The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura
Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.
After her conversation with Souji, Chizuru had tried her best to enjoy herself. These guys were technically her new friends and although they thought she was a man, she was still being her usual self around them. She wasn't talkative like the rest but she tried and when they sat watching a movie, she was pretty relaxed. So relaxed that she ended up falling asleep.
This was something she realised when she woke up the next morning. Chizuru had been sitting up against the bed and had fallen asleep leaning up against it. As a result her back and neck hurt and she had a headache. Lying on the ground and snoring loudly was Shin, with Sano and Heisuke leaning over the table.
…I just slept in a room full of guys. It wasn't like she'd shared a bed with them or anything, but Kaoru would never let her live it down. He was an asshole. Chizuru had never been to a sleepover before since he had no close female friends and so this was a completely new experience.
Whilst she was having some kind of internal conflict, she heard footsteps making their way down the hall. She stared at the door like a deer in headlights as it slid open. It was luckily Souji and no one else.
"Mornin'." He appeared to have slept in his uniform and was yawning as he spoke. Seeing his uniform meant that a horrifying realisation came to Chizuru.
"We're late for school!" Without thinking she shouted this. The others barely moved.
"And?" Souji looked amused at her panic. "You want breakfast?"
"Um…" It was hard to think when you were worrying. "Isn't this Heisuke's house?"
"His family won't care." And without waiting for an answer he strolled off. Chizuru only thought for a second before following. Unlike her, Souji seemed very comfortable in this house and rifled through the cupboards, looking for any interesting edibles he could find.
"I feel like toast." Probably this was his way of offering her food.
"Do you think I could have some too?"
"If you really want some." She was often confused by her interactions with him. It was hard to dwell on this however, when you were worrying about being in trouble with the school. Her arms were kind of twitchy from the stress and she cursed herself for not stopping to grab her phone.
"Hey twitchy!" She jumped as Souji dumped a plate in front of her. "Breakfast."
"Thank you…" Although she did feel awkward eating in another person's house without permission. Souji had little issue and hopped up at the breakfast bar, scoffing toast.
"You want to sit down Twitchy?" And now she had another nickname. She eased herself into the chair.
"Souji-senpai?" He gazed over at her mid-mouthful. "Will we be in really big trouble?"
"Probably." He shrugged. For him this really wasn't as much of a big deal.
"…You seem calm about this." She definitely wasn't. Her teacher was terrifying and she didn't want to get on his bad side already.
"No point in worrying about something you can't do anything about." Chizuru knew he was right but it didn't stop her from feeling like she was about to vomit. All she could do was nibble at the piece of toast in front of her. Souji could see how pale she'd gone and apparently took pity on her. "We've done it a lot of times, you definitely won't get in that much trouble. It's only your first offence."
"Oh… How many times have you done it?" She could recognise an attempt to cheer her up.
"No idea. Usually there's a lecture, then we get given detention. That's about it. You may also get the whole 'don't get led down the wrong path' speech too." He smiled. "You look so twitchy, Sannan will probably feel sorry for you."
"He doesn't seem the kind of person to feel pity." She was scared of the way he glared. Then again, she was a shy person. Most human interaction scared her.
"Yeah he is kind of a ball buster. Nicer to the girls since they get all tearful."
"I see…" Damn. Maybe I should ask Kaoru to swap with me? That would just further complicate things and she shook her head to get rid of the thought.
"Just apologise and all that." He tossed the crust he'd been gnawing off down on to the plate and looked pointedly at the barely touched food in front of her. She just pushed the plate towards him. Her appetite was lacking right now.
Shin and Sano appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, both looking as tired and dishevelled as she was.
"Why did we do it? My neck hurts like fuck." Shin was rubbing his neck and grimacing.
"And I cannot be bothered with all the crap I am going to get for this." Chizuru was pleased to note that Sano seemed to be as worried as she was.
"Where's Heisuke?"
"Still sleeping obviously."
"I am not surprised," said Souji, rolling his eyes.
"I'll get him up." Shin grabbed a piece of toast and shoved it in his mouth before leaving the room. Sano knew to expect idiocy and so sat down next to Souji and sighed.
"Why did we get saddled with these fools?"
"I wouldn't say saddled with. You've got to admit that it's pretty fun." Sano didn't look so convinced.
"I forgot… You're practically one of them." He looked over at Chizuru instead. "At least we have one more level-headed person now."
