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Ah, study camp. A once in a while opportunity for the students of Kamome Academy to experience sleeping over at campus for a few nights, kinda like a camping trip with everyone from every class and year level! Granted, it was also for extracurricular purposes, but it wasn't like they weren't allowed to have fun in the midst of it.
Nene was one of the students in her group in charge of preparing their dinner for tonight, so her first priority was peeling the potatoes, while Aoi and some of the other girls prepared the other ingredients needed nearby.
If it weren't for the fact Hanako decided it would be a great time to bother her, things would have run so much smoothly.
He made his presence known to her, by phasing his upper torso through the wall she was facing, seeing her pile potatoes in a sieve. Normally this would freak out any sane person, but, being Yashiro Nene, she didn't budge at all.
"I'm busy, Hanako-kun." She whispered angrily at him, as he hung his head down at her, pouting.
"Aww, but I'm bored! Am I not allowed to visit my assistant and check out what she's up to sometimes?"
Nene sighed. "No, but I can't have you distract me right now. I gotta make sure these potatoes are ready in time."
Hanako peered down at the peeled potatoes placed in the sieve, poking at them. "I'll help, then. You know, I am pretty skilled with knives."
She couldn't really refuse, seeing as he was already picking up a different potato and taking another knife from the knife holder next to her. She did appreciate the help, though.
He wasn't really kidding when he said he was skilled with knives.
Almost in a split second, he peeled those potatoes, though the way he went about it, it was more like an apple being peeled than anything.
"See? And with more time to spare." Hanako beamed proudly at her, dangling some of the potato skin at her face. She swatted it off, shaking her head.
"You're such a show off." Yet she thanked him nonetheless.
Nene gathered the peeled potatoes and as she went over to Aoi to help them start cooking, Hanako followed her close by from behind, peering over her shoulder. "Whatcha making?"
"Some spicy curry. Yamabuki-kun brought a lot of rice enough for everyone in the class, so it was only appropriate." She handed over the potatoes, looking over at where the rice was being cooked. Lemon was supposed to keep watch over it, yet he seemed to be distracted with his phone, which wasn't unusual, yet with an important task given to him, it was.
"Yamabuki-kun! That rice is gonna burn if you're not paying attention!" Luckily, Aoi seemed to have dragged him away from his phone for the time being.
Nene sighed, and Hanako snickered. "It's been a while since I've made curry though. I dunno if I can get it to taste good, but..."
The ghost boy perked up, the determined look on his face surprising her. "Hey, doubt's not gonna get you very far, Yashiro. You gotta believe in yourself. Your cooking's great!"
"Eh—you're just saying that cuz Kou-kun helped me last time making you donuts. If anything, he's better at cooking that me."
He pinched her cheek. "Now, now. What I'm saying is the real deal. Honestly..." He turned his head a little to the left, trying to hide the blush starting to come up.
"With those superb cooking skills of yours, you'd definitely make a great wife."
Her eyes widened, and she almost let out a squeak if not for her slapping her hands onto her mouth before anyone could hear her.
I-I wasn't imagining that, right?!
"Nene-chan! Come over here!" She heard Aoi call her name, providing her a temporary distraction from the... strange feelings she was getting.
"Ah—coming! I better go, I'll talk to you later, Hanako-kun!" She waved at him, hoping he didn't catch the nervousness in her voice.
He could just blink back at her retreating form. Now what was that all about?
Dinner was a success, and it was time for their nightly activities. Tonight, some of the elderly women from the neighborhood association were invited to teach the students traditional basket weaving.
"Ao-chan, I'll make a basket dedicated to how beautiful you are!" Akane declared.
Aoi merely responded with a cool smile, and while Akane rambled to himself (with Lemon snapping photos of him on occasion), she turned to look at Nene, who was just absentmindedly weaving her basket together, not paying attention to whatever was happening around her.
"Nene-chan? Is something the matter?" She tapped on her friend by the shoulder. Nene did a little jump, finally coming back to her senses.
"Oh. Sorry, Aoi. I was, uh... I was just thinking of something weird."
"Really? You can talk to me about it, you know. I won't tell anyone else, don't worry."
Nene pressed her lips together, hesitant, but nodded in the end. "It's just that... earlier before..."
KRRRRIIIIIIIIIIINGGGGG !!!!
"Damnit, not again! This isn't funny!" Akane shouted angrily through the loud noise coming from the school's alarm system.
