Chapter Text
Tadano Hitomi was everything Komi Shousuke was not.
Where Hitomi was extroverted, outgoing and talkative, Shousuke refused to talk unless absolutely necessary. Where Hitomi enjoyed getting into others' business and others into hers, Shousuke was indifferent to anyone other than himself. Where Hitomi was bright and bubbly, Shousuke was cold and unfriendly.
They were polar opposites, and from the moment Shousuke saw Hitomi, he knew that they would never be able to get along. Not that he wanted to, anyway. He couldn't understand people like her, whose hobby was talking to people. Shousuke had long deemed communication to be a waste of his precious time and energy.
First of all, it was mentally exhausting -- you would have to string together logical sentences, all for the sake of getting other people to understand the message you are trying to bring across. And even then, it isn't guaranteed that people will understand it fully or accurately. That's exactly how misunderstandings occur.
Since communication wasn't worth all that wasted energy and time, what was the point of even communicating, then?
Thus, Shousuke had made it his life motto to not communicate unless the circumstances absolutely required it -- which was not very often, perhaps because he found other ways to send a message even without having to waste words.
To anyone who tried to talk to him, he would send them scuttling away with a single glare. If someone asked him a question, he would answer it with a slight tilt of his head, or, sometimes, he would simply choose not to answer at all. It was that easy, and it didn't require much thinking. His methods proved to be quite successful, and Shousuke had managed to keep up this lifestyle for his entire life -- up until he entered high school.
When Hitomi first approached Shousuke, he tried all of his usual methods on her -- ignoring her (to which she would continue blabbering on without even noticing -- honestly, how could someone be that dense?), delivering her a sharp glare (to which she would return an innocent smile that showed how she didn't understand what he was trying to do -- has nobody ever gotten mad at her before?), even getting up and leaving (to which she would follow him -- does she not get the concept of social cues?).
In the first place, he couldn't even understand why she was talking to him. But he could guess that she, being the most extroverted person in the class, had taken it upon herself to talk to him, the seemingly most introverted person in the class. He had met many people like Hitomi before, who'd thought that it was their duty to include the class outcast and had tried talking to him. Usually, he wouldn't have paid them much mind, since they would all leave him alone after failing to get a response from him the first try.
However, for some reason Shousuke couldn't fathom, no matter what he did, Hitomi just would not leave him alone.
She pestered him at every opportunity she got, going to extreme lengths to get his contact information just so that she could flood his phone with a countless number of useless emails. She would speak for him on his behalf when he was ignoring his classmates, using ventriloquism she picked up from god knows where. She would ask him countless questions even if he didn't reply, and on the one time he did, she had made fun of him for his answer. She even barged into his house in the morning to wake him up and drag him out of the house -- he didn't even know how she had found out about his address, but he had a good guess (probably her older brother, who had just so happened to be his older sister's boyfriend).
Soon, he found out that resisting was futile, since she would always find a way around anything he did. Eventually, he just gave up on it completely, and accepted that Hitomi was just abnormal and uncontrollable. As such, after concluding that trying to run away would just be a waste of energy, he allowed himself to be dragged around by her. Spending every second of the day with her became a daily routine -- one that Shousuke would say he absolutely despised, but had actually gotten used to. So used to, in fact, that he would expect Hitomi's face to be the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes in the morning, and would, although he would never admit over his dead body, be slightly disappointed if she wasn't there.
And thus, on such a day where he woke up to his alarm clock ringing instead of a pesky classmate's loud, irritating voice or to said classmate shoving her face in front of him and dragging him out of bed, he immediately found himself wondering where she was.
Wait. I should be glad that that.. being.. isn't here. Since when did I care about where she was? He shook his head and slapped his cheeks. I must be exhausted because of her. Yeah. Just exhausted.
Get a grip of yourself.
He got out of bed and got ready as per usual -- if you considered him getting ready without Hitomi as usual. He got changed, brushed his teeth, and went downstairs to the living room. His mother saw him alone, and instantly smirked. He could already tell what she was going to say, just from the look on her face. He braced himself-- "Good morning, Shousuke~! Oh dearie me, did Hitomi-chan forget to wake you up~? I sure hope it's not because she's gotten sick of you already and decided not to come over anymore~"
He rolled his eyes at her. Yet, what she said did disturb him a little. Just a tiny bit. Before he could stop himself, Shousuke found himself wondering why Hitomi didn't come over.
She probably has class representative duties or something..
