*7/27/2021

I was in a writing mood!

Karaoke Neighbor

Chapter 26

you vs them

Hibari's presence became scarcer and scarcer, causing Estell to conclude that he was in fact avoiding her. In the past few weeks since the 'incident', every time the young woman would try to talk to him, he'd either pretend that he was getting a call, walk the other way or ignore her completely.

Today was no different. While making her way to the elevator of their apartment building, the Hana-Kura, she spotted him inside.

"Hold the elevator!" she yelled to him, but it looked like he was frantically pressing something that was not the open button. When the doors started closing not too long after, she knew he was the reason for that. "You rude ass!" she yelled and sprinted before the doors could fully closed. They slid back open for her as she glared at her neighbor.

"You wanna fight?"

"Not interested…" he said and looked away from her.

"Hmph!"

They traveled to the 7th floor in silence. When they made it to their destination, Hibari hurried down the hall.

Estell thought for a second and smirked. She then proceeded to run down the hall after him and stand in front of his door, blocking him from unlocking it.

"Remove yourself now," he growled.

"Nope. Not until you look at me properly and we have a conversation. You're making me so sad and lonely, Hibari-kun," she ended with giving him her best doe eyes.

"Sounds like a you problem. Move."

"I literally just said it's your fault!"

"And who's fault is that?!"

Estell pouted. "Don't yell at me. I'm sensitive.."

"Cut the crap, Kiseki."

"Was it really that bad, though? Like, I flirt with you every single time I see you. Should you not be immune by now?" She crossed her arms and gave him a pointed look.

Hibari continued to be unamused. She just didn't get it, did she, was what the young man was thinking. Incidentally, it wasn't a one-and-done kind of deal. In fact, this wasn't even the first time that he had thoughts about his annoying neighbor. They weren't nearly as perverse, but he had found himself thinking about her on some occasions before the 'incident'. Most of them were just innocent things, like her caring about his birthday, or the time they went back home in a taxi together after grocery shopping when it was raining.

Her smiling face would sometimes pop up in his head.

Other thoughts might have been a bit more on the mature side, like thinking back to when they were on their balconies and the burgundy-head was half-dressed. He might have looked at her for too long that night. But nothing became of it.

Really, all of these random thoughts about a girl he barely knew just annoyed him, and so he didn't dwell on them for long.

But then her perverted ways just had to find a route into his subconsciousness that one night and mess with his peace. He wanted to bleach his mind the next morning, if possible. He felt like he was guilty of a crime and needed to be convicted. If he was a praying man, he would have gone to a confessional and hoped that God would forgive him of his sins.

Needless to say, his thoughts about his weird, annoying but kind of cute foreign neighbor had escalated, and every time he saw her since that day a few weeks ago, his mind would start to wander, and he would try his best to push those very adult thoughts away.

"Immune or not, move out of my way before I bite you to death. Or maybe I should just do it anyway, because you are truly getting on my nerves, Kiseki."

She blinked innocently. "Do you hate me now?"

He looked at her face briefly before looking above her head and at his door. "I will if you don't move."

"Okay," the girl simply said and removed herself. "Well, see you around, I guess." She paused when she was in front of her own door and smirked. "Kyoya~"

He snapped his head so fast in her direction and glared, gritting his teeth, but then she was gone.

She did it again.

And before they knew it, it was summer break.

Estell stretched as she stood next to Takahiro. The school day was now over, making it officially vacation time. And luckily for her, all of the studying that she had done in the past 3 months had paid off, and while 78% was nothing to phone home about, that was her grade average as of late. Which meant that she didn't have summer school! She danced at the thought, which caused Takahiro to look at her oddly as he collected his books into his bag and stood up from his desk.

"What exactly are we celebrating, Estell-san?"

"Not having summer school!"

"Ahh…"

Estell forgot that, though quite intelligent, Taka's grades weren't that great either. He averaged about 80%. He was too busy being engrossed in his books to study properly.

One person who she knew would have to come back during their break was Tsubaki. She wasn't the type to care much about school, and it showed.

"Aww. Poor Tsubaki. Oh well. Let's go!"

"What happened to Yamane-san? Also, we don't live in the same direction, Estell-san, so where is it that we are going together? The lockers?"

"I mean… that too, but let's go do something! It's the first day of summer break! You want to- I don't know- hang out at a bookstore or something?"

With Miles having started work, Tsubaki mostly out of the equation and Hibari most certainly out of the equation, her friend group had shrunk down to just Takahiro, and maybe Q if she felt like hanging out with him more.

Some of her friends back in America, like Sam and Chris, would be starting their freshman year at university soon, and so she couldn't bug them much anymore.

"Do you mean it?"

"Huh?" her thoughts had started to drift, and she forgot what she had just said.

"We're going to a bookstore?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure. Let's go to that bookstore/café a couple of streets over."

Takahiro smiled and Estell almost dropped her bag. Taka was a very straight-faced young man, and the most emotion she'd seen on his face was a smirk or frown. Rarely a smile.

'Aww, it's so cute! When was Taka cute? What the what?'

The young woman smiled back and latched herself onto his arm. "Let's go~!"

She ended up having a pleasant afternoon with Takahiro before it was time for her to go to work. He had grabbed up a few books in a series that he really liked while drinking tea, and she read some manga and drank a mocha latte.

Nothing eventful happened at work, and so she returned home that night a little smarter than usual. She got to study longer.

