CH. 2 - Living Situation

The rest of the school day goes by normally with no hiccups and soon, the last bell rings to end the first day of school. The entire group, now up to six people—Ryuji, Haru, Lucy, Chizuru, Hikigaya, and Shiori—all decide to meet at the front entrance of the school.

It’s a couple of cement benches right under a tree just before the main gate. The rest of the group is there chatting, waiting for Shiori and Hikigaya. As they come through the school doors, Shiori is looking down, kind of slouching, with a displeased look on her face.

‘I can’t believe I’m actually doing this…’ She thinks with an anxious tone, but then she looks up to see the group standing under the tree, waiting for them. She pauses for a moment with a warm look on her face. Still no smile in sight, however. ‘They really did wait for me…’ Her eye lights up a bit.

“Hey Hikigaya, Shiori!” Chizuru calls out.

“Yeah, yeah..” Hikigaya waves back with a smile as he walks past Shiori. She stares at him for just a moment, having forgotten Hikigaya was following behind her.

‘Oh. That’s right, they were waiting for him…’ Shiori looks almost hurt by this but quickly moves on, not thinking about it too much and is soon occupied with the rest of the group.

“I’m surprised you actually came, Shiori. I thought for sure you’d just abandon us the first chance you got.” Hikigaya says, poking fun at her. She doesn’t entertain his comment.

“So guys, what do you think? Isn’t this great or what?” Chizuru asks excitedly.

“Yeah! Only one day into highschool and things are already getting interesting!” Haru says excitedly back.

“It’s nice having all my friends together again. Especially in the same class.” Lucy adds.

“And making new ones.” Chizuru says with a warm tone as she smiles at Shiori. The group all turns and looks at her with smiles on their faces too. She blushes in embarrassment for a moment.

“Yeah…” She responds softly, looking at the ground, trying to avoid eye contact. Ryuji steps next to her and puts his hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, slightly surprised.

“So, what do you think? Care to join our club?” He asks in a gentle tone. She stares at him for a moment before looking at the others. Lucy smiles and shrugs. Chizuru giggles and sweats, a bit embarrassed that Hikigaya is trying to pry himself away from Haru’s hug behind them.

“Sorry if you planned on getting super popular in high school cause we can’t help you with that. Believe it or not but, we’re not exactly the popular kids around here.”

“What’re you talking about??” Haru shouts from behind her before getting dropped to the ground by Hikigaya. He then quickly gets to his feet with a big smile on his face and his fist in the air. “We’re the coolest kids you’ll ever meet!” He shouts.

“No, it’s-” Shiori speaks up quickly, but then pauses for a moment. Lucy raises her eyebrows a bit as Shiori rubs some of her bangs together in front of her face. “This is fine…” She says softly, a little embarrassed even. Ryuji and the others smile.

“Alright then!” Lucy says, stretching, pulling her arm up over her head. “Now that that’s all official, I gotta get home. I am way under-prepared for my classes and should probably get on that.”

“Ooh, can I help? I love preparing school supplies!” Chizuru says excitedly. Lucy smiles and nods.

“C’mon Ryuji.” Lucy says while waving Ryuji over. She and Chizuru begin to walk away as Shiori watches Ryuji walk past her to follow them. He turns and waves at the others as Chizuru does the same.

“See you guys tomorrow.” Ryuji says.

“Bye-bye!” Chizuru waves with a smile.

Shiori is still standing in the same spot, not moving or saying anything. She’s unsure of what to do in this situation. Hikigaya notices how out of place she seems and decides to take initiative.

“Let’s go Shiori. I’ll walk you home too.” He begins walking away as Shiori turns and looks at him, surprised.

“What? You don’t have to stick with me anymore, the school day is over.”

He stops for a moment and turns to her halfway, a soft smile on his face.

“I know.” He continues walking. Shiori sighs and reluctantly follows. Haru gets a shocked look on his face.

“Hey! What about me? You're just gonna leave me here all alone to find my way home by myself, here, all alone?” He calls out.

“You’ll be fine, you big baby!” Hikigaya calls back from across the street with Shiori. He waves at him as Haru laughs and waves back.

Shiori and Hikigaya walk down a sidewalk going a different direction than the other three left on. They walk in silence for a while, which makes Hikigaya kind of uncomfortable, so he decides to start talking.

“Sooo, how was your day?”

“You were with me the whole time..”

“Ah haha yeah…” He rubs the back of his head, embarrassed. After another moment of silence, he asks another question. “Hm... Did you like them?”

“What?” She turns her head to face him, confused but intrigued by the question.

“My friends. Did you like them? Do you think you could be friends with them?”

Shiori looks away a bit, thinking about the question. 

“Friends…” She says under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” She looks ahead as if she said nothing. Hikigaya grins a bit and looks ahead, too. ‘Friends… I think… I like the sound of that…’ She thinks with a slight smile as they continue walking.

