TWENTY-THREE. GF-FORHIRE
━━━━┅━━━┅━━━━
"i'm hot, hold my hand." hanuka flirted with the nth girl this noon.
seinaru and ichigo could only shake their heads at the girl's stupid antics.
the girl hanuka was trying to flirt with, scurried away in fear, making ichigo laugh out loud.
"man, you suck at picking up girls." she cackled.
the three had taken a quick stroll through tokyo, but decided that it would be best to go to the mall instead.
shopping bags hung from hanuka and ichigo's arms. they'd gone full-on shopping mode the moment they stepped inside the mall. while seinaru, on the other hand, was still browsing.
so they were currently walking around aimlessly, with hanuka flirting with every girl she spots, for the hell of it.
"i'm having an off day." hanuka pouted.
ichigo snickered. "right, an off day."
"everyone has off days!" the pink haired girl argued.
"not cap." ichigo shrugged, dragging seinaru into the conversation.
seinaru looked at them with blank eyes, for processing what the brunette had said. "off days?"
"what are those?"
"see? she doesn't even know what it is." ichigo shrugged, proving her point.
"whatever." hanuka pouted. "that's cap. she's not counted 'cos she's perfect."
seinaru narrowed her eyes at the girl, "no i'm not."
hanuka squeaked, "eep! hide me!"
she hid behind ichigo who sighed in exasperation. "shut up."
the pink haired power forward just scoffed and walked ahead of the two, on a quest to find girls to pick up.
meanwhile, seinaru decided to address the issue she overheard earlier.
she briefly glanced at ichigo who was walking alongside her left and then back ahead as they walked. "ichigo."
the girl hummed, looking at her, "yes, cap?"
"we're.." she started averting her eyes elsewhere as she felt ichigo's gaze on her, mumbling the rest of the sentence in an incoherent jumble.
"what was that?" ichigo asked, curiosity seeping through her voice.
ymari looked at her and averted her eyes quickly, "we're friends."
ichigo blinked. then she blushed profusely, upon the realization that her captain had heard the two of them— her and hanuka— talking about her behind her back. then, the captain's words dawned on her, her eyes widened.
"wait, hold on—" she gasped, then looked at hanuka who was walking aimlessly, "hanuka!"
the girl looked back, "huh?"
"she says we're friends!" she screamed at the pink haired power forward.
hanuka's eyes widened as she bellowed back, "holy shit! what?! seriously?!"
people started giving them disapproving looks as the two clashed and started jumping up and down as they rejoiced.
"I knew it! called it from the start!" hanuka smugly grinned.
ichigo frowned, "no you didn't, half-minded dimwit."
"hey, i'm not a—"
seinaru zoned out as the two who started to bicker again— she was jus glad she had cleared up the issue. she then looked around at the mall as they walked. everything was dull, until something in particular caught her eye.
"hey." she called to her teammates. she pointed at the shop she spotted, in a daze. "i'm going there. we need to go back to the hotel soon so let's meet up at the food court in ten minutes."
she left no room for argument as she sauntered towards the shop with a certain gleam in her eyes.
hanuka and ichigo looked at each other and shrugged, just going along with what she said.
as soon as she entered the shop, the wonderful smell of paperback made its way to her nostrils, making her sigh in satisfaction.
books.
oh how she missed shopping for books.
the bookstore was rather big and wasn't loaded with people, in fact, there were only quite a few. this made the experience a whole lot more fun for her.
she grabbed a small basket and made her way straight to the fiction section of the store. fictional stories just hit different. she grabbed a few literary pieces that caught her eye, two of which were teen fiction, and another two that were related to witchcraft and wizardry. she's always been so interested in the extraordinary.
she smiled to herself as she tucked the books inside the basket and trailed off to caress the spines of those in the academic section on the opposite side of the store— she had to find references for her future revisions, especially in ap chemistry, her teacher in that subject was very particular with terms.
meanwhile, three boys were on their way to the bookstore as well, one of which, was having a breakdown, which caught a few disapproving glances and weirded out looks from other people in the mall.
"why'd you have to drag us all the way here, overgrown rooster?!"
"yakkun, this is a mall. please keep it down." the boy with an army cut and dark brown eyes sweatdropped at his light brown haired friend's antics.
