Chapter Text
The sky shimmered with that familiar warmth as birds sang. Another Monday morning at Seisei Academy, a college where the forum treated rumors like a sport. Apparently, new drama spawned daily — not that it concerned students mainlining caffeine to survive assignments with deranged deadlines.
Except today, it was lively to say the least. Students parted and whispered the second a Mercedes rolled up to the lot. Shishiba pulled up in the parking lot and perfectly parked the car before crossing the main quad to get to the Architecture building. Today he wore a loose-fitting, earth-toned three-piece suit layered under a distressed brown leather flight jacket. His long blonde hair was down and framed perfectly against his face, against that scar he has on one of his cheeks. Basically nothing different than his usual style. His phone has been vibrating nonstop since dawn, it was probably Nagumo begging for another favor — whatever it was he didn't care because it was mostly bullshit.
---
Nagumo Communication 24 (5 New Messages)
7 missed calls
Nagumo:
woi Shishiba
seriously
This is an urgent matter.
OPEN YOUR PHONE
---
Call him skeptical but seriously Nagumo calls anything "urgent" and then asks for a bag of Cheetos. You can never expect him to be completely honest.
Too bad fate had other plans, Shishiba left a little later than usual, so imagine the irritation on his face when someone grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him hard enough to rattle thoughts loose.
"Why didn't you answer any of my messages????" "Seriously I needed something urgent this time." And more — too much to comprehend.
"Shut your mouth, Nagumo. The last time you said it was urgent you only needed a charger," Shishiba replied, stepping back. He didn't look concerned at all.
"That was serious but anyways I actually really need one more favor this time, pleaseee." Nagumo begged, forcing an overexaggerated puppy-eyed expression, like that would work. Shishiba didn’t even twitch.
"If this involves something stupid, I'm blocking you," he deadpanned. "Hurry up, I don't have all day."
Nagumo's expression quickly changed into dangerously close to joy "GREAT! I knew you would accept." He paused for dramatic effect before dropping the favor. "So.. I really need you to tutor my little sister. PLEASE, it won't be much, she's smart just really.. impulsive."
Shishiba froze for a few moments, then he sighed, "Seriously? I may not even be fit for the role of tutor, plus it's too much work and I don't have that much free time, Nagumo." Then realisation hit. "Wait, you never told me you had a sister?
"Oh right.. well she's actually my cousin but she moved in a year ago and she's like a sister to me. Forgot to tell ya!" Shishiba was going to interrogate him further but decided that it would come off as rude, so he stayed silent, hoping Nagumo would give up on persuading him.
Unfortunately for him, Nagumo was persistently, impressively stubborn. "PLEASE, just once a week. I promise you it won't be that bad once you get a bit used to it. She's only a year below us. The only thing you need to help with is math."
He declined again. It devolved into a back and forth that went absolutely nowhere. Eventually Shishiba caved, mostly because the conversation was eating time and clearly wouldn’t end until he agreed.
"HAHAH!! I knew you cared" He exclaimed, victorious.
“I really don’t.” (ignored).
"I'll send you the details later, gotta go now too-da-loo!" And just like that, he vanished. Strutted off to the communications building with a walk that screamed overjoyed and smug. Typical Nagumo.
Shishiba checked his watch, 7:49 am. Sigh. Arguing with that bastard already devoured a large portion of his morning.
~
Osaragi had already been on campus. She arrived at the same time Nagumo did because well.. they’re siblings, no? And they both have morning class. She was minding her own business, talking to Kumanori, when a message from her brother— Nagumo — lit up on screen
—
Nagumo (3 New Messages)
yooo Osaragi
don't get mad but..
I got you a tutor
---
She paused, rereading the notification to see if she wasn’t hallucinating. Once. Twice. Yep. Definitely real.
---
Nagumo
yooo Osaragi
don't get mad but..
I got you a tutor
what
are you lying again
yes
but it'll be fine trust me
hes good if you ignore his aloofness
:sticker:
but I don't think I'm doing terribly in graphic design
yeahh but your math is questionable might I say..
numbers don't make sense
are you underestimating me
noo it's nothing like that at all hehe
but he'll contact you soon
seen
---
To anyone else, Osaragi's expression would be read as "blank" and "unreadable." But to those who knew her, it was clearly irritation — her eyes were practically glaring through the phone. A look that screamed betrayal.
"You're glaring into your phone again. What's wrong?" Kumanori asked, sarcasm threaded through her tone. "I got betrayed by my own blood." She replied, voice far too calm. She continued, "He got me a tutor. Said I needed it for the math parts of my subjects."
Kumanori let out a short laugh at that and scoffed, "To be fair, you're academically doomed, you know?" Maybe she was, but doing all this without telling her is borderline insane. “Kumanori, can you off him for me.” She requested, though it sounded more like a command than a request. If Kumanori didn’t know, she’d assume that she was being serious — her face never budged. “You do know he’s only doing this because he cares, right?” No reply.
~
The environment in the architecture building was different. Huge drafting tables. Scattered cutting mats. Shelves crammed with fragile, unfinished models. Instead of relaxed chit-chat, everyone looked like they’d survived a war nobody else understood. Students here basically live off caffeine and sugar. Coffee cups colonized every surface, but no one questioned it. Nor did anyone blink at students sleeping beneath desks. The vibes were always like this.
