It was quite obviously a lie. No matter who looked at it. Estelle had body slammed Murasakibara to the ground because she had suddenly remembered uneaten candy at her place? Not very plausible. But that was the most Estelle could salvage of her dignity after literally throwing herself on him.

Estelle got off her hands and knees, shifting her weight backwards off of Murasakibara. She sat, kneeling between his legs now. Murasakibara sat forward, so that his large torso was hovering over her. His bag of snacks had been tossed to the side during the tackle.

"Ok."

Estelle had been staring at the floor, but she snapped her head up to look at Murasakibara. She was very surprised that he said yes. She didn't think Murasakibara was a complete imbecile, maybe just not very tactful. He should've known something more was afoot. But if he knew, he showed no signs of it.

Estelle hurriedly stood up, grabbed his snacks, and her groceries. She hoped none of the eggs had suffered during the ordeal. Murasakibara stood up as well in front of her.

"Well, um, my place is this way," she embarrassedly pointed out the way, holding both her bags and his.

"Ok."

They both walked in heavy silence toward her place. Despite having company, Estelle was still trembling a little. She was scared of so many things. Afraid that the movement she had seen earlier was still following her. Afraid that some random passerby might take a picture of her and cause a scandal. Afraid that Murasakibara might say something unwarranted and spread rumors. She had solved one problem, only to bring forth a whole host of other problems.

Murasakibara reached a hand over to hers. Estelle's whole body jolted in surprise at the touch of his long fingers. He took all the bags from her and he held it. She tilted her head up to look at his face. He looked straight forward.

"Muro-chin told me that I should carry things for girls."

She supposed the look of utter surprise made it to Murasakibara's cognition to warrant his response.

"Oh. Thank you," she muttered quietly.

Despite having a huge purple titan by her side, she still could not still her rapidly pumping heart and her eyes shifted this way and that. In a lapse of judgment, her instinct for want of more safety took over and her pointer finger and thumb made their way to the cuff of Murasakibara's sleeve. Estelle felt the need to ground herself and the need to touch, hold something. And that something happened to be the very edge of his sleeve. Really, she wanted to hold something more substantial, but even the strongest desire for security would not override her common sense and pride. She was not holding anything more of some random guy she had only met a few days prior, and didn't even seem to like her all that much.

Her knuckle gently brushed against the back of his hand. The slight touch brought Murasakibara's attention to Estelle's delicately placed fingers. He looked at her two fingers on the edge of his cuff. And then he looked at her face.

Estelle wouldn't dare look at his face right now, but she could tell without looking that his purple eyes were boring into her temple.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered without facing Murasakibara. Then, in an even more hushed tone, "Just for a little…"

Murasakibara turned his eyes away from the tenuous grasp she had on his sleeve to the road. He didn't know where her apartment was, so Estelle was leading him by gently tugging on his sleeve. The two trudged silently on towards a destination that only Estelle knew.

After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived. Still holding onto his sleeve, she used her free hand to punch in the building code. Murasakibara was looking at the numbers she input. Right now, Estelle couldn't care less if he saw or not.

They waited in front of the stainless steel doors of the elevator. Estelle felt especially small in the warped reflection of the elevator doors next to him. Leading him by the sleeve, they entered the elevator and she hit floor eight. The floors pinged past while the two stood in silence. Currently, Estelle didn't feel the need to support herself against the elevator railings. Her two fingers clasped onto his cuff was enough. Slowly, her heartbeat slowed, and her trembling stilled.

The doors opened and Murasakibara followed her to her apartment door. She punched in the numbers in plain view of him. She was too tired to really care. He lived in the opposite direction of her and as of now, Estelle did not deem him as someone to be wary of. He was disinterested in her and she was just using him for an escort home. The keypad glowed green and granted them entrance.

Walking past the threshold of her apartment door instantly flipped a switch in her mind. She was fine now. She was safe now. Estelle let go of Murasakibara's sleeve. She kicked off her shoes.

"You can come in if you want. Let me get those sweets I promised you." She ran into the depths of her apartment to find all the sweets that fans had given to her lately.

