Help Me Remember (Chapter (1/2)

The teachers didn’t seem to notice he was gone as he sat down on the benches in front of the school yard. It was a fine day, though he doubted it since the clouds were starting to become dark. The school news didn’t mention if was going to rain, but Jun didn’t care. As long as he was far away from Nino without feeling the strange stir in his body, he was fine. Laying on the bench, he looked at the gray clouds, but instead saw a goofy face.

“Whoa!” Jun sat up, his face almost bumping with the person’s. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Shouldn’t you be in PE?”

Jun shrugged. “Shouldn’t you be taking care of the animals, Aiba-sensei?”

“Fine,” the man took the empty seat besides him, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t tell on me.”

Smiling, Jun nodded his head. He had met Aiba the day after he met Nino, claiming that this man was weird like his happy-go-lucky personality. He bumped into him a couple of times in the morning, or sometimes when he and Nino walked around during lunch, talking to animals or himself. For the past few days, he grew quite fond of the weird animal caretaker, and he would sometimes find himself talking to him.

“Where’s Nino-chan? Aren’t you guys always together?”

“Yeah,” Jun answered him flatly, “He was.”

“What happened? You guys got into a fight?”

Jun shook his head. “Nothing like that, it’s just--”

“Matsumoto-kun?”

He looked up at the mention of the name he was using, and saw a man nerdy man, squinting his eyes at him. The man was wearing a white doctor suit, one he would see at a hospital, but the questions is, who is he and what was he doing at their school?

“It is!” The man concluded as he came towards them. Besides him, he heard the older man gasp before standing up and introducing himself.

“I’m Aiba Masaki, it’s nice to meet you. I’m this school’s animal caretaker.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” the man smiled, “I’m Sakurai Sho, Matsumoto-kun’s therapist.”

“Therapist? Jun-kun has a therapist?”

“Well, you could say that,” the man nodded his head. “If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow him for an hour.”

“Y-yeah sure,” Aiba grabbed his arm and handed him to the man, “Have fun!”

Jun wanted to protest and tell him he didn’t know this man. However, he was pulled away into the building, and found himself being shoved into an empty classroom. He was instructed to take a seat somewhere, so he picked the very front seat. After pushing himself in, the man handed him a notebook, and another one until he had about 4 of them.

“Matsumoto-kun, I couldn’t get a hold of you since the past few weeks and I think you need some more. Don’t you?”

Jun shrugged. “Need some more what? I don't need these and who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the man chuckled, “I believe you already heard my name back there, but we’ve met each other before. It’s ok, I know you can’t remember right now, but I still need to do some check-ups.”