037: Fools bring flowers twice – Part [3] Of The Best Shizuka x Hachiman Chapters I Have Ever Written.

Hiratsuka Shizuka was a very perceptive woman and she had made it a habit of repeating this to herself whenever she noticed small changes in just about anyone who she had to deal with on a regular basis, which mostly and unfortunately meant her students.

As a teacher she noticed changes in her students, she could practically read their emotions on their faces by studying their eyes and body language. Her students were simple minded people, bothered about simple things, mostly their homework, their crushes, their idle gossips and of course, their animated chitchat about falling in love and all the happiness associated with being in a relationship.

However one of her students, a certain Hikigaya Hachiman continued to respect his so called 'status quo'. He was an exception to everything and everyone, an outcast, a loner. He never mingled, he never joined in on any conversation and he kept his thoughts mostly to himself. Unless he was handling a request for the service club, his interactions were mostly limited only to his club mates and her. She was the advisor of this service club and even though Yukinoshita Yukino was the president, it was Hikigaya Hachiman who handled most requests, solved all problems and always ended up hurting himself in some manner or form while never understanding the consequences of his actions.

But now she was here, she was his teacher and through this tutoring session she was willing to help him learn and understand more than just high school level mathematics and science.

Of course this was a one way street. It was her responsibility to teach him and it was his task to soak in all her knowledge and use them whichever way he wants. She never considered learning something from him and she often wondered whether she was wrong, because everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach.

However like her student she refused to learn.

Hikigaya Hachiman came to her home for their next tutoring session like he promised.

He was neither late nor early, neither gloomy nor enthusiastic.

In short, he was himself, like she had come to expect.

He sat on a sofa, kept his school bag on her coffee table and she took a chair, facing him and thus began their usual interactions where both of them took on their respective roles and participated in a banal bubble of redundant routine.

However, Hiratsuka Shizuka was a perceptive woman and his teacher. Hence, she easily spotted subtle changes and alterations in his body language, but like a good teacher she kept her thoughts to herself.

Or at least until she was done making him study some basic geometry.

Truly, Hikigaya Hachiman was horrible in mathematics, but today he seemed a little more distracted than usual.

"Pay more attention!"

"Ah, sorry sensei."

She noticed him, his eyes especially and saw him, looking at those lilies of her kept in a vase on top of the coffee table. His school bag was lying right beside it.

"You want to take something out of your bag Hikigaya?"

"Not at all sensei. What made you say that?"

She decided against pursuing it any further.

"Never mind. Focus on your studies."

"Gladly sensei."

But after a couple more minutes Hiratsuka Shizuka lost her patience because Hikigaya Hachiman kept losing his attention and his eyes would always wander over to his schoolbag. She had already asked him whether he had something in it, and he had already given his reply, saying he did not, but clearly he was lying. She reached over and closed his text book with an ominous snap of finality and after receiving a heated look from her purple eyes, Hikigaya Hachiman understood that this was his time to plead guilty. His throat felt dry and he gulped.

"Can I have a glass of water sensei?"

But he could stall and delay the inevitable.

"Sure Hikigaya. I will be right back."

She could play along. For all she knew he might actually be thirsty, but for some twisted reason he was hesitating from asking her to give him a glass of water. He was a loner with dead fish eyes who looked a little creepy, but surely no one would deny him a glass of water. She had at least this much faith in humanity and to prove it she hurried into her kitchen to fetch him a glass of water.

She returned within minutes and caught him red handed.

"What are you doing Hikigaya?"

"Nothing sensei."

Hiratsuka Shizuka saw stupid on a regular basis. It was almost an occupational hazard associated with teaching high-school students. However she expected Hikigaya Hachiman to be a little bit different. But here he was, messing with her beautiful lilies and calling it nothing. He had taken out all the lilies and was in the process of inspecting them when she came in and surprised him, and now he was standing there looking like an idiot, flower in one hand and an empty vase in another.

"I will ask again. What are you doing Hikigaya?"

Her voice was low, dangerously low and she was holding the glass of water he had asked for a minute ago with incredible firmness, almost like she was imagining the glass to be his throat and by the looks of it she was planning to strangle him yet again. Of course strangling him would have to wait for if she applied anymore pressure, she would shatter the glass and hurt herself in the process.

"Can I have that glass sensei?"

"…Put those down first."

This was beginning to sound like a hostage negotiation gone wrong.

He half expected the water to be boiling with the amount of heat radiating from her gaze but after he drank a mouthful of the cold liquid, he found himself calming down a little. Of course calmness was a hard thing to find when a violent woman was glaring daggers at your face instead of your back, for his sensei didn't even have the courtesy of doing this when he turned around.

