CH. 26 - The Beginning of Summer

“Alright! Last day, perfect triathlon runs, let’s go!” Mr. Goda yells at the class in the gym as they all sit in front of him, still wearing their normal day uniforms. They look at him unphased as he just stands there not moving at all, still as a statue.

“Um, sir? It’s the last day of school, we don’t dress out today…” Haru says, slightly reluctant, unsure how Goda may react. Mr. Goda stands there for another moment before moving.

“Ah, you’re right. In that case.” He drops to the ground and lays in a raised push up position. “Who wants to watch me do five hundred perfect form push ups!?” Nobody answers, the entire class staying quiet. He stays in that position for a moment before speaking again. “And who would like to go to lunch early?”

The entire class raised their hands. After a moment, they make their way out of the gym with their stuff in hand. 

“Well, that was awfully nice of him.” Chizuru says as Lucy nods, agreeing. 

“Sure, but he doesn’t have to be so loud all the time.” Shiori says with an irritated look on her face as she rubs her ear.

“Is there something wrong with my volume, Ms. Inabi?” He asks intensely, standing above her. She freaks out and stiffens up with beads of sweat starting to form on her face. She slowly looks up at him as he glares at her.

“I- uh- I-”

He glares for another moment before relaxing and smiling at her a bit. 

“I’m just kidding. I know I can be a bit excessive sometimes.” He pats her on the back before walking past her. She stands there, stunned for a moment. “Oh, by the way. In my years of teaching, I have never seen such raw physical prowess before. I look forward to pushing your limits next year, you and that boy Hikigaya.” He gives her a smile and a thumbs up before walking away. Shiori looks quite upset.

“Great…” Hikigaya pats her on the back.

“Hey don’t worry Shiori. At least we found something you’re good at.” He says, playfully jabbing at her.

“Oh, Mr. Oshiro? Do try to keep up with her next year.” Goda says, looking over his shoulder with a smirk. Hikigaya pouts as Chizuru and Haru start laughing in his ear at the burn. Shiori just smiles and giggles a bit.

Later that day, time for the party rolls around. The students are all excited and rowdy for the party. Ms. Samuel comes in and begins to settle them all down. 

“Now class. Before we get started, let’s decide the order you all get food in. It will be dictated by who did the best in the class ending the year.” She says as Lucy smirks at Hikigaya.

“Looks like Hikigaya won’t be getting any food.” She punches his arm from behind as he pouts at her comment. 

“You may come get started in the order I call your name.” Samuel begins the list, starting with Sugawara, followed by Shiori, then so on. Eventually, everyone gets their snacks and begins hanging out in their own little groups happily. Samuel watches for a moment, proud of the happiness of the students before she’s interrupted by someone’s words.

“Main, what a party. Looks like I have my work cut out for me haha!” Ashley the janitor exclaims, laughing. Samuel jumps back, surprised.

“A-Ashley? What are you doing here?”

“I called her earlier and told her about our party. I thought it’d be nice if she could have some food since she’ll be cleaning up after us.” Chizuru says warmly while approaching them.

“Ain’t she the sweetest? So thoughtful! Thanks a bunch for inviting me.” Ashley pulls Chizuru’s cheeks playfully before patting her on the head. Chizuru then heads back to the others as Ashley stands next to Samuel. 

“Sooo, you’ll be staying the whole party then?” Samuel asks.

“Yep, unless you rather I didn’t?”

“No, no! That’s.. Not what I meant. I’m glad you’re here.” She says, blushing a bit. Ashley gives her an interested look, raising an eyebrow at her. She blushes harder and takes a step back.

“To help clean up and stuff, ya know? Haha.. cause you know kids, they can be pretty messy! I’m gonna be… at my desk.” She awkwardly fumbles and sinks into her chair. Ashley chuckles to herself a bit, leaning against the wall. The group sits, chatting and eating happily together before a couple students approach their little huddle of desks. 

“Hey.” The boy says casually as he walks up to the desk, giving a wave and a girl following behind him. 

“What do you want?” Shiori responds sharply, not taking the interruption lightly. They feel her aggressiveness and sweat a bit, taking a step back.

“Oh, uh… we were just wondering if it’d be okay to sit with you guys..?”

He says timidly as the girl behind him nods quickly in agreement, a smile on her face saying she didn’t pick up the aggressiveness. 

“Why do you want to sit with us?” Lucy asks as she places her hand on Shiori’s shoulder to bring down her guard, which she does a bit. 

“We wanted to thank Chizuru for making this party happen.” The girl says with a smile.

“Who? Me?” Chizuru asks, pointing at herself with a confused look.

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for you bringing it up, we probably would just have study hall right now.” He gives a slight smile, still nervous about Shiori. Haru gets a big smile on his face.

