A/N: Where did all you reviewers ago!? I appreciate the support anyway, because the traffic graphs on this aren't looking TOO bad, heheheh :D
But anyways, I can't resist updating because THIS IS GOING TO BE SUCH A FUN FIC YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
ALSO THIS CHAPTER IS OVER 2000 WORDS, good enough. If you REVIEW, next time I'll make it 3000+~~
Ahem, let's begin, then. Also, chapter dedicated to Naduu and six-sides-of-the-dice for their loyal reviews! :D
WARNING: super fluffity fluff up ahead. only read if you are prepared. you might just die.
deductive attractions
.x.
stage one-one.
Houtarou hated his alarm clock.
He hated it for one obvious reason - it got in the way of his precious sleep. Sleep was something very important to him - it was the one time of the day he could rest without any disturbances, without any annoying teachers trying to wake you up, or friends for that matter. Namely, Chitanda Eru. (But you knew that, didn't you?)
He sighed and hit the button, sitting up groggily. Lately, sleep had been a problem even without the blasted alarm clock. As if dealing with the purple-eyed girl wasn't enough during day - he now had issues with her invading his mind during night.
The dreams that centered around her with tiresome, irritating, pleasureable -
What?
Hotarou shook his head, trying to dispel his thoughts, alarmed at where they were leading him.
He did not need to be thinking of that girl again first thing in the morning - especially when it had been a problem all of last night, anyway.
"I see you're awake!" Tomoe's voice echoed from the living room.
"Huh?" He opened his eyes a bit more at the voice. If she was still here, then that meant it was the weekend -
The weekend?
Houtarou frowned and turned to the alarm clock. "Why did you go off?"
"Because I set it!" the spunky brunette said on cue, grinning mischievously at him.
"Why, aneki?" Houtarou asked in despair, sinking down to the bed again.
"One of your friends wanted to meet up or something. Satoshi, I believe? He phoned me last night when you were already asleep," Tomoe explained. Then, her eyes brightened. "Get going!"
She laughed as she watched her little brother heave himself out of bed as if he was about to head off to a funeral. It was a wonder the two were related, with her bubbling over with energy and him... not having it at all.
A while later, Houtarou emerged from the bathroom clean and dressed. He would look rather fresh if it weren't for the ever-present glazed over look in his eyes.
Tomoe voiced this, only to ignored by Houtarou who was busy grouchily pouring himself a breakfast of cereal and milk.
"It's going to be strange when you finally change..." Tomoe said, a thoughtful gaze trained on her brother.
"Change?" Houtarou asked around a mouthful of Cheerios.
"Nothing you need to worry about, otouto," Tomoe chuckled.
Aneki, being as mysterious as ever, Houtarou thought while rolling his eyes.
"Have fun, then, I'm heading out for the day." Tomoe grabbed all of her things in a flurry of coats and purses, and only delivered a small salute and twinkle of the eye before heading off.
The twinkle of the eye was normal, but Houtarou knew better than to doubt his sister.
It's not like Satoshi to call me over this early...
-x-
"Good morning!" Satoshi greeted excitedly as he opened the door to Houtarou.
"Morning." Houtarou, admittedly content to be with his friend lightened up and stepped inside.
Satoshi grinned darkly to himself. Oh, he so has it coming...
"So, are you gonna explain anything?" Houtarou questioned, carefully examining his surroundings, inspecting for anything out of the ordinary. He found nothing of the sort and frowned to himself.
"Just follow me!"
Satoshi led him into the kitchen where none other than their two closest female classmates resided (Eru and Mayaka), making idle conversation with each other.
Houtarou was shocked, but tried to play it down with a semi-questioning look.
"We're going out today!" Satoshi said, thrusting his arms into the air for dramatic effect. He beamed and looked to the three of them, as if revealing the universe's most darkest secret.
"Where? We don't usually do this..." Houtarou's deductive mind immediately begin churning, and Satoshi noticed the familiar glint in his friend's eyes.
To quickly cover up the suspicion, he said, "A family friend of mine owns an apple farm and invited me to go apple picking, so I figured I'd bring you guys along as well," he explained.
Ah, fair enough. Houtarou's curiosity was calmed and he took to sit down with the rest of his friends.
Satoshi did a little mental cheer, because as a database, it wasn't really his strong suit to battle scarily amazing deductive minds like Houtarou's. However, it seemed he had just won around one. Well, even though it is true that our family friend has been telling us to come over for a while...
Shaking those thoughts, Satoshi further explained, "We've had a car arranged to pick us up around noon, so feel free to entertain yourselves here until it comes."