On the other hand presenting his back to her was not a clever thing to do right now. He had angered her by disturbing her flowers, obviously she no longer cared that these were given to her by him, but he was fairly certain that his chances at surviving this would become nil if he said nothing to her right now. Hence, he tried coming up with a believable lie.

"Don't even think about lying Hikigaya. Just tell me the truth."

But she was afraid of hearing the truth herself. She believed honesty was a virtue, over the years she taught her students this exact same lesson, but nonetheless she also learned that there was nothing crueller than a sincere explanation which could erase a lovely misunderstanding and demolish an imaginary miscommunication. She waited in anticipation for a bubble to burst.

"…those were not here before."

"Excuse me?"

She heard his explanation, but like always he failed to make himself comprehensible to people who were well versed in communicating with members of society, only by using longer sentences and bigger words.

Hiratsuka Shizuka was one of them and no matter how much he wished she couldn't turn into a telepath and read his thoughts. Instead, she wanted to hear him speak his mind and clearing her throat in a rather obvious manner was her attempt to make him continue this explanation of his, which by any standard was lacking in both effort and content.

After clearing her throat and hearing no further elaboration, her words became tinged with mild impatience.

"Explain Hikigaya!"

He had no other choice but to confess.

"I'm talking about these sensei."

He pointed his index finger at the vase full of flowers which he had disturbed a few moments ago that led to this whole debacle and infuriated his sensei this much.

Currently they were placed, peaceful on the coffee table like they should be and Hiratsuka Shizuka found no problem in their arrangement.

"What's wrong with them?"

"Those were missing a few days ago."

Hiratsuka Shizuka was glad she was sitting on her chair when she heard him say those words. She was careless and he had just dropped by a couple of days ago, unannounced, which was something completely out of character for a guy like him and unfortunately, she had been caught off guard by his casual presence.

Finally she understood what he was saying, but this made her feel extremely guilty. She was not expecting him, when he came by a few days ago to discuss with her a request made by Tobe to the service club to which she acted as an advisor.

At that particular moment she paid no heed to the condition of her room and overlooked the fact that the vase containing the flowers he had given to her as an apology was kept in her bedroom instead of her living room.

As expected, nothing escaped his dead fish eyes and every detail got registered in his rotten brain. Against her better judgement she decided to open her mouth.

"They were not missing Hikigaya. I kept them in my bedroom instead."

She started of strong but her voice kept getting lower and lower with each uttered syllable. Her mind was telling her, warning her, she was telling him too much but words kept flowing from her mouth.

Hikigaya was not accusing her of anything and there was no hint of resentment in his voice. His voice, like always, was a lazy drawl marred by many afterthoughts and many unspoken words. He said little but whenever he did, he always chose his words wisely, something which Hiratsuka Shizuka was growing incapable of doing for the past few minutes which was clearly evidenced by the fact that she had just blurted out a secret she was unwilling to share.

However it would have been worth it if Hikigaya gave a proper response instead of trying to look over her shoulder at the direction of her bedroom. She was glad she had the forethought of keeping her bedroom closed whenever he came over for their tutoring session and unless he could see through walls and wooden doors, her privacy was safe and secure.

"Ah, I understand sensei."

Guess she was getting her hopes up for no reason.

Her mind ran a step by step analysis of this claim to break down every possible interpretation of this statement in order to completely comprehend the meaning and understand the mindset of the speaker.

She started with her own experience and according to Hiratsuka Shizuka all guys are perverts. Then she moved on to entertaining rumours and according to Yukinoshita, Hikigaya Hachiman is a pervert. Needless to say Hikigaya Hachiman is a guy. Hence her inference based on sound reasoning dictated to her only one outcome which concluded with the knowledge that like most high school boys Hikigaya Hachiman is also a pervert.

With a sneer on her lips she asked him to further enlighten her.

"And what do you understand Hikigaya?"

"…Nothing sensei. Um, could you help me solve this equation?"

She smiled at his effort to escape by changing their line of conversation and bringing it back to their primary goal of having a studious tutoring session. But for the time being Hiratsuka Shizuka wanted to teach him another type of lesson.

Regardless, she took a look at the equation which was supposedly giving him trouble and with a few strokes of her pen she solved it in a matter of minutes, with enough time left to gloat and continue their previous conversation.

"There! Problem solved. Now back to what you were saying."

"…I forgot what I was saying sensei."

"No, no, no! You forget nothing Hikigaya. You were telling me about how you understood something. Tell me, what did you understand?"

"…Understand what sensei?"

She was growing incredibly frustrated at his cheap attempts to tiptoe over the entire issue and confuse her with clever wordplay and needless repetitions. But she was not a woman who would easily back down and to push him into a corner she laid all her cards on the table. Exhaling loudly she reigned in her anger and spoke through clenched teeth.

