"Good morning, Yoshino-senpai!" chorused Chinen and Akiyama loudly as they bowed deeply in front of Shizuka.
Shizuka chuckled. "Good morning, Chinen-kun and Akiyama-kun."
Shizuka swept over the two boys' appearances with her eyes. Today, Chinen, as part of their uniform, wore a black blazer, white button-up, and black pants with a pair of spotlessly clean black and white sneakers.
While Akiyama wore the navy button up, plaid pants, and a navy pair of suede ankle boots.
Both their hairs were styled fashionably as she remembered them from the day before.
Maria-san and co. really are miracle workers. The styling of these two is seriously flawless.
"You guys look good today," Shizuka commented while flashing the two a lively smile that made their faces turn bright red.
"It's all thanks to your help, senpai! We're grateful and sorry to have kept you for so long, especially since it had gotten dark outside."
"I hope you didn't have to overexert yourself last night!"
Shizuka's smile cramped up. Oi! What's with that ambiguous wording?! You're going to make people misunderstand!
True to Shizuka's prediction, right after hearing Chinen and Akiyama's dubious words, the surrounding students began to whisper vigorously.
"Did we always have guys like this in our school?"
"How do they know Yoshino-senpai?!"
"Who cares about that?! What's important is what did the three of them do last night???"
Shizuka looked at the two boys in front of her who were completely unaware of the trouble they had caused and felt herself getting a headache.
Knowing that she needed to mend the situation at once, Shizuka fixed a splendid smile on her face. "I already told you, Chinen-kun and Akiyama-kun, you don't have to be so grateful towards Fuu-chan, Mii-chan, and I for helping you guys with your makeovers yesterday. Maria-san and her team did most of the real work. We're just happy to have been given the chance to guide some lost juniors onto the right path."
"Shizuka-senpai gave them makeovers? I wonder how they looked before?"
"Yoshino-senpai, Mori-senpai, and Satou-senpai really are the angels this school didn't deserve!"
Akiyama gazed at Shizuka reverently. "Even so senpai, w-would it be alright if we treated you three to lunch? I know it's not much but Chinen and I really wanted to offer our sincere gratitude!"
"What did that second-year brat just ask to have lunch with Shizuka-chan?!"
"I think he's a first year!"
"A first-year approaching our Shizuka?! He must be out of his mind!"
As Shizuka formulated a reply in her head, from behind her, someone had suddenly poked her back. Turning around, her right cheek met Madoka's outstretched finger.
"...Semi-san, what are you doing?" asked Shizuka disbelievingly staring at the finger on her cheek. Does the school prince have a cheek fetish or something?
"Getting your attention," Madoka replied in a matter-of-fact manner. He appeared to be unaware that his actions had caused every student in the surrounding area to be frozen in shock.
Were there not more natural ways to do so?
"...Have you just been behind me this entire time?"
Madoka nodded as he put his finger down.
"Why didn't you return to the classroom?"
Madoka gazed at Shizuka with a grave expression in his face. "I realized something important."
His seriousness made Shizuka suddenly become concerned. "What is it?"
"We didn't decide where we would meet for lunch."
Shizuka blinked...Did you really just wait here to tell me this?
"We're in the same classroom...When the bell rings, I'd just have to walk about ten steps to reach your desk," remarked Shizuka slowly.
"Oh," breathed Madoka, seemingly appearing as if this fact had occurred to him only now.
"Yeah..."
Appearing adorably downcast, Madoka softly murmured, "Somehow it had seemed further...the distance between you and I."
Before Shizuka could respond, Madoka suddenly stepped in closer and pulled at her sleeve. Peering into her eyes, he solemnly proclaimed, "I don't like it."
Looking at the boy who had already touched her face twice and held onto her sleeve the same number of times, all in the short span of twenty minutes, Shizuka could only ask in a dumbfounded voice, "You don't like...what?"
"I don't like being even ten steps away from you."
What are these CG like lines?! Did I trigger a flag somehow?
As Shizuka stood in the middle of the hallway, slack jawed, a freshman girl who had been repressing the urge to interrupt finally became unable to hold back any further and shouted, "Madoka-senpai, do you like Shizuka-senpai?!"
Spurred on by this first outburst the crowd automatically erupted into shouts, "Seniors, are you dating???"
