🥏Doorway into Summer Arc☀️
----------
Written by EmtenDew
Edited by P. serrulata
----------
Cover art courtesy of Shamastus:
https://www.reddit.com/user/Shamastus
https://www.deviantart.com/shamastus999
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/83764210/artworks
https://twitter.com/Shamastus_999
----------
Author's note:
ED : Naoto and his kohai continue to clean the school pool. I hope it's a fun chapter.
Remember that next week is a bye-week, so you'll see a new chapter in about two weeks.
During the break, I plan to reread the whole story, to make sure everything keeps in touch with everything.
I've missed hearing from some normally vocal regular readers the last couple chapters, so I hope I didn't scare them off.
Also, I've recently had several more anonymous commenters lately.
It's frustrating when I can't message back readers on some platforms, because they don't have an account to reach them at, but they can still leave messages that I can't respond to.
Some are concerned about the story length and progress, but less than two months has passed in the story. Believe me, I know how long the story is, but I also feel it is a rewarding read. It's a slow burn, but you'll start seeing more smoke soon enough. There's a lot of smoldering already. Summer moves along at a faster/different clip than the spring story, but some events will see more attention.
The bit from the last chapter about Naoto pretending his lil' Naoto was a lighthouse in the bathtub is easily one of the crazier things PS has added. I think I mentioned something about his brain being like a white noise machine or like the manatees that write Family Guy jokes.
...
Against my better judgement, I watched last week's new South Park episode remotely with PS. He was drunk for the occasion, but he didn't make a fuss. The episode itself was tame. Cartman made "good use" of the fact that he and his mom live in a former hot dog restaurant, and it seems that he and Kenny were most concerned about getting a few d*ck jokes broadcasted on TV.
I still need to sit and watch the newest episode.
...
Who would've guessed?
Another canon chapter where nothing happened. Nagatoro wants Naoto to suggest a "special move" for her to try in judo? Maybe she should just pee herself when someone is trying to subdue her. That'll get some attention. Or she could bite off a chunk of Orihara's ear. If she wants to win, she's going to have to fight dirty, but then it wouldn't really count as a win, would it? I still think she'll resort to something not allowed.
Rick and Morty > Nagatoro.
...
Please look at the Q&A section I set up at the end of the chapter. Ask us anything and we'll add another section in the next chapter. I would be happy if you ask questions.
Please enjoy what I wrote.
----------
Thursday, July 26, 2018
While two shirts, draped over the fence to dry in the sun, flapped about in the breeze, Naoto Hachioji, Sakura Inori, and Hana Sunomiya sat down to lunch, having finished the second run-through in cleaning the school's pool.
Sitting on either side, Naoto and Hana watched Sakura open her basket.
Naoto was ecstatic that Sakura had brought lunch for themselves and Hana.
Sakura bringing lunch sure beat the Hell out of running to the convenience store~!
He almost didn't care what she was feeding him, so long as it was real food.
Instant cup noodles didn't cut it...
He wasn't disappointed.
Sakura let out the contents of the basket on the little blanket they shared, under the sunshade.
Setting the basket's innards straight, she said, "We've got a dozen PB&J sandwiches, put together this morning, some fresh cut veggies, a big bag of potato chips, and Mandarin orange cups for dessert~."
Each took up a bottle of Aquarius, and they were ready to eat.
"Thanks for the food!" the three students recited.
Wow, was Naoto ever hungry!
And was he ever happy to have another meal like this with his kohai!
It brought back some good memories, not that it had been long since the three of them had sat down to lunch together...
He and Sakura were both eager to hear about Hana's adventures in Tokyo, but Hana seemed more interested in what she'd missed back in Hayama, not that many things had happened.
And it wasn't like Naoto would tell either of the girls the details of Gamo-chan's woes... or Nagatoro's failures...
But there was plenty to talk about as they dug in.
"I'm happy that Gamo-neechan's karaoke party went so well," Hana delighted, preparing to take a bite of sandwich. "Thanks again for the video of her singing, Hachioji-senpai."
"You're welcome, Sunomiya." Naoto was already on his second sandwich and halfway through his sports drink. "That... was pretty special, seeing that~."
Sakura pulled her face from her fruit cup, having dessert first. "'Gamo-neechan'...? What...?"
'Right, Sakura-san hadn't been there...' Naoto had heard the new nickname enough times that it didn't throw him off, but he figured it was the first time that Sakura had heard it.
He'd let Hana deal with this... and he could live with seeing Sakura squirm a little~.
"Hana-chan~!" Sakura cried, a whine evident. "When did you start calling Gamo-chan 'neechan'?!"
Hana finished chewing her mouthful. "On Friday."
"Why...?"
"Compromise."
"Compromise...?" the gal parroted.
"She wanted me to call her 'Gamo-chan' instead of 'Gamo-senpai'. I didn't want to, since she's older, but she really wanted to be a 'chan'. I was fine with calling her my neechan, so—"
"Urrrrp~..." Hana belched as she was talking; she took on a little color, covering her mouth. "Excuse me..."
'Yikes!' Naoto had never heard her burp.
Neither had Sakura, but...
Hana moved right along.
"So, I suggested it to her, and she liked it," she finished. "So, she's Gamo-neechan now."
"What about me?" Sakura intoned.
"What about you?"
"Yeah, what about me?"
"You dislike being 'Sakura-senpai'?" Hana asked.
"No, I love being 'Sakura-senpai'..." She adored it. "But... what if I wanted a new name~?"
"..."
"...~?"
Naoto could've sworn that Hana smirked.
She seemed to enjoy it, at least. "I like calling you 'Sakura-senpai'. The name stays."
Naoto smiled a little to himself, shaking his head at the silliness, seeing Sakura pout just the tiniest bit.
...
Wow, did Naoto enjoy a nice PB&J sandwich every once in a while~!
When he was little, he'd eaten them like crazy, but he just didn't have them that often anymore.
'They're so good, but they're so simple too!' He so wanted to pick up a nice loaf of white bread and all the fixings on the way home. 'These would be GREAT to have while doing homework!'
Sakura had really brought a swell picnic lunch for the pocket-sized Art Club!
Naoto wished he could do this again. 'Maybe add some cherry tomatoes to go with the carrots and celery though...'
