Monarch 1: Perseverance

4 - Katsuki and Haruna

A couple of weeks have passed since Katsuki and Haruna hung out with Rekka and Kazuyuki. And very slowly but surely, Haruna was warming up to Rekka. It helped that Rekka had finally toned down her teasing. Katsuki assumed that their love for sports and staying active drew them together. Katsuki also assumed that Rekka realized she needed to change the way she was acting slightly in order to get along.

Haruna and Rekka both signed up to join the soccer team, and they had been practicing together a lot since then. You'd think that Rekka, being much bigger than most if not all the girls on the tryout team, would have wanted to go for goalkeeper. But not only did Rekka not want that, Haruna was actually a lot more agile than Rekka when it came to fast responses. During open practices ahead of tryouts, Haruna blocked every shot to her goal, while Rekka missed one or two.

After realizing that Haruna was actually better than Rekka at something, and Rekka taking it like a champ; Haruna realized that Rekka, underneath her playful smile and outgoing nature, was still human (aside from her ability to warm the air).

Katsuki and Kazuyuki started talking more after the time they all spent together. Katsuki felt very safe with Kazuyuki. Whether it was because he saved her from the truck, saved Miyu from the bullies, or because he was so open with reading Miyu to sleep and letting Miyu basically sleep on him. He didn't let any of that change him or how he acted to Katsuki. He still initiated talks about the latest anime, and Katsuki gladly discussed it with him. They had similar interests when it came to genres of anime. Kazuyuki also lent manga that Katsuki said she was interested in but could never find in stores. Afterward, he would ask her what she thought. It was almost like he was expecting a book report after she was done. But she wasn't opposed.

Once a week, Rekka and Kazuyuki invited Katsuki and Haruna to their father's new café, the Chai Tea Café. They would mainly go there to study. They would get caught up with the week's work and check each other while they did their weekend homework... To be fair, it was mainly Kazuyuki and Rekka checking Katsuki and Haruna's work. But every once in a while, Rekka and Kazuyuki would notice something that they did wrong, and they worked together to fix it.

The only time that they could truly work together was for opinion pieces for literature and social studies. And they found out that the four of them really work well together. They never really argued about an answer. If they did disagree on something, they were able to calmly debate it until a correct or rational answer came forward.

Katsuki and Haruna both got addicted to Rekka and Kazuyuki's father's drinks. True to Kazuyuki's word, Mr. Williams' tea was to die for. Pretty soon, the four of them woke up early enough to meet at the café and get drinks before they went to school every day (Haruna and Katsuki of course paid for their drinks, even though Jace always protested).

But this weekend, Katsuki and Haruna had promised to spend some time with just the two of them. It worked out because Rekka and Kazuyuki wanted to explore around and weren't really in the mood for shopping at the time.

Katsuki was waiting for Haruna in front of the station, so they could take the train to the nearby mall. While she waited, she leaned on a wall and read the manga that Kazuyuki lent her. She's had it for about a week and a half and felt that she needed to wrap it up soon. She told herself that it was polite to not hold on to it long... But deep down it was because she was really enjoying it and wanted to talk to Kazuyuki about it.

"Wow!" Katsuki was ripped from her book by an older man's voice. She looked up to see an annoying-looking man hovering over her. She hadn't noticed how close he got. He was fairly skinny. He wore a black sleeveless shirt under a red windbreaker. Some black tight pants and a black stocking cap rounded out the classic 'creeper alert' look. "You must be really into that kind of stuff! Why don't you tell me about it?"