Chapter Text
I was getting tired of listening to the teacher explaining our current project. He'd gone on about it for the past month. Only now was he getting around to actually assigning it and telling us who will be in each group.
Please not Shimada, I silently begged. Shimada tended to pick on me a lot, so I didn't want to be stuck with him. As I listened to Mr Takasu naming off our groups, I couldn't help but feel nervous. Please... anyone but Shimada...
“Kensuke Kurosaki, Ryosuke Katayama, Mitsuki Yamamoto, you're group three. Emi Urabe, Haruna Miyazaki, Ryuji Sunohara, you will be group four. Five, Yuuya Kizami, Kai Shimada.” I held my breath as the teacher said his name.“And Tohko Kirisaki.” I'd never been more relieved in my life. In fact, I had to actively stop myself from jumping up and cheering. “Group six, Tomohiro Ohkawa, Masato Fukuroi and Kikomori Hakuzura.”
After he finished naming everyone off, we all separated into our own little groups. But as we did, I noticed my group was short one member. “Hey Masato, is that person absent today?” I asked, not even remembering the name of our third person.
He just sighed and pointed over at the corner of the classroom. “Her name is Kikomori Hakuzura. She doesn't socialize and never works in any group she's assigned to.”
I didn't remember ever seeing her before. “Is she new?”
“She's gone to school with us all her life. So no, she is not new.”
After hearing that, I couldn't help but feel bad. I wondered if maybe she was just shy and was afraid to talk to a pair of guys. “Do you think we should move over there by her?” I asked as we watched her just staring out the window and making some sort of notes in a notebook.
“Why don't you try going over there and talking to her?” Fukuroi suggested, making some notes. He sounded like his usual calm self, but he almost seemed a little annoyed.
All members of the group had to participate in this project, or else the whole group fails the class. So it only made sense for him to be annoyed. If this girl wouldn't work with us, then Fukuroi would fail the class. Knowing him, that would be a big deal for him.
Even though I wasn't good when it came to talking to girls, I could tell that I had to do this. So, I made my way over to the girl's desk.
(Fukuroi's POV)
Normally I wouldn't have made Tomohiro deal with someone like her. Kikomori was a fairly harsh person who refused to socialize with others and never acted friendly. Tomohiro was probably the worst person to put in her group. This point was made even clearer as I watched her saying something to him that I assumed was an insult of some sort.
Defeated, he made his way back over to me. This was as I'd expected, though his face concerned me. Tomohiro seemed more upset than I'd anticipated. “I didn't think Tsunderes existed outside of Manga and video games...” he mumbled as he sat down by me. Tsundere? Oh, right... That would be the proper term for what she is.
But no matter what Kikomori was, we needed her for this. Standing up, I decided to take this matter into my own hands.
“No,” she said defiantly as I stopped in front of her desk. I didn't even have a chance to even speak. “Get lost.”
Alright, guess I would have to act a lot tougher like Mitsuki to get her to cooperate. “You could at least pretend to care about someone else's grades, not to mention your own.” She wants to act all tough? Fine with me; I'll just have to match that to get her to do this.
“Not interested, Nerd Boy.” Such a cold and emotionless tone. Her face even matched it. I had to admit, it was a bit irritating.
“You wouldn't want to be taking this class over again with little kids, would you?” I said to her, trying to act a lot tougher than I really was. I noted a few students watching us as we interacted. She was known to be a sort of Lone Wolf type of person, so seeing her talking to anyone this much was quite rare. Throwing myself into that only made it all the more interesting.
At last, she finally looked at me. Though it was more like she was studying me. I quietly and stubbornly stood there, arms crossed against my chest. Moments after, a smirk made its way onto her face.
“Alright Fukuroi, I'll let you have this one.”