...
"Hey, hey~..." Sakura kneaded Naoto's shoulder. "Senpai-kun..."
He'd been dreaming about future PB&J time/picnics, so he had to wake up.
"Sakura-san?" His eyes fluttered.
She shone. "Did you hear me~?"
"Sorry... was thinking."
"Well, I was just telling Hana-chan~..."
"Telling her what?"
"You remember that omamori we left at the bus stop last Monday?"
He surely did.
It was one of the few good things to happen that day, the little "pact" they'd made with Hana over it, swearing to do their best on their exams...
"What about it?" Naoto was all ears.
Sakura addressed her senpai and kohai, "Did both of you pray? Like we agreed?"
Hana nodded. "I said a few prayers before the family shrine... and before that big willow you saw in my grandparents' anniversary pictures."
That was pretty special...!
Naoto was thankful he didn't have to fib, though he'd prayed in far humbler settings. "I did."
He'd thought of the talisman in good AND bad times...
Sakura's excitement welled.
"Someone took it~," she delighted. "And it didn't just get tossed out."
Hana had taken a bite, and she did something else neither of her senpai had seen.
"Di' 'ou geh uh no'?" she spoke with her mouth full, going so far as to spray a few crumbs.
Naoto had been about to ask the same thing, but he didn't have to. "...?"
"No, I didn't get a note..." Sakura suspensed. "I saw a man with it tied to the handle of his briefcase~!"
"Ooh~..." Hana had swallowed her bite of sandwich and chips and shimmied closer to hear the gal's story.
Naoto did the same. "..."
"So, what happened, Sakura-senpai~?" Hana sparkled.
Sakura loved her enthusiasm. "I actually knew about it last week... Sorry for waiting to tell you, but I wanted us all together for this."
"That's fine," Hana pardoned. "Tell us~!"
Naoto wasn't quite that excited, but he was eager to hear. "...!"
"Well~..." Sakura led in. "Last Tuesday, I saw that it was already gone, but I saw it again on Wednesday morning. Some middle-aged guy took it, so I was happy to see that~. I saw him as he got off the bus when I was on my way to school. He prolly works around the neighborhood somewhere."
"I really wanted to ask him about it, all 'innocent-like', but I decided not to. I thought it was kinda self-serving. But then, I saw him again on Friday~. He still had it! I was still too nervous to talk to him, but I promised myself that if I did see him again, I'd talk to him."
Hana burst, "So, you did see him again~!"
Why else would Sakura bring it up NOW...?
Naoto hoped this was the case, and Hana was proven correct.
Taking on a little pink, Sakura said, "Yeah, I did see him again... yesterday. And I did talk to him."
'Yesterday...?!' Naoto knew that meant something.
Sakura was definitely blushing now. "I never expected to run into him getting off at the bus stop near Mom's boutique... I was still dressed like I'd been for the karaoke party..."
Naoto's mind flashed, 'You asked some guy a buncha questions while you were dressed as—as Nekoba said—a "streetwalker"?!'
Yes, it HAD meant something~...
"Oh..." Hana's eyes widened, dawning comprehension, having gotten a few pics from the party (and the selfie Sakura took before the party). "I see..."
She'd seen Sakura's crazy outfit...
Naoto had felt embarrassed for the girl a few times, and this probably ranked in his top-three. 'Yikes!'
"I really didn't wanna ask, dressed like that, but I made a promise to myself..." Sakura continued. "So, I went up to him..."
'Ho-lee shit!' Naoto almost said it out loud.
Hana was rapt. "...!"
"You should've seen the look on his face when I started talking to him, but I explained I'd just been to a party where the girls all dressed like the 1980's..." Sakura said, crimson in the cheeks. "That seemed to calm him down..."
"What did he say, Sakura-senpai?" Hana had to know.
"I told him that I'd seen him with the omamori a few times in town, and that I was curious why he didn't have it anymore."
Hana did a take. "He didn't have it anymore?"
Naoto had caught this too. "...?"
"Oh, I didn't say, I guess," Sakura realized. "He didn't have it on his briefcase anymore."
"Oh." Hana settled down.
"And~..." Sakura grinned. "He told me about it. Thing's weren't that bad for him, but he said his company was restructuring. He kept his job, but everything was all tossed-up and shifted around. It was just stressful for him and his family.
"He'd had a bad day, and when he saw the charm we left, he took it. He said he knew it was bad luck to do it, but he opened it up when he realized our note was inside~. He said it helped him, knowing some total strangers were thinking of him, and he did feel a little better~.
"But, I guess, at the beginning of this week, he felt much better about things, so he decided to add a little 'blessing' of his own to our message, and he left it at a different bus stop for someone else that might need a little hope~. That's exactly what I've been wanting to hear, ever since I started making those things... that someone found a little strength and passed it along to another~."
"..."
"..."
"That's lovely~..." Hana said dreamily.
Naoto agreed, "That... really is good to know..."
"I tell you, it made my day~!" Sakura chirruped. "And I already thought yesterday couldn't have been much better~. It'll prolly never happen, but how great would it be to look up inside some bus stop—years from now—and see it hanging there, all worn-out and waiting for a new home~...?"
It was the loveliest of thoughts...
"...~"
"...~"
"...~"
"Sakura-senpai...?" Hana took a gulp of Aquarius.
Sakura was still beaming. "Yeah, what's up, Hana-chan~?"
"Please tell Hachioji-senpai and me the next time you have an omamori ready," Hana practically begged.
"Yeah, definitely," Naoto put in.
"Yeah, I will~," Sakura relished; an idea struck her. "Oh, I know!"
"What do you know?" Hana asked.
"I know a couple of people in the Handicrafts Club, here at school," she replied. "If they let us borrow a sewing machine for a little while, I could show both of you how to make one~. Like, when we're taking a break from our homework and stuff in the art room~..."
Naoto and Hana weren't great at sewing, but they were plenty interested.
It was indeed a small blessing to know the charm they'd put a few positive thoughts into had helped someone.
Somehow, their simple but delicious lunch tasted all the better~!
...
As it turns out, Naoto and Hana must've been destined to learn a few new "Sakura facts" that day.
It had begun, oddly enough...