With those words, the club begin gaming activities such as Scrabble, Snakes & Ladders, and other various board games. They were all enjoying themselves rather well, if only for the closeness that already bonded them together and the obvious contrasting chemistry between their personalities.
"I win again!" Eru cheered.
"That's the third time," Satoshi sulked, rather dejected.
Beside him, Mayaka snickered. "Don't be jealous, Fuku-chan."
The banter persisted for a few more moments until Satoshi suddenly stood up.
"Oi, Mayaka-chan! I have something of yours that I've been meaning to return to you," Satoshi said, giving her a pressing look. Before Mayaka could open her mouth to question, Satoshi grabbed her wrist and hauled her off towards the stairs.
This left Houtatou and Eru to themselves, which was always a blast for Houtarou.
"That's interesting," Eru commented as she cleaned up after their latest game of BS.
"What is?" Houtarou looked up confusedly. For once, he was lost on something. Perhaps romance wasn't his strong suit, after all.
"Why would something of Makaya-chan's be in Fukube-san's room?" Eru hypothetically asked, grinning with promise.
Houtarou, however, almost spluttered at the implied meaning behind her words. He recovered quickly, however, murmuring, "He probably borrowed something of hers and took it home by accident..."
Eru nodded without missing a beat. "That's true, Mayaka-chan usually comes home with me."
"But you brought up a valid point," Houtarou suddenly said, surprising Eru with the sudden change of tune.
"I did?" Eru beamed.
Houtarou observed her with amusement. It didn't take much to make her happy, did it? She's energy-saving in that one way...
"Yes, because if he had something in his room, he could have easily brought it down himself. Why take Ibara with him?" Houtarou leaned back in his chair, feeling bit proud himself after seeing Eru's obviously impressed smile.
"That makes sense!" Eru grinned wider and did a litte cheer at the revelation.
Today marks the day one Oreki Houtarou quenches the mighty curiosity of Chit -
"But now I'm curious!"
Houtarou sighed and slumped back into the chair. Why does that always happen?
And dare he ask, "About what?"
Eru leaned forward with the usual determined look on her face. "What could those two be doing up there?"
Houtarou blinked. "I haven't a clue."
"Why don't we go check it out?" Eru suggested brightly, springing up from her chair in excitement.
Just the idea seemed to make Houtarou even more exhausted. "That's not very polite, Chitanda... we're guests here, if you didn't notice."
Chitanda just frowned and titled her head. "We've done this before to solve mysteries!"
Ah, logic. The one thing not even Houtarou could battle.
"Fine," he said hastily.
He had learned his lesson with arguing over not doing something with Eru: Don't.
So, the duo quietly and meticulously made their way up the staircase leading to the rooms upstairs, all the while awkwardly bumping into each other and murmuring hasty, even more awkward apologies while doing so.
"Which room is Fukube-san's?"
"The room next to the closet on the right."
As the two tiptoed near the destination, a thought struck Houtarou.
"Chitanda, if we're supposed to get them together, why interrupt their time alone?"
Eru froze in place, unable to think of an answer. She settled with, "Shh!"
Rolling his eyes, Houtarou complied unwillingly, if only for the sake that they shouldn't get caught doing something like what they were doing. The two stopped and found that the door was open just a tiny crack - good enough to catch a small glimpse of what was going on.
Eru poised herself on the bottom, and Houtarou stood hovering over her. From what they could see - Mayaka and Satoshi were on his bed, discussing something over a notebook.
"I still think car ride is a good idea, Fuku-chan!"
"No, that's what we do next time. A drive. Find something else."
"Coney Island?"
"Way too expensive."
A kick and a cry of pain was heard.
Houtarou and Eru exchanged dubious glances. From what they had heard - they had gathered, well - absolutely nothing. None of it made any sense. They were planning on going somewhere? The two of them?
"Oh, I've got it! Camping!"
Simultaneous cheers and a high five were heard, and Houtarou more than ever was trying to connect the dots. What was the missing link, here?
Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to ponder that. He had been leaning closer to the door in an attempt to catch their words more closely, and in the process lost his footing and crashed down on Eru, who was kneeling beneath him.
Inside the room, Mayaka and Satoshi exchanged looks. What was that noise?
Before Houtarou could even think to be embarrassed, one thought sprung to mind: If they were caught now, it would be all over.
Quickly pulling himself out of the tangle of limbs - he kept one hand on Eru's shoulder and whisked her into the closet next to them, keeping the door closed to shut. Eru, too surprised, didn't utter a word.
