Hello guys! Welcome to the next chapter of this story!
Once again, I would like to say my eternal gratitude towards Quis Custodiet for being the best Beta-Reader!
On with the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Love Hina related, just this story.
"3rd Track Super Express, Second Departure, Tokyo Prefecture," one of the speakers announced.
'Finally got my head back together,' a certain brunette said to herself. 'Now, I'm ready to go back home, Kitsune will be surprised when she sees me. Good thing I met Otohime-san during this trip; if it wasn't for her I still would be depressed about my failure.'
"Myuu~" The turtle squeaked after poking out of the brunette's hat.
"Oh, good afternoon, Tama-chan," she said, rubbing the turtle's head with her finger. "Are you ready to see your new home?"
"Myuu Myuu~" The turtle replied as it nodded its head, understanding the brunette's question. It crawled back to its place on top of the brunette's head.
'I also need to apologize to him; I've said some mean things back at the bar,' the brunette told herself. 'I hope he forgives me…'
After taking a deep breath, the girl stepped inside the train.
On the other side of Japan, Mizuho was busy teaching a certain luckless ronin. It had been four days since she had started living at the dorms and two since she started tutoring the young man. Progress was slow in terms of his educational skills, but it was still significantly faster than he was studying with Naru.
Naru had her attention divided with her studies and Keitaro's; so they both ended up failing the exam. This time around, Mizuho was intent on teaching him all her tricks and secrets in answering some of the harder questions. With this setup, he had the undivided attention of his tutor.
"No, don't use the formula that's written on the book," Mizuho scolded Keitaro, taking away his pencil as he was answering.
"Wait, what?" Keitaro asked, confused by what she meant. "Aren't you supposed to use the formula that's stated there?"
"Well, Yes and No," Mizuho answered, a smirk forming on her face. "Professors have taught us to use the textbook formula, but what they didn't teach us is that there are multiple ways to answer an equation. For example…" Mizuho then started answering the question with her own formula. "If you take the result of the first equation and substitute it here and answer that equation… Viola!"
Keitaro looked at Mizuho's answer and checked it with the answer sheet, the result was the same; Keitaro was astonished with this revelation.
"If you have used the formula in the text book, it would have taken you at least ten minutes to answer. But with my formula, it only took me two minutes to answer and it has fewer steps, so it won't confuse you as much," Mizuho stated smugly, her chest swelling up in pride. "Though, I have to warn you, only a handful of formulas can be exchanged with others. Here, I'll tell you which ones you can substitute…"
As Mizuho and Keitaro were busy studying, beside Keitaro's room, Kitsune was spying on them by poking a hole on Keitaro's wall. Kitsune was intrigued ever since Mizuho started tutoring Keitaro and was interested whether she was indeed teaching Keitaro well or just slacking off. Kitsune had a crazy theory that Mizuho might be faking and just wanted Keitaro for his wealth, which will be hers when he fails and marries her. She didn't want her personal piggybank to end up with someone else.
Miuzho, if she was going to be honest with herself, was doing a bang up job of teaching Keitaro. She had only been teaching Keitaro for few days now and has accomplished better than Naru had in a year. When Keitaro was being taught by Naru, he would always have a hard time managing the harder questions, but with Mizuho, he can now understand the questions better and is already going for much harder items.
Naru and Mizuho had different strategies in studying. Naru was a "by the books" kind of student; she would always use the traditional way to answer the question. Mizuho on the other hand was very unorthodox; using shortcuts, cutting corners and looking up ways to answer a question in an easier way. And by the looks of it, Mizuho's way was apparently working for Keitaro; he was answering the questions faster and only occasionally getting the questions wrong.
'Huh, Keitaro might have a better shot this time with this girl…' Kitsune thought to herself.
Kitsune got bored of spying on the pair, so she ended up going to the common to bet on horses.
Meanwhile, Mizuho scored Keitaro's latest math test. Surprisingly, he got a passing score of seventy five percent, compared to his previous scores – this was a whole lot higher. But this mock test that Mizuho gave him still didn't compare to Toudai's test, but at least she saw that he was progressing.
"Good job here, Keitaro!" Mizuho praised Keitaro, showing him his scores. "Keep this up and you'll get into Todai in no time!"
"Thanks…" Keitaro said, still amazed that he achieved such a high score.
"Anyways, I think we should take a break," Mizuho said as she stretched her arms.
"B-But, If I take a break now I'll lose my momentum!" Keitaro tried to argue as he crawled close to Mizuho, but as he approached her, he didn't notice a lone pencil between them and his hand slipped on it, making him tumble towards Mizuho. "Ahhh!"
Keitaro collided with Mizuho, the impact forcibly cause Mizuho to stumble on the ground with Keitaro on top of her. And after a few seconds, Keitaro felt something really soft on his hand. Opening both of their eyes, they saw that Keitaro was, almost predictably, groping Mizuho's chest.
Keitaro immediately jumped back, moving towards the wall of his room.
"S-Sorry! I-I didn't mean t-to do that!" Keitaro stuttered as he readied his body for any incoming impact.
While Keitaro's head was in a panic, Mizuho was still lying on her back, her eyes following the cowering young man. She still hasn't fully comprehended what happened, so she didn't register the fear emanating from him; her body hadn't yet been touched by a person of the opposite sex, so the whole accident was a shock for her.
After a few seconds, Keitaro noticed that he hadn't been punched, kicked or hurt in anyway. Daring to open his eyes, he saw that Mizuho was still in the same position. Blinking in astonishment, Keitaro asked, "Ah… are you alright?"
