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Tamamo stood speechless, eyes glued on the macabre sight unfolding in front of her.
With each grotesque cough that erupted, a fine dusting of rose petals flew into the air and drifted towards the ground in a macabre dance.
As the hacking continued, a mixture of frustration and despair surged through her veins, stifling the very words that were on the tip of her tongue.
“Oguri…”
The words tumbled like lead out of her numb mouth.
“YER NOT SUPPOSED TA EAT THOSE YA DUMMY! THOSE WERE MEANT FER YER ROOM!”
Said culprit could only offer her a deadpan stare as she did her best to fluff up the rather bare heads of the roses in her clutches.
“But, but…Tama-chan, I’m so hungry…”
Confusion and concern warred in her head.
“Wait, but didn’tcha have lunch this afternoon? I coulda sworn you told me you were going to dat new buffet in town?”
“Well, I did go this morning…I even made it to the right station without getting lost!” She put her hand on her hips and let out an exhale of pride.
“Jeez Oguri, didja make another restaurant close down already…?”
Oguri’s face returned to her crestfallen state.
“No…I was almost there but then I saw a sign, Tama-chan. It said ‘Restaurant Left’ and so I ran back in disappointment…”
“Cities sure are different Tama…the buildings never moved back in Kasamatsu...”
Visions of the student council president assailed Tamamo Cross’ mind:
A tanuki version holding a fan, limbs splayed out and wiggling on her chair, a chibi version of Rudolf laughing smugly behind her desk and a Rudolf clutching her stomach and looking down as her body convulsed in silent giggles.
“Tama…? Who’s Akira?”
“Eh, wha?”
“Oh, for a moment I thought you were saying ‘Leave me alone! Akira!’”
“Ogurin, are ya feelin okay?”
“It’s nothing, but…Tama? Why are you giving me flowers out of the blue?”
A sudden spark of heat rushed to Tamamo’s cheeks.
“It, uh, that is to say…uh- the table’s been looking pretty empty, no? Can’t hurt to spruce it up a lil!”
Oguri tilted her head in confusion.
“It’s always been empty right?”
Luckily(?) for Tamamo, an unlikely saviour was making her daily rounds and her sharp instinct immediately kicked into high gear.
“Oguri Cap! Tamamo Cross! My office please!” The regal voice rung into the air, making the heads of nearby students turn.
Desperate for an out, Tamamo grabbed Oguri’s hand and dashed straight into the Student Council office.
“What can we do for ya, Kaichou?” Tamamo asked, trying to play it cool.
“Eclipse phirst, da rest nowheye. I ask you again, do any of you know what it means?”
It was like a portal had opened and sucked Oguri back into time, flinging her back into that adrenaline pumped Japan Cup where her heart had pounded and her body had struggled to maintain its cohesion.
There she was, maintaining her pace, biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike when Michelle My Baby had crassly appeared out of the blue and jabbed her elbow into her side.
She remembered the disorientating feeling, the confusion, the moment when her brain thought:
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND ENGLISH!”
A gentle slap on her back snapped her out of her reverie.
“I think we’d better get some food in ya fast Oguri, ya been actin weird and spacin out all day, ya know?”
“I have just the remedy for you two!” Rudolf proudly declared; her head held high.
“After listening to your conversation, I heard about how Oguri rose to the occasion!”
Tamamo’s faced dropped a little.
“Your day seemed to be getting rather…thorny!”
Tamamo’s faced dropped a little more.
“It was lucky that I happened to just…bramble in at the right time…no?”
Mood: Awful.
Perhaps it was the instinct of a Seven Crown winner, but Rudolf finally sensed that the temperature in the room had plummeted by a few thousand degrees.
“…anyway, I have these two tickets to Umaland that were presented to me by the director. I was supposed to go with Sirius but she had to heed an emergency overseas summons, so I bequeath them to you. Use them well.” Her beam was genuine, absolutely devoid of the gremlin behaviour the punmaster was so used to exhibiting.
The hours that passed soon after seemed fleeting, with Tamamo only remembering glimpses of their excursion together,
From the…cotton candy stall to the…
Yakisoba stall to the…
Takoyaki-
“Waitaminute, ain’t dis all food, Ogurin?! Like I get it, you’re hungry but dis ain’t an all ya can eat buffet ya know?!”
“But Tama-”
“But nothing! We’re going on a ride ya hear? Ya can continue yer eatin spree when we’re done!”
Looking slightly crestfallen but not yet complete sunk into the depths of despair (there was more eating to be done), Oguri offered a reluctant nod…
…and that was how they found themselves here, at the amusement park, in the carriage of a Ferris wheel that had stopped at the zenith of the ride, overlooking the brilliant orange sunset.
And for some inexplicable, annoying reason that kept nagging at the back of her head, Tamamo’s heart seemed to be doing Level 7 Triumphant Pulses every couple of seconds, like not even the evolved version of the skill –
“So Tama-chan, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you all this while.”
It was probably why restaurants couldn’t move around in Kasamatsu or what kind of sorcery gave them their mobility here, she thought.
“Go right ahead, Ogurin.”
“So do you remember…what it feels like to be in the Zone?”
“It’s been a while, but I’m not quite that old yet…it’s like…when everything fades to black in front of ya, and when there’s nothing in sight but the goal, so clear, so tempting, so…”
It was almost as if she could feel the energy surging through her body again, and she had to actively hold back from channelling the White Lightning.
“Mmhmm, mmhmm”, Oguri gave a furtive nod.
“I…haven’t felt it since the Arima Kinen and I never expected to feel it again but…lately, when I’m with you…I feel like I’m in the Zone again, but…not…alone…do you get it?” Her hesitant words trailed off into the distance.
She could hear the cogs in her heart click into place, and in that split moment of decision, she tenderly wrapped her hands around Oguri’s neck, pulling her gently towards her. They were now at eye level and she could see each individual eyelash around the rim of Oguri’s beautiful azure eyes.
“Does it…does it feel like this?”
The last time her heart had beat this hard, she had barely lost to Oguri in the Arima.
Oguri nodded hesitantly, her mouth about to open when suddenly-
Tamamo Cross closed the little distance that remained within their lips, pulling her into a tight embrace as shooting stars began to fall from the now dark sky, commemorating this moment that would be etched into their hearts for an eternity.
Rudolf: And that’s the end of the story for our star Crossed lovers. Get it? Tamam-
Somewhere in the library, Nice Nature was overtaken by a fit of uncontrollable giggles that she could not explain.