(Further procrastination. Damn it, I had to start reading the manga, didn't I?!)
A third story…the plot bunnies are relentless. Then again, I've read up to chapter 45 of the Blue Exorcist manga as I'm writing this, so maybe that's what's feeding them and making them multiply… Anyway, I was thinking about doing a oneshot like this and seeing some stuff in the manga refer to Rin's non-exorcist school courses sort of made me say "eh, why not?" and start writing. Also, even though this story's about Rin having a secret admirer, there's no romance-but there is a Rin trying to be romantic. Apologies for any out-of-character behavior.
Disclaimer: Blu Rose does not own the Blue Exorcist series. She only owns this fic.
Summary: "Secret admirers usually send letters, not sticky notes." "Shut up! It still counts!" Rin is excited when he learns he has a secret admirer from his regular classes. Maybe a little too excited.
X-X-X
"Eh?" Rin stared at the heart-shaped piece of pale pink paper stuck to the door of his locker. He plucked it off and stared at the English writing on it. "Zu…daburyuu…ei…kei…" He stared in confusion at the writing. "…The hell is this?!"
"Hey, Okumura!" The sound of Renzo's voice made Rin look to see Kyoto trio standing beside him. He wondered just how long they'd been standing there when Renzo leaned forward. "What's that?"
"Some weirdly written message. Maybe someone's tryin' to curse me or somethin'." He showed the heart-shaped paper to his fellow exwires. "Looks like gibberish to me."
"Hm? Hold on. I think whoever wrote this was trying to spell something," said Konekomaru. "Let me see. Um…swak."
Rin blinked. "What's swak?"
Renzo gave an overdramatic gasp as he snatched the sticky note out of Rin's hands. "No way! It couldn't be!"
"What?! What is it, what is it?!" The blue-haired teen exclaimed, suddenly worried by the pink-haired teen's reaction and shocked expression.
"S.W.A.K.! Okumura, do you know what this means?"
"I would if you'd just tell me, for crying out loud!"
Renzo blinked. "You don't know? You've never heard of S.W.A.K.?" In response, Rin just growled, making him laugh sheepishly. "Uh, it's an acronym that stands for 'sealed with a kiss'. That means a girl wrote this and kissed it! For you! You lucky bastard!"
Rin began to blush. "A girl…k-kissed this? So it's like a love confession?!" He exclaimed, his eyes lit up in excitement.
"You sure it's a real one? Love confessions are usually written on letters, not sticky notes," Ryuji commented.
"Sh-shut up! It can count! It can totally count!" The half-demon snapped as he glared at the taller boy. To say he was thrilled at the idea of having an admirer would be an understatement. He'd only seen other people in middle school giving letters to their crushes or slipping them onto desks or lockers, but he this was the first time it ever happened to him.
"Hold on. It looks like there's another note attached to this one," Renzo said as he began to pull another heart-shaped sticky note apart from the first. "There's something written on this one, too."
Rin reacted by snatching the paper back and looking down at it intently. "'I think you're cute'." His cheeks turned pink as he blushed and hearts practically appeared in his eyes. "She thinks I'm cute! Yes!" He exclaimed loudly. He didn't think so much about who thought he was cute, but that didn't matter, did it?
"That's it? No wonder she wrote it on something so small, then," said Konekomaru.
"Wait, wait! There's more!" The blue-haired teen exclaimed. His mouth opened in awe and his hand began to shake. "S…sex?! She wants to have sex with me!"
"Say what?!" Ryuji and Konekomaru exclaimed loudly.
Renzo looked like he was crying as he patted Rin on the shoulder. "Oh…! You lucky bastard, Okumura-kun!"
"W-we haven't even met yet and she wants to have sex?! Th-that's moving too fast, isn't it?! You should at least kiss once before you say you wanna have sex—mmph!" Ryuji slapped a hand over Rin's mouth. The half-demon gave him a glare while he was still blushing.
"Will ya stop saying that word out loud?! People might think that we're perverts!" The Aria-in-training snapped. "Anyway, you don't even know if that's from a real person. It might be from some guy pulling a prank on you. And even if it isn't, you should be focusing on cram school, not girls!"
At that point, Rin had dropped the note and managed to pry Ryuji's hand off of his mouth. "You're just jealous! I bet no girl would ever send a confession of love to your ugly mug!"
"Even if they did, I wouldn't care because I'm above those sorts of distracting things!"