Study. That was one of the things that she would have to do during the break. She made a deal with Hayate Misa so that she wouldn't still have to have in-person sessions during break. They would have a call every other week on the material that Estell went through on her own. Of course, if the girl had any questions before that, Hayate-sensei was available to help.

"Being a teacher must suck," she said absentmindedly as she checked her mail on the first floor.

She turned around after tossing some of the junk mail and was surprised to find a casually dressed Hibari before her, and by the look on his face, so was he. She cocked her head to the side.

"It's after 10 PM. Where are you going, young man?"

Said young man just rolled his eyes. "None of your concern." He proceeded to walk away.

"You better not be going out to cheat on me!" She yelled after him, but covered her mouth when she saw that there were other people in the lobby, and that their attentions were of course now focused on her. She had shouted in English though, and was pretty sure no one really knew what she was talking about.

"Shut up," was his only retort as he exited the building.

Estell grinned after him. 'He never denied that we're a thing…heh heh. We're not but does he know that? Yes. Yes, he does.'

She rode the elevator up to the 7th floor, went inside her apartment and turned in for the night.

Most of Kiseki Estell's summer break was a bust. Between work and studying, it left little time for fun. It didn't help that her friends were oftentimes unavailable.

On the bright side, she started seeing Hibari at her store again. During their period of not talking, he stopped going to the konbini and opted to go elsewhere. He must have gotten over that which was plaguing him.

Her cute kohai Tsuna started bringing even more friends with him, one of them being a girl friend. His girlfriend to be precise. Estell was happy for him but was rather annoyed by the white-haired boy from her grade who kept screaming about something being extreme.

It was now mid-August, with break being over in a little over a week. Her friend group (including Q) managed to all be available for a short period of time, and so they all went to Takahiro's house as he had suggested before and sang karaoke. It also happened to be Tsubaki's birthday, as she casually mentioned. Taka's mother was home at the time and very kind and welcoming. She ended up making a lot of food and inviting herself to the-now-party and sang and danced with the youngsters. A lovely woman.

Miles' hair had grown since the last time they all saw him and it appeared that Tsubaki was very approving of the new look, as she was very handsy with the young man. He didn't seem to mind. Estell nodded in approval.

Some more time passed and it was now just a few days until the 2nd school semester started up again.

Again, the group was able to get together, this time for the Summer Night Festival. While a very casual matsuri, Estell insisted that they all wear yukata to it, and so they did.

"Why did I let you convince me to do this, Kiseki? I feel all sticky already…" Tsubaki complained.

Miles nudged her. "You'll be fine, Tsubaki-chan. It's not even that hot this evening."

'Did.. Did I just hear right?' Estell thought as her eyes widened, '-chan? He called her with -chan? And she was okay with it? I-'

Estell knew that the two had gotten closer little by little, but this was weird. And yet very much wholesome.

"Well, I think everyone looks great, although we stand out a lot, seeing as this really isn't that kind of festival…"

"Shut up, Taka."

"No."

Estell laughed and hugged the boy.

"This might be the only time I do something like this. It's not like I'm staying here forever."

The group looked at her and suddenly the mood grew heavy. It was true; after graduation in March, the American girl would most likely be on a plane back to California. She wanted to enjoy her time as much as possible.

"Now I'm depressed, Esteru. So what do you want to do first? I'll buy you whatever you want tonight!"

"Really? You're so nice, Q."

The boy blushed and the small group set out to play, eat and enjoy themselves on this narrow street filled with stalls.

The crowd started to thin out around 10 PM and Estell moseyed around aimlessly, the 3 boys and 1 girl following behind. She stopped when she noticed something interesting in one of the alleyways. "Hee hee." She started walking towards it. The other 4 looked at each other before turning to see what had caught her interest.

At the end of the alleyway, there were 2 people in black spray painting the wall. Estell casually strolled up to them. "Hi, can we join?"

The 2 people, a guy and a girl, turned around startled and almost ready to run.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. I just wanna do that too! I used to do it a lot where I'm from."

Q, Miles, Tsubaki and Takahiro walked up behind her.

"Ey, this looks fun." Tsubaki commented.

"Yeah!" Q agreed.

Miles and Taka briefly looked at each other before shrugging.

The taggers also looked at each other. The girl nodded, and they shared their cans with the group.

While Estell was trying to match the style of the 2, Tsubaki and Q ended up doing whatever the hell they wanted. Miles and Takahiro made very tiny designs.

"Hey! What are you all doing? Stop this instant!"

They all whipped around and saw a policeman at the end of the alley.

"Shit!" Estell yelled, throwing the cans of spray paint back at the couple. "Run!"

Everyone did just that, going as fast as their yukata would allow. Of course, the 2 taggers in street clothes were much faster and almost out of sight. The yukata wearers loosened up their cloth and sprinted away as well, though their sandals were uncomfortable and definitely not meant for running.

"Come back here you darn kids!"

Estell and Tsubaki laughed as they all ran and were no longer in sight.

After a few minutes, they all stopped to catch their breath.

"Never again, Estell-san."

"Agreed.

"That was fun as hell, what are you talking about, kid?"

"Yeah. Aren't you glad you got to do your favorite pastime, Esteru?"

Estell continued to pant. She was always out of shape. "I wouldn't say favorite, Q, but yes, that was a ton of fun! I'm glad I got to finally do this with all of you." She gave them a toothy grin.

"Girl, you got like squid in your teeth or something."

"What?!"

Play the Karaoke Neighbor dating sim (available for PC) and follow me on Twitter! Links in my profile.

Shout out to Germany! Thanks for reading.

Song:

you vs them - Jhené Aiko