A bit of a flashback story. I thought it would be interesting to find out how Hana and Chika's relationship started off. Inspired from the flashback scene in Chapter 8.
The sound of the rain splattering on the roof of Tetsuki's house distracted her from her studies. Rather than stressing over her upcoming exams, she found herself thinking of other things and growing more frustrated with every drop of water that fell on the roof.
She hated how good looking he was.
The nerve of this boy to sit here nonchalantly in his glasses and plain black shirt, head resting casually on his hand as he did his homework. What was with that pose? Did he think he was a model in the middle of a photoshoot? And that earring? Was he trying to be a thug?
Sensing that she had been staring intensely at him for a while now, Tetsuki turn his head to face her and smiled gently.
Fuck this guy.
"Is there something you don't understand?" He asked. It was the first weekend after Hana had retired from the tennis club as a third year to focus on her high school entrance exams. She had come over so that Tetsuki could answer any questions she had. She was a pretty good student, but there was no downside to getting personally tutored by the top student at their school.
"Yes," she replied, "how are you soooo handsome?" she cooed as she reached up to pinch his cheeks. "Look at how handsome you are, I can't believe a person can be so handsome. How did someone like me end up with such a handsome boyfriend?"
Without flinching, Tetsuki calmly removed her hand from his cheek. "How did someone like me end up with such an annoying girlfriend."
Hana's grin slowly morphed into a pout. "How could you say that? I called you 'handsome' and you responded with 'annoying'," she moped as she tried to slide her hand out of his grip.
"Don't worry," he said with a mischievous smirk and leaned towards her, pulling her hand closer to him so that their faces were only inches apart, "you're more cute than you are annoying."
Her face quickly returned to her usual grin before she leaned in and landed a light peck on her boyfriend's lips. "Good."
Even after leaning back, the two teenagers maintained eye contact. Neither wanted to look back down at their notebooks.
Their stare-off was interrupted by the shaking sound of thunder and the room light momentarily flickering off and back on again.
"Woah," Hana said as she looked around the room. "Does that always happen when there's a thunder storm?"
"No, that was pretty strange."
Suddenly, Tetsuki's phone began vibrating on the table. It was an incoming call from Chika's grandfather.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Tetsuki," he could hear his voice quivering. "I think Chika got into a fight again. I would go out and look for him myself but my doctor told me that rain and cold weather is not good for my bones at this age. I'm really sorry but can you-"
"I'll find him," Testuki said without letting the old man finish. "Don't worry, grandpa."
"Thank you."
"I'll let you know when I find him," Tetsuki said as he ended the call.
He looked up to find Hana looking at him knowingly. "Make sure you wear a waterproof jacket and bring an umbrella," she said without him needing to explain anything, "I'll head home."
"Damn it," he said in frustration, eyebrows furrowed and fists clenched. She was shocked that her boyfriend was finally showing that some things did affect his usual, calm self.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't let you walk home by yourself in the pelting rain like this. Let me take you home and then I'll go find him."
"The sooner you find Kudou-kun the better. I'll be okay going home by myself."
"No," he objected, "how about you stay here until the rain stops. The front door auto-locks so you don't need a key when you leave."
"Sure," she said as she got up and slid open his closet. "I'll just keep studying here while I wait for the rain to let up. You're going to need this," she handed him his waterproof puffer jacket. "Can't have you catching a cold right before exams."
"Thank you," he said as he swiftly put the jacket on and left.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath as he hurried down the street. Every drop of rain that splattered on his umbrella was a physical reminder of every second that passed. Testuki knew those other kids didn't fight fair. Knives and other weapons were a common occurrence. One thought prevailed: "please don't be dead."
His first thought was to go to where they usually hung out. Even if Chika wasn't there, hopefully there would be someone who knew where he was.
He turned the corner around the convenient store to find their usual hide out completely destroyed. Milk crates, bins and cardboard boxes were torn apart and drenched in rain and blood.
Tetsuki walked down the alleyway hoping to find any clue of where his best friend might have gone.
"Come on…" he thought to himself in desperation, "anything." Seeing the state of their hideout worried him even more. If this is what the alleyway looked like, how much damage was done to Chika?
His heart jumped and his feet quickly stepped back after he peered around the large bin, not expecting to see a person lying on some crates.
There he was, the exact person Tetsuki was trying to find. Even with his body hunched over and his head down, Tetsuki could see the scratches and bruises and blood all over his face and body.
Tetsuki quickly grabbed the limp boy's arm to pull him up and under his umbrella.
"Can you stop it?! Are you trying to die?" he yelled. It was the first and only way he could verbalise his exasperation. "Grandpa is worried about you, hurry up and go home."
Avoiding eye contact, Chika attempted to shrug off his grip, "you're noisy, let go of me."
That was the last straw. This boy needed to have some sense knocked into him – in the literal sense. Tetsuki firmly re-established him grip on Chika's arm and head-butted him.
"OW!" Chika yelped as he held his forehead with his hand. Just as he was about to retaliate, Chika looked up to meet his Tetsuki's eyes for the first time.
He froze in realisation.
Testuki was puffing from running around town looking for him. His brows were furrowed and teeth clenched in a mixture of anger and frustration and relief. From just one look, Chika fully understood how much Tetsuki cared about his wellbeing.
The grip on his arm tightened once again. Both boys standing under the umbrella, Testuki muttered "let's go home."
Hana heard the front door open downstairs and briskly walked down the flight of stairs to see what had happened.
"Back already? It's not even been 30 minutes yet," she called. "Did you manage to find him…" her voice trailed off as she saw a beaten up Kudou standing next to her boyfriend.
