Waking up with a start, Hisao's eyes show him an unfamiliar roof, but it doesn't take long for him to realize where he is after quickly going through the events that lead him to lie down on the couch he currently is lying on. The sound of someone breathing makes the boy move his gaze to the chair that's positioned a few meters to his right, on top of which his blonde friend has fallen asleep, sitting. Her breaths are deep but incredibly quiet, as if she was consciously trying to conceal them from whoever might be in the vicinity. The boy tries to sit up without making too much noise, but his actions fail since the girl is awoken by it. Taking a few seconds to comprehend the situation, she then rubs her eyes before giving off a yawn.
"You're adorable when you sleep," the boy states as Emi is waking herself up. This seems to be enough for her to spring to life.
"Of course; a girl must always look her best, even when she sleeps," she responds with a tone as serious as the girl can fake. It's not a serious tone at all.
"I never said anything about when you're awake." The words cause Emi to jump off her chair, towards Hisao and hit him on the shoulder, followed by her own giggling. "We both fell asleep?"
"The last thing I remember is you sleeping, so I'm not sure about myself." As the girl takes on her trademark smile the boy stands up, but as he realizes that standing up was a bad idea through his vision going black he sits back down. Emi seems to get worried. "You okay?"
"I'm fine, just groggy," Hisao answers as Nurse makes his way past the cover that separates the two parts of his office. The seriousness he had during the morning events has now disappeared completely, leaving place for his usual self.
"So you two finally woke up, I was starting to think you were comatose," he says with his regular, inhumanly wide grin. Probably caused by just waking up, Hisao can't keep himself from imagining the man in a fox-costume. Even carrying a costume it would seem that Nurse would not fit without his coat, at least not in the boy's mind. "I have to do a quick check-up to make sure you're alright, so off with that shirt. You wouldn't lose a chance to show off that body of yours to a girl, would you?"
"Wha-?" Despite having gotten used to these kinds of teases over the months, Hisao's got barely out of sleep and can't come up with an answer. Feeling his cheeks reddening, the boy sees the Nurse giving him a victorious grin, the grin seeming to show more personal victory on the man's part than any earlier grin of his. That can, of course, be attributed to the fact that it has gotten more and more difficult to get a hitting tease in on Hisao as time has passed.
The boy makes a second attempt at getting up, this time making sure not to do it too quickly. Succeeding in this, he then walks through the opening in the cover and takes a seat on the chair he so many times has taken a seat on before getting a quick examination. As the boy takes off his t-shirt and puts it in his lap Nurse start's doing his work. A quick check-up is all it is, and it can't be much more than two minutes that pass before it is over.
"I'd say you're all set to go. Since the two of you decided to sleep through the day, lunchtime shouldn't be too far off, so I'd say that you could do whatever you want until after that," he says as he stands up and takes off his stethoscope. His grin has turned into a smile at this point.
"As you wish, master," Hisao responds as he stands up while putting on his t-shirt. After he accomplishes those feats he does a deep bow, before heading to the door as he's followed by Emi. The two start making their way to the dormitories with quite a slow pace, at least compared to what they would usually have.
"Thanks," the boy says halfway to their destination. The girl doesn't seem to understand.
"Huh?"
"Before my heart attack I had three close friends. We would always hang out after school, enjoy our youths and all." Hisao turns his face to hers, a small smile on his lips. There's a glint in his eyes that cannot be associated to anything else than experience. "Yet, you're a closer friend than they ever were. I thank you for that."
"That doesn't sound like something to thank someone for," Emi responds. She's carrying a smile, too, one that signifies that she's thankful for the acknowledgment the boy is giving her.
"You helped me up when I fell down, you pushed me forward when I felt like lying down and stop. That's something not many people can do, at least not single-handedly." The boy's smile now vanishes. "When Rin left I felt broken, but you were able to get me up again." A sigh escapes him. "That's when you realized that I was in love with her, wasn't it?"
"I had had my suspicions before that... Well, more than suspicions, but I wasn't entirely sure before that." A warmth is surrounding the girl, a warmth she's giving off herself. "I never want people to be at their lowest, so I tried to help. I guess I did." They stare at each other for a few seconds until Emi decides that the moment has come to an end. "Besides, I got a running partner out of it."
The two continue their way to the dormitory buildings through the chill November air, the girl now having resorted to her regular jumping steps. The few-minute walk there soon is over, with Emi and Hisao deciding to meet up there when lunch officially starts.
