The Gladiator's Soul chapter 11

Previous chapter: The Gladiator's Soul chapter 10

The sun was beaming. Summer was starting its end, already halfway through September; but still the mornings were awfully hot. It was at last the first day of class after holiday, and I was eager to see Hime in her new stage. Advanced course student… it did not sound bad at all. From then on I could brag about my friend.

I left through the door of my house like a rocket and went to meet her.

“Himeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” I arrived running so fast that I could hardly brake. As I had supposed she was nervous; it was understandable, since that was the first time we would be in different classrooms, also in that special course they expected much more from her. I guess she must have felt certain pressure.

“Come on, liven up that face!” I pinched her soft cheeks beside her lips, lifting them and forcing in this way to change the direction of its curve. A strange (and disturbing, let it all be said) smile was drawn on her face, until she shook her head like a dog after a bath:

“Blrblrblrblr…! What are you doing to me!”

“Ah, nothing! Just that as long as I am around, I would like to see you smile.”

Hime blushed slightly: “… Ugu! Understand I’m nervous… it’s the first day of class, and everything is going to be different now…”

“mmm…?” I pulled a face of surprise, as if I did not understand what she wanted to say. “Different how…?”

It was funny how difficult it was for her saying that kind of things, making gestures that seemed a blend between stubbornness and difficulty when speaking: “… You know already… we’ll be no longer in the same classroom, nor see each other as much as before. And you know we don’t have any more friends…”

Hime was amazing. She was not only concerned by herself. When saying ‘we have’ she was referring to me. She knew well I did not have good social abilities either. <<That’s my Hime>>, I thought without being able to help it and felt really happy because not only did she think much about me, but she also constantly proved it.

“Bah, there’s nothing to worry about. I think you are brooding too much over it.”

“Is that so? But you already know that I…”

That sentence was not good. I would not let her self-esteem drop, I would be her support and she would be the best.

“Shhhhhh!” I cut her straight away, and she gave me a slightly angry glare.

“I’m sorry to be this abrupt, but I can’t keep silent anymore.”

Her sad face seemed to vanish. “Silent about what…?”

“A great secret. The secret nobody told you, the secret of the power of the cool people.”

“Bah, you are mocking me, as always.”

“Ah, if you don’t want to know it, then I won’t tell you. It’s all the same for me, because I already know it. By the way, did you watch TV last night…?”

She did not reply. Only stabbed me with her eyes intently. “And now you change the subject…?”

<<Good, good. I’m making her more curious, hehe. This is good.>>

“Change the subject? About what?”

“Don’t play dumb. You said you knew a secret to be cool.”

“Ah, about that… Since you said not being interested, I forgot that topic.”

“No, I was joking. It interests me.” She looked aside as if trying to play it down: “Well, only a little, but you could tell me, just out of curiosity.”

<<Yes… this is heating up…!>>

“Ah, no, no. I’m not going to release the true power of my great secret to someone that doesn’t believe in it.”

“Uguuuuuu… Ok, it interests me quite a bit. Are you happy now…?” She was already crinkling her nose. Ha, ha, it was worth seeing.

“Yes, yes, very happy.”

…

…

I kept on walking towards the school, playing distracted.

Hime got annoyed and grabbed me by my shoulders, looking straight at me:

“So what?! Aren’t you going to tell me?! Wasn’t it that you couldn’t keep silent anymore…?!”

“Ok, if you really want I’ll tell you. But on one condition.”

“One condition…?” what condition?”

“If I agree to tell you that’s because I trust you. So you’ll never be allowed to tell anybody, except for your best friend. If someday it weren’t me anymore, then you can say it only to who is then your new best friend.”

“You are my best friend… and I trust you. I won’t tell it to anybody, ever.”

“So, there it goes…” She looked at me like possessed, as if wanting to drill through me with her gaze.

“…huy, I forgot…”

“…” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, this time harder. “What…! Spit it out at once!”

“Ha, ha, ha… Hime, you are the best, ha, ha, ha… you are really the best.”

“Ugu! Don’t laugh at me! It’s unfair!”

“Ok, ok. I was joking.”

Now that she was already relaxed, it was the right moment: “The secret is… as long as there’s an only person that believes you are cool, you are already. Someone that believes blindly in you, that worship you, that is your unconditional fan.”

“Yes, I guess that would be good. But, what’s with it just now…?”

“Give me a moment.”

I turned back, dug from my pocket a kind of cloth headband and tied it on my forehead.

“Now you’ll see!” I turned back wearing the headband. And I started to shout and gesture:

“Give me an H!”

“Give me an I!”

“Give me an M!”

“Give me an E!”

(Making the shape of each letter with my arms, like a cheerleader).

“HIIIIIMEEEEEEE!”

“HAHAHAHA… You’re crazy! What have you made…!” She said, looking at the headband on my forehead. She read: “HFC… Hime… Fan… Club?”