"Say it's not true, Semi-sama!" wailed a petite male junior.
"OMGOMGOMG my ship has sailed!" shrieked another overly passionate senior.
"Madoka-sama, it isn't what I think it is right?!" someone else bawled.
Madoka, evidently unaffected by the turbulent crowd, turned around and revealed a blindingly bright smile. "Yes. From today onwards, we're dating."
When Shizuka later re-described the aftermath of Madoka's blunt confession to Fuyuki and Mika, she would compare it to the sort of pandemonium one would expect to see at the end of the world.
In her defense, it wasn't even an over exaggeration because shortly after, everyone present, excluding the newly formed couple, exploded into a blend of blood-curling, shocked, furious, ecstatic, and heartbroken cries.
As Shizuka covered her bleeding ears, she thought wryly to herself that the combined scream power of the students at the scene could supply the fictional world of Monsters Inc with enough electricity for tens of thousands of years.
When they finally noticed the commotion, several teachers ran over to see what was going on.
Kawasaki-sensei, who had been in a nearby classroom, ran out into the hallways with a baseball bat in hand because he had thought that the students were fighting one another.
Nakamura-sensei, who had been applying lipstick dashed out of the bathroom, without realizing that she had a giant red lipstick smudge on her face, because she had assumed that a celebrity had dropped by.
Towa-sensei, who had been returning from the teacher's lounge holding a coffee, spilled the beverage on himself because he believed that someone might have cut off the school's internet connection.
"Stop the fighting this instant!"
"Who's visiting us? Is he famous? Could I get an autograph?!"
"Step away from the internet box!"
The three teachers turned to look at each other.
"Kawasaki-sensei, Nakamura-sensei, what's going on? Why is there a crowd here?"
"I just got here," replied Kawasaki-sensei. "I ran out when I heard the ear shattering screaming."
Spotting Madoka standing in the center of the mayhem looking relaxed and Shizuka next to him looking perplexed, Nakamura-sensei pointed to them and said, "That's Semi-san and Yoshino-san over there. Let's go ask them what they know!"
The three teachers weaved their way through the mass of distraught students to get to Madoka and Shizuka.
Madoka smile when he saw the teachers approaching them. "Kawasaki-sensei, Nakamura-sensei, Towa-sensei, good morning."
"Semi-san, what in the world is happening here?"
Without batting an eye, Madoka replied, "Sensei, I think everyone's just panicking due to the upcoming round of examinations."
Like hell they are!
Turning to face Shizuka, Madoka smiled charmingly and said, "It's almost time for the first bell, we should go."
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
On the way back to their classroom from the student council room everyone was staring at Shizuka and Madoka; however, Shizuka didn't notice this at all as she had found herself taking not-so-subtle glances at Madoka.
"Is there something wrong?" Madoka asked as he stuck his bottom lip out and made Shizuka again feel as if she were not looking at a high school boy but a small and wounded puppy left on the side of the road.
Shizuka shook her head as she halted in her footsteps. "I wanted to ask you something... It's been on my mind been earlier and I'm hoping you'll be able to answer me honestly."
Madoka stopped where she stopped. "What is it?"
"Do you by any chance have dissociative identity disorder?"
Madoka's blinked once before he bent over and broke out in laughter.
This outburst caused Shizuka to go into a near trance like state as she had never heard him laugh so unreservedly before.
Damn, how is even his laugh magnetic? Being this appealing should be illegal.
After Shizuka pulled herself together she mumbled, "I was being serious."
When he noticed her sulky expression, Madoka tried his best to contain his laughter. "I'm sorry, it's just, most people wouldn't been able to ask such a question as directly as you did."
It was then that Shizuka belatedly realized that her question could not only be seen as inappropriate but also blatantly rude . Shizuka's shoulders dropped. "I'm sorry, Semi-san. That was really thoughtless of me."
In her mind, all she had thought about when she asked her question was that Madoka had displayed so many different sides of himself to her in a little over a week but she really couldn't grasp what the "real" Madoka was like.
Without warning, she found that he could go from being the aloof Madoka, to the serious Madoka, to the vulnerable Madoka, to the happy Madoka, as if a switch had been flipped. Initially she had believed that he had hated her but his recent actions made her doubt that too.