The walk for Shiori from home to school is not very long. She knows this, but she doesn’t know where Hikigaya lives or how long that would take for him. She sneakily looks over her shoulder at him, as he seems to not have a care in the world following behind her.

‘We’re getting pretty close to my house. Why hasn’t he left yet?’ “Hey Hikigaya.”

“Hm?”

“You don’t have to walk me all the way home, you know.”

He gets a look of surprise at her statement.

“It’s all good. I live down this way too.”

Shiori gets a displeased look on her face, but keeps walking. The closer they get to Shiori’s apartment complex, the more irritated she becomes.

“Look, I’d really appreciate it if you'd leave now.”

“What? Why?” He asks with a confused look.

“I really don’t want you coming all the way to my house, that’s weird."

“I totally understand, but… I still live this way.” He says, a bit of a sweat on his head and an awkward look on his face. They stop and look at each other as they approach her fairly large apartment complex.

“What do you mean?..” Shiori asks, a confused and uncertain look on her face. They both look up at the complex, then back at each other quickly. Their eyes widen and their jaws drop, looks of shock on their faces as they realize the situation.

“EHHH?!?!?” They both shout together, startling the birds resting on the roof of the complex.

“What do you mean you live here?!” Shiori shouts.

“I could ask you the same thing!” Hikigaya shouts back. They start yelling at one another about the fact that they happen to live in the same apartment building. Shiori stops for a second and takes a breath.

“Okay look. This is really weird, but it’s a big complex. If you think about it, it’s not the craziest thing to happen.”

“Yeah. And it’s not like we’re neighbors or something.”

They were, in fact, neighbors.

They stand outside of their respective front doors, right next to each other, both slumped over, obviously upset about this.

“Of course. Cause why not?..” Hikigaya says with a sigh. He then looks at Shiori and smiles awkwardly, pointing at his door. “I’m just uh… I’m gonna go inside.” He unlocks the door and steps inside. Shiori just sighs and lowers her head, facing her front door again, still processing everything that has happened so quickly. But before she can do anything else, Hikigaya steps back out, closing his door behind him with a confused look. “That’s weird. My mom isn’t here..”

She gives him a weird look, then unlocks her door and opens it. She looks inside, then slouches over, even more upset.

“I think I found her…” She says with a droop. Hikigaya peaks inside then gets a shocked look. He sees his mom on the couch in Shiori’s living room, laughing and having a good time with Takanou and Hamasaki, Shiori’s parents. As they step in, Asami tilts her head back over the back of the couch, looking at the kids upside down.

“Ah, there they are now.” She says with a smile.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” Hikigaya asks.

“Well.” She gets up with a gentle huff and steps around the couch towards them, revealing a small child about six years old, Riku. Shiori’s little brother had been sitting in her lap. She puts him down and he immediately runs to hug Shiori at the mid thigh. She hugs him back while Asami continues. “After getting that letter about your 'special situation', I decided to speak to the principal, just to get a bit more information on how you’d be handled.”

“Just as we were leaving, we saw Ms. Oshiro doing the same with the same idea. So we stopped and talked for a bit and now, here we are.” Takanou adds while standing up. Hikigaya then raises his fist into the air with a frustrated look on his chibi face.

“Curse my mom’s sociable nature..!”

“Who knew we’d be neighbors?” Hamasaki adds with an excited look on her face, still sitting on the couch.

“That still doesn’t explain why you had to stay here…” Hikigaya pouts.

“What? Mommy can’t have friends of her own?”

“Not when it affects me...” He says under his breath with attitude. Asami wraps her arm around Hikigaya’s neck again and starts strangling him, obviously upset at his response. Shiori watches as she notices how much more easily embarrassed Hikigaya is around his mom.

‘I didn’t realize anything could bother him.’ She thinks to herself.

“Alright, well, it was really nice meeting y’all. And a pleasure meeting you, Shiori.” Asami says as she boops Shiori’s nose and smiles at her. “If you need us, you know where to find us.” She winks at the family and heads out the door. Hikigaya awkwardly waves a bit and follows. Hamasaki walks around the couch and leans against the back of it with a smile on her face.

“Wow, Asami was so nice.”

“Yeah, we definitely need to have them over more often. What do you think, Shiori?” Takanou asks. Shiori just looks at the door for a moment before turning around with a frustrated sigh.

“I think he’s a real headache.”

“Hey, what teenage boy isn’t? Am I right?” Takanou laughs at his own joke, turning and looking at Hamasaki for reassurance that his joke was funny. She just smiles at him in a way that tries not to hurt his feelings. He droops a bit with a ‘right...’ Hamasaki, then steps next to her daughter.