"Geez, you're as bad as Yukio! Some of us wouldn't mind being distracted by something like this!" Especially those who never got to experience this sort of thing in middle school.
"Atta boy, Okumura! Fight for your right to lose your virginity!" Renzo cheered on.
"Yeah— Wait a second! Th-that's not what I was talking about!" The half-demon exclaimed as he shook his head frantically.
"I think it's an H." Konekomaru's comment made the other three boys look at him. He was holding the note and pointing at the kanji at the bottom of the paper. "Eichi as in the letter H."
"Aw, too bad, Okumura. But maybe if you're lucky, she'll wanna—OW!" Renzo's comment was cut short as Ryuji smacked him upside the head. "Still, that's kinda weird," said the pink-haired teen as he lightly rubbed the bump forming on his head. "Usually when people sign their letters this way, they leave two initials, not one."
Rin actually felt relieved. The idea of a girl having a crush on him was enough of a surprise. Knowing that she wanted to have sex with him almost made him die from a mix of joy and fear. "So the person who sent this has a name that starts with H?" It couldn't have been either of the girls from cram school, so that left those in his classes at the regular school. He usually paid so little attention during those classes that he probably wouldn't notice if a girl was staring at him like those girls in manga did with their crushes. "I wonder who it could be…?"
X-X-X
Hours later, after cram school had ended, Rin was sitting at his desk and staring at the note he'd received. In all his classes, there were girls whose names or surnames started with H, so coming up with choices wasn't the hard part. It was more the fact that none of the girls he knew of showed the sort of signs of attraction the ones in manga showed: no blushing and giggling, no offering handmade lunches, not even the on and off hot-cold nature of a tsundere heroine. Granted, it may not have been smart to make expectations based upon comics, but the closest example of a real normal girl that he knew of was Shiemi and how chummy she was with Yukio.
"Why am I not surprised?" Speak of the devil, the younger Okumura twin was hovering over the elder. Rin hadn't noticed when Yukio left his desk, but he was feeling uncomfortable now. "Even though you were staring down so intensely, our homework sheet is still blank."
"Way to point out the obvious, Mom!" Rin said with a growl. "I'm just thinking about what to write, okay?"
"That's what you always say when you're distracted with something else." Yukio looked down at his desk expecting to find the usual a comic or magazine. Instead, his eyes fell on the pair of heart-shaped sticky notes that had been stuck to the desk. "Swak? What exactly is that?"
The blue-haired brother gave a devilish smirk, happy that this was one form of female affection his brother didn't experience himself. "What? You don't know? This," He took off one sticky note and waved it in front of the brunette's face, "is someone's confession of love to me! S.W.A.K. means 'sealed with a kiss'!"
Yukio stared at the paper in wide-eyed surprise. "A girl actually gave you a confession of love? That's amazing! To think a girl would actually be attracted to you! Well, she probably doesn't know about all your faults, but that's good!"
Rin's smirk became a frown as he started to glare up at him. "Don't make it sound like it's a miracle! And what do you mean by faults, four eyes?!"
Ignoring his brother, Yukio took the paper and observed it. "Actually, is this even real? Love confessions are usually written as letters. This is the sort of thing that looks like it was done last minute."
"It is real! Why does no one think it's real?! Is it hard to believe that there are girls out there who are charmed by me?" The half-demon said with a smile as he brushed his hair back with his hand. "There's one girl who was! She thinks I'm the hottest guy on campus!"
"Really? All it says here is that she thinks you're cute." Rin looked up and noticed that Yukio was now holding the other sticky note in his hand. The brunette blinked for a moment as he eyed the signature, but calmed down when he realized what it was supposed to mean. "She didn't even sign her name. She just put down a single initial. For all you know, it might not even be a girl."
Rin's jaw dropped in surprise. "You mean…it could be one of the teachers?!" Yukio just stared silently as his brother as he rubbed his chin in thought. "An older woman…" He shuddered and closed his eyes. "All of my teachers are middle-aged, though…!"
"…Anyway, just don't let this secret admirer business interfere with your schoolwork. You can't afford to fail." Yukio was mostly referring to the exorcist cram school courses, but it wouldn't do for Rin to flunk out of high school, either.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now gimme back my notes!" Rin attempted to snatch both notes out of Yukio's hands, but he missed.
"They're only sticky notes."
"To you! But to me, they're a sign of someone's love!"
