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“But you have to promise not to tell anyone,” Kokomi said, leaning over the table and slotting her pink with your own. She had just revealed her crush on some guy named Saiki to you, the aloof and indifferent boy in your grade that you had heard about a few times, as she tended to ramble on about him often, saying that you would be able to finally meet him when you attend your first day at PK academy tomorrow.
You never really did think he was her type, seeing as she liked rich guys and all, but suppose, it did make sense. He ignored her, just as he did everyone, and she saw this as being treated like a regular person instead of the embodiment of a heavenly saint. You had always believed that your best friend of multiple years had a beauty like no other; it was incredibly hard to deny it, and many could agree. If she really were to somehow land her shot with this mysterious Saiki guy, he would be lucky to have her.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” You would say honestly, “who would I tell, anyway?” It wasn’t like you had many friends to tell in the first place.
“That—” She hesitated for a short moment, withdrawing her elegantly thin hand and resting it upon the delicate glass of her strawberry milkshake, the pink liquid matching her simple but cute outfit, “...is fair, I suppose.” She murmured, trailing her finger around the circular rim of the chalice. “But my point stands, Y/N, I can’t have you telling anyone, I haven’t even told Chiyo yet.”
“I already said that I wouldn’t, Kokomi.” You replied gently, taking the final sip from your glass. When you pushed the glass away, the wood of the table gently clattering against the material, you saw the faint pout on her lips. A small sigh escaped your lips, and you gently reached a hand out, placing it atop her own. “Don’t stress yourself too much—I’m sure he’d love to be with a girl like you,” You gave a kind smile, before your eyes flickered to her drink, warming beneath the heat of her gentle touch. “Your milkshake is going to melt if you keep sitting there with that frown on your face.”
Kokomi blinked, looking up to you. “You’re done with yours already?” She asked gently, tilting her head in confusion. “How?”
“Of course,” You replied, “How aren’t you? We’ve been here so long, already.”
“...I guess I’m just not that hungry,” She spoke, wavering for a short moment. She brushed her midnight blue hair back behind her pierced ear where her dangle earring resided, gently brushing against the exquisite slope of her slender neck. “Do you think he likes me back or…is it hopeless?” Her head tilted down slightly as she spoke, avoiding eye contact as her slim shoulders fell.
“Any guy would be lucky to have you,” You said patiently, tone loving as ever. “I’m sure he’ll like you in no time.”
You had promised to always stay by her side no matter what, through thick and thin. Nothing would waver the strong bond between you two, whether it be the Teruhashi fan club, or her berserk, incest-loving older brother.
. . .
After walking Kokomi home, to ensure she made it back safe, you trekked back to your own house a mile or two away. Your shoes alternated between lightly slapping against the pavement, creating a gentle audio in itself. “I could probably use this after inhaling at least a thousand calories,” You muttered to yourself, looking down to your feet and watching your pace, hands fidgeting at your sides.
Soon you passed by a game store that you often visited in search of new entertainment, and halted mid step, staring inside, before looking to the pocket that your wallet laid, nearly empty with only five hundred yen. What could you even get with that? Barely anything.
…But it doesn’t hurt to look, right?
Right. And that’s how you ended up ogling at games you couldn’t afford since they were nearly twenty times the amount of money that you had. As you scanned up and down the aisles with little to no employee interaction, your eyes landed on a specific game. 'Some sort of zombie game with a rookie cop guy as the played character? Sounds...interesting…' You thought to yourself.
You smiled as your eyes trailed along the summary on the back, curiosity growing as you considered purchasing it. But would five hundred yen cover that? It wasn’t likely. You searched across the surface of the cartridge holder before you caught sight of a price tag. Awesome, great! Hopefully it wouldn’t be all that expensive…
'Eleven thousand yen?! That’s insane!'
Your jaw dropped as you slowly slid it back into place, turning around before your eyes landed on the clearance section. There was definitely something in there, something to distract you from the boredom of being home alone all the time with nothing to do.
A hopeful smile came to your lips as you made your way over, quietly analyzing the shelf with fascination, faint, but still there. 'Perhaps I could find something like that other game over there.'
A medium sized hanging sign above some of the games said the word ‘ZOMBIE’ in big, bold letters, graced by a comic sans font—which didn’t fit the environment or the vibe very well, but so it goes.
You had become so distracted by your bewilderment at all the different games in the clearance section—it was almost as if the owners were anxious to sell things quickly, especially zombie and fantasy games—that you hadn’t even noticed the foreign presence that had joined you nearby.
'What the heck is Dwell on Vile?' You blinked slowly, tapping your chin with your finger as you leaned back, tilting your head to the side deep in thought. Did you really want to waste five hundred yen on a trashy game that was just synonyms smashed together to be a non-copyright version of Resident Evil?...Not quite. You could spend that on three whole items at a one hundred yen store, which would certainly value higher than whatever the hell Dwell on Vile was.
As you quickly turned to leave, you nearly stumbled into a guy, resting at an average height of nearly 5”6, possibly 5”5.5—his hair a bright pink color, with two light pink spherical shapes on top of his head. They looked kind of like mechanical antennas. Maybe he just had an odd sense of style, but then again, his outfit was relatively simple and casual for someone wearing neon green sunglasses. He did look a bit familiar though, oddly so.
Oh well, it didn't matter to you any!
“Oh, I’m sorry.” You said, moving out of his way. He didn’t even spare you a glance—only a brief reaction of an uninterested hum. You glanced back at him, before cringing and looking forward once more.
'Not even an ‘it’s okay!!’?' You thought. 'I’d rather get a’whatever, go fuck yourself’ than be ignored…' As you stepped outside of the store, feeling a few raindrops atop your head, you sighed, collecting a few in your hand, watching them slowly descend down your palm, following the gravitational pull to your elbow, before finally plummeting to the ground, following the pattern the rest of the rain drops that fell from the sky did, but from a relatively shorter distance.
You reminded yourself that it was nothing to get mad about, it was just some annoying guy in a video game shop! You would never see him again in your life, and that would be God’s blessing to you. You just hoped that this Saiki guy that Kokomi had a crush on wouldn’t be that kind of reserved and aloof.