"i'm not keeping it down! i thought coach wanted us to do an errand, but no! this stupid son of a cockatoo dragged me here for a stupid book he could have searched and downloaded as a pdf online! we could have been pract—"
"it's limited edition, okay?! plus, it's signed by the author himself." the boy with black bed hair argued.
"we just took a short break, yakkun." the army cut boy sighed. "let's spare kuroo a few minutes."
'yakkun' rolled his eyes before sighing, "fine, ten minutes, and we're leaving."
"hai, hai, demon-senpai!" 'kuroo' grinned, making 'yakkun' livid.
"why you—"
the boy with an army cut, kai nobuyuki opened the door to the bookstore, cutting him off successfully.
"come on."
-
the bell atop the bookstore door dinged, signaling the arrival of newcomers but she didn't glance up for a second. her eyes caught sight of something far too interesting to do so.
she reached out to grab it, but someone had put their hand on it at the same time.
she gritted her teeth in annoyance, and so did the other person.
"i got it first—"
"i was obviously here first." she snapped, her eyes meeting his. "my hand is literally under yours."
the boy blinked twice as he stared at the girl. her lips were moving but he felt deaf to the world. she knocked the wind right out of him.
her clothes hugged her figure perfectly, eyes that shone brighter than the finest diamonds, and a beauty mark laid perfectly underneath her left eye.
holy mother of albert starstein, this girl was out of this world— she'd put, even neil starstrong to shame.
"hello?" she snapped her fingers in between his eyes.
"huh?"
"let go of my book." she frowned.
he scoffed, forgetting that he found her pretty. "listen here little lady—"
a flick on the forehead.
he flinched as he felt pain erupt from the spot she flicked, "hey—"
"i'm five foot eleven, there's nothing little about me." she grunted. "now let go of my book before i charge you for harassment."
he looked at her with disbelief, "harassment? i'm not even—"
"harassing a fellow customer?" she started to wail out loud, catching a few shoppers' attention.
kuroo started getting disapproving looks from other people in the bookstore.
she continued her onslaught, "oh mall security-chan~ a poor helpless teenage girl is being harassed—"
he clamped his hand over her mouth in embarrassment, hiding his face from the bookstore people. "okay fine!" he hissed. "you can have the book."
she glared at him, making him release his hold on her.
"you even restrained me, how unmanly." she scoffed, grabbing the book from the shelf and turning away.
"in my defense, you were about to scream." he defended himself.
"spoken like a true perpetrator." she gave him a side glance as she walked.
kuroo didn't even notice that he was tagging along behind her. a tick mark appeared on his forehead. "i'm not a perpetrator."
"then stop acting like one." she shook her head. "kami-sama, boys these days."
she then looked at the book she was holding, "what's a perpetrator like you planning to do with this chemistry book anyway?"
he shrugged, "it's limited edition. i've been looking for it for months, and when i found out they had one book here, i dragged my friends— hey where'd she go?"
the girl was long gone.
he groaned to himself, disappointed that he let his resolve disappear so quickly. how unfortunate.
"hey rooster head, i said ten minu— wait a minute." morisuke yaku frowned as he looked at the boy's empty hands. "don't tell me you haven't found your damn book yet?"
kai sweatdropped, "was it already sold?"
kuroo shook his head solemnly, "someone got to it before i did."
"you dragged me all the way here for nothing?!" yaku started to throw a tantrum.
"i was supposed to be practicing receive—" he halted, as he looked behind kuroo, spotting heterochromatic eyes.
"p-pretty.." he gaped, cheeks flushing red.
kai also looked behind kuroo and blinked, a pretty girl was standing behind the nekoma captain.
"huh? what are you—" kuroo spun around and saw the girl from earlier, looking at him.
"here."
a heavy paper bag was dropped onto his hands, as he blinked in shock.
"you want it more than i do." she then spun on her feet, leaving the bed head boy and his friends in awe at the small gesture.
"she is so into me." he smugly smiled once he snapped out of it.
yaku, the founder of brat-taming, kicked the back of his knees, "assuming anchovies!"
"maleficent meat!" kuroo argued, rubbing the sore spot.
kai sweatdropped at the two. just another normal day with the nekoma third years.
━━━━┅━━━┅━━━━