[Warning 15+]
Author's Note:
Just dropped a new series.
Hope y'all enjoy the ride.
Part One~She Only Acts Like Her Old Self When She's with Me... Wait, Hold Up!~Chapter 1Nikaidō-san, the Girl in the Seat Next to Me
This happened back when we were just kids.
"We’re gonna be besties forever, right, Hayato?"
"Yeah, we’re besties for life, Haruki!"
Sunflowers in full bloom in the yard, empty soda bottles, and the buzzing of cicadas in the air.
As the sun set on the end of that summer in the countryside, I made a small promise with my bestie.
A simple pinky swear. A little ritual we did to hope for a reunion, right before a goodbye that we couldn't do anything about.
Man, that was already seven years ago.
~~
"This place is huge..."
Looking at the high school right in front of him, Kirishima Hayato suddenly found himself thinking back to those old days.
The school Hayato'd just transferred to was way different from the one in the countryside; It was so massive and fancy that it made his head spin.
Hayato started reminiscing about the good old days, probably just as a way to zone out from the stress.
But anyway, Hayato knew he couldn't just stand there looking overwhelmed forever, so he pulled himself together and headed for the Staff Room.
Looks like all the annoying paperwork was already taken care of, so he followed his Homeroom Teacher straight to his classroom. Above the door was a sign for Class 1-A.
Right from the entrance, everyone's curious eyes were locked on him, making Hayato feel pretty nervous.
"Hey, guys, my name is Kirishima Hayato. I'm just a boy from the countryside—a place called Tsukinose. It's the kind of countryside where you’ll run into monkeys, deer, and wild boars just chilling on the road."
That self-deprecating intro didn't exactly bring the house down, but it got a few chuckles and lightened the mood.
For his first day as a transfer student, it was a pretty solid start, and Hayato let out a sigh of relief.
I mean, moving from the countryside to the big city is already a huge deal, but doing it in the middle of June is just awkward timing. Hayato definitely had some nerves about the whole thing.
Still, there was one thing he was actually hyped about.
Hayato had moved to the same city as Nikaidō Haruki — the person he’d made that promise with as a kid. He was holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd cross paths again.
"For your seat... ...let's see, looks like the spot next to Nikaidō is open."
"Nikaido — Wait, what?"
"Here."
A girl raised her hand, basically saying, "Right over here."
She was a total knockout.
She had these big, round eyes and long, well-kept hair with a single braid on each side.
When she flashed a smile Hayato's way, she looked as precious as a flower starting to bloom.
She gave off this quiet vibe — the kind of pure, elegant girl that perfectly fits the "classy Japanese beauty" trope.
While Hayato's heart skipped a beat seeing a girl this pretty — something he'd never see back in the countryside — the face of his old partner-in-crime popped into his head. He thought, "Man, even this girl has the same last name as him, Nikaidō."
(Knowing what a total goofball that boy was, he’d probably try some cheesy line like, "Yo, we got the same last name, it must be fate," only to get shot down hard.)
Thinking about that made Hayato chuckle under his breath.
"Nice to meet you, Nikaidō-... ...san."
Nikaidō looked a bit surprised by Hayato's reaction for a split second, but then she hit him back with this low-key mischievous grin that was actually pretty charming.
"Nice to meet you too, Kirishima-kun."
As Nikaidō squinted her eyes with that smile, for some reason, Hayato got this huge wave of nostalgia.
—Wait, why did that just feel so familiar?
Hayato couldn't help but tilt his head in confusion, but the people around him weren't about to give him any time to overthink it.
"Hey, Kirishima, was that stuff you said in your intro for real?"
"Just how backwater was that place? Seriously?"
"What even brought you from a place like that to the city?"
The second Homeroom session let out, Hayato was swarmed by his classmates, getting the classic transfer student "interrogation" treatment.
"Yeah, I moved 'cause my old man got transferred out of nowhere. The place I lived in was way out in the countryside — like, the bus only came through four times a day. There were literally more farm animals than people. To be honest with y'all, I've never been surrounded by this many people that aren't chickens or sheep, so I'm kinda tripping out right now."
Hayato gave a little shrug, and the class lost it. "No way," "For real?" and "That’s hilarious," echoed through the room.
Hayato was definitely vibing with them. His classmates seemed to think he was chill and easy to talk to, so the questions just kept coming.
"So, did you have a sweetheart back home?"
"Sweetheart? Man, I could barely even find someone my own age, let alone a sweetheart."
"What about friends? What'd you guys do for fun?"
"Mostly I was just flying solo or helping out in the fields... ...Wait, actually, there was this one person. We were tight. That person used to make me bungee jump off bridges into the river and climb trees in the mountains until I got stuck and bailed hard... Honestly, instead of a friend, that kid was more like a bratty monkey or some kind of monster—"
Hayato kept talking while digging up all those old memories of Haruki.Most of them were just stories of Hayato getting dragged around and messed with. Nothing glamorous, for sure. But man, they were definitely good times.
Snap!―
"―Wait, what?"
"…Oh."
For some reason, right as Hayato was talking, the sound of something getting snapped echoed from the desk next to him.
Everyone instinctively looked over to see what happened.
The source of the noise was Nikaidō-san, the girl in the seat next to Hayato
In Nikaidō-san's hand was a mechanical pencil, snapped clean in half.
Even Nikaidō-san herself had this totally shocked look on her face.
A total classy beauty and a snapped mechanical pencil.
It was such a weird-ass combo that everyone's focus shifted from the questions to her — and honestly, who could blame them?
"Nikaidō-san?"
"Wait, how'd you even do that...?"
"You okay? You didn't cut yourself, did you?"
"O-Oh, haha! I'm fine. This thing must've just been a lemon or something."
Being the center of attention all of a sudden made Nikaidou-san start rambling in a panic. She fired a question at Hayato like she was trying to change the subject, but she had this look on her face that was low-key judging him.
"For someone you call a 'precious friend,' you've got a pretty mean way of talking about them, don't you?"
"Haha, well, that's exactly why I can talk like that. 'Cause we're tight."
"…Oh, is that so?"
Hayato brushed it off while still lost in his thoughts about Haruki.
And just like that, Nikaidou-san huffed and turned her head away.
TL: Reeze27
ED: Reeze27
PR: Reeze27
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