"But the note only said…" The brunette sighed and gave back the notes. "Just do what I said."
"Yes, Mom." When Yukio turned his back to return to his own desk, Rin childishly stuck his tongue out at him for a moment before he looked back down at the notes. He couldn't help his tail's energetic movements as he looked forward to his admirer's next note.
X-X-X
For the next three days, while going through the usual training, studying and classes, Rin anticipated another note from his admirer. As the days passed, though, and nothing popped up on his locker or desk. The exwire was starting to worry that Bon and Yukio may have been right and the notes were just some prank. Then, on Thursday, he found another heart-shaped sticky note attached to his locker door. Unlike the last time, there was only one sticky note, and it seemed to be written in the form of a checklist. But before he could start reading, a hand grabbed his shoulder.
"Ah, Okumura-kun! That another message from your secret admirer?" Renzo asked as he seemed to pop up beside Rin, making the blue-haired teen jump.
"Still usin' sticky notes, huh?" Ryuji asked as he and Konekomaru walked up to them both. "You'd think she would at least put enough effort into writing on a normal piece of paper."
"So, what does it say this time, huh? Does she ask you to have sex in this one? Heh-heh-heh!"
Rin blushed and bared his teeth. "Knock it off! Quit turning an innocent thing into somethin' dirty!"
"Come oooon! Just tell us what it says!" The pink-haired teen said as he looked at the note. "Let's see…'Check yes or no to the following: Are you single? Are you straight? Are you interested in meeting me? Put this note on the bulletin board near the lockers afterwards. -H" Renzo stared at Rin for a few seconds before he held a hand to his mouth. He tried to hold back his laughter before pointing a finger at the blue-haired teen. "Sh-she…! She thinks you're gay? I know it's not true, but knowing a girl thinks you might be—" Before he could finish his sentence, Ryuji struck him in the back of the head hard enough to make him kneel in pain. He still managed to giggle between his cries of pain, though.
Ignoring Renzo, Rin stared at the note with a blush. "Sh-she's asking if I've got a girlfriend." The pink-haired teen on the floor opened his mouth to add 'Or boyfriend' when Ryuji gave him a kick in the behind to shut him up. "She wants to go steady? This is all happening way too fast!"
The dual-haired teen gave a sigh of exasperation. "Quit jumpin' to conclusions, Okumura! You haven't even met her! You don't even know if she's real!"
"She did ask if you wanted to meet her. Maybe she just wants to know if Okumura-kun's interested in her," said Konekomaru.
"Huh," Renzo spoke from the floor. "Sounds like she wants to safely avoid trouble just in case Okumura's not interested for…pfft! Reasons."
"Ah! She wants to make a date!" The half-demon exclaimed with a wide eyes and a dopey smile. To the Kyoto trio, his expression at the moment looked like the sort of thing that should've been accompanied by the sort of special effects in a shojo anime. Rin immediately started fervently searching his schoolbag. "Pen, pen, pen, pe— Got it!" He checked off 'yes' for all the questions before sprinting over to the bulletin board. Smiling, he placed it in an empty spot, saying, "I can't wait! I hope she gives me an answer tomorrow!"
"Wait, wait, wait! We can't just leave! This is the perfect opportunity for us to see who she is!" The pink-haired teen exclaimed. "All we've gotta do is be stealthy and hide out so she doesn't see us!"
"…What's this we, Shima?" Rin asked as he stared down at Renzo suspiciously.
"That's only if she's still here. For all we know, she's already gone," Konekomaru pointed out. "You'd have to be here early enough tomorrow to see her."
When Rin had gotten a look in his eyes, Ryuji sighed and shook his head. "You had to give him an idea, didn't you? As if it'll work. Even with Okumura-sensei living in the same dorm, it'd take a miracle to make him wake up early."
The blue-haired teen's eye twitched and he pointed a finger at the Aria-in-training. "Yeah? Well, I'll show you! Never underestimate the power of love!"
"What love?! You've never even met her!"
As those two glared at each other with intensity, off to the side, Konekomaru was whispering to Renzo, "Well, if he does wake up early, at least he won't be late for class, right?"
"That would be an accomplishment for Okumura-kun, wouldn't it?"
X-X-X
Lunchtime the following day, Rin was sitting in a hunched position under a tree, radiating a gloomy aura. He had told Yukio that he was determined to wake up early. He set the alarm at the side of his bed. He even did his homework and went to bed early—something that gave Yukio a pleasant surprise. But despite all his efforts, the elder Okumura twin still got up late. By the time he got to school, class was already beginning and the note was gone.
