June 27, 2019

Ruby, Hanamaru, Riko, and Yoshiko all hung out at Yoshiko's place after school wrapped up. Alongside them was Yousuke, who was noticeably more quiet than usual, especially around Hanamaru. Riko pointed out to Ruby as she helped her with some math homework, "Okay, you'll need to carry the three next."

"Are you sure?" Ruby was struggling today, an odd occurrence for her.

"Absolutely," Riko replied. "Once you do that, you'll get your answer."

Hanamaru turned to Yousuke as they continued and asked him, "Hey, are you alright? You've been awful quiet, zura."

The third-year junior high schooler turned to her and replied, "Oh. It's nothing. Well..." He then whispered to her. "Nothing I want to talk to my sister about."

Hanamaru nodded and gave a thumbs up, assuring him that whatever it was, it would remain a secret. "That's okay."

Yoshiko then said to the group after reading a text, "Got some good news. Looks like Mari's definitely getting into that fire station near her school in Italy. Lissone I think it was?"

Ruby excitedly replied, "Mari-chan's gonna be a firefighter like me, too?! That's so cool!"

"She also told Kanan-chan that when she graduates and returns to Uchiura, she's signing up to join her here." Yoshiko was not interested in becoming a firefighter, but was still interested by the aspects of the job and the experiences. "I swear, we gotta hold like a party for her when she comes back. A wild one, too. We'll all be 20 when she comes back, so that will be good." (A/N: The legal drinking age in Japan, as well as the age of majority, is 20. However, a law was passed in real life that will lower it to 18 in 2022.)

"It'll be 18 by then, though," Riko noted. "They passed that law. Besides, I've already seen you drunk, Yoshiko-chan. You're super competitive when you are." She then chuckled before she gave her girlfriend a quick kiss on the cheek. "Love ya, babe."

Hanamaru then turned to a nearby clock and realized she stayed longer than anticipated. "Oh fuck, I lost track of time, zura." She then gathered her things. "Normally, one of you would come with me, but I understand if you can't leave just yet, zura. I can go alo-"

"I'll go," Yousuke surprisingly answered up. "I can catch a bus back here." He then turned to his older sister. "I'll be fine."

Yoshiko sighed and shrugged. "Fine, I'll allow it. Be home before dark, though. Mom won't be happy if you aren't."

"Thank you, sis," Yousuke replied as he and Hanamaru left together. As the door closed, Riko jokingly asked, "I think he has a crush on her."

Yoshiko's eyes immediately widened. "Oh dear God, no. That would be awkward."

"I mean," Ruby pointed out to Yoshiko. "He is a growing boy, and he's surrounded by slightly older girls, three of whom he saw naked." She emphasized the last part with annoyance in her voice to Yoshiko. "Yeah, thanks for that experience."

"It wasn't my fault," she retorted.

"Anyways," Ruby continued. "It's only natural for him to maybe think of stuff like..." She then blushed as she realized what she was beginning to imply. "Oh my... I... I..."

"If he saw you and Hanamaru-chan naked," Riko continued where Ruby had left off. "There's no doubt you're in his thoughts in dirty ways. Of course, Yoshiko-chan isn't, since that's just wrong, and besides..." She then wrapped an arm around her girlfriend. "Having sex with her is my job. I can make my fantasies a reality, and trust me, we do quite a bit." The two of them then laughed, as Riko's remark had eased the tension Yoshiko had.

All it did was make Ruby blush more. "Oh dear... How long...?"

"Since her birthday last year," Yoshiko replied. "I dragged her to a spot out in the mountains right after school ended and we went to town for about an hour without anyone ever finding us. Ever since, we've had it like... 2 or 3 times a week?"

"Yeah, about that," Riko replied. "Anyways, we digress. Yousuke-kun isn't in love with you or anything, even if you may be in his thoughts. If anything, I think he likes Hanamaru."