A moment of silence passed, and soon enough it became obvious Satoshi and Mayaka weren't going to come out any time soon.
Now Houtarou had the chance to be embarrassed. What kind of stupid idea was that? Now we're stuck here, and when they do come out, we need an excuse as to why we were upstairs.
Houtarou was so busy mentally scolding himself he didn't notice Eru shifting this way and that uncomfortably.
Then, with a start - they both realized the position they were in.
The closet was dark, so they couldn't see anything - they had to rely on touch and feel. Three fourths of the closet floor were covered in shoe boxes, rolled up rugs, and vacuum cleaners. Coats and scarves hung above their heads. All in all, it was extremely crowded, and their proximity... was proximate.
Houtarou mentally kicked himself as he realized his hand had somehow ended up on the other girl's waist and pulled it away so quickly he was lucky not to get whiplash.
Trying to ignore the lurch in his stomach, he managed to mumble a quiet apology, "Sorry."
"D-Don't worry about it," Eru replied, a tad too quickly.
Houtarou tried to back away has much as possible, but his back was already against the wall and his long legs were tough to keep folded in the current position, but if he unfolded them any more he would be touching Eru.
Eru herself was a little uncomfortable pushed up against the wall in front of her, and Hotarou's feet were beginning to irritate her back. Swallowing her nervousness, she decided to try out an idea.
"O...Oreki-san, d-do you mind coming forward just a little bit? I'm a little uncomfortable."
Houtarou felt the same lurch in his stomach again - Why the hell is that happening? - but complied, anyway.
"Now fold your legs a little back."
He did, and Eru pushed back away from the front wall, and in the gap between Houtarou's legs. She had scooted back a little further than intended, and could now feel Houtarou's chest rising and falling against her back.
Immediately, Houtarou's heartbeat skyrocketed.
Wh-What's going on?
Similarly, Eru felt the already stuffy room elevate several hundred degrees.
Houtarou had gotten this panicky, dizzy feeling before - but never had it been this bad. He felt the blood rush to his face and his head get dizzy, and the occasional brushes of skin of Eru's arms against his set off electric shocks.
Eru felt herself breathe faster and faster, and with embarrassment tried to cover it up - but the more she concentrated on the situation, the worse the feeling got.
It wasn't all that bad, but she wasn't sure if it was all that good either. She wanted more - she wanted his long, warm arms to be wrapped around her, she wanted more of that comforting feeling...
No!
Right at that moment, they heard the creaking of the stairs - indicating that Satoshi and Mayaka had gone down.
The two burst out of the closet, panting for air - only because it was stuffy in there.
Right.
Barely able to look at each other, the two followed downstairs and walked into the kitchen, where the other two kids were.
"You guys were upstairs? We weren't gone for that long." Satoshi and Mayaka looked at the duo in confusion.
Houtarou was still too flustered and panicky from the aftereffects of that experience, and didn't think to turn the tables on them and ask what they were doing for that long. Instead, "We were looking for you guys upstairs... we just... Eru got curious, and we looked around in the other rooms. Sorry."
Satoshi could see right through that excuse (He called her Eru?) - but Mayaka seemed to be fooled."Oh, okay."
Houtarou turned to Eru for help, but she was strangely silent, still reeling with emotions.
Finally beginning to calm down himself, Houtarou asked, "What were you two doing in that room alone for so long?"
Mayaka blushed and glowered at the same time. "Nothing like what you're thinking, idiot!"
Satoshi just laughed nervously, glancing around the room."Look! Ride's here!"
All kids were rather relieved at the distraction and went to gather their things before going outside to climb inside the truck that had stopped outside of the house.
While Houtarou was putting a water bottle in his backpack, Satoshi bounded up next to him with a grin. "What really happened, Houtarou?"
Houtarou noticably reddened but shot back as dryly as he could, "And what really happened with you two?" Houtarou raised his eyebrows at him and then left, leaving him to ponder that.
Satoshi gulped at the memory, but laughed at Houtarou's embarrassment.
And so the game begins.
He hopped on to the truck, calling the middle seats with Mayaka, leaving the other two in the back.
Houtarou similarly thought, as he kept his gaze on the couple in front of him, Stage One is coming along nicely, taking in Satoshi's reaction to my comment at least.
A quick exchange of glances with Eru proved that they were thinking the same thing, and she begin to laugh happily. But soon enough, they were both reminded of the previous events and quickly went back to feeling awkward and decided to look at anywhere but the other person.
These amusing glances continued for the rest of the ride, from Houtarou and Eru to Satoshi and Mayaka.
It was like watching two predators trying to capture the other as prey.