Original Published Date: May 25, 2016
Edited Date: December 4, 2017
April 6, 2016 - Early Morning
"Hinako-san, can you deliver these hand-outs to your classmates? We'll be using them for today's lecture," Teacher Mūdo said, talking from his chair and looking up at Hinako, who was standing right beside him. Teacher Mūdo is, as always, looking handsome and seems to have captivated the female faculty, again, seeing him wearing his glasses.
"These hand-outs, sensei?" Hinako asks as she places her hand over a stack of papers on Teacher Mūdo's desk.
"Yes. We'll be covering some English literature today, so it's better if you guys read in advance."
"I understand," she nods her head respectively.
"Great! I'm counting on you, Suzuhana-san," Teacher Mūdo said, smiling, causing Hinako to slightly blush.
"Please, excuse me," Hinako said as she was at the faculty office's room, bowing her head down before closing the door.
Hinako slowly made her way back to her classroom, carrying the stack of papers properly and avoiding them to fall. She got to the staircase that connects the first floor and second floor. Her classroom is located on the first floor while the faculty room was on the second floor. She looks at the top paper of the hand-outs and stopped descending the stairs.
"Hamlet, huh?" Hinako mutters to herself. "I can read English but only a little."
Hinako tries reading the hand-out a little more seriously, voicing out a few English lines while carefully descending from the stairs.
Somewhere in the first floor, Gil was running away. The students were looking at him with confused faces. He didn't even bother to change his shoes.
"D-Douji-san? Your shoes..." A third year said.
"No time!" The golden-headed man shouts as he dashes away.
Gil quickly turns right and up towards the stairs. The third year just looked to where Gil went. "That was odd. I haven't seen Douji-san like that before."
"Gil-darling! Where are you? ♡" A girly voice echoes throughout the halls.
"O-Oh! That voice belongs to..." The third year slowly turns her head around and saw Mabu Himeji with a happy face. "Himeji-san..."
Mabu stops in front of the third year. "Good morning, Densetsu-senpai! Did you see where Gil run off to?"
"Oh, I..." Maria releases an anime sweat-drop. "N-No, I haven't. Maybe he's already in your classroom?"
"Great idea! Thank you, senpai!" Mabu said before running towards her classroom at the second floor.
"She's at it again, huh?" Maria Densetsu mutters to herself as she looks at her pink-headed lowerclassman skipping happily away.
While Mabu was talking to Maria, Gil hurriedly ascended the stairs. He was looking behind him to see if Mabu caught up. Little did he notice that there was someone in front of him and collided with that person.
"Agh!" The student dropped the hand-outs and flew helplessly on the air. But, when she saw the person in front of her was falling backwards, she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her. Due to gravity, the two of them got outbalanced, resulting in the lowerclassman hitting her back lightly on the edge of the stairs. "Ah! That hurts..."
Hinako was sitting on a step while her back laid on a few steps. She lightly hit her head on the hard concrete, rubbing it lightly to ease the pain. As she opened her eyes, she met a pair of red eyes staring at her. To her surprise, it was her senior, Gil Douji.
"D-Douji-senpai?"
Gil was on top of Hinako with both of his hands supporting him, placing them on the step. He looked directly at Hinako, shocked. "You..."
"W-What are you doing?" Hinako sat up, Gil pulling himself up from that awkward position. "Watch where you're going."
"I have no time to argue with you. I have to hide," Gil said, a little panicked. "She might corner me at our classroom."
"She?" Hinako was confused, raising an eyebrow.
"Gil darling~! ♡" A certain Mabu Himeji's voice echoes.
"This is bad!" Gil looked down on the first flight of steps and saw Mabu ascending them. "Shit!"
"You're running away from who, exactly?" Hinako asks as she slowly picked up the hand-outs.
All of a sudden, Gil grabs Hinako's hand and pulled her with him. She was surprised but a little frustrated when she accidentally let go of the hand-outs again.
"Where are we going?! Let go of me!" The brown-headed woman said as she tries to break free from her senior's tight grip.
Gil went inside an empty classroom and closed the door behind him. He went to the side to be remained hidden.
"Senpai? I have to get those hand-outs-!"
Gil pulls Hinako towards him, her back on his chest, and placed a hand over the woman's mouth.
"Mmff!!!" Hinako was constantly trying to break free from Gil's hold. So, he places his free arm over her waist, to which Hinako was shocked. "Mmm-mmm?! (Senpai?!)"
Gil lowered his head to Hinako's ear, whispering, "Would you be quiet? I can't bear to be seen by her."
Hinako was breathing at a fast rate. Her heart was pounding, like a hammer was pounding it. She was confused, she doesn't know what's really going on.
Outside of the empty classroom, Mabu was walking while calling out for Gil's name.
"Gil darling ♡? Where are you~?" Mabu calls out in a sing-song voice.
Gil eyes at the empty classroom door, hoping that Mabu won't open it and find him. Hinako, on the other hand, was losing composure and frustration is slowly getting the better of her.
'Let go of me, you crazy person!' She screams internally.
"Hmm... Maybe he really is at our classroom. Then, I must go there!" Mabu said as she happily walks towards her classroom. "How dirty the school is at such a morning. What are these hand-outs doing here?"