Sakura prodded her kohai. "Hey, Hana-chan, I've been meaning to ask, what happened to your arm?"
"Oh, this?" Hana regarded the claw marks. "Our cat scratched me last night."
Sakura asked, though she didn't really need to, "You have a kitty~?"
Naoto thought he remembered Hana mentioning the cat. 'What was his name again...?'
"Yes, Sakura-senpai, we have a cat; his name is 'Socks'," Hana shed some light. "He's usually a good boy, but..."
"So, what happened, Hana-chan?"
"We left Socks home alone during the trip, and one of our neighbors looked in on him a couple times a day and watered the plants too." She traced the mark on her arm. "I still don't know what he got into, but he was all sticky when we got home. We couldn't leave him like that, so I gave him a bath."
"And he didn't like it, I guess..." Sakura imagined.
"No, he did not..." Hana remembered it viscerally.
Naoto didn't mean to sound cold, but he cut in, "Stuff like that makes me glad we don't have pets."
"You don't have any pets, Hachioji-senpai?" Hana cocked her head.
"My mom had a cat from when she was younger, but I don't really remember her. She died when I was... three, I think. They never got another cat, and they've always been kind of busy for a pet."
"Ah." Hana took to a handful of potato chips.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Hana rotated to Sakura. "Do you have pets, Sakura-senpai?"
Naoto was glad someone had said something.
'I bet the Inori family has a dog...' he silently guessed.
It seemed things were a little more unusual than that; she said, "I never thought anyone would ask~!"
Naoto and Hana could tell something was different. "...?" "...?"
"We've never had dogs or cats, 'cause Daddy's allergic to pretty much anything with fur," Sakura explained. "Our family is more into reptiles~."
'Reptiles?!' Naoto mouthed, surprised.
Hana wondered aloud, with less derision, "Reptiles?"
"Well, Yoichi and Mom don't really like them, but me and Daddy like snakes," Sakura expanded. "We have tarantulas too.
Hana was still neutral. "Snakes?"
"Tarantulas?" Naoto couldn't hide his bewilderment.
Sakura giggled at them both, "Yeah, I'm one of 'those girls'~."
"I had no idea, Sakura-senpai." Hana nibbled a carrot stick.
"Oh, I love reptiles and spiders... and most bugs too~."
Naoto cogitated, "Huh..."
"But frogs freak me out." Sakura squirmed. "I'm not crazy about... slimy amphibians in the first place, but I do not like frogs. There's just... something about them..."
Hana had her own qualms with the order Anura. "I suppose it's unpleasant, the way they'll eat anything they can fit in their mouths..."
"There's one sort of frog I'm okay with..." Sakura chimed.
The gal whipped out her phone and began typing.
Naoto and Hana saw she'd opened YouTube.
Sakura introduced, "I give you... the cutest frog in the world: Breviceps macrops, the desert rain frog~."
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBkWhkAZ9ds
...
"Okay... that is pretty cute..." Naoto came clean.
Hana cooed, "It's like a sandy potato~."
"I love how it just sounds like a dog toy~!" Sakura shrieked. "They're so adorbs~!"
Naoto didn't want one, but, "They don't sell these as pets, do they?"
"You can get other rain frogs, even in Japan, but this one's special, and it's currently endangered, I think," Sakura enlightened. "I'm pretty sure possessing them is illegal."
She went on to show them a few more "sandy potato" videos.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quphpCu-W0k&t=64s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvOSqS1pPG4&t=57s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKgN0FL5GFk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahHhF9a-swA
...
"Aw, look at that little bastard go~!" Sakura squawked, termites disappearing by the score down the throat of one little frog.
Hana commented, "Sakura-senpai, did you hear that they're discovering termite colonies in Japan that are reproducing asexually?"
"No, I didn't..." Sakura replied. "How do you know that?"
"Grandfather wanted to research termites before calling an exterminator," Hana elucidated. "We found a colony last year under one of our buildings at the shrine, and he was hoping to save some money by doing it ourselves."
"That sucks, all the wood structures out there. Did you get rid of them?"
"No, we called an exterminator, not long after our only attempt... The soldiers didn't take kindly to my father and uncle invading their home..."
"Daddy found a colony hanging out under the garden shed when we moved in. He didn't even try to deal with it himself. But we sure got some good specimens for his insect collection~. The exterminator even captured the royal caste for us."
"Your father collects insect specimens, Sakura-senpai?"
"Oh, he's collected specimens of everything that walks, crawls, flies, or falls off trees that 'the man' can't convict you for, at one time or another~. I do a little of it too."
Naoto chuckled to himself, "...~"
The two girls seemed to enjoy chatting about ANYTHING...
He found he was never bored, at least, listening to them.
"Tarantulas are neat, but the weather is highly variable in Japan, so that can be a problem," Sakura lectured. "You really need to maintain the correct environment, but spiders are still easier to keep than anything besides snakes... other than freshwater fish in a tank."
"I don't know anything about keeping snakes." Hana helped herself to another sandwich.
"Snakes are easy," Sakura stated. "If they have a clean place, clean water, somewhere to hide, a heat pad, a basking lamp, and a couple of thawed dead rodents a week, they're good, able to figure out the rest~. We have two little rooms in the house we keep our critters in, one that's warm and dry, then one that's warm and more humid."
Hana reckoned, "That still sounds like a lot..."
"Daddy bred snakes for a while when I was really young... sold them as pets at reptile conventions," Sakura evoked. "He made a lot of money, doing that~. He has permits to possess or keep almost anything."
Naoto invested, "What sort of snakes do you keep?"
She didn't skimp on the scientific names, but that didn't surprise Naoto or Hana.
She listed, "On top of what Daddy has, I have a male ball python (Python regius) named 'Stugots', a male Pueblan milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum campbelli) named 'N.P.'—"
"N.P.?" Naoto interrupted.
"Yeah, 'N' and 'P', y'know, the letters from the Latin alphabet? Those are his initials~." Sakura didn't seem to be bothered by the disruption. "His full name is 'Newspaper', 'cause he's 'black and white and re(a)d all over'. You've both heard that joke in English, right~?"
"Hm." "Mm-hmm." Senpai and kohai had.