While everyone looked overworked and chronically sleep-deprived, Shishiba looked perfectly fine. But today? Today Shishiba was contemplating his whole life. ‘Am I seriously going to tutor someone?’ was probably looped in his head all day. He hadn’t even gotten the time to properly think about where he was going to tutor her. Matter of fact, he didn’t even know what she looked like. God save him — which is ironic considering how he didn't believe in God—or someone please extract him out of this damn mess.
—
Nagumo Communication 24
Osaragi
Insert contact information
here ya go
p.s dont scare her off
BTW she’s a graphic design student
Can’t you go look for someone else to tutor her?
I seriously don’t care.
uhuh..
maybe its cause ur in architecture and ur good at math and would probably make a good tutor
I heavily disagree.
besides ur probably the only one I can trust since Hyo would make everything too “professional” and emotional
seen
—
‘Now what the fuck is Nagumo on about? Surely there were better options rather than himself. Couldn’t Nagumo just take matters into his own hands and tutor her himself?’ This was exactly Shishiba’s thought process. Well, whatever the reason, it was probably too late to back out now. How exactly was he supposed to start messaging her anyways? He’d never seen her. Not even once.
—
Nagumo Communication 24
I don’t even know her or what she looks like. In fact, I didn’t know she existed till today.
Seriously, find another man who’s better for the job.
yeesh calm down yoo
you already agreed arent you a man of ur promise? :)
You’re mocking me aren’t you?
Whatever. Fine, I’ll do it.
THANKS
knew I could count on ya
btw if ur confused what to say js be a normal guy and say your greetings
I really didn’t need that and I don’t care but ok.
:sticker:
seen
—
Great. Just what he needed. Another problem, and he’d agreed because of sheer persistence. Honestly, he lied in that last message, he had no idea on how to start a conversation. They were only a year apart, but still felt weird contacting someone younger to him. He sighed, dragging a hand down his face, ‘What had I ever done to deserve this?’ It was nearing the end of the day, too, so he had to say something as soon as possible.
He opened the contact. Typed. Deleted. Typed again. He wondered how people even start conversations about classes, it was genuinely baffling.
~
By now, Osaragi was on break, messaging Kumanori as usual.
—
Kumanori
kumanori
dyt hes serious abt the tutor
how would i know 😭
besides it probably won’t be bad
what if it’s some guys who’s way older
he didn’t even tell me any details abt the tutor
typing…
—
As if fate was toying with her, right then and there she got a new message notification from an unknown number.
—
Unknown Number
Hello, sorry to interrupt.
Is this Osaragi? Graphic design major?
—
She didn’t open it yet. She was really thinking this through. What type of person used perfect grammar in text? A psychopath, probably.
—
Kumanori
woi did you die
hey
sorry i just got a message from the tutor
he types in perfect grammar
???
who even does that
im more convinced its someone way older
i really dont want to go
well thats too bad
you either go or.. you fail
alright whatever
ily
i dont
seen
—
On the other side, Shishiba had been waiting for what felt like hours. Surely it shouldn’t take this long to receive a response from someone who’s supposedly “on break” as Nagumo claimed. He wasn’t sure why he was even believing him. That guy lives on lies and jokes.
Then finally, a reply.
—
[Phone number]/Osaragi (Shishiba didn’t save the number yet)
yes
who is this
are you my tutor, sir?
Please don’t call me sir, I am a student too.
oh sorry
Nagumo is your brother right? He assigned me to tutor you.
Specifically, in math.
yes hes my brother
and yes I heard about the tutoring
If it’s fine, when do you want to start? He asked if it could be once a week at least.
im fine with it starting today
in the library?
Yes, the library.
Be there at 4 pm.
ok
:sticker:
—
TIMESKIP 4 PM
Shishiba had been there since 3:55 PM, hair tied in a loose ponytail, jacket draped across the back of the chair. It was 4:12 PM. She was late. The look on Shishiba’s face was pure, distilled irritation. “It’ll be easy,” he said. “She’s not that bad,” he said, yet I’ve been waiting here for a while now. He clicked his pen repeatedly, jotting notes between drawing clean, brutalist models for architecture.
Then the door opened. Footsteps echoed quietly through the near-empty library. A tall girl with long black hair and pale skin appeared. So this is Osaragi? he thought.
“You’re late,” he said, trying not to let the frustration bleed into his voice.
“It’s only been 12 minutes,” she guessed without checking the time — whether by pure luck or instinct, he couldn’t tell. She dropped her tote bag onto the table with a thump, slouched into the chair across from him, and pulled out a sketchbook instead of a math notebook.
He stared. “That’s not a calculator.”
She finally looked at him. Really looked. Her eyes flicked from his tied-back hair to the mechanical pencil he was white-knuckling, then to the half-finished model beside his elbow. “You don’t look like a tutor.”
“You don’t look teachable,” he shot back before he could stop himself.
Silence. The kind that happened in libraries when two people were aggressively not backing down.
She exhaled through her nose, unimpressed. “Nagumo said you were aloof. He didn’t say you were rude.”
“And he said you were impulsive. He didn’t say you were unpunctual.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. For a second he thought she might actually leave. Instead, she dug through her bag and slammed a battered graphing calculator onto the table. It was covered in stickers — cats, error messages, a passive-aggressive ‘per my last email’.
“Happy?” she muttered.
“No,” he said, uncapping his pen. “But we can start.”
She didn’t pull out any worksheets. She didn’t ask what they were covering. She just propped her chin on her hand and studied him like he was a particularly annoying assignment she hadn’t decided to do yet.
Shishiba felt something cold settle in his stomach. Not anger. Realization.
This was going to be a long semester.
And Nagumo owed him more than a bag of Cheetos for this.