When Gil felt that Mabu wasn't around anymore, he releases a sigh of relief. But, realizing that Hinako is with him brought him back to reality, that he was covering her mouth and holding her by the waist. A little weirded out, he immediately releases Hinako from his grip. She falls on her knees and breathed heavily.
"W-What was that about, Douji-senpai?" Hinako asks in-between heavy breaths.
"It's none of your business," Gil said as he starts to walk away.
Hinako clenches her fists and hurriedly stands, grabbing Gil's collar and earning his evil glare.
"You dare touch me, mongrel?" Gil asked with a near-to-yelling voice.
Hinako eyes at Gil. "You called me a 'mongrel' again! And this is my business because you dragged me into this!" She raises her voice, as well.
"Fool! You think I'd let you go easily? I know that you'll tell that crazy woman where I am," Gil yells back.
"What?!" Hinako was shell-shocked, earning a slight shocked expression from the man in front of her. "Why would I tell you on someone who is crazily chasing after you?! It's not my business to get in your way, so I have no complete reason to tell on you!"
"How should I know?! Do I even know you? You're just a freshman who doesn't know how to respect her senior," Gil spats, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
"Why would I even respect you when you're wrongly treating other people like this?! Have you no sense of morality?!"
"The hell did you say to me?!"
"I mean what I say! You are a mean person, Douji-senpai. You think that people will obey you due to your authoritative way of talking? Guess again, you heartless person," Hinako said before releasing Gil from her grip and opens the door with brute force, walking towards the staircase and picking up the scattered hand-outs.
Gil follows Hinako and stood right in front of her, three steps above her. "You dare call me that?! I'll have you know that I am the richest and most powerful person in this school. Your attitude won't be so forgiven easily!"
Hinako carries the hand-outs and eyes at her senior. "I'm not even asking you to forgive me for my attitude. Also, if you're the most powerful person here, then why aren't you the student council president? It would have been easy for you to bag that position by using your riches, right?"
Gil was taken back with Hinako's words. She turns around and descends the stairs, a pain-stricken expression on her face.
"You're no king. You don't have the right to talk like that," Hinako says softly before disappearing from Gil's sight.
The student council's vice president was extremely furious. He uncontrollably punched the wall near him, very flustered.
In Classroom 1-A, Hinako managed to give everyone the hand-outs for classic literature later. As she got her copy, she exhaustingly sat on her own chair and released a sigh.
"Hey, Suzuhana-san!" Upon seeing her friend with a tired expression, worry washes over Marie. "You look tired and quite flustered. Did something happen?"
Hinako looks up to her friend and tried to pull a small smile. "No, nothing happened," then, an image of Gil's authoritative face flashed inside her mind. She jumped up and slammed her hands on her desk. "What is up with that arrogant and selfish senior?!"
Marie was shocked, backing out a few steps. "U-Uh, Hinako-chan?"
April 6, 2016 - Lunchtime
"What? You crossed paths with Douji-senpai again?" Marie asks in disbelief as she was eating some rice.
"Bad start of the day, huh?" Fūrin comments as he took a bite from his apple.
"Very," Hinako said in an exhausted tone, munching on some onigiri. "His superior-feeling attitude cracks up my nerves. I hate people like him."
"Why are you so bent up on people like that anyways, Hinacchi?" Fūrin asks as he looks at Hinako.
The brown-headed woman lowers the onigiri she was holding. She looks at the floor and remembered something quite traumatizing.
"You pigs have no right to be in my establishment. You are fired from work and don't come back." A woman with yellow hair, wearing round glasses, said, looking down at a brown-headed woman in her late thirties.
A little Hinako was standing in front of an exhausted mother who won't wake up even though how many times she wakes her up.
"Mom...?"
And that's when she realized that her mother's body became lifeless.
"Hinacchi?"
Hinako returns to reality and was met by the worried faces of Marie and Fūrin.
"Suzuhana-san?"
"I... I'm okay. I just remembered something unpleasant," Hinako said as she places a hand over forehead.
Marie and Fūrin looked at each other with a worried look.
April 6, 2016 - After School
At the student council room...
"I'm going on ahead," says Gil, who was by the door and ready to leave.
"Sure. Thanks for the hard work today, Gil!" Itsuka said with an energetic voice.
"Yes, thank you. We'll go over these a bit more," Asura said, holding a couple of papers.
"Yeah, yeah, see you tomorrow," Gil said as he waves his right hand dismissively before opening the door and left the student council room.
"So, should we pick the candidates?" Asura said, holding up the papers she was holding at Itsuka. "There are a lot of students who are perfect to fill the vacancy for student council representatives."
"Hmm... No matter how much I look, I still think that that first year, Suzuhana Hinako, is better-suited for the job," Itsuka said as he scratches his head while looking at other students' profiles. "She looks hard-working and can keep Gil in place with his attitude."
"It's not just about keeping him in place, Itsuka. It's about looking for students with a good set of leadership skills that can replace us next year," Asura said, reading some of the profiles.
"Yes, you are right," he scratches the back of his head. "But can you look for her profile? I want to see it."
"Sure," Asura rummages through some of the profiles from the boxes that are scattered around the student council room. After a few seconds of searching, she finally finds that certain person's profile. "Here it is. Let's see..."
As Itsuka and Asura analyzes Hinako's profile, they were shocked. Their eyes stumbled on one part of the profile - the 'History' section.
What did Asura and Itsuka find so shocking about Hinako?
To be continued: (Spring) Chapter 4