Sakura went on, "Then, I have a female California kingsnake (Lampropeltis californiae) named 'Queenie' and a male western hognose snake (Heterodon nasicus) named 'Pigsy'. Pigsy is so cute~."
"Don't snakes bite?" Hana didn't know.
"Other than Pigsy, they're all really docile," Sakura told her. "And Pigsy doesn't bite, exactly. Hognose snakes usually strike with their mouths closed most of the time, unless they're looking to eat. They puff up and hiss and roll on their backs and play dead and carry on, but they don't usually bite. Any snake can bite, but they usually only do when they're threatened or if something smells like food."
Naoto and Hana could only nod. "..." "..."
The gal was geeking out, so they stood back and let it happen...
"I think reptiles in general are cool~," Sakura gleed. "But most lizards are difficult to keep, and turtles (unless they're not turtles, but tortoises) are too high maintenance with their enclosures. Snakes are low-maintenance and easy to keep."
Naoto and Hana nodded some more. "..." "..."
Not that they weren't uninterested...
And if the gal had gone through a list of her tarantulas, it would've been something like this:
...
Aphonopelma chalcodes, the Arizona Blonde
Avicularia versicolor, the Antilles Pink Toe
Brachypelma albopilosum, the Curlyhair
Chilobrachys andersoni, the Burmese Mustard
Chilobrachys huahini, the Asian Fawn
Ephebopus uatuman, the Emerald Skeleton
Grammostola rosea, the Rose Hair
Lampropelma violaceopes, the Singapore Blue
Orphnaecus philippinus, the Philippine Tangerine
Poecilotheria metallica, the Sapphire Ornamental
Pterinochilus murinus, the Orange Baboon Tarantula (OBT), AKA the "Orange Bitey Thing"
Theraphosa stirmi, the Burgundy Goliath Bird Eater
...
But she didn't, instead showing a couple pics of her favorite pet arachnids.
As much fun as it was listening to the blonde go on about her non-mammalian companions, they needed to get back to work at some point, so they finished lunch.
Having each sucked down a second Aquarius sports drink, the three got back to it.
"Hold still, Senpai-kun~," Sakura crooned, rubbing sunscreen between her palms.
He was holding. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead."
This REALLY didn't seem like that big of a deal...
Sakura applied the stuff to his back, starting between his shoulder-blades. "Now, isn't that better~?"
"What do you mean...?" He craned his neck to see her.
Squirting a little more into one hand, she passed the bottle off to Hana. "My technique~. Doesn't it beat the heck out of ol' 'monkey paws' over there, slopping that stuff on ya~?"
Naoto pulled a face. 'Monkey paws?!?!'
Hana's complexion darkened. "..."
'Oh, boy...' He didn't miss it; he eyed Sakura. "Hey, be nice, would you...?"
"It's alright, Hachioji-senpai..." Hana said, rather sweetly, lotioning up her face, arms, and legs. "It's all in good fun."
'What the Hell is Sunomiya on about...?' Naoto didn't hear Hana speak in such a way very often.
Sakura giggled, forcibly turning his head back to front, "Yeah, Senpai-kun, it's all in good fun~."
Naoto had to admit that Sakura was better at screening up his back, but...
Sakura was finished with his unreachable portions. "...~"
He figured she'd now ask him to put the stuff on her, and he'd figured properly.
She bastardized an old phrase, "Now, buddy, I screen your back, you screen mine~."
He was slightly nervous about it, but not very.
He'd arranged her legs and feet, even her toes—with his HANDS—to get an exact pose for that one sketch he'd wanted so badly to draw, so putting a handful of sunscreen on her back didn't—
"It's okay, Hachioji-senpai, I'll get her." Hana floated in. "I've already got the sunscreen bottle, and there's no reason to get your hands dirty too."
'Dirty?' He still had to apply sunscreen to himself in the places he could reach, so his hands would still get dir—
She brushed past her club president, getting between him and Sakura.
Naoto understood too little too late. "...?!?!"
Sakura peered out of the corner of her eye, not really paying attention. "What did you say, Hana-chan?"
"I think I'll start with her triceps~." Hana moved closer, brandishing both hands. "I find it's awkward to apply to oneself around there."
"What?! Hey!" Caught off-guard, Sakura didn't react fast enough, and she got a small taste of her own medicine.
*Pinch~*
"Yeek!" keened the gal.
...
...
...
"Hey, this is a real gas, you two~!" calling out to her friends, Sakura slid along the floor of the pool, skating across a patch of detergent in her bare feet. "Whee~!"
"Sakura-san, be careful, please...!" Naoto begged, scrubbing a stubborn patch of tile. "I really don't wanna see any of us take a spill."
"This is so much better, not wearing sandals~." Sakura twirled her floor brush like it was a cheerleading baton, gliding backwards.
"It is more comfortable," Hana furthered, squeegeeing the soapy water towards the pump in the deep end. "I can actually feel what I'm stepping on... Much easier to find the spots we still need to hit..."
At this point, the pool was more-or-less clean, but what was left clung more tenaciously, so Hana had joined in with the other tasks besides pressure washing.
"The floor soap we're using isn't exactly great for your skin," Naoto fussed, worried for his own tootsies, also in contact with the tile. "It's almost corrosive at full-strength. I told you that."
"You told us to keep our sandals on until we were done with the second pass," Sakura corrected. "It's just soap, man..."
"I was worried about all the debris out here." He still was, mildly. "There were rusty metal shavings and more, you saw. We might not've seen something, stepped on it, and got tetanus."
"You don't need to tell me about that stuff," Sakura said, slowing to a stop. "They prolly used whatever rebar they could get the cheapest to reinforce the concrete underneath us. Nasty, rusted crap it can be..."
"We've gone over the whole surface almost three times, so I'm sure we took care of all that." Hana wasn't perturbed anymore either. "What I don't understand is where all of this tar I'm finding came from..."
"I'm sure the tar was just stuck to the machinery they brought in, Hana-chan." Sakura knew the ropes. "I'm guessing the contractors used the same equipment they use for all of their concrete, cement, and asphalt work, and they definitely use tar in this line of work."
"That would explain it." Hana scrubbed harder. "I wish this came off as easily as slime. This tar is bothersome."
