The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura
Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.
Kaoru was still in bed when Chizuru shut the front door and headed to the school. She was happy to be wearing her uniform as she hadn't had time to buy any guy clothes and would've had to borrow Kaoru's. Hers weren't overly feminine but they were still girly enough. Kaoru had used several of hers shamelessly but she wasn't as keen on his. They were usually covered in food stains and thrown on the floor.
The only positive to coming in this early was that after this was over, she could go into town and buy dinner. Just because they'd switched genders didn't mean they'd switched roles. Kaoru had always been a lazy bastard and so she'd been doing everything for years.
All of the others had arrived before her and so she had to rush to get ready before they started doing drills. As it was early in the morning they were all pretty tired and Chizuru actually managed to hit Shin once. Luckily she was a morning person. After two hours of this, Hijikata announced that it was over.
"Ok, take the armour off, do one lap around the school and we're done." Oh god. Running. Cock ups and embarrassment seemed imminent.
"Alright you bastards!" Chizuru jumped as Shin started shouting in her ear. "I challenge you all to a race!"
"Bring it on dumbass!" Sano was quick to take up the challenge with Heisuke shouting alongside him. Chizuru could only cower from their sheer intensity. Saito and Souji were more restrained so she edged closer to them.
"Just get on with it you idiots." Hijikata seemed to be getting a headache which was understandable when you considered how often he had to deal with them.
"Roger!" After a mock salute, the three of them shot out of the room and Chizuru had to move quickly to keep up.
She'd only been running for a hundred metres when Saito and Souji overtook her and soon all of them were gone whilst she was left struggling to even breathe. Being unfit really sucked.
I really don't belong in this club. Slowly she staggered to a halt and started gasping. No one could see her but she still felt bad for being 'lazy'. As soon as she could, she started jogging again. Up ahead she could see that someone else was having similar problems to her.
This was a comforting thought since it meant she wasn't the worst of them but this soon went from relief to worry when she saw that it was Souji who was kneeling on the ground, his head touching a small wall. Nobody else was in view.
"S-Souji-senpai?" He looked around with an expression of fear on his face, still struggling to breathe. "Are you ok? Do you need me to get help?" Though it would be hard for her to get there very quickly. Damn my lack of fitness!
"No! I'm fine." And he sounded angry too. With great effort he pulled himself up on to the wall and sat down. His breathing already sounded better but something wasn't quite right.
"Where's Saito-senpai?" The two of them had been together as she remembered.
"I told him I was having a rest." Chizuru looked down at him for only a second before making her decision. She jogged over to the school building and located one of the water fountains with a paper cup. It was a pretty hot day so she figured some water might help. Souji had probably expected her to have left so when she came back, the look of surprise was obvious.
"Why are you back?"
"I got you some water." Souji seemed unsure but he took some anyway. It was unlikely that he wanted her to stay there but she still hovered by his side. If he was really ill then he shouldn't be alone.
"Done." He handed her the cup. "I'm fine now so you can go."
"But-."
"You can go." Souji seemed like he would get angry if she stayed but she didn't move.
"I'm not leaving you on your own."
"Who asked you to?"
"You could barely breathe five minutes ago!"
"It's not like it's the first time." This was probably meant to comfort her but if anything it made her even more anxious.
"Shouldn't you go to a doctor?"
"I have! You're not my mother."
"So it's ok?" Chizuru did worry about illness. People tended to take stupid risks.
"It's only asthma!"
"Asthma is serious! You can die from it." She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.
"You think I don't know that? I had it really badly when I was younger; I nearly died then!" This explained why all of his friends were so concerned when he started coughing.
"Do you have an inhaler?"
"Yes, in my bag. I do use them, I'm not a child."
"Do you want me to get it for you now?"
"I don't need it." Slowly he got to his feet. "See? I'm fine."
"But why were you struggling to breathe?" If he'd inhaled something he was allergic to, it could easily happen again.
"Because I've pushed myself too hard this morning. I'll just go slowly now so leave me alone." He went to continue running but Chizuru quickly grabbed his arm. Because really, how stupid could you get?
"You are not running! You could make yourself ill again!" How could he not see that?
"This is nothing to do with you." For a second Chizuru forgot she was supposed to be a boy and that she was talking to someone she barely knew. Instead, she was talking to Kaoru who was attempting to climb the neighbour's roof or put a sealed water bottle in the microwave.
"Maybe you should show a little common sense! If you have an illness, pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to make it any better! You're not a small child so don't go around acting like one!" Souji simply stared at her in stunned silence and after she was done, she froze. "I-I'm so sorry!"
"…You really are like a girl."
"I'm not a girl!" Then he smiled that lazy smile he often did. Hopefully this meant he wasn't angry with her.
"If you insist. Shall we go back then?"
"What?"
"You won't be happy unless you walk me back right? Let's get going."
"Oh! O-Ok!" The problem with having an outburst like that was that she now felt shyer than usual and so walked alongside him feeling more and more awkward.
"I think I'll call you mum from now on."
"Please don't." She didn't want any more nicknames.
"Where did that come from? We all thought you were some shy little kid." Not that she'd been expecting a different opinion but that really cut her deep.