"I guess those first year middle schoolers pulled the alarm again as a prank." Lemon remained calm, now taking video with his phone. The so called middle schoolers were known troublemakers, and it wasn't a prank they were unfamiliar with, already having done it three months ago.
"I'll be right back, Nene-chan. Akane-kun needs to calm down a little." Nene nodded, as her friend went to ease their class president's nerves before he could decide to just use actual force upon the underclassmen. He was already labeled as some bat-wielding ghost by the middle school division, much to his chagrin.
To be honest, she was glad the alarm rang just before she could say anything. She wasn't even that brave enough to tell anyone, even Aoi, yet.
Stupid Hanako-kun. It's all his fault! Why did he have to say those things? I'm already getting the wrong idea! She internally screamed, trying to hide her reddening cheeks under her hair.
Perhaps he was just trying to cheer her up. That wasn't out of the ordinary. There wasn't any other meaning in it.
Yet...
A mental image of her watching Hanako take a bite of her homemade cooking entered her mind, and with it ending with him smiling fondly at her.
"You'd make a great wife."
AGSAJSHDGSHHSDGSH!!!! Steam seemed to disperse off the top of her head, her entire face red as a tomato. Her eyebrows furrowed into a frown as she decided to busy herself with her weaving instead.
No way was it going to take over her brain the rest of the night.
Meanwhile, Hanako had other concerns in mind.
After preventing a group of Mokke from swimming in some poor class's stew, he almost immediately grew bored. Nene was busy with activities, and even Kou was occupied with the third school mystery, so no one was available to hang out with.
He pulled out something from his pocket. A couple of sparklers he had found somewhere lying around and decided to take. He wanted to play with them with his assistant and the kid, but with them busy at the moment, there wasn't any opportunity to.
Speaking of sparklers, he had overheard a couple of students talking about them. Something about, if two people lit sparklers together, and one of them goes out first before the other, then that meant their feelings would be mutual.
It was a silly, harmless story. But he thought about, if Nene ever heard it, she'd definitely try to rope Teru into doing it with her.
He sighed. Might as well try to find other ways to entertain himself.
He floated aimlessly among the hallways, only stopping when he spotted Nene in her classroom. All the desks and chairs have been set aside to make space, a couple of sleeping bags already set on the floor.
She was all by herself in there, not noticing him enter as she prepared her sleeping space. She did, however, see the shadow looming over her.
"Hanako-kun, you need to stop trying to scare me like that."
"Heh, sorry. By the way, I got something really cool to show you." He took out the sparklers he had been keeping with him, showing them to her with a cheeky grin.
Nene knew what this entailed. "Sparklers, huh? I guess they can be fun to try."
"Yeah! I'll even try to hold twenty at once with one hand!"
"Don't do that, that's dangerous!"
In the end, the both of them were now at the practice garden, holding lit up sparklers. Hanako didn't get to achieve holding twenty sparklers in one hand, so he settled for three instead. A couple of Mokke surrounded them, waving sparklers under Nene's observation (cuz if they didn't behave with fire hazards they'd get no candy at all)
Hanako removed his gaze from his sparkler, instead focusing on Nene. Luckily for him, she was more occupied with watching the colors come and go from her sparkler, her eyes seemingly shimmering against it's light.
He took one deep breath.
"Yashiro, I just got an idea for a cool game." He took one of the sparklers off one hand. Nene looked away from her own sparkler to face him.
"A game?"
"Uh-huh. I call it, 'the longer your sparkler stays on, the more popular you are game'! And it's simple! If your sparkler stays lit up the longest, you win!"
It was a very stupid lie, about an equally stupid story.
"Sounds fun! Let's do it!" Nene smiled.
And she was none the wiser.
Sparkler battle, on!
Except it ended quite fast. Immediately Hanako's sparkler burnt out, the once flaming tip dropping down into a pile of charred dust.
"Wha—no way! Who the heck thought of this cruel game!" He threw the remains of the sparkler to the ground, sobbing dramatically, while Nene could only deadpan at him.
"You, you big dummy."
"Ugh, nevermind that one. Second time's the charm, as they say!" He lit up another sparkler, determined to win his rather stupid little game this time.
While Nene lit up another sparkler of her own, his eyes flickered from her to his sparkler every once in a while. What was he even trying to prove again? He didn't know. Did he want to know?
If yours goes out first, it'll be a mutual love.
Behind the bright sparks, Hanako's face exploded (like a firework. not literally, of course). Why did he suddenly think about that? That was all the way weird.