"Oh, Ahh…" Mizuho uttered, finally regaining some of her bearings. Her face was still red from embarrassment and the surprise. "I-I'm alright… I was just, ah, surprised."
Keitaro couldn't believe it. When he accidentally did that to one of the other girls, he was either met with pain or tears, but Mizuho didn't do any of that. Mizuho acted all shy about it and embarrassed about the incident and didn't make a huge deal about it.
"Umm, again, s-sorry about that…" Keitaro shyly said as rubbed his head.
"O-Ok, let's just not talk about it anymore…" Mizuho said, trying to hide her face from embarrassment.
After saying that, Mizuho stood up and slowly left the room, leaving Keitaro to wonder if he should feel good that he wasn't physically hurt or feel ashamed that he accidentally molested his tutor and somehow got away with it.
As Keitaro thought of the situation he fell right into, Mizuho was aimlessly walking out of the Hinata. While walking towards down the large staircase, she saw that there was a small building and was confused as to why she had missed it when coming home from school. Mizuho saw that the building had a sign over its front door – it simply read 'Hinata Café'.
Seeing as she didn't have anywhere else to go, she decided to check the place out. The establishment was built on a rather large slope, but it still looked structurally sound. The overall effect was quite unique. Stepping inside, she noticed that the feeling and design were similar to the dormitory.
Peeking in the large glass window, she saw that the café didn't have that many customers inside; only a lone couple enjoying some tea and conversation.
Opening the door to the café, a bell rang and a woman, who was at the counter, greeted her. The woman had a bored expression on her face and an unlit cigarette hanging from her lips.
"Welcome to the Hinata Café, what would you like to order?" The woman said, approaching Mizuho with a small notepad in her hands. Suddenly, she looked at Mizuho and asked, "Wait, are you Fujisawa-san? Keitaro's new tutor?"
"Umm, yes, do you know me?" Mizuho asked, pointing to herself. She didn't know this woman, but this woman recognized her.
"Why don't you take a seat and I'll bring us some tea," the woman said, giving Mizuho a small smile.
Mizuho was confused by her actions. Why was did this woman wanted to talk to her? Who was she? And how did she know her? She repeatedly asked these questions to herself while staring at the older woman.
After a few seconds, the woman came back and placed a kettle and some cups on the table. She sat in front of Mizuho and stretched out her hand.
"Before I ask any questions, let me introduce myself. My name is Urashima Haruka, owner of the Hinata Café."
Mizuho took the offered hand, briefly remembering that Keitaro had mentioned having an aunt during one of their recent tutoring sessions.
"Oh, I'm Fujisawa Mizuho," she said as they pumped hands up and down. "Nice to finally meet you, Haruka-san."
"So, how is Keitaro?" Haruka asked, resting or chin on her hand. "Is he taking his studies seriously?"
"Yeah, he is actually doing well," Mizuho replied, giving Haruka a small smile. "His scores at first, to be honest, were horrible; No wonder he didn't pass the exam. But he's really progressing with our daily sessions; just now, he did well with the math quiz I gave him and he-"
Before Mizuho could continue, she remembered what happened a few minutes ago; her cheeks became red and she looked away from Haruka.
At first, Haruka became confused as to why Mizuho suddenly stopped. But after seeing the embarrassed look on Mizuho's face, she realized what might have happened.
"He did it again, didn't he?" Haruka sighed as she placed her hand on her forehead.
This time, it was Mizuho's turn to be confused. She asked the older woman what she meant by her question. Haruka then explained that Keitaro was a natural klutz, always slipping, falling down and getting caught in some trouble. Keitaro was like that ever since he entered middle school, and if he ever had a klutzy accident within a nearby girl, he would either touch them inappropriately or strip them one of their clothing.
Haruka also explained that because of his clumsiness, he'd been labeled as a pervert or a sleaze by most of the residents. Due to this, he had suffered multiple punishments by the other girls whenever he had of his clumsy spells, even though they know that it wasn't intentional.
Mizuho then recalled the pose Keitaro assumed when their little accident occurred; he almost looked like armadillo trying to protect himself from any imminent danger. She actually felt sad and a little worried about him when she heard the mistreatment that he has endured ever since he became the dorm's manager.
"Thank you for telling all that, Haruka-san," Mizuho said, giving Haruka a wide smile as she stood up. "Anyways, I think I should head back – don't want that goof to be slacking off with his studies!"
"Don't be afraid to give him a small whack when he messes up," Haruka said with a hint of smile while the cigarette still dangled from her lips. She waved goodbye as Mizuho left.
When Mizuho got back to Keitaro's room, she saw that he was still studying; he was so focused that he didn't even notice her enter the room. Mizuho suspected that he was trying to forget about the earlier incident by studying instead.
"Oh, wow, what a diligent student you are, eh?" Mizuho loudly said with a wide smirk on her face.
Keitaro jerked up to stare at her, a look of surprise on his face.
"Oh, uh, Mizuho…" Keitaro stuttered. He then became uncomfortable when he remembered what happened between them an hour ago. Keitaro shamefully scratched the back of his head and said, "About what happened a while ago…"
"It's alright," Mizuho simply said, taking a look at Keitaro's notes.
"R-Really?" Keitaro asked, startled by her sudden reply.
"Yeah," Mizuho replied, this time giving Keitaro a smirk. "Just try to be a little more careful next time, alright?"
Keitaro was taken aback by what she said and what it implied. Mizuho understood that it was all just a harmless accident, and she wasn't going to be making a huge deal about it. He was astonished by how this girl, who he just met a few days ago, understood him better than any of the girls here that he has lived with for a year now – he appreciated that.
"Okay!" Keitaro nodded energetically, giving him more strength to power through the rest of the study session.