"…My sister doesn't do much around the house so I have to do it." This part was true. "And she often does stupid things so I have to stop her."
"Your sister sounds like kind of a brat." It wasn't often that she heard someone say something negative about her brother. In fact, she never usually complained about Kaoru to anyone else.
"I guess she is." Chizuru sighed. "And it's kind of my fault…"
"Why?"
"I've always let her get away with anything so she does it all the time."
"It's not your fault. She's probably just selfish." Chizuru decided that she definitely liked Souji at this point. No one had ever seen it from her point of view.
"…Thank you." At this point they had reached the kendo club where the others were standing round talking. When they saw them walking up, Hijikata marched over with a determined scowl on his face.
"Where were you two?" She'd assumed he was angry but when he started talking, she could hear the worry in his voice.
"Um…" Chizuru knew Souji got kind of evasive about his problems so she planned on making an excuse, but it turned out there was no need.
"I couldn't breathe so Ruo was helping me out. Sorry."
"What? I told you to stop overdoing it!"
"I know and I'm fine. Calm down."
"You need to start worrying more! You're going home and I'm walking you."
"If you have to." Souji smiled at her and headed into the clubroom. Hijikata went to follow him before pausing to look back at her.
"Thanks for helping that idiot."
"It's no problem."
"Ruo!" Why does he do that? Heisuke had practically jumped on her. "You wanna go into town?"
"Um… Well I do have to get some shopping."
"Great! I'll wait here while you get changed."
"Ok!" She tried to smile but inwardly she was nervous. If he asked to come back to her house she wouldn't know what to do.
After washing and changing (involving the use of cubicles and much ducking around with towels), Chizuru went to meet Heisuke and they headed out of the school together. She hadn't had time to see much of their new town so it was nice to start investigating. And Heisuke even pointed out some of the interesting sights as they went past.
Although it was nice to have company (Kaoru never wanted to do anything 'boring' with her), Heisuke wasn't the most intelligent of people. In some ways he was worse than her brother.
"Look Ruo!" She turned round to see Heisuke holding up two melons in front of his chest. "Boobs!"
"Heisuke!" The old man behind the stall didn't look best pleased. "Umm…. I'll just have what I've got in the basket please…"
Once she acquired all that she needed she grabbed Heisuke and dragged him away. Of course she made him put the melons back first.
"What's wrong Ruo?" He was looking very innocent.
"The guy behind the stall looked pretty angry."
"He'll get over it. Sano once knocked the stall over when Shin pushed him into it. The guy doesn't even spit at them anymore." Spit at them?
"I see…" Inwardly she decided never to shop there again.
"Anything else you need?"
"I can just go to that shop there." It looked like a decent sized shop and she figured that more stalls would be awkward. At least you could hide in a shop.
"This is where we used to read dirty magazines." And Heisuke decided he would impart this information loudly.
"That's… interesting." It was a small town so she knew they'd have memories everywhere, but they all seemed to involve something that annoyed other people. Rushing through the shopping, she hoped she could get home where she could relax. Heisuke had other plans.
"Let's go get lunch in there." He pointed to a small fast food place nearby. "It's not too bad."
"Umm…" Before she could answer, he had dragged her in there. Not long after this they'd ended up sitting at a table in the window, each with a burger and a packet of fries.
"Ahh I needed this. Training always makes me hungry." Heisuke actually made satisfied moans as he ate.
"It is nice." She stared out the window. Just across the street was a small children's park.
"That's where I first met Sano." He'd noticed her looking and was keen to impart information. "Well, where me and Shin met Sano."
"When was this?"
"I was about seven I think…" Heisuke thought about it for a minute. "Shin's family and mine always lived next door to each other so we used to come here all the time. Then one day we met Sano and thought he was pretty cool."
"Wow…" It was no wonder the three of them got on so well.
"And after a while he brought Saito. He'd met him at school so he joined in. And then Saito brought Hijikata since their parents were friends. And after that Hijikata brought Souji since they lived next door to each other. And from there we used to meet up at least once a week." Long recital over, he sighed.
"You guys have known each other a long time." It seemed amazing that they'd known each other for that long but at the same time it did make her feel like a lot more of an outsider.
"This place is pretty small so you get to know people. Hijikata wasn't always around since his family went away a lot and Souji used to go off on his own when Hijikata wasn't around but other than that, it was mainly the group of us."
"I see…" So I'm intruding. It would be hard to be close to such a tight knit group.
"And now we have you too. It's awesome since I've always been the youngest." Heisuke seemed genuinely happy.
"Th-thank you…" She could feel herself blushing.
"No thank you. Now there's someone in all my classes. Although I wish you'd come last year when I was alone in middle school. It sucked."
"Sorry…" But she smiled a little.
"You look even more girly when you smile."
"Stop calling me a girl!" It still seemed like a joke but she didn't want them getting too close to the truth.
"You realise the more you yell like that, the funnier it is to do?" She hadn't and she sighed and laid her head down on the table. If only she hadn't been as shy before. Then she might have socialised more with other people and all of this wouldn't seem so weird.
Although these guys may just be weird…