Disorientated Feelings (Part 5)
The sun is setting down by the time I reached the hospital, so the lights inside have already been turned on.The hospital has visitors, and some patients moving about. The staff who normally greeted me as I entered either ignored me or had faces of having seen me before but wasn't sure who. Huh? You don't know who I am?
I knocked on the office door marked with "Director" and say that it's me and waited for a while.
Instead of a reply, I hear silence. I opened the door and realized that there wasn't anyone inside. The desk has a nice looking computer with notes stuck on the screen. The desk is filled with a lot of notes on something recent, some stationery, and some photo frames of his family and mine that were taken. The bookshelves are filled with several identical-looking books that talks about medical $science.
Normally, he would be present when I enter. Then again, I started working here not even a year ago. I headed to my work area in the mean time.
*****
I headed to the office again at the end of the day. Unsure if he is in there now, I quietly knocked on the door and he replied which indicates that he is there.
As I entered, I saw him looking at some old documents that has a picture of my mother. More recently, there is a rough sketch of a device about the size of a wrist watch, and a Three Dimensional model image of what seemed like a tight full-body transparent jumpsuit. He looked as though he just entered the office just a while ago in a hurry.
When he saw me, he stared at me for a while, as though trying to figure out who I was. What? You don't even recognize your own niece? Well, I was wearing my new high school uniform and with a hairstyle that he had never see me in before to the extent that he even asked me who I was.
He realized who I was from the moment I started talking and suddenly made a rush to hide those documents from me quickly by stuffing those into another old box and hid it somewhere out of sight. Too late, I saw it when I entered.
The box was labelled "Dokumente über die Schaffung einer Geschlechtsumwandlung Gerät" which was dated about a year before I was born. How suspicious...
Aiko and I both talked about our first days at high school and the friends we made. This doesn't seem to be the appropriate moment to talk about that supermarket incident.
When I reached home, there was wrapped food on the dining table for me. Mother is taking care of Kuniko (youngest sister), and Shin'ichi (oldest brother, but younger than me) is already busy studying. He would be entering Middle school next year. Izumi and Kousei are already sleeping. Dad is nowhere to be seen.
*****
The days has passed long enough to have the pink petals on the cherry blossom trees being replaced by green leaves.
Unlike middle school, joining of clubs is not necessary. However, during the club showcase some days ago, it's hard to get around without having some nerdy-looking guy(s) appearing out of nowhere and persuading me to join some club. I would like to, but I have work to do, though Aiko said she joined the Tennis club. I didn't join any at the end of the day.
Since my first day here, I can't help but to or hear a sound that would only be made when a picture is taken with a camera or have this feeling of someone following me from behind. Sometimes, with male voices whispering to each other. However, I don't see anyone doing such things when I turned around. I somehow have a reputation of being "a smart beautiful girl" (天才美少女) around the school, according to whispers I heard when I walk past groups of people. I have no idea who started it...
I was picked by the teachers most of the time to answer seemingly easy, yet challenging, questions most of the time. Maybe this could be the contributing reason as to why I was asked to help people who are having trouble. Oh well.
I had to eat lunch with Hiroko at a quiet corner near the backyard. But I can still sense someone with an SLR camera watching me somewhere nearby. Come to think of it, how do I know if someone is there if I can't see or hear them? On top of that, I can still behave as though I am clueless on being watched. The aura they are emitting says that they are just want to take pictures of girls and sell the photos they took to other interested guys. No real threat from them.
At the end of each day, I would help the teacher to carry the assignment books to the staff room after the teacher, who would normally go first as a sign to the rest of the class that the class is over after the last chime for the day. The teachers' desk is located in the middle of the long rows of desks that it's hard to locate unless you had the things normally on the desk and the area round it memorized. The exit of the room is easily marked as the emergency exit (非常口) with the running man above the door and similar signs with arrows pointing to the other exits at the other areas. You can say that the staff room is just as messy or messier than that of my uncle's office with all the student's assignments and other paperwork and the lack of a computer on their desk.
As the corridor is relatively empty by the time I left the staff room, I saw the orange sun in the sky outside. The teacher held me back to talk about my popularity among the students, despite me not doing anything, and advised me on anything more that what a normal student should know. I used this opportunity to find places that would become my secret hideout places.
I noticed that there is a roof that is supposed to be accessible, judging by the tall wire mesh fences all over there. However, nobody, not even the teachers or the 3rd year students, seems to know how to get there. Looks like I have to find it myself.
I searched around the 4th floor, the top floor, but, I found nothing out of the ordinary there. However, I do recall seeing a storeroom at the floor below. I headed there and I found nothing but stuff that seems to be used only on events like the cultural festival. Seeing that there aren't any other possible places, I decided to have a look through all this stuff for hidden openings. Even though it was very dark, it seems that there is a passageway large enough for me to crawl through that I would have easily missed if the lights were to be switched on. To my surprise there is actually a pocket of empty space large enough for me to get back up on the other side. and there is a narrow stairway upwards. Climbing it up by one level seemed longer than usual as I'm climbing 2 levels worth.At the top, there is a door with a glass panel window on the top half of the door that only allows light through, so you can't see what's on the other side. I opened the door outwards to find that I am at the roof. I feels like I am at the top of a large wide concrete cloud surrounded by fencing to keep me from falling off it. It's so big that no one would be able to see me from the ground, unless I get too close to one side of the fence or make noise in such a way that the people directly below would be able to hear. Playing the radio speakers loud enough for me to hear at some distance away from it is okay, but using loud things like the electric drill (for whatever reason) is forbidden if I don't want to attract attention. I head towards the side of one of the fences, keeping low at the same time so as to not be spotted. I could see the entire school grounds and the area beyond. If I had a boyfriend, this would be a nice place to hang out at. Too bad that there is nothing there except the stairs where I came from to seek shelter from the sun.
The next place is the area beneath the stage at the hall, but right now, the boys' basketball club is occupying it. It would be a bad idea to search for a hidden place if people are watching. Even more so if the person who is searching happens to be a popular girl that all the guys in the school are crazy over. Seems that the best time to do so are during lunch or the early morning where there are no events going on.
Part 4 | Part 6
日本語版
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