Yoshiko rolled her eyes. "That would just be fucking awkward. This is my little brother we're talking about. He's 14 right now. Hanamaru's three years older than him."

"My parents met at the same age," Riko noted. "They turned out fine. My dad was the older one in that case." She then shrugged. "Maybe it's just the familial relation that makes it weird for you."


Meanwhile, Yousuke remained quiet still as he escorted Hanamaru home. As the bus sped down the road towards Uchiura, Hanamaru stretched her back, pushing her chest out. Immediately, she saw Yousuke blush as he shot a quick glance at her and her chest before looking away. "He's so cute when he gets flustered," she thought to herself. "That's gotta be why he isn't talking." "Hey," she said to him. "What was that thing that was bothering you back at your sister's place?"

The younger boy sighed. "I have a crush on a girl I know, but I'm afraid to tell her. Also, I don't think it would be good if we got together, though not because it's wrong." He then shook his head. "It's just that other people might think we're weird or something."

"I'm sorry about that," she replied. "Also, I'm sorry I brought it up, zura."

"You're fine," Yousuke quickly assured her. "Don't be sorry. Don't ever be sorry for asking me how I'm doing, Kunikida-san." He locked eyes with her as he said that, seemingly entranced by her.

"I knew it," she thought to herself. "I know just who he's referring to." She wrapped an arm around his shoulders as she told him, "Thanks, zura. You know, I've been trying to cut down on my usage of that word. You know, 'zura?' It's hard, but I've managed to almost stop using it in school."

"Why, though?" He replied somewhat nervously. "Holy shit," he thought to himself. "She has officially wrapped an arm around me. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck..." "I... I, uh... I think it's fine!"

"Thank you," she replied.

Then, the bus stopped at its next stop and emptied. As an older woman in her 80s with a cane got on as the only passenger to board, she saw the two of them and asked them, "Are you two a couple, by any chance?"

"Us?" Hanamaru pointed at herself and Yousuke. "Oh, no... We're not. He's my best friend's brother. He offered to help bring me home, zura." She then silently cursed herself for using that word.

"Ah," the old lady replied. "Sorry about that. You two just remind me of me and my husband when we first met." She then smiled.

"Husband? Wife? Marriage? Kids? Forever with her?! Wait, whaaaaa..." By now, Yousuke's mind was spinning with daydreams of marrying Hanamaru and having children with her, and he practically fainted into his seat.

Hanamaru noticed this and laughed. "I'll have to wake him up when we get to my stop."


At Hanamaru's family temple, Yousuke and her stood outside. "Thank you for being with me as I went home," Hanamaru told him. "That was kind of you."

"No problem," Yousuke, now calmed down, replied. "I still can't believe that old lady thought we were a couple." He then chuckled. "Can you believe that?"

"That was weird," she replied. To his surprise, however, she then drew him in and gave him a peck on his cheek. "You're a gentleman, you know that, right, zura?"

Immediately, the boy froze in shock as he tried to compose a response. "I, uh, well, I... Thank you?" He then composed himself and took a deep breath. "Kunikida-san, do you want to do something over the weekend together?!"

"Of course," she replied. "Why don't we?" She then pulled a notepad out of her book bag with a pen and wrote a number down. "Ever since I got a cellphone, it's made having friends so much easier." She then handed the paper to Yousuke. "Here's my cell number, zura. Text me whenever you want." She then walked inside, a wide smile on her face. "Okay, Hanamaru, you've gotten this far! Get ready for the next step!"

Yousuke was absolutely speechless as he looked over her house, his jaw to the ground as he blinked several times. "Holy shit," he thought to himself. "It's happening!"


June 28, 2019

As Kanan ran past Hanamaru's house for her early morning exercise, she saw her and stopped. "Hey, Hanamaru-chan!"

Hanamaru spotted her and waved as she walked towards her bus stop. "Kanan-chan! How's it going?!"

"Good," she replied as she took a few breaths. "Just exercising as usual. How about you?"

