Chapter Text
Ayano and Budo returned to the kitchen at a steady pace, the evening settled into something quiet.
Midori rambled on and on, the sharp sound of Kokona chopping vegetables and Budo stirring away at the warm broth of sizzling gyoza — Shin argued that Budo shouldn’t be near knife anymore after the incident.
As Ayano basked in the smell of good food while engaging with some light chat with Toga, all she could think is how she was quite enjoying the whole thing. Just a bit. Shouldn’t get her hopes up after all.
Plates were served out, gyoza looking like it was from a ‘5 star restaurant’ Budo boasted.
As they all sat down, Midori grabbed the remote and started rummaging through films — people would assume that since the whole cooking process is out of the way everything would be tranquil right? Wrong. With Midori’s powers of destruction, her and Shin went head on for who will choose the next movie.
“While me, Aya-chan and Kokona were all cooking you and Toga were watching movies peacefully! It’s only right I get to pick next.” Midori argued
“Hey I was cooking to—“ Budo mentioned before Shin’s retaliation,
“That may be true, but i’m better at picking movies!”
“What a lie!”
Over the noisy disagreement, Kokona interrupted,
“Stop arguing like kids! Let’s have a vote like sane people.” Kokona shot daggers at Midori, she responded by a displeased grumble.
“What’s our options then?” Toga implored,
“We should watch Insidious!” Midori insisted
“I think we should watch Howls moving castle.” Shin rejected,
Ayano thought to herself, she had 2 options horror or fantasy. In reality, she isn’t a fan of either — horror is too, well horror and fantasy just doesn’t interest her. The easy way out is to just follow the crowd in this situation.
First Budo voted, “I’m going with Midori! Horror is always the best at sleepovers!”
Secondly Kokona, “I’ve always liked studio Ghibli so I have to go with Shin”
The votes were at 2-2, hopefully Toga picks something and then she just goes with the majority.
Finally it was Togas turn, “I don’t mind what we watch.”
“Hey! That’s not an answer. Pick something!” Midori’s eyes were basically bulging out of her head, obviously wanting the vote to be in her favour.
“I pick both.”
Great. All the pressure crushed Ayano like a rock, it was all in her hands to break the vote.
The main problem was, the honest truth that she truly doesn’t have a clue what to pick.
Midori’s puppy dog eyes gleamed at her, while Shin peacefully waited for her response. In the end Ayano chose Midori.
Ayano’s reasoning was,
“It’s Midori’s house and we are her guest we should probably just go with her choice” — Ayano made sure to leave out the part where she’s a little scared Midori may kick us all out if we disagree.
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Ayano couldn’t regret her decision more.
Even though the food was delicious— which was surprisingly made clear by Shins continuous praise— That didn’t help ease the fact that the movie was terrifying!
Ayano never thought she would be the type to get shaken up by pathetic gore scenes but this was on another level— although she wasn’t screaming from the top of her lungs (unlike Midori)— she definitely had her moments where she flinched slightly. Luckily, with the way the living room was set out no one should notice her unease.
However, with the weirdly observant martial artist sitting next to her just had to tease.
“You know, if it’s too scary we can always play my little pony for you.”
“Ha.Ha. Very funny, pay attention to the movie” Ayano sarcastically let out, followed by a jab to his side.
Underneath her legs, she felt someone pulling on her; to much of her surprise Kokona was also having a bad time with horror. A wave of responsibility lingered and Ayano did the only thing she could do and let Kokona squeeze onto her legs. As uncomfortable it made her, it also comforted Ayano a bit.
As the movie progressed, Ayano basked in her new found warmth. She never thought the day would come where she was sitting down at a friend’s house, watching a movie— everything felt surreal, she just couldn’t tell if she liked it yet.
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Midori shrieked yet another time,
Shin was surprisingly engrossed,
Budo kept his eyes on the screen; only stealing quick glances at the raven haired girl beside him,
Kokona held onto Ayano tightly,
Toga looked more disgusted than scared,
Ayano took once last glance around her, and felt herself drift off in a deep slumber.