chapter twenty-seven

nevermind

We were in the middle of accounting when my phone buzzed against my desk, almost vibrating itself off the corner. As the teacher shot me a displeased glare, I reached nervously for the phone, a jolt of both panic and hope shooting through my body.

"What is it?" Yui asked quickly, leaning over the back of her chair "Is it from Tokyo?"

"Give me a second!" I laughed, swiping to unlock my email app. "Holy fuck." I mumbled, spinning the phone around to show her. "It's from Tokyo."

My entire future was in that email. That small little email dictated if I was ever going to make it out of Hope Hills, or if I was just going to end up moving from one SWORD town to another.

"Are you going to open it?"

I sucked in a breath, locking my phone and placing it face-down on my binder. We had attracted enough attention, with the Tokyo Literary College being one of the most high-profile institutions that someone from Seiho who wasn't considering university had applied to.

Madoka was headed to a fine arts and music school in Senomon with a minor in physics and Yui was going to Rasen for business administration.

I was the only one who didn't have a future set in stone just yet.

"I don't know if I can." I said softly, playing with the small ring on my right hand. "What if I didn't get in? I can't open this alone."

"Would you open it if we were at Oyakou? With Tsukasa?"

I thought it over, wondering to myself what the differences between opening the email in this bright, clean, tidy classroom surrounded by girls my own age, versus opening the email at Oyakou, where everything smelled like sweat and there wasn't a single surface that didn't have graffiti all over it. The girls at Seiho might judge me, talk about my failure behind my back. Truthfully, most of the girls at Seiho were massive bitches. But the boys at Oya? They would love me regardless of if I was going to Tokyo or not.

"Honestly, that might help." 

And that's how we ended up piling into Madoka's car as soon as the lunch bell rang, still dressed in our short skirts and knee socks as she tore off in the direction of Oya High and the messy form of chaos that I had come to love, nerves growing in my body and my chest feeling heavy as I clutched my phone, sweaty palms leaving an imprint on the cartoon case.

As we parked in front of the ramshackle building, Madoka leaned over the center console to clap a hand on my shoulder.

"Regardless of what happens in there, whether you're going to Tokyo or not, know that your achievements are still valid, Kiri-chan. If you don't get in, that's Tokyo's loss."

We climbed out of the car, filing inside the building as Yui looked around in shock. Like most girls at Seiho, Yui Ueda was blissfully unaware of what Oya was truly like. While I had been there so often that I was largely ignored by the over-twenties and the part-timers, Yui and Madoka got looks from the older crowd as we walked through the main hallway past the auditorium.

As we neared the kitchen, the voices got louder. Shouts, jeers and laughter that I had begun to easily associate with the group of prospective graduates who gathered in Midori Yamada's cozy living room every week, desperate to make something of themselves.

I stood in the doorway, knocking on the brick wall before clearing my throat to get their attention.

"Sakura-chan!" Toya Shiratori shouted. "What are you doing here?"

"I got an email from Tokyo this morning. Didn't want to open it without you guys. Where's Midori-san?"

Shibaman shrugged. "Kicking Todoroki's ass, I think. Honestly, I wish I could be there to see it, but she insisted we stay here and think about higher education."

The kitchen was the one part of Oyakou that looked like it functioned normally. The broken blinds above the windows had been torn down altogether, letting the afternoon sunlight in. The bricks had been scrubbed clean of graffiti and painted a bright, eggshell white. The cracking countertops had been replaced with granite castoffs from Midori's construction engineering class. Some of the dilapidated cabinets had been torn down and replaced with wooden shelves, adorned with colorful mugs and plastic plates.

In the center of it all, at the large kitchen island, the group of boys sat in their IKEA chairs, a selection of pamphlets and college course books in the middle. At the top of the stack, I spied the olive green Rasen college logo, lying next to a worn pamphlet for Housen and a weathered coursebook for the local community college, which catered apprenticeships and first responders. Tsuji had graduated from there earlier that month, and was none to proud to be waving his diploma around the high school.

"Which one of you jackasses was considering Housen?" Yui laughed. "Do you know how much tuition there is? And this is just to get a basic science thing so he can transfer to Ebara next year."

Fujio blushed pink. "It was just a thought!"

"They would eat you alive in there, Hanoaka-chan." Yui crossed her arms. "You're better off staying within SWORD."

Shibaman was sitting behind his laptop, the listing for a welding program at the Oya community college on his screen. Everybody knew that his options were limited: low on cash and with a baby on the way. An apprenticeship seemed like the best option, especially with so many grants available for the trades, and there was a gleam of hope in his eyes, the ultrasound photo of his daughter in the back of his clear phone case. Toya was looking through a course book for Rasen, a little bit of spark in his eyes when he stopped on the page for sports admin.

I crossed the kitchen, kissing Tsukasa's cheek before I sat down on the chair next to his, clutching his hand in mine. His laptop screen was open to the page for the Sannoh police forces, the requirements for enrollment in their training program. And I could have been wrong, but I was almost certain that I saw the page for the Tokyo Metropolitan police academy in the other tab.

He was ready to drop everything and come to Tokyo with me, if I got in.

"You've got this." He said softly, kissing my knuckles. "What's the worst that the email could say, baby?"

"It could say I'm not good enough." I said, uncertainty seeping into my voice. "I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get in."

Tsukasa put his free arm around me, his lips soft against the side of my head as the smell of his cologne crowded my senses, his touch calming me down and giving me the strength that I needed to tap on the email, instantly shutting my eyes.

"I can't look, someone tell me what the email says."

I could hear movement behind me, feel Madoka spying over my shoulder as her eyes blew through the email. "Sakura Kobayashi, you're going to Tokyo!"

"What!" I shouted, my eyes flying open. "I got in?"

Tsukasa laughed as the other boys started cheering, reading the email for himself. "You're going to Tokyo, baby."

"Oh my God!" I cried, tears springing form the raw emotion. "I'm going to Tokyo!"

"Congratulations." Tsukasa smiled, kissing me softly. "I knew you could do it. I'm proud of you, sweetheart."

Our celebrations were halted by shouts in the hallway, Nakaoka making his presence known as he barged into the room, out of breath and panting before he screamed, talking so quickly that Fujio had to ask the younger boy to repeat himself.

"Murayama is asking Midori to marry him!"