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Chiaki swings her bag off her shoulder and drops it on the floor beside her to take a knee in front of her foot locker. As she takes off her indoor shoes, Hajime does the same on her left, humming the theme song to a video game they beat together recently under his breath. She shoots him a lopsided grin, which he returns. And then his green eyes fixate on something else, and his brows raise.
“Hey, Nanami,” he pauses, and then says, “I think you have a note.”
Her head swivels towards her locker; he’s right, there’s a white envelope resting atop her mary janes inside of the foot locker. Chiaki grabs it and pulls it out, frowning down at the cute little heart sticker keeping the flap closed. “Huh.” She frowns. “This is a bad thing. I think.”
“It’s a confession letter, though, right? I mean, that’s what the heart sort of implies,” Hajime says. “Couldn’t it be from Soni--”
“Hey now, don’t wanna lose your toes, beta boy,” Chiaki hisses, shutting him up before he can finish his sentence. “The chances of that happening are slim to none,” she adds with a sigh. “It’s probably a prank. Wouldn’t put it past Souda. I think he’s still mad that I beat him in tetris the other day.” As Hajime chuckles at the memory, she opens the envelope, scanning over the letter. The penmanship is very nice. Very neat kana, very carefully written kanjis. Chiaki stares at it in appreciation for a long moment before folding the letter and putting it back in her pocket. “Nope. Not Souda. His handwriting is way too bad.”
“Kind of a mean prank, too,” Hajime muses. “Not his style. I think he’d probably just stick something from a joke store in your desk.” He shakes his head, and then snaps out of it, giving Chiaki a serious look. “What does it say?”
“Typical love letter things. I have a crush on you. Meet me on the roof after class.”
“Are you gonna go?”
“Obviously.” Chiaki finishes putting her shoes back on and slides her backpack on, hopping to her feet. “This is the worst part of the romance games for me. Rejecting people. I never know what to say. But I can’t just not show.”
“Don’t say that before you even see who it is,” huffs Hajime in tones of exasperation. “You might be surprised.”
“Yeah, well,” Chiaki slides him another grin. “I’m not the one whose boyfriend confessed to me right before I confessed to him, am I?” That makes Hajime be quiet; his smile when he looks at her is vaguely apologetic. With a laugh, Chiaki shakes her head and turns around, waving at him over the shoulder before she begins the trek up to the roof. She really doubts it’s going to be Sonia. Sure, considering that she’s had a crush on the girl since the beginning of the year, that would be nice.
But they’re in different classes. And not to mention that Sonia is like, way out of her league. Guys (and a good amount of girls, hence Chiaki herself) fall all over themselves when she’s around. She’s pretty enough that it’s apparently a genuine distraction in class. Chiaki doesn’t think she’s
that
useless, but she might surprise herself; she’s never had to sit through a class period with Sonia in the room before.
Regardless, when Chiaki reaches the roof, she steels her nerve, looking around to see who’s up here. For a second she thinks it’s empty, and that she was just pranked-- or else the confessor isn’t here yet-- but then, out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flash of yellow, and turns her head so quickly she gets whiplash.
Sonia is standing several yards away from her, half obstructed by some of the trees planted up here, and smiling nervously. Her hands are held behind her back. Chiaki looks at her for a long moment, and then cocks her eyebrows and points at herself, silently asking, are you waiting for me?
In lieu of a response, Sonia calls, “Thank you for coming, Nanami, I know the note was a bit dubious.”
“I’ve watched enough anime to have total faith in anonymous love letters,” Chiaki shoots back before she can stop herself, and is hit with instant regret. Sonia starts to laugh though, her grey eyes lighting up, and Chiaki’s heart does that familiar cartwheel thing in her chest, and so she moves closer, pretending that she can’t feel her pulse thrumming in her throat, her palms getting ever clammier by the second. “You really left that note in my foot locker, Sonia?”
“Yes, that was me,” Sonia breathes out. “I would have thought that would have been obvious by now, though.”
Chiaki stutters out something incoherent, reluctant to say that her tendency to self-deprecate disallowed her from believing that there was truly a chance of her long-time crush liking her back until this very moment. After taking a moment to compose herself, she asks, “How long? I mean, have you--”
“Since I saw you,” Sonia interrupts, by way of a response, and Chiaki thinks, great, I’m a lesbian. “You were playing on your gameboy, remember? And I was walking to class with Tanaka. You didn’t even look up at me,” she laughs quietly. “But I thought you were the loveliest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Well, Chiaki didn’t look up at her at that time because her ears were rapidly turning red and she knew if she made eye contact with the pretty blonde girl, she would’ve had a rush of blood to her face so sudden and extreme that she would have fainted on the spot. Instead of saying that, though, Chiaki says softly, breathlessly, “I remember.”
“You don’t have to like me back though,” Sonia continues. “Just confessing is already making me feel much less nervous about it all! To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if you swung that way, when I wrote that letter, but I just-- I wanted you to know, so--”
“Sonia,” Chiaki interrupts in a strangled voice. “I return your feelings.”
“Huh?” Sonia looks startled at the notion that her feelings could potential be returned, and Chiaki relates.
“I’ve-- had-- a crush on you too. I was-- when I saw the note I was really nervous because I didn’t think it would be you.” She inhales. “Sorry, I’m kind of inarticulate when it comes to talking about my feelings. Maybe. That’s what Hinata says. I think it’s more just that I don’t know what my feelings are half the time, so I set out to put them into the words, and then start buffering like a computer. Usually I try to think everything out beforehand, but right now I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants because you’re insanely pretty and it’s distracti-- I mean, because, uh--” yeah, there’s no saving that. Chiaki will bury herself when she gets home. “Anyway. Your feelings. Are mutual.”
Sonia appraises her for a long moment before breaking into a wide smile, apparently deciding that Chiaki is being genuine. It’s enough to make her melt, really, but like, good melt. Melt in a good way. She’s going to be a puddle, but an insanely happy puddle. There are worse fates for a useless lesbian. “Really?” Sonia asks regardless.
The answer here is obvious. “Really,” Chiaki confirms, and when Sonia leans forward to peck her on the cheek, nearly faints off the side of the roof. She doesn’t have a gameboy to hide behind this time, though, so she resorts to using one of her hands, and attempts to cool herself down.
(It doesn’t work, but that’s alright. It’s fine. It’s more than fine. Sonia Nevermind likes her. Chiaki thinks she might be dreaming.)