Yuki Anya glanced at the clock for the eighth time in five minutes. If that thing was going any slower it'd be moving backwards! she thought in annoyance. On her desk the logarithms in her math textbook swam together the harder she stared at them. She wrote some numbers down non-committally. As the bell finally went, she almost threw her books into her messenger bag before running out the door, to odd looks from her classmates.
"Friday! Yesss..." she said to herself as she followed the current of students in the hallways. "No homework, too! Well...nothing that needs doing immediately..." she muttered as she stopped at and opened her locker, unloading a cargo of books. She shut her locker, re-locking it with the ease of someone who did it several times a day, and rejoined the hordes of students. She ran down two flights of stairs, emerging in the basement where the chatter of teenagers was interspersed with music. She walked into the band room, where four teens playing a flute, a french horn, a cello and a double-bass where playing a mournful tune, probably a dirge or requiem.
The conductor cut them off with a wave of his baton. "Okay, get outta here, you guys. Scale test next thursday, don't forget!"
Yuki waited as the quartet packed up, flashed a smile at the double-bass player as he walked by. She played percussion in the regular band, and she'd fancied the tall, dark musician for a while, though not especially seriously. She wandered over to a girl all in black, currently wheeling her cello case into the storage room.
"Hoi hoi," said Yuki.
"Yo," grunted the other girl. "Train?"
"Train."
Aika picked up her black backpack and followed Yuki out the back door.
They walked in silence for a while, autumn's leaves blowing around their feet, crossing the river on a stone bridge. They reached the train station, jogging up and down a few flights of stairs before reaching the platform.
"Cold?" inquired Aika.
"Never," said Yuki, coatless despite the chill weather.
The ring of Yuki's cellphone was just another noise in the cocaphony generated by the students all waiting for the train. She pulled the pale blue phone out of a pocket and pressed it to one ear while plugging the other.
"'Allo?...Oh hey! What's up?...No, you're joking!...Awesome!...Where now?...Gotcha, easy...Could I bring a friend if she wants to come?...Great! I'll get my stuff...okay, see ya!" she ended the call, turned back to Aika.
"Guess what?"
"Hmm?"
"Okay, you know my mom's crazy friend from high school? Yeah, the video game fanatic...apparently, he's found a way to make video games come alive or something."
"Really."
"Yeah, the sad thing is that he's serious about it...anyway, we're supposed to bring our pok?mon games. Er, if you want to come, that is."
Aika shrugged. "Sure."
The train pulled up then, creating a whirlwind in its passing, stirring the leaves that had fallen on the platform. Yuki felt the blast of air as it stirred her ice-hued locks. She remembered how she used to put pennies and things on the track that cut through a park near her house, and would marvel at how flat the passing freight trains would squish them.
They pushed through the doors and found a seat, settling in for a long ride as the train wound its way through the city.