"I'd be more worried about slime," Sakura offered her spirits. "One time, when I was little, our teacher made us scrub the school pool after no one had taken care of it for a while. It had algae and all other kinds of things growing in it. It felt soooo gross."
"I thought you enjoyed that sort of thing, Sakura-senpai..."
"Oh, I usually get a kick outta that kinda stuff, y'know, like playing with my feet in sandy water~," she burbled. "I'm okay with just about anything, but the feeling of slimy stuff, especially algae or seaweed, just gives me the willies~..."
The shuddering snicker she let loose told Naoto another story.
'Sounds to me that you still KINDA like it...' He smiled to himself, imagining he was correct. 'I wouldn't doubt it...'
Hana wasn't aware of his unkind thoughts. "Is that why you don't like frogs, Sakura-senpai? The sliminess?"
"It's why I don't like amphibians in general..." Sakura clarified. "I think why I don't like frogs in particular is because I think they look kinda creepy, hopping around without tails... and because I once accidentally stepped on a giant bullfrog, barefoot, when I was, like, eight... That really freaked me out, all those guts and... the squish... and the *ribbit*... Bleeeeh..."
"...?!" Naoto didn't know what the fudge was going on in her brain half the time.
But he COULD see the green, putrefying around her gills...
...
...
...
The pool-cleaning trio was going to do a fourth pass over the pool, double-checking for anything they missed, but first they took another break.
And what a break it was...!
The position of the sun allowed them to enjoy the shelter of the sunshade, but they could lie out under the open sky while doing so.
And they did so, lounging on a few towels they'd found in the pool's shed.
Naoto had been looking forward to this:
Cloud gazing with Sakura and Hana~!
Imbibing the last Aquarius allocated to him, he blissfully took in what Sakura and Hana were viewing in the funny, interesting clouds that day, and it wasn't like he didn't contribute a few ideas of his own~.
Not that they didn't talk about other things...
"The hills behind the school...?" Hana questioned.
"Oh, yeah, there are some pretty nice walking trails up in the hills." Sakura stretched out, lying in between the other two, flexing her ankles. "Daddy and I have gone hiking a few times, up behind the school."
"You like hiking, Sakura-senpai?"
"Love it~!" she cheeped. "But we haven't gone this year..."
"..." Naoto's most striking memory about the hills behind the school was finding Sana Sunomiya in the buff out there, trying to be "one with nature", or some other nonsense, losing her clothes in the breeze. 'I could've lived without it... and imagine Sakura and her dear Daddy running into THAT on a hike!'
It hadn't been the first time he'd seen the Prez running around naked, not by a longshot; he'd seen her for the first time when he was 13-years-old, doing the same thing then that she was more recently, and while he never got used to it, it no longer freaked him out very much.
It also hadn't been the first time that Hayase Nagatoro had gotten the wrong idea about things, freaking out over nothing...
He couldn't even remember what led up to her being there... or why he had been there. "..."
...
Sakura reminisced, "Oh, Hana-chan, I loved being out in nature. Daddy and I would look for snakes and stuff and collect insects."
"That does sound fun... if one finds that fun." Hana meant no slur.
"I'd love going again, but when it gets this hot, about all there is to do is enjoy being on the water..."
Hana troubled, "Isn't it dangerous to just go poking around, looking for snakes?"
"It can be..." Sakura assented. "That's why Daddy taught me what not to do and how to identify mimics."
"Mimics?"
"Yeah, like, when nonvenomous animals look like the dangerous ones."
"Oh, you mean similar to N.P., your milk snake," Hana recalled. "You said milk snakes look similar to coral snakes."
"Exactly~. One thing he taught me is that the Japanese Kunishiri rat snake, Elaphe climacophora, has young that are mimesis of the mamushi, Gloydius clomhoffii, a regional pit viper."
Hana crossed her legs. "It still seems unusual that you're interested in bugs and reptiles when you're afraid of cockroaches and frogs."
"It is, isn't it~?" Sakura approved. "You remembered about the roaches?"
"Oh, yes, I remember you telling me you were no good with roaches." Hana adjusted her shoulders. "It wasn't long ago, and it was a memorable story."
Naoto jumped in.
"You're afraid of roaches?" He hadn't heard.
"I guess you really weren't paying attention that day~," Sakura purred.
"What day?" he baffled.
She ignored him~. "But it's more if a roach surprises me. I have a few specimens by family and even genus; speciation is too hard for most insects."
"You mean for your bug collection, Sakura-senpai?"
"Yup... Y'know, maybe we should go collecting over the summer. I think it'd be fun~."
"It might be," her kohai thought.
...
Naoto was confused. 'Do the girls have some sort of... INSIDE JOKE, having to do with roaches...?'
He was certain he'd missed something.
...
Sakura was sharing with Hana her disposition towards another tiny terror.
"I'll tell you what really freaks me out..." she forfeited. "House centipedes."
Hana quaked. "The way they move is alarming..."
"What are you two talking about...?" Naoto lifted his head.
Sakura showed him a GIF.
...
http://i.imgur.com/D0RReoR.gif
...
"Geez!" he groaned. "I've seen those things hanging around our water heater at home."
The blonde cackled, "Yeah, these are not my favorite thing to see scurrying across the floor~."
"Eww..." Hana hadn't missed the moving picture.
Naoto chuckled, pleased he wasn't the only one present not a fan of that creepy crawly.
...
"Wow, look at that one, Hana-chan~!" Sakura pointed up at a most unusual cloud.
Hana goggled. "Cumulus..."
"Well, sure it is, but what do you see~?"
"..." She tried a few angles. "Bunny-rabbit."
"Yeah, that's definitely a bunny~! You see anything, Senpai-kun?"
He did have his eye on another; he pointed. "That one looks like a seahorse."
"Ooh~! That's a whole lot more interesting than my idea. I thought it just looked like a question mark."
"Well, it does..."
"Oh, I see what you mean." Hana shifted her gaze. "I had gone with 'squiggly line'."
"Heh-heh-heh-heh~! Oh, Hana-chan~. You silly..."
"Look, there's a human skull next to it, Sakura-senpai..."
"Ooh... You're not kidding... Look at that shit, Senpai-kun~!"
"Whoa... Yeah, you're not kidding, Sunomiya..."
