When the morning sun burns past Chie's sleeping eyelids, she finally awakes and shields her eyes. Still facing her, as if he hadn't moved all night, is Sho. Forgetting, for only a moment, that they had fallen asleep together, Chie's heart jumps into her throat. Her stirring awakes the red haired guy beside her and he opens his eyes with a yawn.
The sun is just over the horizon, but the sky holds no clouds so it is unusually bright. Plus, Sho must have felt curtains weren't that useful as only a strand of thin blinds lay half closed upon the window. Despite this, both Chie and Sho feel pretty well rested. So they stretch and get ready for school. Sho hurriedly takes a quick shower as Chie does some morning stretches. When the squealing water halts, Chie stops stretching and gathers her clothes as she planned to also take a quick shower.
Sho walks into the room then, with only his Yasogami pants on. He couldn't actually see where he was walking as he vigorously dried his hair with a towel. Only by knowing where everything was in his home did Sho walk into the room. His chest still glistened with the small amounts of water dampening there. Because of this, Chie is able to see just how built he really is. His stomach is a six pack, not ultra formed, but there and his entire upper torso has just the perfect amount of definition. When he finally stops drying his hair, Sho rubs his face once more than looks up to see Chie looking at him with a pink tint to her cheeks.
"Whaaat?!" Sho looks down. He had pants on. He was dressed enough. What was her problem?
"No-nothing." Chie shakes her head then quickly walks away.
Upon entering the warm water of the shower, Chie remembers their kisses from the night before. His lips had been surprisingly soft. The flushing on her cheeks remains plastered there as she washes her hair. Was she really doing this? Had she kissed the guy who – less than a month ago – had threatened to kill everyone? Sure, he was really different now after losing Minazuki, but...
His wall was obviously taking a beating because of his bottled up rage and Chie wasn't sure what to do about that. But maybe now wasn't the time to worry about it all. She dries off and hurriedly gets dressed for school. When she reaches the kitchen, Sho is about to take a large bite of steaming corned beef hash. He stops when he sees Chie.
"Made some for you too." He points his thumb at the skillet which still holds half of the can of hash in it. Though slightly burnt, the food smells and looks pretty appetizing.
"Thank you." Chie nods her head a little then scrapes the food up and begins to eat. Since Sho hasn't taken a seat, Chie decides to lean against the counter and enjoy her food near him. In the light, she notices that the bruise on the side of Sho's face has gotten quite dark. "How's your head feeling today?" She questions with a full mouth of food.
"Eh. I've been worse." Sho muses as he downs a quick drink of black coffee. He motions the glass toward Chie but her look of disgust says enough. "I mean, there's milk and sugar too...if that would make it better."
"Nah. I'm not actually all that tired." She smiles then takes another quick bite. "I slept unusually sound last night."
"You must have known I was there to keep you safe!" Sho stands proudly as he rinses off his plate. "I'd like to see an asshole try to hurt you with me around!" He smiles toward her then grabs his shirt off the back of the dining room chair.
"I can protect myself you know!" Chie barks defensively.
"Yeah, but I could definitely beat 'em up faster. And then you wouldn't have to worry about getting hurt." He smirks toward her sarcastically. "Because I'm stronger than you."
"Ooo! How much you wanna bet?!" Chie puts her fists up and lifts her leg, ready to fight. So Sho snatches her leg up, causing her to fly backwards. But he moves so quickly that Chie doesn't hit the ground, instead Sho is holding her bridal style. She growls. "Ugh! You jerk!" But she can't hide the smile growing on her face. Playfully, though somewhat violently, Chie starts to punch Sho's chest. He hardly reacts to her punches.
"Oh quit it with your threats! You couldn't scare me if you tried!" He puts her down then begins to button his shirt then wanders into the living room to grab his shoes and backpack. Chie watches him then realizes that it's been quite some time since she's felt this alive. Since the events within the television ended she'd basically just prepared for the police exam, to follow in her master's footsteps.
"Oh yeah! I need to study for my police exam later, wanna help?" She hurries along, quickly slipping on her shoes and tapping her toes on the ground.
"Police exam?" Sho grumbles.
"Yeah! I wanna be a police officer!" She announces proudly. Sho rolls his eyes.
"You're such a goodie two shoes." He smiles vibrantly. "Get it, cuz you fight with kung fu! So you kick a lot. Get it?" When he looks over to Chie, she returns his eye roll then punches him in the side. Before he can say anything, she pushes him out the front door and they head to school. About a block away from school, Chie sees the rest of the gang hanging out by the school gates. She waves toward them vibrantly then hurries on ahead.
Sho, meanwhile, knows they don't really like him much still so he holds back. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks up slowly. Upon seeing Kanji standing with the rest of them, Sho angles his head and walks away, heading under a nearby tree instead. He wasn't sure he had the patience to speak with an entire group of people so soon in the day. Especially after sharing so much of his feelings last night. It had left him feeling strangely vulnerable. But, from a distance he watches Chie and sees her brilliant smile as she chats with them all. From this, he finds himself happy. Somehow, he doesn't notice Yosuke walking up from the other direction.
"Yo, Sho." Yosuke calls to him. Sho turns and grimaces. That was the idiot who had stood by and watched the fight. Yu's best friend. He wasn't exactly Sho's biggest fan yet.
"What do you want?" Sho growls then leans against the tree. He glances over at Yosuke from the corner of his eye.
"I wanted to apologize about yesterday. I mean-" Yosuke then sees the bruise on Sho's face. "Damn, Kanji got you pretty good. I mean! Um," He stumbles over his words then.
"It's fine. It doesn't really hurt anyway." Sho mutters as he still watches Chie. Just then, Chie turns around and smiles toward Sho then waves to Yosuke. Chie's smile brings a sort of warmth to Sho's expression that Yosuke hadn't seen before.
"You really have changed haven't you?" Yosuke asks when he sees Sho's reaction to Chie.
"Yeah..." Sho sighs. "I still want to beat you all up. But at least now I might not want to kill you all." He snickers then turns to see Yosuke's reaction.
"Gotta start somewhere right?" Yosuke's light response catches Sho off guard. This is obvious by Sho's wide eyes. Then the bell rings indicating the beginning of school.