She locked eyes with the dark-haired boy, exchanging thoughts. "I'll go get some towels from the bathroom," she swiftly turned around and walked away.
"Thanks," he answered. "We'll be in the living room."
Chika sat down on the couch while Tetsuki pulled out the first aid kit from the kitchen.
"We can't send you home like this. Grandpa will have a heart attack," Tetsuki said casually as he opened the first aid kit and rummaged around. He had come to realise that making a big deal of Chika's injuries would deter him from coming for help. Although the ideal situation was for Chika to not get into fights at all, the next best option was that Tetsuki was allowed to patch him up after said fights.
"I found the towels," Hana said as she entered the room and handed one to Tetsuki.
"Thanks," he replied and wiped his face and his hair.
She wasn't too sure how to give it to the other boy. Although she was dating his best friend, the two of them hadn't really interacted before. She didn't really judge him for the things he did. The dilemma was more so that Hana was always felt awkward around people she didn't know. She settled with walking over and placing the folded towel neatly next to Kudou and saying "here you go." He didn't say anything back or look up to acknowledge her.
She was definitely going to overthink that interaction for the next three days.
"Shit," Testuki said as he looked through the first aid kit in a frantic.
"What's the matter?"
"We're out of antiseptic," he said. The two of them locked eyes for a moment, both thinking of what was the best thing to do in this scenario.
"I can go get some," Hana offered. She figured Kudou might feel more comfortable left alone with him than with a stranger like herself.
"No, it's still pouring outside. I'll go. It'll be quick," he said. "I won't be more than five minutes."
Hana nodded her head in response. "Okay," she agreed. It made sense for him to go, he was already dressed to go out in the rain.
She felt the awkwardness wash over the room the moment Tetsuki stepped out. Chika hadn't moved, still frozen sitting on the couch with his head hung down.
Hana was the type that lost all social skills the moment was left alone with someone she didn't know. She frantically looked around the living room and kitchen in hopes of finding something to say or do. Her eyes fell on the tap.
"Ah! Water," she said and quickly scurried into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Taking a deep breath, she walked up to the boy on the couch and put the glass on the table in front of him. "Here."
Again, he neither looked up or said anything. The only movement she saw were the droplets of water sliding down his drenched hair and falling to the floor.
"You should at least dry your hair so you don't get sick," Hana said as she picked up the towel she placed next to him earlier and opened it. Just as she was going to lay it over his head, his arm moved quickly to grab her wrist.
She felt that something was off the moment he grabbed her. The towel dropped to the floor but the only thing Hana could think about was his grip. For someone his size and strength, his grip was too weak even if he was going easy on her. One thing was for sure, his wrist wouldn't even be able to hold up a child's tennis racket right now.
"You're wrist is injured," she said as she used her other hand to poke it.
He quickly retracted his wrist away from her and glared at her.
"Hmm, you finally looked at me. At least now we know your eyes still work," she said as she picked up the towel from the floor and threw it over Kudou's head.
She reached into the first aid kid and found the bandages. The cuts and scratches would have to wait until Tetsuki was back with the antiseptic, but the potentially sprained or fractured wrist could be dealt with now.
She sat down beside him and held her hand out. "Give me your hand," she ordered.
He said nothing and continued to glare at her.
"You can put away that glare because it's not going to work on me. I've met pigeons scarier than you," she said and forcibly took his injured arm towards her and started wrapping his wrist in silence. One thing she had mastered from all her years of tennis was how to bandage a wrist. At least it was coming in handy.
While wrapping his wrist in silence, all Hana could thing about was how much the boy must have been suffering on the inside to subject his body to this kind of pain. She respected his privacy and never asked Tetsuki too many questions. But her boyfriend was a good judge of character – he was dating her after all – so Hana had decided if Tetsuki thought Chika was worth the trouble, then she would support the two of them as well.
After securing the bandage in place, she returned Chika's arm to his possession. "I hope that one day you can believe in yourself as much as Tetsuki believes in you," she said and stood up to throw the plastic wrapping in the bin.
"I'm back," Tetsuki entered the room to see his girlfriend standing in the kitchen and his best friend still sitting on the couch. Except now, he had a bandaged wrist, a glass of water in front of him and a towel draped over his head. Most notably, Chika's expression had softened, while Hana seemed to be wearing an invisible smile of accomplishment. He had to admit, she had achieved a lot in the few minutes he was gone.
"Oh look, the rain has lightened up," she said looking out the window, "I might head home."
"I'll send you off," Tetsuki said and left the living room with her. "Looks like you managed to do a lot of damage in not a lot of time."
She chuckled and put her shoes on. "Assert your dominance by comparing him to pigeons."
"I'll keep that in mind for next time."
She stood up and faced him after her shoes were on. Their height difference was even larger than usual with her standing in the entryway and him standing one step up.
"Thanks for today," he looked down at her with gratitude.
"Didn't I do well?" She smiled proudly, showing all her teeth.
"Yeah, you did," he said and kissed the top of her forehead. No words could describe how thankful he was for having a girlfriend like Hana. Rather than shunning Chika their other classmates, Hana stepped up to help the troubled boy without being asked. "Text me when you get home."
"Okay. Let me know how everything goes," she said and closed the door behind her.
Tetsuki walked back into the living room to see Chika now leaning back on the couch. The towel still draped over his head and glass of water in front of him now only half full. His usual glare had disappeared as well. Chika looked up from staring at his bandaged wrist to his friend standing across the room but still didn't say anything.
"She's really something, isn't she?" Tetsuki said proudly.