“Sure! Pull up a chair! How could we turn down some new friends?” He says happily while the students smile and pull their chairs over. Shiori pouts a bit about it since she has such a hard time dealing with new people. They sit next to Haru and Ryuji. Kitaro, the boy, leans over and whispers to Haru.

“So what’s her deal?”

Haru swallows the food he was eating and looks surprised.

“Who? Shiori? Oh, she’s just shy and has terrible communication skills. But don’t worry, she’s a softy once you get to know her.” He gives a smile as Shiori flips off Haru to his back. Kitaro sees this and doesn’t look too convinced by Haru’s words. 

“Right..”

Meanwhile, Hisana, the girl, enjoys the snacks she got, specifically a couple cake pops Ryuji made. She blushes and gushes about how good they are.

“Oh my goodness, these are so delicious! I wish I could eat them all!”

Ryuji shrugs at her words while looking plainly at one on his plate in front of him.

“Maybe a little too sweet. And heavy on the frosting, the cake is getting too mushy.” He critiques his own work.

“Yeah, okay Mr. Cake Expert. Like you could do better.” She says defensively. Ryuji nods.

“I will when I make them again next time.”

She looks at him with a blankly confused look as he grabs his cup of ice cream.

“Wait, you made these?” She asks softly. He nods in response as he takes a bite of his ice cream. “No way you’re that cute and can bake that good.” She says plainly as Shiori snaps her fork in anger at Hisana’s words. Lucy gets a bit angry, too.

“I should’ve just let you at them.” She grumbles. Chizuru sees them getting angry and panics a bit. She puts her hand on Hisana’s shoulder and whispers to her.

“I know it’s not your fault because Ryuji is so pretty and you didn’t know, but those two really like him, so I wouldn’t suggest crushing on him.”

Hisana looks at her, confused.

“Crushing on him? Me? Oh no no! All my love goes to that hunk over there.” She turns around and Chizuru follows. Hisana stares lovingly at a large guy in the back corner of the room. A delinquent student with his uniform all undone and a couple of bandages on his face. Everyone keeps their distance from him as he eats alone. Hisana looks adoringly while Chizuru smiles awkwardly, obviously not seeing what she sees. 

“Yeah, good luck with that one. She gets a new crush every year, I doubt this will last the summer.” Kitaro says, rolling his eyes as he bites into his food. 

“A girl can dream, can’t she?” Hisana says as she leans on her hand, staring at the boy longingly while the others hangout. Hikigaya chews his food while Samuel walks up behind him and Shiori. 

“Ms. Inabi, Mr. Oshiro, a quick word.” They both keep eating while they turn to face Ms. Samuel, who crouches down between them. “I’ve got to say. I’m really surprised.” They give her a look of confusion. “These cookies are much better than I expected, coming from you two. And neither one of you complained about the other not helping, so you must’ve helped each other, right?”

“Of course. You told us we had to, so we did.” Shiori says.

“That is a part of our arrangement, after all.” Hikigaya agrees. Samuel smiles warmly at them and stands up. She places her hands on both of their heads and gives them a soft rub.

“I’m really proud of you two. You’ve done a great job this year. To think, I thought you two were going to make my life miserable.” She smiles at them before walking away to check in on the other students. Hikigaya smiles happily and goes back to hanging out while Shiori stares at Ms. Samuel for a moment, her eye shining brightly. Her cheeks have a slight pinkish hue to them as she smiles softly, feeling good from the praise.

Eventually, the party must come to a close. Students start cleaning up their plates and messes as the others do the same. Hikigaya gets up to throw his stuff away but stops when he notices Shiori still sitting and poking at her leftovers. She has a vacant stare, like she is lost in thought. 

“You okay, Shiori?”

She blinks a couple times and comes back. She looks up at him, realizing she was spacing out. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine..” She looks back down for a moment before getting up. Her expression is almost sorrowful. Hikigaya notices but decides not to pry. The group decides to stay for a little while after class to help with cleaning up, mostly by Chizuru’s decision. As they’re helping Ashley, she asks Hikigaya a question.

“Hey, you’re her friend, right?” She bumps him with her elbow and motions towards Shiori, who is stacking up a couple of chairs against the wall with the windows. He looks at her for a second before turning back to Ashley and nodding. “Is she alright? She’s been kinda down for a while now. Not like her usual loud self, ya know?” Ashley says.

“Yeah… I know.” Hikigaya answers, lowering his head a little.

“Well, maybe you should chat with her. Try to cheer her up. And tell her I’ll put in a good word for her with the principal for helping out. You too.”

She gives him a smile, and he smiles back, but it fades when he turns to Shiori and sees her staring out the window.

