Saki meets me at the bus stop, smiling and waving cheerfully as she sits down on the bench. Her ever-present steel crutch is resting on the bench next to her, propped up like a hunter's rifle or a witch's broom.
 
She looks pretty. Saki always looks pretty. It's one of the things that everyone talks about. Her hair is always nicely styled, and her earrings are always tasteful. Right now, she's wearing those small garnet ones that she seems to really love. At least, she seems to wear them all the time.
 
"Hi, Ikezawa!" she calls out. "Ready for our trip?"
 
"Y-yes. Of course," I say.
 
"Sit down. Let's just enjoy this day together," she says. "Don't worry so much about the whole newspaper thing, and let's just have some fun, okay?"
 
"A-all right," I stammer, trying to smile as best I can. Saki nods back pleasantly, and we wait, in silence, for the buss to arrive.
 
It's my first assignment as a member of the school newspaper staff. Natsume wants me to start off by taking over the bi-weekly column on the various school clubs: she used to do it herself, but since being promoted to chief editor, it's hard for her to find time to do it. Me being the new member of the club, she was only too glad to pass it off to me, and with good reason. The next club on the list, as it turned out, was the Fashion Club. Which is why I'm sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus into the city, so I can spend the day there with Saki Enomoto.
 
I'm trying to keep this professional, despite her reputation as a horrible soulless bitch. There are a lot of questions I'd like to ask Enomoto-san, but I don't know if I should. Especially  after the stories I heard in the girls' locker roo-
 
"Spinocerebellar Ataxia," Saki says abruptly.
 
"E-excuse me?"
 
"You were going to ask me what my disability is. Spinocerebellar Ataxia. The part of my brain that coordinates my neural signals is breaking down. It makes me clumsy, and it forces me to lose coordination. Eventually my muscles will degrade and I'll stop walking. After that, I'll stop breathing. Then I'll die. I probably have about twenty years left, at the most." She shakes her head. "I could have a mid-life crisis right now if I wanted to, you know."
 
"I. . . I see."
 
I'm not sure how to respond to that, and an awkward silence settles between us.
 
Saki shakes her head and laughs nervously. "Wow. He was right."
 
". . . excuse me?"
 
"N. . . nothing. Just something. . . someone told me once."
 
"Hisao?"
 
Saki seems surprised to hear that name. She glances over at me, and then nods in understanding. "You're in his class, right?"
 
"Y-yes," I admit.
 
"I guess you heard, then. About the breakup?" She laughs curtly. "If you want to go after him, be my guest. He's pretty good in bed, you know."
 
I gulp nervously and look down at my hands, feeling my cheeks redden.
 
"I'm sorry," Saki says. "I shouldn't have said that."
 
". . . said what?"
 
"What I did." She shakes her head. "Damn, he really was right about me, wasn't he?"
 
She seems gloomy. I don't know what to say to her. But she seems to want to talk about Hisao. . . so I decide I might as well start there.
 
"What did Hi. . . what did Hisao say?"
 
Saki shakes her head. "He used to say that when I don't want to talk about something, I make the other person feel as uncomfortable as possible. So they'll stop trying to talk to me." She laughs, and her laughter has the same bitter tone as before. "That was right before I called him an asshole and broke up with him."
 
"Why did you do that?"
 
"Because just before he told me that, he also called me a bully, a tease, and a two-faced bitch. And the shitty thing is, I think he was right." Saki shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't be burdening you with this. You don't want to talk about my love life. You want to talk about the Fashion Club, right?"
 
"A-actually, I wouldn't mind hearing a little more," I say. "You seem to want to t-talk about it. . . maybe I can help?"
 
Saki laughs out loud at that. "You? Help me? The girl who's famous as the shyest girl in the school? Help me?"
 
"D. . . don't underestimate me," I retort. "Anyway, you're the one who's pouring out her heart to the shyest girl in the school."
 
She looks over at me, and her eyes are dark and sad. "You've gotten stronger," she says. "I used to see you in the library sometimes, last year. You wouldn't even look at anyone when they tried to talk to you. Now you're slapping a total stranger for making fun of you. Not bad."
 
"I. . . I had some help from L-lilly. And a little bit from Hi-hisao. . ."
 
Saki nods silently. "He's gotten popular since he broke up with me, huh? On the student council and everything. Becoming a real big man around the cripples, isn't he?"
 
"You shouldn't use that word," I say firmly. "It's rude."
 
"It's what we are. Cripples. Broken like a cart that only has one working wheel. Useless. Broken."
 
I should stop. I shouldn't let Saki drag me down like she did Hisao. But I can't seem to leave her alone.
 
Maybe it's because of what Lilly did for me. I see someone like me in her, but while I was shy and scared, Saki is. . . angry. She's angry with something. The world, her life. . . everything.
 
I want to at least try to help her. It's the least I could do after what Lilly has done for me.
 
"Hisao's a nice person," I say. "He cares for people a lot. He's helped me out a lot, too."
 
