𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐋𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒; 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Do What You Must

"Zenin-senpai," Megumi looks around. "Where's Hatake-senpai?" His eyes land on Maki, who's standing with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. The heat sticks to everyone's bodies like the residue from tape after ripping it off. Everyone's a little sharp, even after eating lunch earlier and getting a good nights rest.

"I haven't seen them," she grumbles, not even trying to hide the irritation in her voice. "It's their problem if they decide to not show up."

"Just thought you would know know," Megumi sighed as he turned to Nobara, looking at her with a long face.

"What's with the look?" She asked, lifting a brow as Megumi scratched his head. He shrugged, standing next to her idly as everyone waited on the kids from Kyoto to show up. Earlier Nobara had shown up with a ton of luggage, which she received commentary for, saying that everyone would be staying here, not going to Kyoto. Steam was practically fuming from her ears as she started yelling, cursing Yuta and misdirecting her anger. Eventually she sped back and put away all her luggage that she pointlessly dragged out and came back.

"Hatake-senpai isn't here," he looks around again. "Or at least, I don't see them."

"They'll show up," Nobara sighed exasperatedly, remembering her conversation with Maki that night while they were painting each other's nails. About how she'd wouldn't be able to forgive you for hiding such a secret from her.

"I hope, we might need them for this Exchange Event," Megumi grumbles, pouting as his eyes instinctively drift to his right and find a group of kids walking towards them, Mai among them with a long face, her eyes hooded and looking disinterested. She was quick to notice you weren't around, that maybe you were somewhere on the campus but she couldn't tell from the mix of everyone's cursed energy presences.

"Oh? You guys all gathered up to meet us here? How disgusting." Mai sneered.

"Okkotsu's not here..." Todo scratched his head, looking around for Yuta who clearly wasn't here.

"I thought Hatake-senpai said he was overseas the last time..."

"Shut up and hand over the cake box, and the yatsuhashi, and the kudzu noodles, and the buckwheat brownies." Nobara demanded before Todo looked at her with a lifted brow.

"You guys that hungry?"

"She shouldn't be," everyone turned their heads to a voice, which was yours, to find you strolling out from the greenery. Clearly you've changed a few things; your outfit was more tight-fitting, a black sleeveless compression turtleneck and sweats, a pair of gloves that stopped at your forearms and your boots were barely dusted from walking around on all that dirt. "We ate just an hour ago."

Maki looked away, her face contorted with annoyance and deadpan as other side conversations were going in one ear and out the other.

"Who's that first year...? She seems really scary..." one of the Kyoto students commented, a third year, who was hilariously short for her age. Her blonde hair stood up like two bread sticks in her hair that seemed excited in contrast to her face, which seemed exasperated and wasn't at all excited for the Exchange Event.

Everyone shrugged her off, then a few more moments of silence passed where everyone was looking around aimlessly. Maki stole a few glances at your new look which she couldn't deny she was attracted to, before looking at whatever else was around when you almost caught her. Mai was doing her best to not look at you and take in your look, your eyes hooded and uninterested as you look up at the blue sky, your developing arms where your biceps are slowly coming in, your hands shuffled in your pockets and your jawline that became more prominent than the last time she saw you before a few weeks ago, or maybe she just wasn't paying attention to that up until now. She quickly brushed her thoughts away when she realized she was thinking about it, looking somewhere else while nibbling on her bottom lip.