Chapter Text
He was missing that night. We looked everywhere, I swear we did. Every nook and cranny. Everything the rain touched, and everything it didn’t. We turned that entire damn village upside-down. If it wasn’t for me, we’d have gone further. Far past the bounds of this reality. Or, what we know as reality. We had never really known life outside the village.
There wasn’t a single trace of him. Not an echo, nor a ghost, nor even a drop. It had been a long time since it rained like this. I should’ve been enjoying it. If the sky was raining to try and calm me down, it was doing a terrible job at it. At that time, I had only cursed the rain for the fog.
A million hours and cries have passed, and I finally surrendered at last. I ran as far as I could, just like she told me I should all those years ago.
Until, I had found myself missing, as well.
Within me, I had looked everywhere, searched everywhere, shouted my name everywhere.
And yet, there was not a single trace of me.
It felt like the world had ended. But a part of me wanted to believe…
* * * *
BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!
Catherine promptly slammed her fist on the alarm clock, and turned to face the sunlight streaming through her window. She blew a strand of hair out of her face, then shut her eyes tight, and rolled out of bed. As she arose from the floor, she stared at herself in the mirror. After a few moments, she took a deep inhale, then slapped herself in the face and smiled.
She pranced around her room, getting ready for the day. With a hop and a skip, she was over at her closet, looking between the five different red hoodies she owned. After a thrilling round of “eeny, meeny,” she picked the leftmost hoodie, and ran to the shower.
Ding! In a few minutes following her shower, she grabbed the toast from the toaster oven, and slammed it down – not too hard as to break the plate, however – on a plate she took from the sink. She let her hand dance the knife across the butter and toast, and hummed a tune to herself. As she sat down and was about to take a bite, a small breeze flew past her face. She turned to the open window, and promptly shut it.
“Jeez,” she said to herself, sitting back down. “How long was that open for?”
After finishing her breakfast, she ran out of the door at breakneck speeds, and sped for the station. She moved through every crowd swiftly and without issue, like she had done this a million times before. As she stepped on the platform, she received a text from Louise Orduina, her long-time crush
The… huh?
Oh no.
Catherine shoved her phone into her pocket, then stopped walking. Following a few seconds of silence, she screamed directly into the sleeve of her hoodie. She walked to the edge, and waited for the train. As she stepped on, her phone vibrated in her pocket again.
…
Silence.
Followed immediately by:
Ouch. Ten hit points. To be fair, she deserved it.
Cath was about to put her phone in her pocket, then remembered something. She took it out again, and went back to Ridel’s messages to ask him a burning question.
* * * *
Ridel flung his laptop out onto the desk, then flew the screen open with a flick of his wrist. He frantically looked over at Catherine, who was sweating bullets and chewing her nails.
“ We have to get these done,” Ridel explained to her. “And we have to get them done now !” He turned his attention back to the screen, and hovered his fingers over the keyboard. “Quick, what’s first?”
“Um, uh…!” Catherine stumbled over her words, frantically tapping her fingers against each other in an attempt to focus. “Oh, book title and author! Get the basics out of the way!”
“ Right, that’s… The Giver by Lois Lowry , right?”
“I think so!” Catherine looked at Ridel and gave him a confident nod with a thumbs up.
“ You’re sure smug for someone in your predicament,” he replied, keeping his eyes glued to the screen. “ Okay, next slide! Hit me with it!”
“Oh, right, we have more slides!” Catherine exclaimed, looking away and racking her brain. She pointed her finger up as a non-existent lightbulb appeared above her head. “Plot summary!”
“The summary!?” Ridel exclaimed, still furiously typing away at his keyboard. “Do you know the plot!?”
“Well, that’s…!” Catherine shook her head, frustrated. “Ugh, just look up the Sparknotes on Doogle!”
“You’re lucky the library has a good connection,” he replied, opening up his search engine. After finding – and directly copy pasting – the plot summary, he let out a deep breath. “Okay, just a few more slides, then we should be golden.”
“Um… character summaries?” Catherine said in a wavering tone, tapping her finger against the wooden table. “I… I think Louise has those in the group chat…?”
“Thank God for Louise,” Ridel sighed, pulling out his phone. “There we are, right there. What would we do without her?”