Wait. Why am I even thinking about why she didn't come? I should be grateful that she didn't come. I never even wanted her to come in the first place. He swatted the thought away. However, the uneasy feeling in his stomach did not go away. Tadano Hitomi was affecting him in a way that he didn't like, and he just could not figure out why.
He exhaled. That girl is bad news.
Shousuke hastily left the house without eating breakfast, clad in his impeccable school uniform. As usual, several passerbys stopped to stare at him, mesmerized by his beauty, and usually, Shousuke would have felt a slight annoyance towards them. However, today, he paid them no mind. His pace quickened, as he tried to get that uncomfortable feeling and any thoughts of Hitomi out of his mind. Suddenly, he noticed he wasn't walking on the usual path towards school.
He looked up, and to his utter horror, Shousuke found himself standing right in front of a house he knew too well, with a metal nameplate that read "Tadano" on the front gate. His stomach sank, and that uneasy feeling only got worse. His chest tightened, and all of a sudden, he found himself out of breath -- a sensation that he had only felt once in his entire lifetime.
Why am I here? Then, he saw the door starting to open, and quickly turned a corner and hurried away. It must be the muscle memory. I've just been coming here too often because of my sister and.. her. He shook his head, calming his heart. I just took a wrong turn and somehow ended up there.
But deep down, Shousuke knew, although he told himself it was nothing. He knew something was wrong with him; something was happening to him. Because in his entire life, he had never taken a wrong turn before. And he had certainly never, ever, felt this way before.
When Shousuke slid open the door to the classroom, sweat beaded his forehead and his cheeks were flushed red. He'd walked so fast (it was basically running), that he hadn't noticed how exhausted he was. He collapsed onto the chair, feeling nauseous, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. He'd reached the school an entire hour earlier than he usually did. He exhaled and looked around the empty classroom. Slowly, his focus moved to the desk on his right. It was empty, without her usual purple bag hanging on the side, which meant that Hitomi wasn't in school yet.
He cupped his head in his hands, letting out an exasperated sigh. What am I doing?
Suddenly, he couldn't think of a moment where he'd spent time without Hitomi. He'd gotten so used to her sticking to him like glue from the moment he woke up or the moment he entered the classroom, that it felt.. strange; abnormal, even, to be having a moment of peace, a moment without having to listen to her incessant chatter, in school.
Since when did my life start revolving around her?
He lay his head down on the table, gazing at Hitomi's empty desk. Slowly, his eyelids started to feel heavy, and before he knew it, he'd fallen asleep.
Shousuke awoke to the voices of girls.
"He looks sooo cute when he's sleeping! Like Sleeping Beauty.. or more like, Sleeping Prince!"
"Scoot over a bit, will ya? I wanna take a pic~"
His eyelids flew open, sending the girls scattering and squealing.
He looked up groggily, confused as to where he was. Then he remembered: he was on the way to school, when he somehow ended up at Hitomi's house, then ended up exhausting himself running to school before promptly falling asleep on his desk. He instinctively looked over to Hitomi's desk: still empty. He looked up at the clock again. Class was starting soon, and she usually reached much earlier than him. So why isn't she here yet?
He shook his head. Why am I caring about where she is or what she's doing or why she hasn't come to class yet?
Shousuke tried to go back to how he normally acted before he entered high school -- cold, stand-offish, unwilling to give anyone a chance. He tried to put on his signature glare as best as he could, and tried to filter out any thoughts of Hitomi.
Why am I acting like I can't live without her?
He scowled harder. Whenever she was with him, he'd always wished for her to just disappear and leave him alone. But now that she wasn't here, he was caring about her? How could that be? Him? Caring about her? The devil incarnate?
He shivered, folding his arms against his chest. I must be going crazy from hearing her endless prattling.
At that point, the bell rang, signalling the beginning of lessons, and the teacher entered the class.
"Ahem.. does anyone know what happened to.. Tadano-san?" he asked.
Everyone instantly turned their heads to Shousuke, who just scowled even more. Not knowing where she was or what happened to her was getting to him.
"Um.. she texted me last night, saying she caught a cold.." a girl raised her hand and said, stealing a nervous glance at Shousuke.
"Oh, in that case.." the teacher pushed his glasses up his nose, "does anyone know where she lives? I will pass you her worksheets."
Everyone looked at each other, but nobody seemed to know. Except one person.
He raised his hand, arms still folded, with a glare that seemed to cut straight through your soul.
"Ah. Thank you, Komi-kun. I shall pass her worksheets to you after lessons have ended."