"Hey, look at that one~! It looks like a camel!"
"Which one?"
"That one."
"I don't know what you're pointing at..."
"See the two humps? And the neck and head? And four legs? The tail?"
"I see a kangaroo... but it's not what you're looking at."
"Look... the skull's opening its mouth..."
"Hey, you're right."
"Do you think anything will come out of it?"
"Snrk! What kinda question is that?"
"I don't know..."
"There's a guy taking a pull off of a bong~."
"What's a 'bong'?"
"Nothing you need to try, Hana-chan~."
"Well, whatever a bong is, it looks like something else to me, Sakura-senpai."
"And what would that be~?"
"Well, first off, it's a woman... and Mrs. 'Cloud Person' has a 'two-fister' in her hands. See the big mushroom-head? She's about to wrap her lips around it and put it in her mouth, so—"
"Sunomiya?!?!"
"What is it, Hachioji-senpai?"
"Where'd you hear something like that?"
"I was looking for inspiration for a new piece of art on the internet, and I accidentally clicked on an ad, and it took me to a website called 'Sexy Size Queens", and—"
"Hana-chan! Eww... You don't need to be looking at that stuff!"
"No matter what I clicked on, it just kept getting worse, Sakura-senpai..."
"...?!?!?!"
"You okay, there, Senpai-kun?"
"I... don't know... and I can't tell if she's joking around or not..."
"..."
"..."
"Aw, whatever~... What do you see now, Hana-chan?"
"Gojira..."
"Oh, that one? Yeah."
"Then... that one's a wolf howling at the moon."
"But it's daytime, 'kun of the senpai'~..."
"And that 'Gojira' isn't about to raze Tokyo to the ground..."
"Aw, you're no fun~..."
"..."
"..."
"Hey, Hana-chan, remember the 'sky elephants'~? From last time~?"
'Oh, geez, girls, seriously?!'
"The ones that were making babies? Yes."
"How funny would it be to see an elephant threesome in the clouds~?"
"Wherever would they get a bed big enough, Sakura-senpai?"
"You're dirty, Hana-chan~!"
"And you're underly concerned when it comes to the logical."
...
As much as he didn't want to hear Hana goaded on by the gal, both yammering about the fuck-habits of the atmospheric Proboscidea, Naoto probably wouldn't have traded this time with the girls for anything, even to save his left testicle from a grape-press.
Maybe the RIGHT one, but...
...
"Yo, Senpai-ku~u~un~," Sakura hailed musically, tickling at his calf with her toes.
$#!+!
Naoto could tell what she'd done because he could see where her hands were, laced above her head.
'DoN't Do tHAt~...' Hating it as much as he liked it, he wriggled with a vengeance. "Y-yes?"
"You still interested in reading some Eyeshield 21?"
"Yes." The shivers down his spine subsided with astonishing rapidity.
"Bring me some Paradise Harem to read, and I'll see that you get to read the rest of Eyeshield~."
"Urk!" he choked. 'Did you HAVE to bring up that series in front of Sunomiya?!'
"What's Eyeshield 21 about, Sakura-senpai?" Hana invited.
"Oh, Hana-chan, it's a super-duper fun sports manga about this little high school American football team in the Tokyo area~! The series is actually my mom's. She loved sports manga when she was younger... so did Daddy~. I'll have to tell you about that sometime, how they met~."
'Good...' Naoto sighed with relief. 'Sunomiya didn't ask about MY manga...'
It surprised him a bit.
It also surprised him—a lot—that Maki Gamo hadn't given him a lot of much-deserved(?) shit about the fact he'd bought the newest volume of Paradise Harem, tagging along with him to the bookstore, when she'd wanted him to come to the Vietnamese sandwich shop the night before.
Maybe she'd been in no position to give another a hard time, not that their dinner hadn't had a hitch or two...
But Naoto was struck, the mention of Eyeshield jogging his memory.
"Uh, Sakura-san?" he raised.
"Yes?"
"I know it might seem crazy, but I've been wondering, did your parents name your little brother after Hiruma, the quarterback in Eyeshield?"
He knew it was nuts, but hearing that her mother adored the series strengthened the idea.
To his shock, he wasn't incorrect.
"Actually, Yoichi was named after Yoichi Hiruma, the Devil Bats' QB, but instead of having the characters for 'bewitching one', my brother's name has the characters for 'given one', 'cause he was such a little blessing~."
Naoto didn't hold back, "I can't believe someone would really name their kid after a comic book character..."
"Screw you and the horse you rode in on, Asshole-kun~." She didn't like his tone. "Mom always liked the name, even before I was born, and seeing it again in the manga just had her liking it more~."
"Yes, you shouldn't jump to such conclusions, Hachioji-senpai," Hana scolded. "Do you think I was named what I was, just because my parents were too slothful to pick a specific flower?"
'Once more, I can't tell if you're serious or not...' He truly couldn't.
"Hana" meant "flower", after all...
"Ha-ha~!" Sakura lauded. "Nice one, Hana-chan~."
"Us 'flower girls' need to stick together, Sakura-senpai."
"'Flower girls', huh? I like that~." Sakura was gleeful. "But, hey, did your parents have a particular flower in mind when they named you? I've really been wanting to ask."
Hana gave perhaps the widest smile either of her senpai had seen pasted on her pretty face.
"They were thinking of the Hibiscus~," she said proudly. "But what Japanese would name a girl 'Hibiscus'?"
"Prolly none..."
"I never said, but my parents had thought about naming me 'Sakura'."
"Really~?!"
"Yes, really... but Mother decided there were already too many of them in the world..."
"...?!"
"..."
"Hana-chan, are you being serious, or...?"
"..."
"...?"
"...~"
"...?!"
"Heh-heh~..."
"...You wound me, Hana-chan~..."
...
...
...
Around 3:00 p.m., Naoto and the girls had finished their fourth and final coverage of the pool. Even more so than the third, it served as a spot-check.
It was the shared opinion of all three that the place was showroom ready, and not thirty minutes later, they'd squared away the equipment and cleaning supplies, just as Naoto was told to do.
They could only do so much with the specks of tar yet dotting the tile, because a stronger solvent was needed for the last of it.
But the contractors could take care of it, once they finished the rest of the pool area...
