Fukawa and Naegi are working on a project together for school, and it is a writing assignment. Naturally Fukawa will do the writing, but when she breaks her fingers, she has to do the research and depend on Naegi to write it, which he admit won't be easy for him.
"Fukawa, you will be working with Mr. Makoto."
Fukawa held back a sigh, and glanced at her partner. He seemed pretty disappointed too, but when he saw her looking, he smiled at her.
Fukawa averted her eyes quickly. 'Of course I get stuck with Naegi and not my White Knight.' She didn't really care about Naegi. I mean, they were in the same group of friends, but she only hung out with the others because Togami did. She didn't know how she felt about him.
She knew Naegi didn't really care for her either, but who did? 'I-I'm too ugly for anyone to care about…' She knew he would rather be with Kirigiri, his obvious crush (though he always denied it). She didn't want to be with him either, she would rather be with Togami, her obvious crush.
But she knew she couldn't just ask the teacher to change partners, so she would have to live with it.
It was an easy project at least. They had to write a 10 page made-up story using their vocabulary words.
She sighed with relief when the final bell rang. Their teacher told them the project was due in 2 weeks, though it fell on deaf ears. It seemed everyone was looking forward to getting out of school today.
Fukawa impatiently tapped her foot, glancing at her watch. 2:15. Why was he running late?
She finally saw him arrive and got in the car.
"How was school today, sweetie?"
"Fine dad."
"Close the door."
"Oh, okay." Fukawa closed the door then let out a scream of pain and quickly opened it again.
"What happened?" Her dad gave her a concerned look.
Fukawa closed the door, this time without screaming. "I-I-I shut the door on my f-fingers."
"Are they okay? Can you bend them?"
Fukawa struggled to, then realized with panic that she couldn't.
"It's okay. We'll bandage them up and they'll be fine!" He gave her a pat on the shoulder.
Her fingers weren't bothering her. She had broken fingers and toes before. What panicked her was the fact that she had broken ALL of her fingers on her writing hand and they had a writing project due in two weeks and her fingers wouldn't be better by then.
What was she gonna do?
'when should i come over?'
She glanced at the text message, sighing. Typing with her left hand was a pain.
'You can come over now, if you'd like.'
'K'
She glanced back at her book, reading until she heard a knock at her bedroom door.
"Come in," She said, putting down the book.
Naegi stepped in, smiling at her. "Hey, Fukawa."
"H-Hey."
Naegi grabbed a chair and plopped down next to her. "So, should I make a prompt and you write.
"Actually Naegi," Fukawa showed him the gauze on her fingers. "I can't write. You'll have to write. I'll give the prompt."
"Oh."
"Is there a problem?"
"Well, yeah. I'm not a very good writer, with or without a prompt. Also, I don't know most of these vocab words."
Of course he didn't.
"Then I'll tell the story and you write it."
"Yes mam!" Naegi said, chuckling slightly.
What did Kirigiri see in him?
"Alright, how should we start this…ah, we can start with this word!
Most people like being out at parties with their friends, but I like being alone in my garden. It gives me a sense of tranquility."
Naegi hastily scribbled down the sentence, before stopping. "Um, how do you spell tranquility?"
Fukawa impatiently rolled her eyes. "T-R-A-N-Q-U-I-L-I-T-Y."
"Ah, okay." He wrote down the word and looked up at her.
"My garden is big and beautiful, full of many tinctures. I wish more people appreciated the beauty of nature. But it seems my love for nature is solitary."
Naegi wrote the sentence down, asking how to spell tinctures and solitary. He also misspelled appreciated.
"You do realize after this project we have a test on these words right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Continue."
Fukawa sighed. 'He doesn't care at all.' She bitterly thought, but did as he said.
"It's as if I have an interpendence with nature. To me, nature is my only confidant…"
Fukawa continued making up the story, and Naegi continued writing (though he asked how to spell many words).
Eventually, they had a 10 page essay using all their vocabulary words about a girl who loved nature so much, she buried herself alive to be one with nature.
"Wow." Naegi said.
"What?"
"It's just," Naegi looked down shyly and said, "it's amazing how you can just make up a story like that from the top of your head."
"I thought everybody could do that." She shrugged.
"I could never!" Naegi said, giving the paper to Fukawa. "I'm not that responsible. So could you hold this?"
"Ugh, fine." Fukawa said, rolling her eyes. But she did feel like her and Naegi had gotten…closer. She was glad to have this connection with him for some reason.
"Well, I gotta go." Naegi said, getting his things. "See you tomorrow!"
"Bye." Fukawa picked up her book again and started reading it.
All of a sudden, Naegi stopped at the doorway.
"Hey Fukawa?"
"Hm?"
"Do you have a copy of the vocabulary words?"
"Ugh, I do."
Fukawa gave him a copy, and he rushed out of the house. She shook her head, sighing.
After a while of reading her book, she looked out the window and saw Naegi bouncing up and down and waving his arms.
Fukawa opened her window. "What is it?" She yelled.
"I meant to give you this, but I forgot!" He yelled back, and threw something that hit her face.
It was a zebra cake.
She smiled at him, rolling her eyes and thought,
'You're a strange boy, Naegi.'