get going, don’t want you to be late on your first day back,” he says as he leads Aya through the doors. 

I follow closely behind them, dreading the day that’s to come. 

Surprisingly, by lunch time, the worst thing to happen to me was when some twat threw a copy of pride and prejudice at me during English; whoever it was should never partake in any sports that involve aim, it was a terrible throw. 

“Enjoying school, Arashi?” Aya asks, between mouthfuls of a strange looking, blue sandwich.

I glance over at her. We’re sitting on a bench just off school grounds. Joi is in the middle with Aya sprawled out, like a cat, on his lap; which eaves me about an inch of space to squeeze into – thank God I’m skinny. 

“It’s amazing, you know how I love school!” I reply, sarcasm practically dripping from each word.

Joi smiles sadly. “Has it been that bad?” 

I shrug, not wanting a pity party. “It’s fine, I can deal with it.”

I look over at the pair of them, the only two people that I know, that don’t want me dead. Aya’s gone back to eating ber sandwich, she’s accepted that I’m fine and now she no longer cares. Joi shoots me a sympathetic look but doesn’t say anything, I think he understands, partially, how I feel. He’s god at empathizing with people in difficult situations. He’s a good friend. So is Aya but in a different, less simple way. 

I take out my phone and see that I’ve got a warning text from my beloved father, to remind me that if I’m not at home before four, I’m going to be in serious crap. 

“twenty-five past guys, time to go back to prison!” I cry out, swinging myself onto my feet. I delete my father’s text and push my phone back into my pocket. Aya and Joi take a while to untangle themselves before getting up and making the short walk back onto school property. 

“You!” I hear a screeching voice cry before a face lunges into mine, close enough that I can smell everything that they’ve just eaten. I step back and get my first clear look at my attacker, it’s one of the twins. The scary one.

“Can I help you?” I ask, forcing my voice to sound bored. 

“What the fuck do you want, Saki?” Aya shouts, stepping forward.

“Piss off Aya, go wash your hair or do something to make yourself slightly less unattractive!” the twin hisses, without taking her eyes off of me. I glance at Aya, but Joi has pulled her away and is obviously saying something calming because she’s not resisting him and trying to aim a punch at the twin’s face.

“What do you want?” I ask the twin, taking all my self-will not to shout.

“You’re a disgusting piece of crap!” the twin begins, advancing on me, just as I’d imagine a snake to advance on it’s prey. “How dare you show you face here after what you did!” 

I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything. Maybe you should get your facts right before attackin me and making yourself look like a bigger twat than you actually are.” 

The twin snarls at me, like some wild beast, her face contorts in a violent manner before she continues with her silly rant, “ I can’t believe you would murder an amazing girl like Mayu then dare to lie about it, you deserve to die.” 

“Saki,” a voice shouts, stopping Saki’s rant.

Both me and Saki spin round to see who this new voice belongs to, unfortunately it belongs to the other twin, Yukino or whatever her name is. She probably wants her chance to attack me with false accusations. 

“It’s time for class,” the Yukino girls says, walking towards us. She doesn’t even glance at me.

“What?” Saki says, her voice echoing the confusion that I feel.

“it’s time for physics, you don’t want to be late again, Mr Oogama would kill you!” Yukino says, a small smile playing at her lips. 

“Yukio, can’t you see that I’m busy?!” Saki asks. So the other twin’s called Yukio, not Yukino. I was close enough. 

“I’m sure you were just about done, weren’t you, Saki? I’m sure everyone can see you opinion,” Yukio says, a small challenge in her eyes.

I look at Saki, wondering what she’ll do. After a short silence, she smiles coldly, her lips pinched together, 

 “You’re right, I don’t want to be late for science again.” Saki gives me one last, hatred-filled look before go.

Cathie glances at me once, before turning on her heel and following after her sister. I stand still, watching her fade into the distance, wondering why Yukio would stop the scary twin from screaming at me. Something didn’t add up. “What the hell was that about?” I wonder aloud.

Aya and Joi walk over to stand with me. “Who knows?” Joi shrughs. “Maybe Yukio’s nicer than Saki.”

“Maybe.” Aya siles, a worrying, I’ve got-a-really-dumb-plan smile, and I’m left praying that her plan has nothing to do with either Yukio, the scary twin or me.