Day 175

[from StarLight]

Amaya, having slept through most of lunchtime as well, hadn't noticed that Sanae had been gone the whole time. In fact, she didn't even notice Sanae re-enter Class 2-2 at the end of lunch, and Sanae had to nudge her best friend awake once more. "Huh?" said Amaya. "Is it lesson time already?"

"Yeah," said Sanae. She was holding a hot cup of coffee, which she then placed on Amaya's desk. "I bought you a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, to help wake you up some more, but I guess you can't drink it now, huh? Sorry. I should've gotten here earlier."

In a flash, Amaya's sleep-deprived brain suddenly came up with an idea. As Inaba-sensei entered the classroom, Amaya pretended to look out of the window, then suddenly leapt to her feet and pointed. "Oh my gosh, look!" she declared. "It's White Star!"

Immediately the entire class rushed to the window to look, with the exception of Sanae, who was understandably confused. "But that's impossi-" she began to object, before realizing that explaining why it was impossible would be tantamount to revealing her identity. She abruptly joined the others in rushing towards the window, and with everyone's attention now focused elsewhere, Amaya put her plan into action. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the Black Star Emblem and in an instant she had transformed.

"I've always wanted to say this," she muttered. "Za Warudo!" In an instant, time itself stopped. Her classmates froze in place, still staring expectantly out of the classroom window. Now, she had all the time in the world to drink her coffee. In fact, she had all the time in the world to do more or less anything she wanted. But I guess it's not as much fun to do evil if there's nobody watching, she thought to herself. Ah well… mind you, I suppose while I have time stopped like this, there is one more thing I might as well do…

***

"WRRRRYYYYYYYYY!" yelled Amaya, as she slammed a road roller end-first into the ground outside her mother's house. Her mother, frozen in the middle of her Bat-Dude gaming session, did not flinch, but she certainly would once time resumed. Amaya wondered how long it would take her to notice that she had also swapped the Bat-Dude game disc for a Road to Hull: Revolution game disc. Hope she has fun with that pile of steaming dog turd, she thought smugly to herself.

Perching herself on top of the road roller's rear end, sticking several feet out of the cracked asphalt, Amaya began to drink her coffee in total, blissful solitude, idly swinging her legs. Although it had taken her quite some time to find a suitable road roller, the time-stop meant that her coffee was still nice and hot. "Ahhh… that feels much better," she said, after ingesting the first mouthful. "This time spell is really draining my power, though. I'd better hurry up and drink this coffee so I can head back to the school and undo the spell."

Amaya drank her coffee quickly, and when she got back to Class 2-2, everything was just as she had left it. With the caffeine not yet taking hold, and the time-freeze spell draining the Emblem's power severely, she felt no less tired than she had before. Maybe this wasn't a good idea, she thought. Ah well, too late now. Sitting back down at her seat, she dropped the Emblem into her bag, and as her transformation was broken, so was the spell. A few seconds later, her un-frozen classmates began to realize that White Star was not in fact outside their classroom window. "Hey, where is she?" "I don't see her!" "Maybe we missed her already?"

"Oh, sorry, my mistake," said Amaya casually. "It must have been a bird, or a plane, or something."

The rest of the class let out a collective sigh of disappointment and returned to their seats. "Well, now that all that excitement is over, let's get on with the lesson," said Inaba-sensei. "Turn to page 78, please-"

***

Once lessons were over, Sanae and Amaya began to gather their things. Amaya retrieved the empty coffee cup, which she had stowed under her desk, and tossed it into the trash can. "It's probably ice-cold by now," she said. "I feel better now anyway, those naps must have done me some good."

"That's good to hear," said Sanae. "Oh, by the way, I'll be staying behind after-school from now on, due to club activities."

"Okay, sure," said Amaya, not quite registering what Sanae had said. Then, a moment later, she did a double-take and looked at Sanae, confused. "Wait a minute," she said. "Since when were you in a club?!"

"Since this lunchtime," said Sanae. "I, uhh, kinda got roped into joining one."

"Oh, I see," said Amaya. "Which club is it?"

"Uhh…" Oh crap, Sanae thought. I can't tell her I'm in the White Star Fan Club, because we both agreed we were fed up of that phenomenon! But maybe if I explain that I was duped into joining it… but wait, what if she doesn't believe that? I'll have to just lie and say it's a different club… but which one? And what if she finds out that I'm not in whichever club I say I'm in? How will I explain that?

"I hate to interrupt your internal monologue," said Amaya, "but are you going to tell me or not?"

Sanae blurted out the first thing that came into her head. "Th-the sewing club!" she said. "I got roped into joining the sewing club, so, uhh… yeah…" Sanae chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck.

Somehow, Amaya seemed to buy this. "The sewing club, huh?" she repeated. "Well, okay then. Have fun with sewing club."

"Will do," said Sanae. "You know, you should join a club as well, Amaya. That way you'd have to spend less time cooped up at home with your mom, and we might get more storyline material."

"Yeah, but we'd have to introduce a whole bunch of other new characters as well," said Amaya, "and this series has plenty of characters already. Plus I'm happy to just spend time wandering around town, or playing video games in my room." Or trashing up the town as Black Star, she added in thought.

"Yeah, I guess so," said Sanae. "Alright, well, I'll see you tomorrow morning, then."

"Alright, see you," said Amaya, heading towards the classroom door. "Have fun at sewing club."

"Will do," said Sanae. The two girls went their separate ways: Amaya headed home, while Sanae headed through the corridors towards Class 1-3, for the first-ever official meeting of the White Star Fan Club.