“You probably had a long first day, huh? Why don’t you go rest a bit and I’ll start preparing dinner.” She says with a loving tone as she pats Shiori on the head, who smiles as thanks.

Come the next day at school, during lunch, the group has found a nice place to hangout at. It’s a bench next to a tree just out from beneath the canopy for the other benches. Shiori sits on the ground, leaning against the tree with her lunch she packed from home. Lucy, Chizuru, Ryuji and Hikigaya are sitting on the bench while Haru stands talking to them. 

“I’m telling you guys. You should totally start watching all the movies in chronological order. That’s the only real way to watch them." He puts his hand on his hips and stands confidently.

“I don’t know Haru. Killer robots? Race cars? It sounds a little all over the place.” Lucy says with a skeptical look.

“Yeah, I have a hard time watching something with a confusing plot.” Chizuru adds. Haru gets a shocked and offended look.

“Confusing?! It’s not confusing! It just has deep lore, but the animation is even better!” Haru starts waving his arms around and talking with his body far more than he needs to, acting quite energetic and sporadic. “There are so many scenes that are amazing! So much action, so much drama! There’s a whole world there waiting for you guys to explore!-” He throws his arms up and his body back in exaggerated fashion, but this action causes him to bump into a small boy who happens to be walking right behind him, holding the trash of his lunch. He knocks the boy down on the floor, causing the trash to fall everywhere. The group perks up noticing this, getting concerned about the situation. Haru turns around quickly with concerned for the boy. The boy sits on the ground, holding his head low just like he was a moment ago, looking at the surrounding trash.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you! Here, let me help you-” Haru reaches his hand out to help the boy up, but he slaps Haru’s hand away instead. Haru steps back a bit, shocked by the action. The boy gets up and walks away swiftly, a frustrated look on his face. Haru stares at him, looking upset about what he had just done.

“It’s okay Haru. I’d be just as upset and embarrassed if I was knocked over, too.” Hikigaya says in an attempt to comfort him, but it only makes Haru feel worse. He realizes this and starts thinking about what to say to fix it before Chizuru interrupts his stuttering by getting up and putting her hand on Haru’s back. He looks at her softly.

“You offered to help. That’s the best you can do. Try not to worry too much about it, okay?” She smiles softly at him before she crouches down to start picking up the trash that was spilled. The others join in to help clean up the mess. As Haru cleans, he looks regretful of his action, still thinking about what he did.

Eventually the day ends and the group parts ways the same way they did the day before. Haru waves goodbye and starts walking by himself as the warm orange sky hangs over him. Haru smiles for a bit, but after his friends leave, he lowers his head and frowns as he walks.

‘It was just an accident. No one was hurt. So why did he look so… sad?’

Haru thinks back to the moment when the boy fell on the ground and looks closer at his face. He notices tear marks around his eyes and on his cheeks. He had been crying before it even happened. Haru slaps his hands on his head, partly over his eyes, leaning his head up towards the sky in frustration.

“Ah, and I just made it worse! Whatever he is going through, I just put the cherry on top.” He drops his arms to his sides as he sighs. “I need to find him so I can apologize.” Focused in thought, he didn’t realize someone was running towards him down the sidewalk. The person isn’t looking either and runs right into Haru. He falls on his butt from the impact of the collision.

“Oof! Sorry, are you- Oh. It’s you!” Haru looks up to see the boy from earlier that he knocked over. He still stands right in front of him, panting. “Well, I guess we’re even now, huh? Haha!” Haru says with an awkward laugh from the ground. The boy doesn’t react, still not looking him in the eyes. Haru then notices that he’s panting and covered in sweat. The upper buttons of his shirt are undone and his hair all ruffled, but he’s still in his school uniform. Haru gets a concerned look.

“Are.. you okay?” He asks gently. There’s a moment of silence, but then the boy darts past him and keeps running. Haru turns quickly, watching him run off. “Wait!- Why is he..?" He reaches out to the boy but pauses and lowers his hand. "It might be best to leave it alone…” Haru looks down and rubs the back of his head like he’s debating. “Still… He looks way more familiar than I thought.. Even before I bumped into him earlier…”

Haru puts his finger and his thumb on his chin, holding it, thinking. He then looks up as a sound catches his attention. Shifting his gaze, he sees three grown men running down the sidewalk across the street. His body tenses up when he notices one of them holding a bat.

“Where did he go?”

“I think he went this way!” The men shout to each other angrily, their voices echoing through the street. Haru watches as the men continue running down the sidewalk. Haru sighs in relief a bit, glad they didn’t acknowledge him. He turns and looks as they run down the street.

“They’re running the same direction that… he…”

He realizes they’re running the same way that the boy ran off to. He watches for a moment before his eyes grow wide with a terrified look. Without a second of hesitation, Haru picks himself up and starts sprinting after them, fear still across his face.