"You're late!" The shout is given off by Emi just as she sees Hisao exiting the male dormitory building. Her complaint is correct: It's been almost two minutes since the bell signaling the start of the lunch rang.
"Unlike you I'm not a potential professional runner," the boy responds, walking up to her as he does. "So what do we do now?"
"Go get Rin? I can't think of anything else." The boy nods and the two of them head off towards the school. Looking up to the sky, he sees that it's empty of clouds with a few small exceptions that slowly drift across the world. Getting bored of this, his gaze instead turns to Emi. With nothing else to do as they walk along the path to the school building, Hisao decides to try to look at his companion with the analyzing eyes he has seen Rin have.
The slight breeze just barely moving her dirty blonde twin-tails, a cheery smile on her slightly tanned face, green eyes aimed at the path in front of her. Uniform moving almost as if it were the girl's skin, Hisao imprints the image into his mind, or at least tries to. Emi finally seems to notice her friend's stare.
"Why are you staring at me as if you were in love with me?" she asks.
"Trying to feel how it feels to be an artist," the boy answers as he stops his analyzing and instead makes eye contact with the girl who seems to think over his answer. He realizes that it probably sounded like an extremely strange thing to say, but before being able to think of anything to follow the statement with Emi gives away a giggle.
"Are you going to paint me or something?"
"Let's leave portraits to Rin. Just because I'm a member of the art club doesn't mean that I'm good at painting." At the mention of Rin something seems to surface into Emi's mind.
"Did she show you?" Hisao gives the girl a questioning look as he thinks back on the events of the last week.
"Can't think of anything she did that would cause you to ask a question like that, no," he answers. "Would you like to tell me what this little secret might be?"
"Nope," she answers with an impish grin. It's obvious that the boy won't get anything out of her, so he chooses not to even try. Letting his gaze forward he realizes that they have already reached the school building without him noticing.
"I'm guessing she's either still in your classroom or in the art room. You go to the classroom and I to the art room, and if you don't find her you'll come to the art room and vice versa." Emi nods before running off to their classroom, or at least gets as close to running as she can with her current legs. Meanwhile Hisao starts making his way to the art room through the hallways of the school that by now have started getting crowded. It takes some maneuvers to to successfully get through the crowd, but the boy is able to get to the art room rather quickly. Walking through the open door he notices a familiar figure in the room.
"Hey, Rin," he says as he walks over to the redheaded girl currently looking out a window. Her head turns just a few angles in the boy's direction, but it's enough for him to understand that she has acknowledged his presence. Looking past Rin and out the window her attention is on Hisao remembers what Emi said. "Emi asked me if you had showed me something. Want to tell me what that was?"
"No." Hisao is caught off guard by Rin's quick and direct statement. Her voice carried a strictness he's never heard her with before. Since she was so direct about not wanting to talk about it, the boy decides to not continue the subject, and instead places his hand on her shoulder, not really with any major reason at all. He just felt like doing it, so he did it. The girl turns her gaze to him as a reaction and they're eyes lock onto each others, like they've done so many times before. A moment to last forever, their brown and green eyes staring into each other as if not looking at each others physical bodies but glancing into each others souls.
"Rin Tezuka, the great artist of Yamaku High. You're a very intriguing girl, Rin, that I will admit. Eyes that feel as if they're staring right into my soul..."
"You're beautiful," Hisao says without thinking. His mouth has again decided to work without his permission. Of course, it is what he truly thinks; while he might not have notices it the first time he saw here, Rin does have a very special charm to her.
"Kay," she responds nonchalantly, but there's a slight glimmer in her eyes that doesn't seem to have been there before. Of course the boy can't be sure, since the girl has a tendency to not show her emotions, but he feels as if his comment had at least a minor impact on her. Just the possibility of it makes him glad to have said what he said.
"There you are!" Emi's chirpy voice can be heard at the same time as her steps can; right as she bursts into the art room. As Hisao takes his hand off of Rin's shoulder and turns around to face his running partner Rin herself finishes the turn her head has already started.
"Here we are," the boy says as to answer the greeting of the girl who just entered the room. "So, any idea of what to do? Sorry to say that I don't have any money at the moment, so you can't use that card."
"I guess we'll just have to get something from the cafeteria..." The idea seems to disturb Emi, but there doesn't appear to be any other choice for the three. And so, the group heads off to get "food" from the cafeteria.