"Rin? Is something wrong?" Rin looked up to see Yukio standing in front of him. "Let me guess: you came to school late." When his brother simply nodded and groaned as he put his head down, Yukio shook his head. "I should have known better."
"Then why the hell didn't you wake me?" The older brother grumbled.
"I thought with how gung-ho you were about getting up early, I wouldn't have to wake you up myself. I can see now that I was wrong." It was a shame. Yukio had hoped this entre 'secret admirer' thing would inadvertently lead to Rin becoming more punctual. "Anyway, this is for you."
Rin blinked as the brunette twin held out a bento box. "What's the deal? I already ate my own lunch. You tryin' to say you don't like what I made for you?"
"A girl gave this to me—"
"And now you're rubbing your successes in my face?! Damn it, Yukio, that's hurtful!"
"—for you." Yukio finished.
Rin closed his mouth in surprise and began to blush. "F-for me? From a girl? Seriously?!" He took the bento with a smile. "Wow, I can't believe it! First she sends me love notes and now she's sending me food!" He opened the box and took in the little heart-shaped treats and meals in their separate compartments. The warm, fuzzy feeling in his heart quickly doubled. "This is great!"
"You haven't even tried it yet."
"No, I mean…I just like this. I've never had a girl do something like this for me before. Reading about it in manga doesn't compare to experiencing it myself." The half-demon's eyes suddenly lit up as an idea came to mind. "Hey! You saw her, right? Do you know who she is?"
"Afraid not. She's not in any of my classes." When the elder twin gave a sad sigh, Yukio felt a twinge of sympathy for him. "But…she was a redhead." Rin's reaction was a stupid, dreamy expression, which he kept as he began to eat from the bento.
X-X-X
After school, Rin met up with Renzo and Konekomaru by the lockers. To the half-demon's disappointment, his locker was bare of any notes. Ryuji hadn't bothered to stay behind this time, saying he'd had enough of Rin's lovestruck state.
"A redhead? I don't know any redheads. Sorry," said Konekomaru.
"What about you, Shima? A guy like you probably knows the names of a lot of girls!"
The pink-haired teen arched an eyebrow. "I'm gonna take that as a compliment." He held a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "There's only one redhead I know about, and there's no way that it could be her," said Renzo.
"Why not?"
"Because then it'd be Hanamura Mitsuko! She's a member of the True Cross Academy tennis team and she looks like a goddess in that uniform~! Besides, she's the kind of girl who plays hard to get. She's turned down plenty of guys in our class that've asked her out, including me!"
Konekomaru looked skeptical. "Turning people down doesn't make her hard to get…" He began to look thoughtful. "Hm. But if she's Okumura-kun's secret admirer, it would make sense that she would turn down dates with other boys."
"I keep telling you, it can't be her!" Or rather, Renzo didn't want it to be her.
"Too bad you can't ask Hanamura-san for yourself, Okumura-kun. But sports team activities usually happen at the same time as cram school."
"It's okay," said Rin with a smile. "I know her name and I have an idea of what she looks like and that's good enough for me!"
Renzo huffed and tugged at a strap of his schoolbag. "I still don't think it's her, but at least you might have some good dreams tonight. Just make sure Okumura-sensei doesn't catch you in a compromising position, if you get my drift. Trust me: it's happened to me plenty of times!"
"Wh-what kind of pervert do you take me for?!"
X-X-X
On Saturday morning, Rin arrived early to homeroom with this morning's incident still fresh in his mind. Just as Renzo had warned him, he'd woken up in an embarrassingly compromising position. Nothing incredibly perverted, but dreaming of smooching a faceless Hanamura Mitsuko and waking up to find out it was Kuro, with Yukio standing over him with a judging look, definitely made him leave the dorm earlier than usual. Maybe Yukio and Bon were right and this entire thing wasn't good for him—
The instant he saw the heart-shaped sticky note on his desk, thoughts of his brother and classmate were pushed out of his head. Before he knew it, he was sitting down at his desk and reading the note stuck to the top. "'Let's meet on Sunday, at the entrance of the Mepphyland amusement park at noon. Don't be late or I won't forgive you. – H. P.S.: Hope you liked the lunch I made you.'" The blue-haired teen couldn't help but smile and mutter excitedly to himself. "I'm goin' on a date…! Yes!" He definitely had to rub it in Bon and Yukio's faces today.