Naoto and Sakura replaced their gym shirts, dried from balmy weather and healthy zephyr, and gratefully headed indoors, Hana tailing them.
Only a few staff members were present by this time of the day, among them the principal, in his office, and the P.E. instructor that had set Naoto to his task and Mr. Yamaguchi, finishing up some work in the staff room.
Not a one of them expected the job to be finished that day...
In fact, not a one of them had looked in on Naoto—at all, so seeing two girls show up in the faculty room alongside their designated pool cleaner was also a bit of a bolt from the blue~.
The gym teacher had already been out to inspect their work and was just as quickly back, running to and from the pool.
He'd found no reason to complain about the job...
However, Mr. Yamaguchi raised such a racket about it, the principal exited his office to see what the hubbub was.
"Mr. Yamaguchi, what's going on out here?" he asked the frazzled stickler.
The stickler seemed angry at the world that Naoto had brought companions with him, much less that he'd finished up a job they were expecting finished no earlier than Friday night.
"Hachioji-kun has already finished cleaning the pool!" he thundered.
The principal did a take, noting Naoto wasn't alone.
He shrugged, not quite hiding a smile. "Well, isn't that good?"
The phys. ed. teacher was on Yamaguchi-sensei's side of the fence. "Not really, sir. It's just more time for the pool to get dirty again. We thought it'd have one or two days—tops—to sit empty, but now, we'll probably have to call in the contractors to clean it again, probably Sunday afternoon, if we want the job to look fresh."
"The contractors?! It was Hachioji-kun's responsibility to see that the pool was clean for the inspection and the school board," Mr. Yamaguchi puffed. "He should do it."
"..." Naoto couldn't believe these two were talking about this right in front of them. 'You assholes...'
But for whatever reason, the girls... appeared smug... at least as smug as Hana could possibly appear.
Sakura was doing just fine with it~...!
And Mr. Yamaguchi... did not like the sneer the blonde was displaying.
As a matter of fact, everything about her seemed to vex him.
"Young lady, you will wipe that smirk off your face this instant!" he began rattling off. "What in the world are you doing here? Do you have your student identification card? Why do you have that basket? And where are your shoes?!"
'Shoes?' Naoto looked.
While he and Hana had slipped into their school shoes, Sakura was standing there, her bare feet spotlessly clean from romping around in commercial-grade soap since morning, her radioactively colorful pedicure glowing.
'Oh, that's right...' He remembered she'd "escaped" on Friday, wearing her indoor shoes.
She didn't have them...
Mr. Yamaguchi had more to say, "And that nail polish! And your makeup and hair! If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times the school expects more modesty from its female students."
The school sure seemed lax about all of that though...
For a second, Sakura took in the room, glancing here and there. "..."
'Uh-oh...' Naoto could see that something was going on behind those big, soft, brown eyes.
"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," she began rattling off her own list (but not before taking on an overly-solicitous expression). "I'm Sakura Inori, second-year, Class 2-A. I'm a friend of the Art Club. I came here today to help out my senpai and kohai with the club's assignment of cleaning the school pool."
"That's right, sir," Hana harmonized, far more sincerely, bowing slightly. "I'm Hana Sunomiya, first-year, and I'm in the club."
'Fuck!' Naoto couldn't believe they'd just started running their mouths. 'Did the girls talk about this already...?'
They hadn't even REHEARSED how to deal with this! HE'D been planning to explain things on his own!
Sakura held onto her amusement. "I apologize for the nail polish, sir. I'm colorblind, you see, so I thought it was red, but I'll make sure to read the label next time~. As for my I.D., I have it with my other stuff, here in the basket."
"...?!?!?!" Mr. Yamaguchi was near to having a conniption.
She hefted her reed-spun receptacle. "I brought a picnic lunch for the three of us to share. As for my shoes, they're right here~."
She opened the basket, exposing the loafers she'd left behind, "escaping" the school on Friday night.
'Holy shit!' Naoto wanted to disappear. 'Sakura-san, now's not the time to be a smartass...'
And she hadn't addressed her dye job either...!
"But if you meant my indoor shoes, I accidentally wore them home the last day of the semester..." she cheerfully paraded on. "I was excited because of break, so I totally spaced it. And I forgot them at home again. I'll bring them back next time. Promise~."
Mr. Yamaguchi gave off the impression that a group of cannibals had just carted off his spouse to make "wife-jerky" out of her. "...?!?!?!?!"
Their P.E. teacher was flabbergasted. "...!"
The principal...?
He was laughing.
"...!" Naoto could've been knocked over with a feather.
The girls kept leveler heads. "~...~" "..."
"So, you decided to help out your club president?" the principal asked the girls genially.
Hana nodded curtly. "Yes, sir."
Sakura recapped, "I'm just their friend~."
"I see," the principal allowed; he turned to the P.E. teacher. "Was the job done satisfactorily?"
"Well... yes. It looks fine for the inspector and board, visually, and the contractors will be going over it again once they're done with the rest of the job."
"Good."
Mr. Yamaguchi didn't seem able to shut up. "Mr. Principal, Hachioji-kun was assigned this task, not his kohai."
"Mr. Yamaguchi, you were the one that suggested we have students clean the pool to save on expenses. I expected Mr. Hachioji to do the work on his own, but no one ever said he couldn't receive help from his club."
"Inori-san isn't a club member!" the twunt retorted. "She's a troublemaker, one whom I see the need to correct at least twice a week."
Naoto peered to Sakura, and she didn't take kindly to old Yamaguchi's words, but she kept a civil tongue. "...!"
He still saw trouble coming...
"Miss Inori," the principal addressed her. "Why did you help the Art Club?"
'Fuck, fuckity-fuck, fuck, fuck!' Naoto fretted. 'Does he KNOW Sakura-san was the other student here on Friday?!'
Whatever way, Sakura returned, "I've become better friends with Hachioji-kun and Sunomiya-san this semester. Senpai-kun helped Hana-chan and me with studying for exams, and we all did pretty well—quite a bit better than normal~. You can check that~. We've been having a lot of fun together the last month, and when we found out he was in trouble, we couldn't leave him in the lurch, sir."
The principal wasn't dissatisfied. "I see..."