The group leaves school one last time for the year, parting with the two new friends they made. As they walk out together, Chizuru excitedly hops up with joy.

“How are you so excited for the year to end?” Shiori asks.

“How could you not be? It’s summertime! Isn’t that so exciting!? Time for adventures and stories to be made! Let alone all the excitement the next year will bring!” Chizuru answers more enthusiastically than ever.

“She always gets like this when summer comes around.” Lucy says.

“She just loves a good adventure, haha!” Haru laughs as the others nod, and Chizuru laughs, embarrassed a bit.

“Well, as long as we stick together, I don’t mind at all what happens.” Sugawara says.

“Yeah…” Shiori says, hanging her head low a bit.

On the walk home after everyone parts ways, Shiori doesn’t say a word. Hikigaya sweats a bit, trying to think of a way to start a conversation but can’t. When they get home, Shiori heads straight into her room. Hikigaya stops at the base of the stairs and watches her heading upstairs. He looks concerned as Asami comes into the room. 

“Is everything alright?” She asks.

“I… I don’t know.”

“What happened? What did you do to her?” She wraps her arm around his neck and pulls him in aggressively, strangling him angrily, thinking he hurt her feelings.

“Hey! I didn’t do anything, alright?” She loosens her grip but still holds on. “Nothing happened, she just got really sad all of a sudden. I don’t know why…”

Asami looks at him and realizes from the look on his face that he’s serious. She lets him go and steps back. 

“Well, I guess you better get up there and find out, right?” She says with a motherly tone. He looks at her, confused.

“You want me to talk to her?”

“Duh, she probably won’t talk to anyone else.”

“But she doesn’t even like me all that much. I doubt she’d even-”

“Would you just get your butt up there?” She interrupts him and starts pushing him up the stairs. Hikigaya is nervous and hesitates, but does as his mother says. He stands outside her door for a moment, sweating a bit. He raises his hand to the door, pauses for a moment, then knocks. 

“Shiori? You… okay?”

“Come in.”

He is surprised by her response but does as told. He cautiously opens the door and steps into her room. She’s sitting at her desk, tapping a pencil to her temple with her notebook in front of her.

“What did you say?” She asks, not even looking at him.

“I was just asking if you were doing okay?”

She turns and looks at him, almost confused.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Well, after the party, you got really quiet. I wasn’t sure if… maybe I did something wrong?” He asks, still nervous about bringing it up. She looks confused, but then looks down a bit. 

“No, it’s not you. It’s me.”

He looks surprised and confused by her response. 

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m just being dumb, don’t worry about it.” She shakes her head and turns back to face her book. She puts her pencil to the paper as if to write something but doesn’t. Hikigaya feels unsatisfied by her response, but doesn’t say anything back for a moment. He sits on her bed, looking at the ground for a moment before speaking up.

“Is it because school is ending?” He asks gently, purely based on a feeling. Shiori’s eye widens, and she turns slowly to face him again. Hikigaya looks at her as if asking whether he was right or wrong. She looks down for a moment, struggling with opening up to him.

“Yeah… Every year that’s gone by, nothing has ever changed. Every time a school year ends, that only means I have to start over again. In a new classroom with new classmates, I have to go through them all learning to hate me again… I know I make it seem like it never mattered to me but.. it does. It sucks… I just don’t want to do that again…” She hangs her head low and holds onto her arm tightly, obviously very hurt admitting this. Hikigaya looks concerned for her before getting up and coming closer to her. He crouches down next to her.

“It’s gonna be alright, Shiori. Things are different now. You have the others all here for you. At the very least, you’ll have me.” He gives her a slightly awkward smile and she kind of smiles back.

“Yeah. We’re still stuck to each other, right?” She says, trying to find comfort in him.

“Until Principal Ai gives the word.” He says with gentle confidence, trying to pass it on to her. He smiles warmly at her before standing up to walk away. Before he can step away, however, Shiori holds onto his uniform sleeve, keeping him from walking away. He looks surprised for a moment as she stands up, too. She blushes a little and looks away, embarrassed, rubbing some of her bangs together between her fingers.

“Thank you… for listening to me and being understanding…”

She pulls her arm back, bringing him closer to her. He blushes a bit and lets her pull him in close. She wraps her arms around him in a loose hug as he does the same. Her face placed into his neck to hide the embarrassment. After a moment, unsure of what to do, Shiori pushes him away softly and smiles awkwardly at him. 

“Well, I’m gonna get back to writing now! Got a few ideas I need to put to paper before I forget them, haha!” She rubs the back of her head as she sweats a bit. Hikigaya answers nervously back.