X-X-X
That night, after the Okumura twins had returned to their rundown dorm, Rin told Yukio the good news about being asked out on a date by Hanamura Mitsuko. After rubbing his victory in Yukio's face, he started moving about the room at an excited pace, trying to find something to wear for tomorrow. Yukio watched his brother toss a shirt aside. "Rin, you can't—" He was stopped by a pair of pants that were tossed on his face. The brunette took off the pants and threw them on the floor. "Rin, you don't have time to go on a date tomorrow."
Rin stopped searching through his drawers and looked over his shoulder. "Huh? What'd you say, Yukio?"
"You don't have time to waste going on a date. Or are you giving up on becoming an exorcist?"
The blue-haired teen stood up straight and turned around, exclaiming, "Of course not!"
"Then you can't go."
"Why the hell not?!"
The lenses of Yukio's glasses shone with a disturbing glint. "You have training tomorrow. If you skip it, not only will you be impeding your preparation for the exorcist exam, you'd probably upset Shura. Do you really want to do that?"
Rin flinched at the mention of Shura. That woman was a different kind of annoyance from Yukio. If he didn't show up, there were two things that might've happened: she'd either find Rin and drag him off for training, embarrassing him in front of Mitsuko and ruining his chance of looking like a cool guy in her eyes, or…a more violent thing that his mind refused to think about for more than a second. And yet… "I'm still going."
Yukio sighed in frustration. "Now's not the time to be acting like a hormone-driven teenager!"
The older twin bit the inside of his cheek and balled up a fist. "You're making it sound like that's a bad thing! What, am I not allowed to go out on dates or have girlfriends?"
"That wasn't what I said. I said you don't have the time to go out on a date because you're supposed to be training tomorrow. The longer you put off your training, the greater the chance that you'll fail your exam. And if you fail, the Vatican will decide it's not worth keeping you alive! You can go on as many dates as you want after you've become an exorcist, but for now, just focus on training and studying."
"But this is my first real date," Rin spoke softly. "You wouldn't know what it's like. Even if you've never gone on a date, you've had plenty of girls who sent you letters and offer you lunches they've made, so you probably don't appreciate it as much. But this is the first time a girl's done this for me, and I like it!"
"I know this is a new experience for you, Rin, but you know the situation you're in right now." When his brother's only reaction was to glare at him, Yukio added, "This is for the best."
"…Whatever." With a snort, Rin started to pick up his clothes. For the rest of the night, the dorm room was filled with a tense silence.
X-X-X
Renzo yawned and leaned against the wall that surrounded the Mepphyland amusement park. "Man, when's Okumura gonna get here? It's really boring standing out here when you can hear all the fun going on inside."
"If you're bored, then just go inside."
"But if I go inside, I won't be able to see if Okumura's secret admirer is really Mitsuko-chan!"
"You really are jealous of him, aren't you? And by the way: Mitsuko-chan? That's pretty familiar considering the number of times you said she's turned you down."
The pink-haired teen looked back at Konekomaru. "Hey, I'm not jealous! I came here to see who Okumura's admirer is, same as you and Bon!"
Ryuji folded his arms across his chest and spoke, "No, I came to make sure you didn't do anything stupid or get Konekomaru in trouble."
"I doubt it. You're just as curious as I am to see this girl, am I right?"
The blonde-streaked brunette didn't admit it out loud, though he did wonder what sort of girl would be attracted to Okumura in the first place. "It doesn't matter. As soon as we see her, we're gonna leave." The last thing he wanted was to be seen as some creep who spied on people's dates.
Konekomaru peered around the corner. "Is that…? It is Okumura-kun! He looks so bizarre!"
At those words, Ryuji and Renzo looked around the corner and saw a sight that made the former's mouth open in surprise and the latter hold back a snicker. Rin stood in front of the entrance to Mepphyland, dressed in casual clothing and carrying Kurikara on his back and holding a square-shaped, cloth-covered package. But what seemed so off about his appearance was the fact that his hair had been slicked back in an attempt to seem not as messy as usual.
"What…the hell? What'd he do to his hair?" Ryuji actually had to hold back a laugh.
"Looks like he went overboard with the hair gel," Renzo chuckled.