And as he was thinking about that, once again, his sparkler fell short first.
He choked, while Nene pumped her fist in the air in triumph. "Hah! I win again!"
"You know what, let's just do something else." He threw his sparkler down, averting his eyes away from her, or risk showing how flustered he was.
"Hm? Yashiro-san... and Honorable No. 7?" From behind, Akane appeared, walking up to them. "What are you two up to now?"
"Nothing, just playing with some sparklers Hanako-kun found. Wanna join us, Akane-kun?" Besides, you kinda need the stress relief after the entire alarm fiasco just now.
Akane shook his head. "No thanks, I was looking for you cuz Ao-chan wanted to talk to you. You know..." He paused, putting a hand under his chin as he gave the two a somewhat judgemental look. Nene raised an eyebrow.
"I never really expected I'd find you two galavanting alone together on a night like this of all things. Unless you're doing some kind of gross rendezvous."
Their reaction was already to be expected, but Akane somewhat relished the sight of Hanako and Nene furiously shaking their heads at him.
"T-that's not what we were doing!"
"Yeah, No. 1! You're the gross one here, thinking of stuff like that!"
"I didn't ask for your input, you slimy brat." The redhead hissed at Hanako. "Anyways, Yashiro-san, you better not keep Ao-chan waiting. I'm going back."
As he left, fortunately, things settled down, just a little bit. Hanako, still not intent on looking back at Nene in the eye, cleared his throat, turning his back on her. "Well... You should probably go and meet with Aoi-chan, Yashiro."
"Uh, yeah." She replied, a little disappointed he wasn't looking back at her. How awkward could they possibly be? Surely this won't keep up all night, right?
This was starting to get annoying.
Throughout the rest of the night, whenever Nene would spot Hanako around the school, he would just ignore her. Well, not downright ignore, rather, he did talk, but only a little. And on top of that, he absolutely refused to make any eye contact with her.
Was it because of what Akane-kun said before?
It could be that he...
No. It couldn't be. It wasn't the first time he's tried ignoring her. He was probably sulking about something else.
She shook her head. She was going to have to talk to him about it eventually. And by eventually, it meant, now.
Everyone else had either gone off to sleep or were still freshening up. Nene already finished changing to some appropriate sleepwear, and immediately made her way over to the girl's bathroom on the third floor.
"Hanako-kun! Are you here?"
He wasn't, but she saw a Mokke sitting by his favorite spot, which was the window. "Have you seen where Hanako-kun went, Mokke-chan?"
"At the night duty room." The creature answered, and Nene blinked at that. Wasn't that where Tsuchigomori and Yako would hang out in during after school hours? And according to them it was unused, so it's become some sort of break room for the teacher (and occasionally her, Hanako and Kou would come over to hang out too)
Thanking the Mokke with some candy, she left for the night duty room, already hearing some talking from within. Whatever was that guy up to now?
She opened the door. As expected, Hanako was there, in the middle of... discussing something with the Mokke? She couldn't really hear him properly, being that he was whispering to them. He was sitting next to the kotatsu on the tatami floor, two of the little supernaturals next to him reluctantly listening.
He didn't seem to notice her behind him until—
"Hanako-kun?"
"Awawawa—!! Eh? Yashiro? What are you—?" He swiveled his head to the direction of her voice, and froze, his eyes wide.
Nene knew the reason. She gave him a half-hearted glare, putting her hands on her hips. "Okay, I know I look silly. But I think it's cute!"
The look in question was her outfit, obviously. A pink hoodie with rabbit ears, and equally pink long pajamas with rabbit patterns everywhere.
In other words, she looked like a human Mokke head to toe.
Hanako tried his best not to laugh. Yet somehow it didn't go so well. He turned to the side, failing to contain a sliver of a chuckle from his mouth. "N-no, it's not silly! Uh... it's got an... ah... interesting look to it..."
"Stop lying, I know you're laughing at me! Geez." She huffed. "Anyways, that's not what I'm here for. I need to ask you something."
"Huh…? It's getting quite late, Yashiro. Maybe you should go to sleep and we can talk about it tomorrow…" He laughed nervously, feeling her intense stare bore through him like lasers.
"Nope. Not until you hear me out. We will talk about this. Got that?"
Hanako gulped, yet chose to nod in reply anyway.
For someone so cute, she sure was terrifying sometimes.
Nene then walked closer towards him, sitting down beside him. "You've been acting weird."