"Level headed?" She didn't feel level-headed; most of the time she wasn't sure what she was doing.
"I think he means you're not a slacker or a moron like the rest of us."
"Basically."
"Oh… Thank you?" She wasn't sure what the proper response to this was. There was a loud screech from upstairs followed by laughing and lots of angry yelling.
"Sounds like Heisuke's up." Neither of them seemed too surprised at the sounds going on upstairs. There were heavy footsteps along the ceiling and down the stairs, and then Heisuke threw the door open with a pitiful look on his face.
"Why didn't you stop him?"
"You know how hard it is to stop Shin." Sano yawned.
"Plus he took advantage of the fact that we didn't care."
"Assholes." He came and sat next to Chizuru. "Ruo! They're picking on me!"
"Err…" It seemed something was expected of her so she started patting him on the shoulder. "There there."
"You suck at cheering people up." Souji was smirking.
"I'm trying my best!" She hated the way the pitch of her voice went up when she got angry.
"Yeah Souji, Ruo is doing a better job than you!"
"Wow, the pipsqueaks are joining forces."
"Be afraid Souji, be very afraid."
"Patronising bastards." Heisuke scowled in their direction. "What's Hijikata's reaction gonna be to us not showing up?" She'd forgotten about Hijikata. She didn't want to be reminded about Hijikata.
"Pure, unadulterated rage would be the usual." None of them looked too bothered.
"Enjoy your bath Heisuke?" Shin came back in chuckling and received a middle finger in return.
"What did you do?" Sano looked exasperated by the pair of them.
"He tipped water on me!"
"He screamed like a little girl!"
"I'll make you scream like a little girl!" And Heisuke ran at Shin, tackling him to the ground.
"Right, we're going out." Sano stood up and grabbed Souji. "Come on Ruo."
"But-."
"Move." She didn't want to argue with Sano and so followed the two older boys, leaving the two fighters to it.
"Let's go to the shops around the corner." At least someone was taking charge of the situation.
"I don't have my wallet…" This was what she had tried to say before.
"You can pay us back later." Her arguments were waved off and they headed down the street. "Why did none of us notice that we were all falling asleep?"
"You did all drop off pretty quickly." Both of them stared at Souji who had an innocent expression on his face.
"So you noticed?"
"I was pretty tired too. I barely had any energy to get into bed."
"You asshole. You could've at least set an alarm."
"I wasn't in the mood."
"Typical. You are such a troll."
"You should have known this by now."
Whilst they were walking round, Chizuru was very conscious that she was wearing the same clothes she'd had on for two days. There weren't many people around but it was hard not to feel weird. The guys weren't too fussed though.
"Couldn't we go into school late?" They both looked amused.
"We could but that would be sensible."
"And we don't do sensible."
"Oh…"
When they got back to Heisuke's, the other two had made a huge pile of burnt toast and were throwing pieces of it at each other from across the kitchen.
"Why? Just why?" Sano was kind of like their mother it seemed.
"We needed ammo for our food fight."
"So you did this on purpose?!" Sano simply face palmed. That was all he could do.
"What did you expect really?" Souji rolled his eyes. "You've known these two long enough."
"Ugh…" Chizuru hovered in the doorway watching the weirdness unfolding. She had definitely never seen Kaoru do anything like this before. Probably her brother was the weird one. He did seem to like dresses more than any guy she'd ever met before.
"Ruo!" What the-? She was greeted by a slice of toast to the face. "You've got to be faster than that!"
She only considered things for a few seconds before retrieving the toast and lobbing it hard at Shin's head. If she was one of them, then she might as well enjoy herself. From there it descended into chaos with toast flying across the room and all of them ducking under tables and beside doors to avoid taking a hit. The enjoyment of this was lessened when they heard a key in the door.
"Oh shit." Heisuke had gone very pale.
"Heisuke?"
"Hi mum!" He was panicking now and Chizuru could see why. The room was covered in toast. "Help me!"
"Well it was nice but now we have to go!"
"Agreed."
"See you Heisuke!"
"Shouldn't we-?" Chizuru was interrupted by Souji and Shin both grabbing her arms and leading her out of the room. It seemed they were leaving Heisuke to his fate. Outside there was a collective sigh of relief that they had escaped.
"And now we scatter before she comes after us."
Chizuru did not want this to happen and so gladly headed towards her own home. She wasn't looking forward to it though. Kaoru was going to give her so much shit for all this.