Rin was too nervous to notice the Kyoto trio spying on him from around the corner. He looked down at the ground as he ran his date gameplay in his mind. When she came, he'd be all surprised and pleasant. He'd say how pretty she looked and, hopefully, she would say he looked good, too—maybe even handsome. He'd give her back the bento box she had sent for him and tell her how good her food was, and that would make her so happy. Then they'd stroll through the amusement park hand in hand, playing games, going on rides—would it be in bad taste to steal a kiss from her on the top of the Ferris wheel or the climax of the roller coaster, or would it be better to wait until the date was officially finished? Would his fangs be troublesome if he did kiss her? Not if he kissed her on the cheek. You kissed the cheek on the first date and saved the lips for the second. Or did you hug on the second? Damn it, he wished he knew!
"Mommy, why is that guy making those weird faces?"
"I've told you sweetie, you shouldn't stare at strange people."
Ryuji sighed as he continued to watch Rin's changing expressions. "Dear Lord, the girl hasn't even shown up yet and he's makin' a fool of himself! If he keeps that up, the date'll be over before it even begins!"
Renzo arched an eyebrow. "Wow, Bon! You really do care!"
"I only care because with the way he's been acting all week, if this turns into a disaster, we'll have to deal with Okumura being all annoying and mopey. Not everyone jumps back from rejection as quickly as guys like you."
"Yeah, Okumura-kun's been pretty emotional over this… Wait, what do you mean by guys like me?"
While Rin was lost in his little world, his hand over his face as he was thinking about what it would be like to kiss, he didn't notice the girl who had stiffly walked up to him. "Um…e-excuse me? Okumura-kun?"
"Huh?" Rin snapped out of it and spun around to smile at her. "H-hey! It's nice to…" He trailed off as he realized that her short hair was black, not red. "Um…you're not Hanamura Mitsuko, are you?" She looked familiar, though. Probably one of the girls in his regular classes.
The dark-haired girl flinched. The half-demon watched in confusion as she clasped her hands together and bowed her head. "O-oh… You were expecting Mitsuko-chan. Never mind, I-I'll be leaving now." Before she could step back, Rin grabbed her arm and held her back.
"Hey, wait a minute! You know Hanamura-san, right? Did she…did she send you here to tell me the date was off or something?"
The dark-haired girl began to blush and shake her head. "No! I mean, yes! I mean…she can't make it right now!"
Rin sighed. "It figures. It's just my luck." He'd gone through the trouble of skipping out on training and facing Shura's wrath, not to mention a ton of hair gel and cologne, for nothing. "Well, could ya do me a favor then? Since you're her friend, you could give this back to her." He handed the girl the bento box. "It's the bento box she sent me. I cleaned it up afterwards so…yeah."
"…You ate it?" The girl asked meekly.
"Yeah."
"Did you like it?"
"Yeah, it was good! I-if you could tell her that, I'd be really grateful."
The dark-haired girl smiled for a few seconds before she started to look sad. "Um…Okumura-kun? How would you react if you learned that Mitsuko-chan wasn't the one you were supposed to meet?"
The blue-haired teen blinked. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Itwasme."
"Uhhh…what'd you say?"
The girl's blush returned to her face as she spoke slower, "It…it was me. I'm the one who thinks you're cute and sent you that lunch." She kept staring at the ground as she quickly added, "I-I didn't ask you all those questions or ask you out on a date! That was Mitsuko-chan! I didn't want to go on this date! Not that I didn't like you! I just didn't think you would want to bother with me! I-I'll just go now…"
"W-wait! I wanna bother with you! I mean, I wanna get to know you! If you're the one who sent that first note, then I want to know your name."
The dark-haired girl looked up at his face for the first time. "I'm…Amada Heiwa."
"Okay…" Rin gave a wide smile. "Hello, Heiwa-chan! Wow, you look really pretty!"
Heiwa blushed. "Th-thank you…! Um…you look nice, too. Your hair looks…different."
"Thanks. Well, ready to go inside?" The blue-haired teen offered a hand to his date. After a few seconds, she took his hand and Rin started to consider this date a success so far. But before they could enter, an arm snaked around his neck and pulled him into a chokehold. "ACK!"
"Well, well! I'm seein' it, but I don't believe it! Ya actually ditched training to go out on a date!" Shura said with a laugh. "That four-eyed scaredy cat was right!"
"Say what?! Damn it, Yukio!" Of course Yukio would have to rain on his holiday! Or was it festival? Weekend? Rin's thought was interrupted by the scantily-clad exorcist giving him a noogie, returning his hair to its usual messy state.