"Me? Weird? That's not even half of what I am."
"No, I mean…" She fiddled with her thumbs, her once tough exterior morphing into a shy demeanor. "You've been ignoring me for a while now, and I was wondering if I did something wrong."
His jaw dropped at that. "What? Y-you didn't do anything wrong!"
"Then why won't you look at me!" She shifted closer now. That got him to finally turn his head around, and face her. Her gaze wasn't directed at him anymore, instead, she was glaring at the floor, gripping on the rabbit ears of her hoodie.
Was she… sulking?
Hanako contemplated on what to say, then took a breath. "I'm sorry. I really am. A lot of dumb stuff kept going around my head, that's all."
"What kind of dumb stuff?" She inquired, and that's when he felt the need to go bury himself in the practice garden and hide away forever. "Become a ghost vegetable" , it seemingly beckoned him, "and never worry about spilling any embarrassing things out ever again."
"Ah… Nothing that's totally serious. Don't worry about it."
He knew she didn't buy it, but she didn't say anything else, and the both of them merely sat there in silence. It was a little awkward, but at least it wasn't as severe as before.
"You know, Hanako-kun…" She finally spoke up after that short bout of silence. He unknowingly held his breath.
"I was sorta… trying to avoid you too at first. I'm sorry for being so snappy at you earlier."
Though it didn't look like it, I guess she had been also acting a little strangely.
"I guess we've been both stupid, huh?" He continued, smiling. She laughed in response.
"I guess so."
For some reason, he felt much braver than he was previously.
Hanako tilted his head at her, a playful smirk forming in his face. "Come to think of it… I'm clearly remembering a little miss radish complaining about me not looking at her."
He almost burst out in a laugh when he saw the color of Nene's face gradually turn red. She tried to cover it all up with the rabbit ears of her hoodie, muttering gibberish under her breath.
"D-don't say it like that! I just… I just worded it wrong, that's all!"
"Hm? How else could you have worded it differently?"
She flailed her hands about, and without warning, crawled over under the kotatsu, hiding her entire self away from him. "Just forget about it!"
Hanako grinned, as he went over to lift up the futon covering the kotatsu for just a little bit. He could see her lying on her side, still holding onto the rabbit ears, glaring, though it wasn't as intense.
"Yashiro. Mind if I join you under there?"
She seemed to contemplate about it for a while, then nodded, scooting over to the side to let him slide in next to her under the kotatsu. It was big enough for the two of them, yet for some reason, being so close to each other, it felt a bit…
"Um... Hanako-kun?" Nene began, voice soft.
"Yeah?"
"Did you... did you really mean it... when you said I'd make a great..."
Hanako knew what she was trying to say. He chuckled. "Of course I did. With everything else you're capable of... I have no doubt in my mind."
She let out a bashful smile. They were some sweet words... If a handsome guy told her those, they'd probably just be shallow nothingness in comparison to him.
He could see her eyes struggling to stay open. It was understandable. The warmth the kotatsu provided was just perfect to fall asleep in, and she looked a tad tired from all the things she had to do tonight.
"You can sleep if you feel like it, you know." He whispered. Stubbornly Nene shook her head.
"No, I'm not," A yawn. "I'm not sleepy. I wanna stay up a bit more with you."
"It's okay." Gently he reached out and placed a hand on her cheek, stroking it. "I'll be here when you wake up, Yashiro."
He could feel heat rise to her cheeks from underneath his palm, yet he chose not to say anything about it. Instead he put an arm around her, pulling her closer to his chest.
How she didn't mind how cold he was was beyond him.
She snuggled closer to him, returning his hug, breathing out a sigh. Slowly, from the warm kotatsu and his embrace, she fell asleep.
Hanako didn't realize it, but he found himself also asleep at that point, a small smile on his face.
Tsuchigomori stood in front of the kotatsu, a disinterested expression in his face. On his shoulder was Yako, in her fox form, and the both them focused onto the two sleeping figures in the kotatsu.
They just wanted to watch the new episode of that new variety show they were interested in, and instead… they got this.
"Seriously… if they're so sweet with each other like this, why be stupid about it?" Yako deadpanned.
The teacher shrugged. He contemplated on waking them up, but…
"Eh, let them be. They'll eventually get to it somehow." Tsuchigomori replied, walking over to the door, stepping out of the room and carefully closing it behind him.
"Heh, you've really gotten soft for those brats, emo spider."
"Shut up, echinococcus."