“Y-yeah! Lucy wanted me to try this new game that just came out, so I think I’m gonna get started on that, haha!” They laugh nervously as he backs out of her room and closes the door behind him. He leans against the door as he blushes hard, steam coming from his head.

‘She hugged me!’ He thinks, flustered like crazy. Ace watches from around the corner and giggles to herself.

“They are just so cute!” She whispers quietly. 

In an elementary schoolyard, the kids dance around and play to their hearts’ content during their recess. While the kids play, one child sits alone on the swing set. She gently sways back and forth while she stares at the ground, no particular expression on her face. It is little Shiori. She sits on the swing and softly pushes herself as she looks up.

“The sky is a little cloudy today.” She says to herself as a slight smile comes across her face. “At least I know the clouds are happy!” She says happily.

Suddenly, she is pushed into the dirt by a couple of bigger kids, no longer by the swing set but by an outdoor hallway. They laugh and call her names as they walk away. Shiori props herself up on her hands and knees. Her things scattered about around her. She reaches for her binder when a droplet hits her hand. She pauses as, one by one, more and more droplets begin to fall from the sky. It begins to gently rain on her. She sits back on her legs and just stares at the ground for a moment before she hears a couple of footsteps in front of her.

“Here, let me help you.” A little hand reaches out for her to help her up. She begins to look up, but before she can see who it is, Shiori opens her eyes.

She is in her bed laying on her back, her phone alarm going off. She rolls over and hits the button, showing it is eight in the morning. Making a face, she rolls back over with a groan and rubs her eyes. She drops her hands to her sides and lays in bed for a moment longer.

‘Why was I dreaming of that again?..’ She thinks to herself before getting out of bed. It is now about halfway into summer break. Shiori rubs her eye as she looks into her mirror sleepily. She steps out of her room, still in her pajamas, and heads across the hallway into the large bathroom. There, Hikigaya is brushing his teeth. He spits and looks at Shiori with a smirk as she yawns and stretches, walking past him.

“Good morning Shiori. As lively as ever this early in the morning, I see.” He teases.

“Shut up. It’s too early to hear your voice.” She says as she closes the door to the toilet behind her. Hikigaya rinses his mouth as he smirks, knowing full well Shiori thinks this is like any other normal day. 

“I hope you’re ready to go because we’re leaving in like an hour.”

She suddenly swings the door open with a panicked look on her face.

“Wait! That was today?!”

He smiles and nods at her. She scrambles out of the room and back into her room.

Eventually, everyone makes their way downstairs and to Asami’s van. Takanou and Asami pack the trunk with luggage and bags while Hamasaki buckles in Riku to his booster seat. Hikigaya is making his way to the car, all ready to go when Shiori, panting and out of breath, catches up behind him. 

“That was fast. Sure you didn’t forget anything?” He asks sarcastically. 

“It’s still too early..” She says out of breath as she walks past him to the van. 

“Good morning, sweetie. You all ready to go?” Takanou asks. She nods as she hands him her bag.

“I hope Hikigaya woke you up early enough.” Hamasaki adds. Shiori freezes up and looks at her mother.

“He what?”

“Yeah, I told him to make sure you were up a little earlier than usual, in case you forgot.” Asami says while putting Hikigaya’s bag in. Shiori slowly turns to look at Hikigaya. 

“Oh yeah, I was supposed to do that. Guess it slipped my mind.” He says while shrugging. Shiori then punches him in the side, hard. He shouts ‘Oof!’ As he holds his side and falls over.

“Oww! What was that for?!” He shouts while wincing in pain as Shiori climbs into the van. 

“It’s for making me rush this morning. Now come on, you’re being overdramatic.” She goes to the backseat where Ace is sitting on her phone. She looks up and gives a thumbs up with a smile to Shiori. Shiori giggles a little and sits in the middle. After Hikigaya climbs in, whining under his breath, Hamasaki gets in behind Takanou next to Riku as Asami gets in the passenger side. Before Takanou starts the car, he turns back to face everyone.

“Alright, everyone got everything?” He asks.

“Wait, I think I forgot my-” Ace grabs her belt.

“And we’re off!” Asami shouts enthusiastically as she points forward. Hamasaki giggles as Takanou starts the car and begins their journey.  

After a couple hours in the car, the families eventually come to a large convention center. Shiori leans over Hikigaya to stare out the window in awe. 

“Wow… I’ve never been to a convention before.”

“Sorry we’ve never taken you to one before, but truth be told, neither have I..” Takanou says, kind of embarrassed to Asami, who gives him a playful smile. 

“Well, you’re gonna love this one.” Hikigaya says casually. She leans back and gives him a confused look. When he doesn’t elaborate, she turns and looks at Ace, who just smiles ominously and looks away. Shiori sits back down in her seat normally, confused, thinking of what they could mean.