"Heh! Y'know, if ya wanted t' go out on a lil' date, I would've let ya if ya asked!" Mostly because it would mean she'd have a little more time to get some drinking done. If it weren't for Yukio calling her and annoyingly insisting that she go and drag him off for training, she'd have let it slide and just punish the kid afterwards. "Of course, since ya didn't, I'm gonna make sure today's session is hell."
"W-wait! If I ask now, will you at least let me go on my date?" His answer was an even harder noogie that made him flail in Shura's clutches before she started to drag him away from Heiwa. "Owww! H-Heiwa-chan, I'm really sorry about this! If you wanna meet up for lunch on Monday, I'll make it up to you!"
Heiwa blinked, overcoming her shock about what was happening. "Lunch? S-sure! I'd love to have lunch with you!"
Rin blushed and grinned, happy that he'd be getting a second chance at this. "Really?! Then it's a date! OW! Stop yanking, I'm coming!"
Around the corner, Konekomaru sighed and leaned back against the wall. "So Hanamura-san was like the messenger for Heiwa-san."
"Yes! Thank goodness!" Renzo exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air. He suddenly realized what he did and he smiled sheepishly. "I mean…Heiwa-chan is nice and cute. A bit quiet sometimes, but she's nice."
"I'm surprised a girl like that would be attracted to a guy like Okumura," Ryuji spoke more to himself than to his friends. "I guess the saying's right: opposites attract."
"Don't worry, Bon. Some girls go for tough-looking guys like you!"
"What part of what I said made you even think I want… Never mind! Let's go already!" The blonde-streaked brunette snapped before walking off, followed by Renzo and Konekomaru.
"He's totally jealous," the pink-haired teen said to his spectacled friend with a laugh.
X-X-X
Later that night, Rin had a smile on his face, despite having several bandages—most of which were hidden by his clothing. Yukio watched him from across the table, wary. In the past, whenever Yukio would tell Father Fujimoto or one of the clergymen he was up to no good, Rin always swore revenge. But from the time he came back from training bruised and battered, the older twin had been smiling.
"So, don't you wanna know how my date went? Yukio?" Ah, there it was. Rin sat down on the opposite side of the table, continuing, "Y'know, before you sicced Shura on me? Well, it turns out that my date was Amada Heiwa—she's a girl in my homeroom class, by the way—and that Hanamura Mitsuko sent most of the notes I got. But she sent the first note that said she thought I was cute and she was the one who made me lunch! Also, she's cute!" He then began eating his food.
Yukio took a few seconds to make sense of Rin's blabbering before he answered, "Well, someone had to make sure you were getting things done."
"I'd have gotten my training done! I was only gonna be a little late!" The older brother said with a pout. He soon started to smile again. "Not that it matters now. I'm gonna have lunch with her on Monday, so I'll be too busy to hang out with you."
The brunette arched an eyebrow. "Lunch? Really?"
"Surprised? I'm sure you thought she'd ditch me after the first date." Rin started to look proud as he folded his arms across his chest. "Yup! Eating lunch together is way more personal than spending time in an amusement park among a bunch of people. So I guess your tattling was good for something, Spotty Four Eyes."
"Just don't let this change things too much. I still have expectations of you, so you better not fail to meet them. …Are you even listening to me, Rin?"
The blue-haired teen looked up. "Huh? Oh, sorry. I was thinking that tomorrow I'd ask Heiwa-chan what she likes to eat, so that the next time we got together for lunch, I could make her some lunch. Then she'd be so impressed with me that…!" Rin trailed off and got a goofy-looking expression on his face as his tail wagged energetically.
Yukio stared at his brother for a few seconds before sighing and returning to his food. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was happy that his brother was happy. However, as he listened to Rin's giggling, Yukio hoped that this lovestruck phase of his wouldn't have any annoying effects… Well, at least he'd be too busy thinking about his date to bother plotting his revenge.
X-X-X
Should I even say "I'm not gonna do a fourth Blue Exorcist story" at this point? Especially when I already have ideas for some more stories? Yeah, I figured I shouldn't bother, either… Just a little a note, by the way: if you've read my first two Blue Exorcist stories…Heiwa's not the mother.
A little note: the Japanese pronunciation for the letter H can also sound like the verb that means "to have sex". Imagine my surprise when I learned that.
