Students gossiped about the latests in the classroom. I passed that noisy room with a few strides. Glancing at an eccentric orange-haired girl, she bumped on my shoulder, dropping one of my manga volumes.
"I'm so sorry! I was thinking deeply to myself today," she squatted down to picked it up and stopped midway as she saw the title.
"Horimiya?" She mumbled enough for me to hear.
Beginning of the school year, I already have someone who thinks I'm weird. The orange-haired girl stares at me with wide eyes and they were... glistening. She finally picked it up and dusted it. She stood up on her position and she gave it to me in a gentle manner. I took it from her.
"I'm looking for this manga in a long time!" She smiled that it reached her ears, "everytime I buy, it's always sold. You're so lucky!"
I gaped at her. Seriously, what is she on about? I don't know what's happening, I'm terribly confused.
"Sorry, again. I'm Asai Yukiko, nice to meet you. And you are?" She gives out her hand for me to shake.
"Sora Ao," I replied.
She still has her hand out for me to shake. She frowned slightly. She grabbed my hand and shook it with hers.
"Don't be shy. It's just me," Asai points at my volume of Horimiya, "it's the first volume, right?"
I nodded.
"Can I borrow it?"
I don't know what exactly to say. So I stayed silent.
"You don't have to act like that. I don't bite. Can I borrow your book?" Then she fiddles something in her pocket and took out two phone straps of Rin and Len.
"Here, you can have Rin," she places the phone strap on my palm, "I got it for free in a convention. I still have other characters, so don't worry about it,"
On instinct, I gave my manga to her, "thank you for the phone strap," I clutched it close to my chest.
"The phone strap was able for you to say yes?" She asks, quite baffled.
"No. I will give it you even without you giving me the phone strap. I just don't understand the situation,"
She walks forward to get closer to me. Asai leans into my ear, "this is our secret. If my boyfriend finds out that I gave it to another particular person--" then she winks at me and walks past and down through the hallway full of students.
I still didn't understand what happened until today.
*****
Ao enters the rooftop with blinding lights. There was a gust of wind and it blew her hair. She saw a maroon-haired girl happily eating a cinnamon bun and an orange-haired girl munching on her bento.
"Ao-chan! Over here!" Yukirin waves at her for a signal.
She walks at slow pace towards them. Ao slowly makes out that Nozomi wasn't eating happily, she was eating ravagely on breads. The gentle girl was crying so much that it was serving as salty sauce to her bun.
"What's wrong with her?" Ao set place on the bench her friends were sitting at. She took out her own bento and a can of soda she bought in the cafeteria.
Yukirin sighed beside her, "she hasn't been able to talk since we ate lunch here. Nonnon keeps crying,"
Ao looks at the empty lunch box below the bench. There were also three plastics of bread or bun accompanying the lunch box.
"She ate this much?" She wonders to herself. She looks at her friend, "Nozomi, tell me what's wrong?" She shakes her friend by the shoulder slightly.
Between her tears and eating, she answered, "I just can't accept the way he is," she chomped on her newly opened bean bun, "he's going to hurt me,"
Deep inside Ao's stomach began to swell. Something dark and ominous delusioned herself. She shook the feeling away and comforted her friend by patting her back.
"Who is she talking about?" Ao was multi-asking. Eating lunch and comforting a friend. She turned to Yukirin who just finished emptying her lunch.
Yukirin clapped her hands together, "thanks for the food," she closed her lunch box, "what was it you were asking a while ago?"
"Who is she talking about?" She repeated.
"I think she's talking about Keichan," the eccentric girl puts a hand on her chin and stares at the bypassing clouds, "I understand how a lot of girls were turned off by his attitude,"
"What's with his attitude?"
"He's kinda of... you know... S,"
"S?"
"He gets happy when he hurts people,"
Ao bowed her head down, losing interest on the person called Keichan. A cloud's shadow loomed over them, letting the three girls shade over the blazing heat of the sun.
"Wanna come to the arcade? Me, Tsuyoppon and his friends are going over there this weekend," Yukirin changed the topic to lighten up Nozomi.
Nozomi immediately replied monotonously, "I'll pass," and she buried her face on her palms.
"Ao-chan, you?" Yukirin tapped her on the shoulder.
"Eh? That's a change," Ao said a bit uneasy.
"Come on. It'll be fun," the orange-haired girl persuaded.
"I don't like company,"
"Please come,"
"I have to post something in tumblr,"
Yukirin huffed and crossed her arms, "bummer. And I even heard that there will be a Gudetama doll if you win enough games,"
Gudetama was one of Ao's secret fetish other than the yanyan stuffs. She felt like she was losing. She always loses to Yukirin. That girl isn't direct to the point when it comes to things like this.
"I'll come," Ao's own body was tingling. It was the fangirl nerves taking hold of her. She was quarterly excited to go, quarterly nervous, quarterly undecided and quarterly neutral.
"That's my girl!" Yukirin messes Ao's hair. She has done her pigtails very neatly today and it was ruined. But she didn't mind.
Ao spaced out, she pictured out images from her imaginations that was from the fandoms she was in. As she thinks about how the latest episode of her favorite anime ended, she hears Yukirin mubling under her breath.
"Tomo-chan and Keichan were really my OTP. The chance is getting a little lower,"
*****
Sora Ao was a girl who had brown hair and blue as the sky eyes. She never went outside aside from going to school and hanging out in Yukirin's house. It was a little fate for them to meet each other. Yukirin changed her the teeniest bit, she was able to care.