"Yeah, I know," Saki says. "He tried to help me too. He couldn't, though. Some things you can't help someone else with."
 
The bus pulls up to the bus stop. Saki slips her forearm through her crutch's brace and stands up. "Still want to go into town with me?" she asks. "I don't mind if you decide not to."
 
"I'll come along."
 
Saki nods. "Then let's go."
 
-----
 
The bus trip passes in silence. Saki spends all her time staring out the window. I'm too busy trying to think about what I should say to her.
 
I glance over at her, at her honey-blonde hair and her big, brown eyes. She's so pretty, not like me. She reminds me a bit of Lilly in her looks, but while Lilly always looks so refined and gentle, Saki's filled with this sort of pent-up energy. She's always moving, I notice, her leg bouncing up and down, her hands tapping on the windowsill.
 
She's a person that wants to be in motion constantly.
 
"Hisao made the Fashion Club what it is, you know," Saki says. "I'm the one that ran it, but he's the one that made it grow. When he and I first restarted it, there were only five members. Now we're up to fifteen. Do you know why?"
 
"N. . . no?"
 
"Because Hisao's good with people. He's a bit insensitive sometimes, and he has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth at the worst times, but he's honest and kind. At least, he tries to be. People like him. They joined the Fashion Club because he was there. When he left, a lot of people left too." Saki touches her earrings and sighs. "I can't do that. I can't. . . deal with people. I try the best I can, but they don't like me, you know. Maybe I was a bit jealous of that."
 
"Maybe you should. . . shouldn't try so hard?"
 
"Maybe. It doesn't matter right now. That period's over."
 
Saki lapses back into silence, and she goes back to looking out the window as the world passes by.
 
-----
 
"How is Hisao, anyway?" she asks, a few hours later.
 
I look up from my hamburger and drink. Saki is sitting across from me. On the seat next to her is a large canvas bag filled with her purchases: some lengths of cloth, some thread and needles, a new device of some sort that I'm not certain serves a useful purpose.
 
"He. . . he's doing well," I say. "He's helping Misha and Shi. . . Shizune. . . with the student council these days."
 
"That's good. Something serious like that's a much better fit for him than something like Fashion Club."
 
Saki gazes out the window at the people walking by.
 
"Is he dating Shizune yet?"
 
"Shi. . . Shizune?"
 
"She likes him, right? I could tell, back when we were dating. I would see her with him, and she would give him this Look. It made me really jealous. I was kind of a bitch to her because of it." Saki sighs. "I guess now there's nothing between those two getting together, huh?"
 
"A. . . actually. Shizune did ask Hisao out a week or so ago. But he said no."
 
"That idiot. What the hell is he waiting for?"
 
"I. . . I don't know. Maybe for you?"
 
"If he is, he's an even bigger idiot. What good is it waiting around for a bitch who doesn't care about people at all? The best thing for him to do is forget about me. He can't live his life while still holding onto his past like that."
 
"What about you?"
 
"What?"
 
"We've been together for three hours, Enomoto-san," I say. "And this whole time you've talked about Hisao almost constantly. Why can't you let go of your past?"
 
"Because I don't want to," Saki says. She picks up one of her french fries, only to drop it onto the tray as her hands betray her. Annoyedly, she picks up her plastic fork and stabs it into the fried potato morsel before popping it into her mouth. "I liked who I was when I was with him. I miss that Saki."
 
"Then you should go talk to him."
 
"No. Not after the way I treated him the last time I met him. I couldn't bear to face that again."
 
Her voice trails off as she continues eating her lunch.
 
The rest of the meal passes in silence.
 
-----
 
Night has fallen by the time we return to Yamaku.
 
"I hope you got enough for your article," Saki says. "I'm sorry if I wasn't more interesting."
 
"I think I've gotten enough," I explain. "Thank you."
 
"No problem," Saki says.
 
She turns to walk away, leaning heavily on her cane, with her odd, slightly drunken-seeming gait. My hands are clenched into fists at her side.
 
It was easier for me when I didn't know Saki. I could imagine her as being this horrible person who made Hisao's life a living hell. I could imagine her as being a cold-hearted bitch who did what she did to him out of pure malice.
 
But now that I've come to see her a bit more closely, I understand.
 
Saki's just like me. She's someone who has been hurt very badly by life, and like me, she's retreated from it. But while I tried to hide from my pain, she's attacked it. She holds it at bay by being as aggressively forward about the things that hurt her as she can. But as much as she talks about them, it seems to be she's never really accepted them. She talks about her illness all the time. . . but I don't think she's ever really faced it.
 
I don't want to sympathise with her. I don't want to like her. I liked it better when I could just hate her.
 
I turn back towards the newspaper club room to type up my notes from today's trip.
 
I know that most of it is stuff that I'll never publish.
 
After all, students read this column to find out about clubs. They want to hear about what the Fashion Club is really like.
 
They don't need to find out about the true face of Saki Enomoto.