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At first, Ena didn't really expect anything from being called by Akito to get his gym uniform to school.
“Seriously… How does someone forget such a thing? And couldn’t he have just asked someone else like Touya-kun? Wait, no, he’d be too embarrassed about it. But still, instead of waking me up…” she mumbled to herself while walking by the semi-busy hall.
She had stayed up quite late finishing up a piece for Niigo’s latest cover and was now being woken up at 12:30-ish PM for her stupid brother.
She must have been really out of it because she just bumped into someone and fell on her ass pretty hard.
“Gah?! I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention!” Calls out a rushed voice that sounded oddly familiar.
Ena blinks, trying to regain focus.
“Here, let me let you up!” The person holds out a hand to her.
“Ah, thank you.” She grabs the person's hand, and they help her up.
She blinks again, as the person finally becomes in focus.
“Hah?! Tenma-san?!”
“Eh? How did you-! Huh? Shinonome?!!” They look at Ena like she’d just grown another head.
“I haven’t seen you since middle school, Tenma-san… You look, uh, different.”
“Um… yeah, thank you. It sure has been a while, Shinonome…” They rub their neck nervously
The conversation ends there and there’s a brief moment of silence between them where all you can hear is the students walking around them.
“Erm. Do you go by another name and pronouns?” Ena decides to ask, and finally ending the awkward silence.
“A-ah! Yes! I’m Tenma Tsukasa now! He/him! Not that… Old name.” He answers quickly but obviously caught of guard by the question.
“ Have people not asked him that before…? Or did he expect me to say transphobic things? ” Ena thinks to herself, forgetting to respond to Tsukasa.
“B-But! You can still call me that if you’d like! I won’t mind!” Tsukasa says anxiously, and quickly. Probably after seeing Ena not respond and furrowing her eyebrows at him, Ena deduces.
Ena exhales,
“You’ve always been a worrisome guy.” She puts her hands on her hips. “I’m not gonna judge you for this sort of thing. Plus, Akito is like that too, he may be annoying, but he’s my brother, I would be a horrible sister if I didn’t accept him. And I’m also not gonna call or think of you by that name anymore.”
She stops and stare at him right in the eyes, “But you shouldn’t let people call you that either, especially if you’re not comfortable with it, Tenma-kun.”
“You’re right… Thank you, Shinonome.”
“You can call me Ena if you’d like-”
“Hold on. Did you say Akito is your brother, and he’s like that too?!” He screams.
The surrounding students look over at the duo
“Ah! Tenma-kun, inside voices, please!” Ena tells him back, in a slightly annoyed state. “But yeah, Akito’s my younger brother. He’s really annoying, like waking me up and sending me over just to give him his gym uniform?! Like, just get it yourself!”
“Shouldn’t you go give him that then? We can catch up later! I have a half day today, anyways.”
“Right. I should. We’ll meet by the gate?”
“Yes! We shall! Until we meet again, Shinonome!”
“ What an extra guy. ” Ena thinks, with a smile.
“Excuse me…” Ena says as she peaks her head a bit into the 1-C classroom.
The class is half empty, presumably without the students that were indulging in their break.
“Ah! Hi there miss! Is there anything specifically you need?” A girl with honey colored hair comes up to Ena.
“Yes, thank you… I was wondering if Shinonome Akito is here?”
“Yes! Yes, he is! You’re lucky, on any other day, he would've been with Aoyagi-san from 1-B!”
If only the girl knew how much Ena would hear Akito panic about Touya from inside his room
“Shinonome-kun! Someone over here is looking for you!” The girl calls towards the window behind her.
Akito gets up and quickly comes over.
“Thank you, Higashiyama-san.” He says in a weirdly fake voice.
He steps out of the classroom, closing the door behind him.
“What was that?” Ena quickly questions him, while handing him the bag with his clothes.
“What was what.” He retorts back.
“That voice you did. You sounded like you were happy to be there.”
“Nothing that should matter to you. What took you so long anyways?” He changes the topic.
“Ugh, well. I met an old friend in the hallways.”
“Since when were you and Tsukasa-senpai were friends?”
“Since middle school. When you were being a pussy about out how girls scared you or whatever. Also, how did you know it was Tenma-kun?”
“Shut the fuck up. And he yelled, ‘Huh! Shinonome?!’ or whatever, but still I knew all your classmates faces, and I don’t remember him at all.”
“He was basically a different person.”
“Wait… you mean like…” Akito gapes at her.
“Yeah.” is all that Ena says before turning heel and waving bye to Akito.
She’s about to the end of the hall and all she hears is a very loud and sudden “HUH” by her younger sibling.
When Ena was walking back to the gates to met up with Tsukasa, she walked by a horde of students gossiping.
She really didn’t care until,
“Hey, did you hear about the weirdo in 1-A?”
Ena froze.
“ That’s Mizuki’s class, right? ” She asked herself.
“The one with pink hair?”
“ Oh no. ”
“Yeah! You can’t just-”
Ena spirited as fast as she could. If this was part of Mizuki’s secret, she didn’t want to hear it from anyone but them. And even if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to hear the bullshit people were saying of them.
“Tenma-kun!” Ena called out, running over to him.
“Ah! Shinonome! Hello!”
“Hey, sorry I took so long, by the way. Akito was being nosy.” She said as they started walking.
“You shouldn’t be so mean to him!” Tsukasa frowns.
“Maybe… But it’s not like he’s every really nice to me, either.” She retorts
Awkward silence, yet again.
“Also, you can call me Ena, you know?” Spoke up after a bit
“Really?” He looked just like a golden retriever asking that.
“Yeah! We’ve known each other for years, after all.” She said with a laugh.
“Ah-! Well, then you can call me Tsukasa!”
“Oh? Alrighty then. Where should we go then, Tsukasa-kun?”
“Let’s go to ‘Rainbow Cream Cafe’, then Ena! Saki, my sister, recommended the pancakes to me!”