Nozomi who was her childhood friend, couldn't break the wall through her fragility. Her mother was over to another country, and she didn't know what country, after her father left them for another man.
Gaming, reading manga, and watching anime was her escape to the real world. She has Thantophobia, that is her reason she doesn't want anybody in her world except for Yukirin.
It was a big change today...
Now, this girl patiently waits for her friend in front of the arcade. She looks at her watch, they were already ten minutes late. She wears a cap for protection from the sunlight, a shirt that had two semi-circles with dots in it with the words 'OPPAI' in big bold letters. She had jeans for bottoms and she had done her hair in the usual pigtails.
A crowd of laugh erupted. Ao was curious, so she looked. She found four boys walking together as they crossed the pedestrian lane. They stopped in front of the arcade, chuckling to each other except for a man whose ears were plugged with earphones.
"Tsuyoppon~" a familiar girly voice sang behind the man with earphones.
He quickly removed it and turned to see his girlfriend. Ao was quite surprised to see Yukirin holding hands with someone named Tsuyoppon. Yukirin caught sight of Ao and waved at her.
"Ao-chan, come over," her voice had the hint of childishness in it. Like a puppy who found its master, Ao went over to her.
Ao felt uneasy. Her social anxiety has been kicking in as she went forward. The only things that relaxed her was coming towards Yukirin. Still, she felt awkward to be butting the couple.
"Ao-chan, this is my boyfriend, Tsuyoshi, you can call him Tsuyoppon. This is the first time you've met him, right?" She hugs her boyfriend by the waist and nuzzled against it. She was sparkling.
This was exactly the first time Ao met Yukirin's boyfriend. She expected someone who's more upbeat and active than Tsuyoppon. She wondered how would Yukirin confessed to someone like him.
"People don't call nicknames to someone they just met," Tsuyoppon slightly grumbled.
"I always tell you about her," she tugged at him a bit harshly. She turned to Ao, "no need to introduce yourself that much," Yukirin dismissed it with a clap.
Yukirin's hair was braided as usual. She wore a yellow blouse and navy blue shorts. It looked like the couple were wearing matching clothes because Tsuyoshi wore a shirt and pants the same shade as Yukirin's.
"Those boys over there are Tsuyoppon's friends," the girl pointed to the three boys chatting happily.
Ao felt like exploding. She wanted the earth to swallow her whole. What's to expect from a person who has social anxiety. She wanted to say the right words and not end up embarrassing herself.
"Uh... don't be shy. I'm here with you," Yukirin said to her.
Her friend let go of her boyfriend and led her in front of the boys. They immediately noticed Yukirin's presence.
"This is the first time you've met Ao-chan, right?"
A maroon-haired boy said, "I remember you telling about a creepy friend,"
Creepy? People have seen her creepily, and she hasn't known. Ao held her head down.
"Now, look what you have done to her," she could hear Yukirin's voice in a scolding tone.
The maroon-haired one was shocked and apologized to her. The poor girl was even more agonized as she hears more comments about her. She didn't if she could take it as a compliment or not.
"Ooh, she is cute but she's not my type,"
"Your types are women older than you, Keichan,"
"Hey, I could date her,"
"She's the same as Tsuyoppon or maybe worse than Tsuyoppon,"
"What do you mean worse than me?"
The babbling stopped as the clueless Tsuyoshi went into the conversation. The guy couldn't read the air sometimes and he just let it go. So, he actually let go of the situation right now and stands in front of the arcade listening to music with the earphones plugged on his ears.
Yukirin crossed her arms, "I don't know what you guys mean by worse," she turned to a familiar looking maroon-haired boy, "Mattsun, don't you know that Ao-chan is your little sister's friend?"
"Eh? That's her!?" He looked too surprised to hear that, "then again, I do remember her telling me she has a hermit of a friend,"
It was true. She was a hermit. She doesn't go out of her house. Nozomi was her neighbor and Ao was like a vampire whose skin would burn to ashes if she meets sunlight. So Nozomi would just come over to her house. Problem solved.
"I also didn't expect that she will be thi--"
"So this is Hashiba Natsuki and Katakura Keiichi," Yukirin introduced her and doesn't gives time to listen to what red-head was saying.
The red-head just sighed and waited for his friend's girlfriend to introduce her to him.
Ao had something on the back of her mind about that Keiichi so she asked, her anxiety hasn't kicked in, "You're Katakura Keiichi, right?"
"What is it?" Keiichi said.
"Do you know Katakura Yuji-sensei?"
"Yeah. He's my older brother,"
"I see,"
From inside the arcade, the rest of the gang has went inside. Ao and Keiichi stood facing together. It was awkward, the boy was smiling and the girl looked like she lack facial expressions, probably because her whole face was twitching on what kind of reaction to show.
"Guys! Come inside!" Yukiko Asai catches their attention from inside the arcade.
"Sora-san, lets play together in the games there," Keiichi invited the timid girl.
Ao just stared at her feet that was clad in sneakers. She didn't hear what Keiichi said. Suddenly she felt a force tugging her wrists and she was dragged along.
"No need to be shy around me. Now lets go to Yukirin to get our coins,"
And so they went inside. Ao was greeted by the loud sound effects of the arcades. She felt relaxed now.
*****
1. In which p.o.v. should I write? First person or third person?
2. Updates are really slow. Be patient.
3. I planned this to be a reader insert but decided in the end to put an OC in the story.
4. Correct me for any mistakes
5. Episode 15 is golden. Is Nozomi a masochist or something? Keiichi is love and life!
6. I sound like a weeb.