“hahahaha…! That’s it, I’m your fan number one. I think… No; I know you are the best, and that’s why you are the coolest.”

“So it was that… Thanks, Kota, it’s true! You are a genius! Although you are crazy…”

I showed a broad grin and with a feigned pretentious tone said: “Thanks, I knew it already.”

We headed to the school. I say goodbye to the now smiling Hime, who stayed at his building, one close to the school entrance. As for me, I turned the corner and put away the headband of the ‘Hime Fan Club’ into my pocket. It would be really embarrassing if someone saw me wearing it, even though I have done it to cheer her up (if needed, I would do it in public again, but otherwise I preferred avoiding such situation).

I headed to my classroom. That year I was to be in one on the second floor, different from the one I had the year before. I preferred it that way, since it would not be imbued with memories of Hime and me and would help me to get over the fact that she would no longer be with me in class.

As usual, the other students ignored me in general. That was all right; the situation had improved, since it did not seem like any of them intended to bully me. I thought maybe was spread the rumour about the fight I had before holiday to protect her. The truth is, seen from outside I must have appeared some kind of cannibal or carnivore by biting those bullies like that.

The first day went by smoothly, I could consider myself lucky. Now I would go to collect Hime and we would go back together to my home, so that she gave me chapter and verse on how her first day in the special course had been.

I turned the corner facing the school gate at the end, at the same time that I put on the headband (yes, the one of the ‘HFC’). I wanted her to see me wearing it anew, whether she had had a nice day or not.

She was not there yet. Maybe she had still not gone out of class. So I would wait for her. Although being standing there with the band on my head was a little embarrassing, I didn’t back off.

I waited for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. The class must have gone on. I did not wait out there anymore and crossed the door I had been staring, into the building where the accelerated course was taught.

<<I think she told me it was in classroom three…>> I went there, but nobody was inside. I walked around the floor trying to find her. I casually found a teacher:

“Hello, teacher. I am looking for one student.”

“Which student?”

“Hime… I mean Himawari, she is in the special course.”

“The special course? They finished really early. And left around an hour ago…”

I could not help the face of surprise. “Ah, ok, thanks.”

Then where could she be? She would have waited for me, 150% sure. Who knows, perhaps she had met new friends and they were doing something somewhere... At any rate I had to inspect the building. I started from bottom to top, floor after floor of the four-storey block.

I was already on the fourth floor, after searching almost everywhere unsuccessfully. It could be that they had been given homework to do in groups and she had gone to a public library or some classmate’s house to finish it.

As I walked thinking of this the last floor went to an end. I had to go home, Hime probably would telephone later and tell me what she had been doing during the day. I went out to the landing , ready to go down the first step, when I saw a door I had not open. On it a plate reading <<To the attic>>.

<<Attic?>> I could go there, anyway I had nothing to lose. I opened the door and a narrow staircase came into view, it went up one more ‘semi-floor’. It was a white, cold room, with a sloping, really low ceiling. Although quite a lot of light came in through the windows. There were some doors. One of them stated <<communications room>>. I seemed to hear a familiar sound coming from the other side, and it gave me gooseflesh. Without knowing why I was suddenly pretty agitated. I opened the door slowly.

…

…

…

Lifeless. I went lifeless. A part of me died there.

The walls were dirty with blood, and it was recent. Hime was lying there, in a corner, with her face swollen and tear-stained. Her battered body gasped with difficulty. Her clothes dirty and torn, her hair a mess.

“HIME!”

She seemed to respond to my yell, trying to turn her head towards me. But her eyes were so swollen that could not see at all.

“Calm! I’m going to get some teacher to help us! Don’t move from there!”

I dashed like crazed. They had to take her to a hospital. And as I turned back to go I saw it, painted on the wall with blood:

‘THANKS FOR THE BITE’ and ‘REVENGE’.

It was clear who had done it, but now the most important thing was to get Hime attended.

I went running noisily through the corridors until a teacher came to scold me:

“Weren’t you told not to run in the corridors?”

“There’s a badly injured student in the attic! She needs an ambulance!”

We went back upstairs and the man called the emergency services. I stayed with Hime, holding her hand. Seeing clearly, with my eyes wide open what they had done to her. And ripping my insides. My dream of happiness had been nothing but that. The part of me laying buried under the beautiful memories of the summer seized me completely. Time after time were repeated the thoughts that I had apparently forgotten, in a horrendous cyclic scene. Hime’s life becoming a hell… this was real.

I had to distance myself from her. I had to protect her. I had to avenge her. I had to become strong. I had to… fight.

I would stain my hands with the blood of all those who tried to disturb her smile. Maybe after the beating they gave her she would not be the same, maybe she would have consequences. But her heart would remain as beautiful. For me she would continue being a light in my horizon, the only thing that would remain pure and innocent in this cursed world.
The story continues here: The Gladiator's Soul chapter 12