Of course she felt bad that she was giving away the food that she had been given, but it was a fact of her life that she couldn't eat it anyways. It was either throw it away or give it away. She returned to her living room to see Murasakibara in socked feet looking around her apartment, with her groceries now on the floor near her TV.

"You have a big apartment," he stated plainly.

Estelle looked around. It wasn't particularly big to her. The ceilings were high, and most of her walls and furniture were white, to give an illusion of more space. But the space itself wasn't necessarily big.

"You think so?" She dug in her kitchen cabinets for a bag to fit all the sweets. She surprisingly had a lot of special event bags, with her idol unit plastered over the front. After events were over, the staff usually had extras and Estelle took them home to use. She grabbed one and stuffed as much as she could into it. The bag was bulging with the sweets she was gifted.

"Do you live here by yourself?" Murasakibara asked, seemingly innocently.

Estelle had already been lax with her building code and apartment code because she didn't think that Murasakibara had any interest in her. But asking if she lived alone after having all that information was a bit too much. She ignored the question and walked back over to where he was.

"Here you go," she said handing him the bag, "Thanks so much for walking with me."

"Mm," Murasakibara grabbed the bag and sauntered towards the door.

He messily shoved his feet into his sneakers and Estelle was behind him ready to see him out.

"Do you need me to walk you out?" She asked.

Stepping over the threshold, Murasakibara shook his head.

"Then, ok. Thanks so much again," Estelle said ready to swing the door shut behind him.

"Elle-chin."

She paused, hand still on the door handle, and looked at him expectantly. He turned slightly to face her.

"Are you afraid of the dark?"

She blinked at him. The question caught her off guard. Probably Estelle's eccentric behavior of tackling him and then grabbing his sleeve was too strange for him to not compile some sort of explanation for it. This was probably the culmination of his theory, that Estelle was afraid of the dark.

She smiled softly at him, wrinkling her eyes, "A little, yeah."

"Ah."

"Good night, Murasakibara-kun."

"'Night, Elle-chin."

She was ready. It was after school and after checking in with the team to make sure that they were all good, she headed towards the home economics room. She was fully prepared. She brought her own knives, a bluetooth speaker, and her ingredients all ready. Closing all the classroom doors and leaving a window just a tad open, she prepared her tunes and grabbed an apron from a shelf. Her playlist of choice today consisted of her idol unit's albums and songs. It was a good opportunity to review her repertoire while cooking. Two birds and one stone.

She julienned the carrots and crunchy little cucumbers in fluid rocking motions. Seasoned the bean sprouts. Chopped the mushrooms. A slight stir fry for the carrots and high heat for the rice. She was trying her best to emulate some of the crunchy pieces of rice that stuck to the stone pot without depriving the rice of its soft fluffy texture.

She was about done cooking. The final step was to cook a plate of over easy eggs to go on top of the bibimbap. She opened the carton of eggs. A few cracked and had leaked a little. It reminded her of what had happened last night, how she had body slammed into Murasakibara and landed in a rather compromising position. She could feel her face growing warm, but it could also be from the heat of the pan. She shook her head vigorously, as if to shoo away the unpleasant memories. Maybe focusing on belting the notes of the song would get her mind off the incident.

You're like the sun shining high in the sky
I'm like the midnight star burning bright
Though we're so different I can't deny
Wanting to be in your arms at twilight

You're so far away from me
And I just can't seem to get through
Why can't we both just agree
That I love you.

The song came to an end and her eggs were just about done too. She assumed basketball players ate a lot, especially ones that were over six feet tall, so she cooked the entire carton, except the ones that were broken. Bibimbap tasted the best piping hot so she picked up her phone to turn off the music and to call the team over.

Who should she call? Captain Okamura? Himuro? She didn't know Liu Wei or Fukui that well so she decided against them. Her thumb slightly hovered over Murasakibara's name.

Don't be ridiculous.

She called Himuro. As the phone rang on her side, she heard another phone ring just outside the classroom. Was that who she thought it was? She left her phone on the counter, wiped her hands on her apron, and slid open the door.

Five basketball players were crouched near the window of the classroom. But they were so tall that from the window, the tops of their heads were showing. Despite having intimidating statures, and sometimes demeanor, on balance, the team was pretty cute. Estelle couldn't help but smile.

"How long have you been sitting here?"