Salty Petals (Kokichi Oma x Shuichi Saihara)

Chapter 5

Kokichi leaped through the door and slid against the tile floor swiftly. “I made it!” he exclaimed.

“You still have, like a minute, Kokichi,” Himiko informed him. “You didn’t have to rush.”

“You could’ve taken all the time you wanted,” Maki said. “You could take ten minutes, and you’d be marked tardy and receive a punishment.”

“Maki,” Kaito said, “chill.”

Maki just shrugged and looked away from Kokichi.

“Wow, what a friendly welcoming to my entrance,” Kokichi said sarcastically, giving them one of his strange grins.

“Is Kaede in here?” a familiar, out-of-breath voice said.

Kokichi turned toward the doorway and saw Shuichi in the doorway, bent forward, his hands on his knees, and he was panting. He obviously ran here as fast as he could.

“What do you want, Shuichi?” Kaede scoffed in a snotty tone.

“Oooooooooooooh!” Kaito exclaimed like a child.

“Stop it, Kaito,” Kaede demanded.

Sheez, Kokichi said internally, Kaede's been pretty crabby ever since her fight with Shuichi.

“Kaede…” Shuichi sputtered. “I need...to talk...to you.”

“Then sit,” Kaede said, motioning at the desk next to her.

Shuichi sat down, then the class bell rang.

Kokichi quickly ran and jumped into his seat.

The teacher entered the room, holding a stack of papers.

“I've finally graded all of your papers,” she said. “When I call out your name, come and retrieve your paper.”

She started spitting out student names. “Himiko...Kaito, Shuichi...Tsumugi...Kaede... Kokichi, Tenko…”

When Kokichi heard his name, he quickly stood up and got his paper. He was expecting an average grade. Nothing too outstanding, but not bad.

“Sweet, I got a B!” he heard Tsumugi Shirogane exclaim.

“Nyeh, I got a C+...” Himiko muttered.

“Don't feel bad,” Tenko Chabashira said, leaning over Himiko’s desk, “I got a D.”

“How can you laugh at that?” Himiko asked, somewhat shocked.

“My parents don't care if my grades are good,” Tenko answered. “As long as I don't get an F, they're cool. And Tenko doesn’t fail!”

Kokichi slowly flipped over his paper, feeling his heart beat quicker, worried about what he was going to see.

It was a solid F.

Kokichi's eyes widened in terror. “An F?!” he muttered to himself. He began to cry. He had no parents to hold the failure over his head, but he still hated to get bad grades.

He took out his pencil, closed the loop on the F and added another so it looked like a B. It was obviously fake, though.

He looked behind him and saw Kaede had a smile on her face. She and Shuichi must've made up.

“Yay, I got an A!” Kaede exclaimed, her arm around Shuichi.

“Me too!” Shuichi replied.

“I-I got a B,” Kokichi murmured.

Tenko glanced over at Kokichi, walked over to his desk and took his paper out of his hands.

“T-Tenko, what are you doing?” Kokichi asked.