Butterflies [Nino Nakano x Male Reader]

Chapter 29 - Long-Awaited Return

A/n:

"Author-kun, are you seriously releasing a short chapter after two fricking weeks?"

Yes I am BUT I'll get my lazy ass back to publishing every week after this chapter. Tks for the wait and enjoy!

...

Y/N POV :

Saturday's breakfast was relatively inconsequential. Not particularly enjoyable, but at least it wasn't as tense as I expected. Itsuki and I sat on opposite sides of the dining table, and consequentially there wasn't much talk between us. Regardless, conversation flowed naturally between the rest of us. After all, being with Nino makes almost anything tolerable.

It was now a sunny Monday morning. Nino was waiting for me at the school's entrance, sitting on the steps as she scrolled through her phone.

"Hey, you look unusually happy today," she said, "Is something up?"

"Fuutarou's coming back today."

"Is he? I hope he's feeling better."

"Would you look at that? You out of all people worrying for his health," I said as I helped her up.

"Ah, come on! I just don't want him to inconvenience you with his sickness or something."

"Sure, sure. I'm going to catch up with him a little bit before our period starts. Do you wanna come?"

"Eh, why not?"

And so together, Nino and I made our way to classroom 2-1. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, Fuutarou hadn't made any friends in that classroom besides Itsuki, and for that reason, barely anybody noticed his absence. When we arrived, he was quietly seated on his desk, head buried in a notebook, patiently waiting for the class to start. I made my way to his desk, Nino following right behind me.

"Look, it's Itsuki's boyfriend."

"Since when did she get a boyfriend? I thought she wasn't interested in dating."

Nino turned to them, rather irritated, "I'm not Itsuki, dimwits. Can't you tell by the ribbons?"

"Ah, you must be one of her sisters. Sorry."

She leaned closer to me, "Geez, Itsuki doesn't even do her hair the way I do. Can't they tell the difference?"

"I mean, you are in her classroom, and you look just like her."

"We don't even wear the same colors! It's been what, three months since we started studying here?"

"Can't expect them to notice every little detail about you five dimwits," Fuutarou said.

"Eyy, what's good big man?" I gave him a fistbump, "Glad to see you here."

"Yeah... welcome back," Nino said.

Fuutarou closed his notebook, smiling subtly, "Thanks. It's good to be back. So, did the five behave while I was absent?"

"Of course we did!" Nino said.

"Yeah... sorta..."

"Hmm? Sorta?"

"I need to talk to you about that. I want to try a new approach to tutoring and I wanted to discuss it with you. And there's also Itsuki."

"Hmm? What about her?"

"Long story short is that she's feeling ashamed of her grades, and..." I trailed off.