"It's alright. If I had honestly taken offense to it I wouldn't have laughed."
"Fuu-chan and Mii-chan have told me before that I sometimes speak without thinking," began Shizuka quietly. "It's just a bit jarring for me to see you go from not really getting along with me to suddenly declaring that you don't like being apart from me."
"It wasn't really sudden," Madoka explained as he casually resumed walking. "The feeling just came to me when those two students invited you to lunch. Without a meeting place, I thought you might forget that we had lunch plans."
Shizuka narrowed her eyes as she fell into step with him. "Forget? We literally just made lunch plans like ten minutes ago." Her previous dejection melted like an ice cube on a lit stove. Screw you! Even though my grades aren't as good as yours how terrible do you think my memory is?
"With a new invitation, I thought you'd forget mine," muttered Madoka with his cheeks slightly puffed out.
A wild inference suddenly crossed Shizuka's mind. "Were you perhaps...jealous?"
Instead of replying, Madoka began picking up his pace.
As she increased her speed to catch up with him, Shizuka's lips cracked into a tiny smile. For some reason, she was feeling strangely pleased at this revelation.
Shizuka poked Madoka's back in a teasing manner and said, "Ehh, so even you get jealous. That's rather unexpected. You didn't look like the type."
Madoka stopped walking and turned around to look at Shizuka with an indecipherable expression on his face. "I'm a lot different from how people see me."
At this moment the first bell rang so Madoka turned around and continued walking.
Before Madoka reached for the door, Shizuka grabbed the back of his uniform to get his attention. In slightly pleading voice she clarified, "Hey, don't be upset, I was just messing with you because your reaction was cute."
Noticing that she used the word "cute" again and afraid that Madoka's already poor mood would plummet even further, she hurriedly added, "It was wrong of me. However, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing, to be different than how you look..most people are. It takes time to really to understand someone."
Because Madoka didn't show any reaction she went on, "Right now, I may not know you that well and say things that may make you upset, but I'll try my best to get to know you, because I want to know the "real" Semi Madoka that people don't know about!"
After saying her piece, she scurried inside the classroom. Ahh, why did that sound like another confession! What's wrong with me today? I keep saying outrageous sentences after outrageous sentences!
A contemplative Madoka lingered in the hallway. For a moment, he stood there completely motionless until their homeroom teacher, Mana-sensei, spotted him and ushered him inside.
At her desk, Shizuka did not look up as Madoka went inside and sat down at his desk.
It was only then that she remembered that she was supposed to have met up with Mika and Fuyuki so she pulled out her phone to message them.
When her screen lit up, she saw that she had received countless notifications from her group chat with Mika and Fuyuki.
Enlarging the internet based messaging app they used when they didn't feel like using regular text messaging, Shizuka went into their chat room named "The Deep End" and scrolled up to read the previously sent messages. As expected, the gist of the conversation was that her friends had been wondering where she had been all morning. Once she had finished reading all the messages, Shizuka sent a reply to the group.
4zuka: [Sorry guys, I had something to do this morning (；・∀・)]
Fufufuyuki: [?]
Mikachu: [Did something happen?]
4zuka: [So I somehow went up to Semi Madoka and asked him to date me...]
Mikachu: [Σ(ﾟДﾟ)!!!!!!!!!]
Fufufuyuki: [Hell yeah! Way to go Shii-chan! Attacking with a direct approach! Did you kabe-don him as you did it? Did you grab him by his tie? Did you grab his chin? More importantly, did he like it??????!!!!]
Mikachu: [How did it go??????]
4zuka: [........it was a success........]
Fufufuyuki: [(*≧∀≦*) You did it!!!!!]
Mikachu: [I'm soooooooooo glad for you Shii-chan!!!! б(＞ε＜)∂ So you're dating now?!]
4zuka: [Kind of...]
Fufufuyuki: [What does "kind of" mean? ಠ_ರ]
4zuka: [Like...it doesn't feel real? A lot of stuff happened this morning that I can't quite wrap my head around...]
Mikachu: [Give us details!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Just as Shizuka was about to reply, the second warning bell went off signaling the start of class.
As Mana-sensei shuffled to the chalkboard with papers in hand, Shizuka quickly sent one last message.
4zuka: [Will do, later]