Is nice to see everyone happy. To answer a guest who made a good question regarding Chisa, the teacher of class 78th just knows that if someone can come and take students back to their classes is her.

Delegating tasks!

Chapter 12. Smiling is hard. The stillness of the lake reflection reminds me of you.

When the teachers explained how self-study would work, Makoto Naegi wasn't expecting it to be as literal, or liberal as they made it sound. After math class and literature, the teacher excused himself and reminded them they were on their self-study period. Rules were extremely…. Lax or nonexistent.

Rules were as followed: They could do whatever they wanted inside the halls of the school so long as nothing came to damage the staff in the school, access to all areas was permitted if, by any chance, a door was locked, and they could go to the teacher's lounge to request them to open the area they needed. They could go outside of the school building but had to remain inside the school grounds so long as they were still in Class.

Once that was done, they could go back to their dorms or enjoy the rest of the day as they saw fit, having access to get out of the school grounds. But that essentially meant that for the next six hours of the day, Makoto had to look for something to do and try in his self-study. Needless to say some did invite him to try stuff with them, but he felt curious about what others would do in the other classes, after all he knew some students in the other areas, and thinking it back, he did have a particular friend whose class he didn't recall. Seiko Kimura. It wouldn't hurt to try to find her again, she was one of the first people he met in the school but albeit saw the least of.

So with a gentle apology, he excused himself from his classmates before going out on the quest to find his first friend. Some took it in stride and focused on their own things, but, Toko Fukawa wasn't like most and decided to follow her friend, if most to make sure he would be okay and had no trouble going around the school, one could never be too careful right? Having made up her mind she fixed her braids before going behind Makoto Naegi at a distance that would be considered safe. Or stalker-like, all in the eye of the beholder. But said behavior did bring a raised eyebrow from the ultimate detective, Kyoko Kirigiri, who decided to make use of her self-study time to follow the girl and see what she planned.

Peko Pekoyama was having a hard time with her self-study. She was out of the school building with her practice sword firmly in her back. She was looking at the small lake in front of her, she would try a small exercise of speed. The lake was close to a tree, the wind would shake the leaves and one would actually fall. The point of the exercise was for her to counteract the ripple in the lake with a movement of her sword cutting through the tension without making a big splash. All in all. Something rather superhuman.

Still, she wanted to try it because of a movie she saw with Fuyuhiko. It was curious and worth trying it. But, so far, she had been having a hard time doing it. She blamed the technique's inefficiency not on her lack of skill, but on the requirements for it to work.

When you touch the lake, it reflects on your feelings, the stillness of the water is not a sign of stoicism, is a sign of happiness, when you smile and everything is right in your heart, you make the water reflect it on a single ripple that counteracts the other…

Smile? She had to smile? They were throwing that out there as if it was such a simple thing to just… smile. She had a hard time pulling that off under normal circumstances, plus she was supposed to focus on noticing the ripple in the lake too while smiling? Why couldn't they ask her to just cut a baseball out of a machine at 112 mph, that was easier than smiling!

Needless to say she was kind of growing frustrated, not only at the lack of leaves, but the fact that her last thirteen tries had ended up in failure, not splashing the water, but making the ripple too big and destroying the stillness of the lake afterward. How was she supposed to do this?!

"That was impressive!" A voice made her turn. When she saw her friend, she swore she saw a shadow move away of her view to hide. Said shadow was a panicked Fukawa who peeked behind the tree, farther away in some bushes was the ultimate detective with a pair of binoculars making sure to keep the girl in sight.

"Ah… thanks? It is not supposed to be this way though." She spoke with him while pointing to the lake. "The point is I need to make a ripple to counteract the other without making a mess of the lake afterward." She motioned for him to approach and with the end of her sword touched the water softly making a ripple that followed through the lake and yet it didn't manage to stay still in the end. This made her look frustrated. Or, it would appear frustrated, Pekoyama knew she was the kind whose emotions were hard to be understood and for her to show them.

Still. As he was seeing it in place he couldn't avoid smiling. Pekoyama looked at his smile and inwardly had a sigh, he could smile quite easily, she was envious of that. But then again, she took to remember the last time they interacted.

He did make me smile… he is my friend after all... what if I focus on him?

While smiling didn't come as naturally as she would want to, even when close to Naegi, she took to breathe. The wind came by throwing the leaf in the lake. But this time, rather than speed, she just placed her sword in the lake like when she showed Naegi about it. But this time, with finesse, she barely poked the water, making a small ripple that perfectly countered the other, and the lake for one moment was still.

Makoto smiled widely and she opened her eyes to look at him, she was smiling again. Relaxed she took to put her sword away.

"Well, it worked this time." Makoto was excitedly gushing about the fact she made something like that happen.

"That was amazing, the lake reminds me of you like that." He offered his two cents to her. "Always looking calm." She found herself smiling, but with the small problem that she couldn't stop smiling and felt she was looking dumb turned around. "Thanks… say, what brought you out here?" She had never come to ask him.

"Oh, I was mostly looking for a friend, her name is Seiko Kimura, she is always wearing a face mask." He found himself chuckling. "I forgot I do have her phone number." Makoto was still too lost in his thoughts as he had taken the chance to just enjoy, he would make use of self-study to spend time with friends if they weren't busy or make new ones. At this Pekoyama ended up letting a small laugh, melodically and cute. Which forced her to cover her mouth.

"Pekoyama?" Naegi was curious with a smile at the sound that came from her. She had laughed, or seemed to have.

"Is nothing, Naegi don't worry…" Great I couldn't smile before and now I cant stop. I need to solve this.

Luckily for her, she didn't have to solve it. Or rather, someone had come to put her in the spotlight.

"Pekoyama, I ended up arriving later than expected, I was checking on something, and… are you smiling?" He had a hard time understanding this before pointing to Makoto. "By any chance are you the one to blame for this?"

Formal speaking worthy of the ultimate Yakuza. A nervous Makoto didn't know she was smiling that much. Peko Pekoyama was wondering, judging by the size of the lake it couldn't be that deep, but if she threw herself at it, would she be able to stay under the water before she felt more embarrassed? Sadly, that seemed impossible.

It was a small lake for the amount of embarrassment in her.

Not that anyone could tell though. On the outside, Peko Pekoyama was smiling, a small smile that didn't plan to go away anytime soon, in a way, it was good people always had a hard time reading her expressions.

Cut, send to edition. See ya next time with some action on the side of some characters who haven't gotten much spotlight yet.

I want to make a small note. Will I be uploading daily? Doubt it, will I try weekly? For sure, but I cant promise long chapters, the longer they become the longer they take to come out.