“Alright, and to top it off…” Catherine started, placing her finger and thumb on her chin with a smug grin. “Add in some cool transitions!”
Ridel stopped typing for a moment, then looked at her with a raised eyebrow and his mouth agape.
“What?” Catherine asked, looking at him with her own eyebrow raised. “Think about it. If there’s no transitions, then wouldn’t it look like we just rushed through it?”
“I… guess that makes sense?” Ridel shook his head slightly, letting out a groan. “Personally, I think it looks good.”
“What looks good?” The voice across from them caused Ridel and Catherine to instantly turn their heads towards the door. Leaning against the door was a brown-haired girl with her arms crossed against her chest.
“O-Oh, hey, Louise!” Catherine waves over to the woman weakly, with a nervous smile across her face. “Um… we were just talking about, the, uh… th-the weather…?”
“Oh, yes! Yes, the weather!” Ridel let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact with Louise. “J-Just looking at the weather, for my… you know… ph-photoshoot this weekend.”
“Oh, yeah?” Louise asked, still leaning against the door as she looked at them with the same expression as before. Anyone within a ten mile radius could tell she wasn’t buying it. “And how’s the weather?”
“It’s… it’s looking…” Ridel snapped his fingers, and gave two thumbs up as he faced Louise. “Pretty… good.”
“Dude,” Catherine said, cringing a bit away from him. “You look like such a loser right now.”
“Well, let’s hope your slides are as good,” Louise replied, pushing herself away from the door. “Come on, we’re the first up. Don’t fall behind.” She walked away from them towards the classroom, as Ridel and Catherine both let out a synchronous sigh of relief.
* * * *
Catherine stood between Ridel Gonzales and Louise Orduina at the front of their classroom as their teacher went on a long tangent about his cat. She did her best to maintain her composure, but she could hear Ridel quietly doing his breathing exercises, which made it hard to focus. Oh, and her crush’s arm was only inches away from brushing against her own, which also didn’t help.
Catherine let out a sigh and closed her eyes, recalling a time before she even knew Louise. It had felt so far away at this point. Back then, a group of senior boys had attempted to steal Louise’s heart with chocolates and flowers on Valentine’s Day, but Louise had simply walked right past them without a care in the world. That’s when Catherine fell head over heels for her – she’d never admit it, but she liked it when someone played hard to get. She smiled softly to herself as she looked into Louise’s eyes. And then she promptly nearly jumped to the ceiling when Louise looked back directly into hers.
“What are you looking at?” Louise had asked, her arms crossed as the teacher continued his speech in the background.
“Oh, what am I looking at?” Catherine moved her eyes past Louise to the outside of the classroom. “Just the… just the weather… again. Fine weather we’re having.”
“Hm?” Louise looked behind her, at the clear skies outside. “Oh, yes, you were looking at it online earlier, were you not? I hope the weather will be better than it has been for your friend’s photoshoot.”
“Better than it… huh?”
“Better than it has been.” Louise stated matter-of-factly, turning her gaze back to Catherine. “I am certain rainy weather would be bad for the shoot, correct?”
“Well, you’re not wrong…” Catherine nodded slowly, squinting at Louise. Was this a prank? No, Louise didn’t do pranks. “But… it hasn’t rained at all recently.”
“Not at all?” Louise raised an eyebrow, crossing one arm against her chest, and resting her other arm’s elbow on it. “Surely you jest. It rained this past weekend.”
“Uh… no?” Catherine raised an eyebrow herself, shoving her hands in her pockets. “It was clear this past weekend, just like it has been for the past month.”
“The past… the past month!?” Louise quietly exclaimed. Catherine could tell she was stifling a gasp. “No way.”
“Yes way,” Catherine nodded again. An uneasy feeling washed over her, but she brushed it off. “Clear skies on the Liamson Front.”
“I… ahem.” Louise regained her composure, and cleared her throat. She folded her hands neatly against her waist again. “My mistake. I must have misremembered it. Oh, well.” Louise then turned her attention back to her classmates.
Catherine stared at Louise for a few more seconds, the uneasy feeling only slowly fading away. Then she shook her head, and sighed. She had bigger things to worry about right now. Like how the hell Ridel and I are going to survive this presentation…, she thought to herself.