"What did you understand when I said I keep these flowers in my bedroom?"

She was not blushing. She told herself repeatedly in her mind that her cheeks were becoming bright red with suppressed rage not embarrassment.

She looked at Hikigaya who was carefully looking at her vase, then at his textbooks, and then at the pen she was holding tightly in her clenched fist like all of them were a form of improvised weaponry which could inflict him immense pain when he made her angry. As expected, his voice shook with hesitance.

"…will you hit me sensei?"

"That depends on your answer Hikigaya."

"Meaning you will hit me. Ok then, just don't poke my eyes out with a pen."

"…"

Her silence was far graver than he expected and watching her roll over her pen to him across the coffee table made him fear for his life because this meant she had actually thought about stabbing him in the eye. He had many complaints against his dead fish eyes but regardless he cherished the gift of vision that was currently showing him no way out of this frightful situation which only promised to grow far more dreadful by the second.

Regardless he decided to show courage for once.

"I think your bedroom has the same problem as your living room sensei."

She only needed to think about it for a minute before fully comprehending what he was actually saying and when she did, her temper gradually began to rise at this sense of déjà vu.

"…you're saying my bedroom stinks?"

She saw him gulp before he faintly replied.

"…your words not mine sensei."

Hiratsuka Shizuka was having trouble controlling her anger again. On one hand she was glad he had kept his perversions at bay, for his answer was neither lewd nor scandalous. It was a short reply, carefully thought out and he had showed the courage of using her own words against her.

As a language teacher she should be proud of this accomplishment of her student, but as a single working woman, who looked after her own home, she was hardly pleased by his criticism.

Her bedroom didn't stink!

Regardless, she realized Hikigaya had refused to shed any light on his reasons behind vandalising her flower vase and she decided to hold him accountable. She asked him again in a conversational tone.

"Say Hikigaya, why were you messing with the vase in the first place?"

"Um, I thought I told you sensei. It's because I thought they were missing."

He was lengthening his sentence which meant he was trying to hide his own embarrassment. Of course she caught onto it rather quickly.

"But they were not missing Hikigaya. You saw them before you today. Then why?"

She left the rest unsaid and waited patiently. Hikigaya kept his eyes on her flower vase and replied shortly.

"I thought you picked them up from the garbage sensei when you knew I would be coming today."

She took another moment to have all this sink in.

Hikigaya spoke or was rather choosing to speak currently in an arbitrary manner.

He was refraining from speaking coherently and she understood this was his attempt to puzzle her. Anyone else would call him an idiot and give up but she at least felt herself understanding him better overtime.

She remembered on their second tutoring session he had given her these flowers, but before leaving he had said this stupid thing, about how she should throw them away, because he felt like this gift of his had offended her further, instead of granting him her forgiveness.

These flowers, these lilies had done the exact opposite of what he intended, he said.

Of course, she playful warned him that she would throw him away if he said something this stupid again.

Now she realized what it looked like when he came in a few days ago and saw those flowers he had given her missing. She decided against digging deeper into her more unrealistic thoughts and decided somehow Hikigaya felt, that since these flowers were missing, they had been thrown out and if they were thrown out, then his apology was also unaccepted.

Thinking about it made no sense, but she was not dealing with a completely reasonable person. Hikigaya Hachiman was a person who would think somebody would throw away flowers in the trash and then just pick them up another day and display them in their living room. Of course, he had already said her home stunk no less than three times and she really didn't want to know what he thought about her sense of personal hygiene. He saw her smoke and drink, and making assumptions from these bad habits of hers was easily possible.

However she wanted to make one thing clear.

"I never threw away these flowers Hikigaya."

"I believe you sensei."

His reply was instant and it made her feel happy to know she had finally gained his confidence after all this embarrassment and hard work.

Now she could resume their tutoring session with renewed gusto. But unfortunately Hikigaya chose this inopportune moment to open his mouth and continue talking because certainly he had missed the subtle hint that this particular line of conversation was already over. But he carried on in the same vein and said:

"And about your bedroom problems-"

"Don't say it like that!"

Hikigaya Hachiman is a pervert! She has evidenced proof now. There was no away he could say those words without knowing they carried an innuendo.

"Sensei I can solve your problem."

"Stop it! Stop it Hikigaya! I'm not hearing this!"

To emphasise her point she placed both her hands on her ears to muffle his voice. However his voice carried over and she heard him clearly across the coffee table.

"I will bring some more flowers next time sensei."

"…Focus on your studies Hikigaya!"

"Y-yes ma'am."