"Well, I must say," Hanamaru replied as she thought back to last night. "I may have an admirer, and he may be closer to us than you think, zura."

"An admirer?" Kanan easily could guess what she meant by that. "I see. Who do you think it is?"

"I cannot tell you," she playfully replied. "It's confidential, like Tommy Wiseau. Anyway, how's your sex life, zura?"

Kanan laughed loudly in response to the reference to The Room. "I mean, me and Toshiki-kun are still a thing, so there's that. Also, did you watch The Room again?"

"How did you know?" Hanamaru giggled. "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, ZURA!"

"Oh hi Mark," Kanan replied with another quote. She then felt her pager vibrate and heard it ring for an EMS call. As the dispatcher gave the information of the call out, she said to Hanamaru, "Well, I gotta run to the firehouse. That's an odd emergency." She then sprinted in the opposite direction. "See you later, Hanamaru-chan!"


Several minutes later, Rescue 151 pulled up behind Ambulance 151A to an odd medical emergency: A man stuck in a full-body plaster cast inside a house. The two paid firefighters had taken the ambulance, while Kanan and two volunteers took the rescue. As Kanan walked in with a bag of tools, she saw that a woman was standing nearby as the paid firefighters examined the man in a messy room filled with paintings and sculptures. "The glue I used to mix with the plaster is water-soluble," she told them.

"That gives me an idea," the paid lieutenant replied as he grabbed an empty bucket. "Fill this with water and get me some towels." He then handed the bucket to the woman.

Inside the cast, the man shouted, "Get me the hell outta here!"

"We will, sir," the other paid firefighter replied. He then turned to Kanan. "Kanan-kun, get me some blades in that tool bag. Once we wet up the plaster, we can chip away at it."

"On it," she replied as she opened the tool bag and pulled two knives out. She then handed one knife to the paid lieutenant and kept one for herself as the woman returned with towels and a filled bucket.

"Excellent," the paid lieutenant replied as he soaked the towels with water and put them all over the cast. Once he was done, Kanan took the excess water in the bucket and dumped it over the man's head mold. "And now, we wait for a very short while."

"I hope it's not too long," the man inside the cast replied.

"We were just doing molds," the woman told them, both deeply concerned for her boyfriend and extremely frustrated at herself. "And I tried getting him out for an hour, but I couldn't. That's when I called you guys. I used too much glue, damn it!"

"He'll be okay," Kanan assured the woman. "He just needs to get out."

The man inside the cast asked, "You're Matsuura Kanan, right? Holy shit, I had no idea!"

"You're right," she replied as she smiled. "The one and only."

"Can you sign part of my cast after you get the towels off?" The odd request made Kanan's eyebrows raise. "Sorry if it's weird. I just figured it would be most convenient. I love idol music!"

"You certainly got good taste then," she replied as she and the paid firefighters began to remove the towels. Once all the towels were gone, she grabbed a Sharpie marker from a nearby desk and quickly signed her name on the chest part of the man's cast. "I signed your chest area. We'll cut around it."

"Thank you," he replied as the paid lieutenant began to cut off the cast from the neck up. Kanan used her knife to cut around the chest to get the autographed part of the cast off. Within about a minute, the entire cast was off, and Kanan carefully placed the part with her autograph under a sun lamp to dry it and preserve it.

"Sir," the paid lieutenant asked him. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No, I'm fine." He quickly grabbed a wet towel and began to wipe his skin and underwear with it to get rid of any plaster left on him.

"Alright," the paid lieutenant replied as he grabbed a form from his medical bag. "Just read this Refusal of Medical Attention form, sign it, and you'll be all set."

As the man signed the form, his girlfriend said to Kanan, "Thank you for doing that. He's a huge fan of you guys. He's been to several of your lives, and in fact we met at one."

"Awww," Kanan replied, glad to see that her work brought people together. "That's so sweet."