"Mr. Principal, please..." Mr. Yamaguchi protested.
The principal shot him down, "Mr. Hachioji has paid his debt, as he was supposed to."
"Yes, sir, but—"
"And you were the one who was certain it would take Mr. Hachioji the rest of the week to finish."
Still, Mr. Yamaguchi persisted, "Sir, what will we do if the pool becomes soiled again before Monday?"
"Perhaps we'll have some other troublemakers come out of the woodwork before the end of the day tomorrow; maybe they could clean the pool," he decided, half-joking. "But if that doesn't happen, we'll just have the contractors return to do a spot-cleaning on Sunday, as was said earlier... unless you wish to do it."
That shut the nitpicker's mouth. "..."
And the gym teacher was but a fixture at this point...
The principal faced Naoto. "It seems you have some good kohai under you; take good care of them."
"...H-huh...?" Naoto was like a bull that had just woken up from a castration surgery. "Whazza..."
Uneasy at the lack of mental-coordination he was facing, the principal regarded the young women.
"Miss Inori, Miss Sunomiya, you girls may go," he dismissed them. "I wish to have a quick word with Mr. Hachioji. Thank you both for your work today."
'Oh, shit...' Naoto was awake enough to catch that.
Sakura and Hana both gave a little bow. "You're welcome, sir~." "Yes, sir."
And the menfolk then had a ringside view of some "kohai komedy", not of a Sakurial origin...
"See ya soon, Senpai-kun~." Sakura made her way, grinning giddily at him.
Hana tailed her, calling behind, "We'll be back to gather up your bones, Hachioji-senpai."
"Geez, Hana-chan! Where'd that come from~...?"
"We can't leave them to bleach in the sun, can we?"
"You're nuts~..."
"I like cashews best."
"Ooh~, I like those too~!"
*Slam*
The closing of the staff room door silenced the fresh natter.
Stealing a glance at the other two faculty, beaten, the principal beckoned Naoto.
"Into the office, Mr. Hachioji," he ushered. "Go on."
The third-year's legs seemed to move without his brain being involved in this action.
The next thing he knew, he was seated in the guest chair across from the principal, entrenched behind his desk.
"..." Naoto sat, with a little more nervousness than he liked, for a moment, watching the head of the school rummaging around.
Turning his eyes here and there, the officed looked the same as it had on Monday, not that he'd picked up much of an impression then.
It—
"Mr. Hachioji," the principal conjured.
He answered, as if by magic~, "S-sir?"
Scanning a sheet of paper, "I guess you might not know, but the school does keep track... when we find significant improvement on a student's exams, between midterms and finals and semester-to-semester."
"I see..." Naoto wasn't floored by such a revelation.
"The list this semester was a good deal shorter than usual," the principal ailed. "I know as well as anyone that this semester's exams were more difficult than normal, and the other list we keep, noting drops in performance, was possibly longer than I've seen since coming here. Some students really surprised us in a good way, but others with spotless records ended up going to summer school for the first time or sitting quite precariously on the border..."
Reminded of what he'd seen of the girls... including Nagatoro... Naoto substantiated, somewhat painfully, "I know, sir. I saw it."
He set aside the sheet. "I certainly don't commit the list to memory—once you get older, you might find you have more than enough going through your mind than you need in the first place."
"..." Naoto decided to not answer in the affirmative.
"I only look because Miss Inori mentioned it." The head was unmoved by the silence. "Her name is there... as well as Miss Sunomiya's... and yours is certainly there too."
"Yes, sir..." This was something to answer.
"A student, habitually below-average, sees improvement in all but one subject, beating the average by a notable margin... and another student, already in the top quarter of the first-years, reaches number-four in her entire class..." The very shadow of a smile was plain. "And they seem to give you much of the credit for it."
"...!" Naoto didn't know how to answer.
Maybe an answer wasn't expected. "You're doing something right by your kohai."
"..." Naoto wanted to say something.
"And forgive me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me that two very different girls—whom I'd never assume would be—seem to be the very best of friends..."
Naoto's everything allowed him, "You're not wrong, sir..."
"It's really wonderful to see, isn't it~?"
"It is."
"..."
"..."
"They must think a lot of you, Mr. Hachioji, to just show up like that. Don't ever forget that."
"...!" Naoto's insides twisted, not unpleasantly.
"...~" The principal held an even but friendly manner.
Naoto was thankful to keep check of his emotions; he knew a warmth that might very well lead him to tears. "Yessir..."
"..." He regarded the young artist.
"...?" The young artist's butthole wasn't not puckered.
The older man questioned, "Did you actually hear what I said to you? Before I dismissed your kohai? Do you remember? Were you even listening?"
"...Uh, no, sir... I'm sorry."
"Happily, I do remember, and I can repeat it: 'It seems you have some good kohai under you; take good care of them.' Do you think you can do that?"
"...?!"
"Well...?"
"...Yessir~!"
"..."
"..."
"But as I told you, Mr. Hachioji... be careful." The warning didn't sound idle. "The security footage is poor quality, but it's not that poor."
"...?!?!" Checking his shorts for a shit-truffle wouldn't be the worst idea ever.
"..."
"...?"
"That's all."
"That's all?"
"Yes, that's all." He waved Naoto away. "Do try to stay out of trouble, Mr. Hachioji..."
"I'll try, sir~!" He would!
And he wanted to get the blue flying fuck at a rolling doughnut out of there~...!
He exited the office, walking on air through the staff room, past the two automatons, still confounded, and came back to himself a few meters down the hallway.
He'll "try"?
He found it distressing such a thing flew out of his mouth so easily.
But... he wasn't quite the same as he'd been, a mere five weeks prior...
All the same, he didn't think all that terribly hard about it, and he went to catch up to the girls.
----------
Q&A Section
In some manga they have charts showing how well characters do in the five subjects tested. Based on the 5-scale grading system used in Japan, what grades do the characters get?
ED: I got this question a long time ago and forgot about it. Sorry.
Since most of the characters did well on their final exams, I made two charts. Assume the "overall performance" grades are how the characters typically do in school, maybe the last year. The spring semester exams are the other chart. I did them for the six major characters.
----------
Please look forward to the next chapter! Thanks for reading! Questions and comments are welcome!