Like always Hikigaya Hachiman misunderstood her look to mean anger and her halting voice to mean annoyance.

Hiratsuka Shizuka was worried she had committed a horrible mistake.

Like a prisoner of war about to be presented before a firing squad, she was smoking like crazy, but she had refrained from pouring herself a drink, thinking she might do something further stupid like drunk-dialling one Hikigaya Hachiman.

After their tutoring session he had left and now a couple of hours later Hiratsuka Shizuka was torn with indecision.

He had promised to bring her more flowers and throughout the course of their study session she forgot to tell him, not to bring any. She was embarrassed and felt self-conscious all of a sudden. She could try sending him a text, telling him not to bother with flowers, but then someone might read her text by accident. She was sounding paranoid and she blamed it on the mystery manga she had been reading for the past few hours to dissuade her mind from wandering into unhelpful thoughts. She could call him but then again she lost all her confidence in thinking about what to say to him.

He promised to bring her flowers.

Why? To solve her bedroom problems

Anybody would consider this an extreme form of dirty talk but not him.

Apparently he was worried about his own nostrils because he found it unbearable to study at her place unless her entire home smelled like a garden.

Surely Hikigaya Hachiman had high standards!

Fearing for his life at the last moment he had phrased his words rather carefully and omitted to use the words 'smell' and 'stink' in any given instance. Instead he said these flowers will match her home décor. She was certain Hikigaya Hachiman had no clue about what went with her personal décor and she was thankful his maths textbook was heavy enough to land a heavy blow on his head which was capable of even flattening his stupid ahoge.

However when they were talking about this she once again failed to refuse his future offer to bring her more flowers

Why?

She didn't have to take this!

She could call him right now and cancel their next tutoring session. She took her out mobile phone but unfortunately it read no network. She cursed to herself and decided to head out of her apartment for a better chance to make this call, yet she was incapable of rearranging her own thoughts which had begun to form a whirlpool of indecision.

She opened her main entrance and was surprised at what she saw. Her lit cigarette fell from her mouth and she felt her grip loosen from her phone. There was nothing she could do but step on the unfinished cigarette and extinguish its flames, but she held onto her phone with all her might. She might need to call a doctor because certainly she was seeing things, because there was no possible way a bunch of purple hyacinths, wrapped in an old newspaper, was jammed into the outer door handle of her apartment.

She carefully took the flowers out and took them inside her home, where in the bright artificial lights, she discovered a small note attached to them, carrying a very recognizable and distinct handwriting.

It simply read-"Problem solved sensei."

She sighed and went into her kitchen to retrieve another vase.

"You have no idea Hikigaya." she said to herself.

Next morning she woke up early and after taking her morning bath she spent most of her time brushing her hair like always before leaving for Sobu High.

Her long black hair reached her shins and though taking care of it proved to be tiresome and time consuming on many occasions, especially when she had to hurry up and be on time for school to set a proper example for her students, she always allowed herself to have ample time to carefully brush and comb each of her natural strands until they fell over her shoulders in a smooth manner which was soft to touch and glossy to look at.

Looking at her reflection in her vanity mirror while brushing, her eyes caught another object resting upon her nightstand which was a latest addition to her humble household.

She had decided to keep the hyacinths in her bedroom and the lilies in her living room. There was no particular reason behind her decision. It was taken completely at random.

However, as expected Hikigaya Hachiman was completely clueless about matching things to her home décor.

These purple flowers matched nothing.

She already knew purple was a very particular colour.

They felt out of place in her living room, in her kitchen and in her bedroom.

They matched nothing!

…Except her eyes.

She came to this realization a few moments ago while she was staring at her own reflection in front of her vanity mirror. She was no longer brushing her hair anymore. The purple hyacinths had the exact same shade as her eyes.

…Her purple eyes.

Just a coincidence, she thought to herself.

A/N: Another Shizuka x Hachiman chapter! In my opinion this is probably the best of the lot!

Now about the Ikebukuro fic –

The characters you want in the arc are – Rio Futaba, Koyomi Araragi and Izaya Orihara.

I couldn't have picked a better combination myself.

Now it's time for the final poll. Here we go!

Poll#1: What should be Hitagi Senjougahara's supernatural problem?

Option 1: She becomes a monster and attacks people.

Option 2: Author's choice.

Option 3: Something to do with stationery items.

Option 4: She gets possessed/shares body.

Option 5: An idea taken from the reviews.

So, yeah, I will leave the decision to your faithful hands – What should be Hitagi Senjougahara's supernatural problem. Please let me know in the reviews.

Hope everyone enjoyed reading this chapter.

Leave lots and lots of reviews, follow and fave.

Won't betray your dreams.