The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura

Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.

Yet another day of the summer holidays and the third day in a row of not speaking to Kaoru. She'd made an attempt to make amends, tried to contact him, even going so far as to staying in all day so that she would catch him going in and out. But none of it worked. It seemed Chizuru had really touched a nerve.

I shouldn't have said anything… I should have just let them be. I'm such an idiot! She let out a frustrated growl and slammed her fist down on the half-finished homework currently being ignored. From now on, she was just going to avoid interfering in the relationships of others since it just brought about more harm than good.

At least I've gotten some studying done. She'd not done any real socialising since and it had freed up her time for work; nothing else could stop her from getting fidgety and a little bored at staying in all day. But now, even this wasn't quite doing the trick.

Chizuru stretched herself out and yawned, laying back on the ground in the path of the small fan currently keeping the room from becoming an oven. The heat wasn't exactly helping her feel any more focused.

Zoned out as she was, she didn't fully process the doorbell ringing until it was pushed a second time. She groaned and pulled herself up to her feet. After ensuring that she looked suitably boyish in case it was someone who did not know, she made her way to the door, blinking in the bright sunlight that filtered in through.

"Jeez Ruo, you look terrible. I'm glad we came." She stared blankly at the Heisuke and the Souji at her front door.

"Um…" Why are they here?

"We did try ringing you but you didn't pick up."

"Um… Did you want something?"

"I just wanted to see you!"

"And he wanted to copy some of your homework."

"Hey!" Chizuru just watched this with the kind of blank detachment you have when coming back down to earth after hours of being lost in your own head.

"…Just come in." She couldn't really be bothered with questions, she just wanted to sit down.

"So it's just you here?" Heisuke asked as he wondered past, looking around the place. It was the first time she'd actually brought any friend home since starting the new school.

"Yeah… Kaori is out and dad… Well, he's doing stuff…" She assumed he was working but honestly, she never really knew. Their father was pretty busy in his job but he rarely came home so she could never be certain he wasn't off doing other things.

"That sounds suspicious…" Heisuke was leaning in and raising an eyebrow. "How do we know you haven't killed your father and stuck him in the basement? Hmm?"

"Oh no, you've guessed my secret. Now I'll have to murder you as well." Chizuru was a little too tired to actually play along properly so she spoke with a deadpan expression and a tired voice, barely supressing a yawn.

"Poor acting man. I'm disappointed."

"I don't care." Chizuru decided to ignore Heisuke and to return to the main room where she could lie down by the fan and zone out again.

"Woah, Ruo is broken."

"Look on the plus side, you can steal all his homework without any kind of resistance now."

"Oh! Good idea!"

Chizuru sighed and idly watched as Heisuke began digging around in her stuff. If that was all he was going to do then she was fine with that. All Chizuru was pleased about was that she hadn't gotten any of the family photographs out yet. There weren't a huge amount of them but more recent ones would have probably been a bit of a giveaway that something was a little different about the pair of them.

Souji had perched himself at the table next to Heisuke and was looking around with a somewhat bored expression. As far as she could see, there was no reason for him to actually be there but she didn't really understand his motives most of the time anyway.

"Why are you here too?" This didn't mean she wasn't going to ask him why.

"Yeah, why did you come? You just had to show me where it was." Oh yeah. He was probably the only one who knew where her house was.

"I had to walk all the way out here so I might as well come in too."

"I guess." Heisuke was no longer too interested, instead leafing through some of her books. They'd done it before so she wasn't too fussed with what he did. Mainly she was trying not to fall asleep in the heat.

I think I'm more tired than I expected. She'd been thinking about Kaoru way too much so she'd needed a rest. She could hardly talk to him in front of the other two anyway. With a yawn, she closed her eyes. Just a quick rest would do. Maybe.

-Page Break-

It was the chuckling that roused her first. This, with whispered voices which came in through her barely conscious brain, dragged her out from the deep sleep she had somehow fallen into and back to the world of the living. Chizuru could tell there were some people close to her and so she opened her eyes, squinting into the bright light.

"It lives!" Heisuke gasped dramatically whilst Souji smirked behind the phone he was holding up.

"…Are you filming me sleeping?"

"No." She sat up and tried to shove the phone away, struggling to properly co-ordinate her movements in her dazed state. Chizuru was aware that Heisuke was trying to hold back laughter so she knew there was probably more to it than that.

With a glare at the pair of them, she got to her feet and marched to the hallway where there was a conveniently placed mirror. Sure enough, someone had drawn a moustache on her face and the word 'fool' in big letters across her forehead. She scowled at her reflection but really, it was pretty funny so she couldn't be too annoyed.

"Very funny assholes." Heisuke was laughing openly at her but it was what Souji was doing that bothered her.

"And sent~." Sent?

"What's sent?"

"The rest of the club now have a nice photo of a sleepy Ruo."

"…Thanks for that."

"You're welcome~." It would be better to just confiscate any kind of camera from him in future.

"Aww, look Ruo." Heisuke held up his own phone, showing a photo of her, covered in her new paint and fast asleep.

"I would kick you two out, but since you've already done something ridiculous, I think it'd be a bit of a waste of time."

"I think you are very sensible." She sighed. Her friends were just bloody weird.

"So… What else is there to do around here?" Apparently Heisuke was already bored of his schoolwork.

"Finish your work since we're back in a couple of days?" He pouted.

"No! We should be exploring the house of Ruo!" Heisuke had hopped to his feet. "Seriously, you've never let me come round. We're practically besties at this point man!"

"Besties?"

"Like best friends? We spend so much time together at this point."

"Oh… Yeah, I guess we are…" I have a best friend… Chizuru wasn't sure why she was so touched by this concept but she was. She'd had close friends of course, she'd just never had someone refer to her as their best friend; one of the many downsides of moving around so much.

"That sounds pretty apathetic! Don't you care Ruo?" He looked almost crushed.

"Yes! Of course I do! I'm just happy…" I am much too old to be blushing over this.

"You two are so adorable." And obviously, he'd been filming it. The asshole.

"You're going to show everyone aren't you?" Heisuke didn't seem overly embarrassed, just done.

"Yep." Chizuru was, for once, the less apathetic of the pair. Before Souji could realise what she was doing, she had snatched the phone from his hand and started deleting. "Hey!"

"Do not ruin our lovely moment of friendship! It is supposed to be sacred!" It was satisfying to note that he practically recoiled as she hissed in his general direction.

"Aww Ruo! I knew you cared!" Heisuke actually hugged her and she tensed up. What if he noticed? But… well, it was nice to have a touching friendship dammit! As they hugged, Souji just hovered almost awkwardly. Not like he could do much without his phone.

"Can I have it back now?"

"Feeling left out Souji?" Heisuke was grinning at him whilst Chizuru laughed. She was very much glad that they were joining forces against their upperclassmen now.

"No. I just want my phone." Is he… flustered? Oh my. She was enjoying this for a change.

"Come join the hug man!" Wait, what? Heisuke had grabbed Souji by the arm and dragged him in, forcing him to join the affection. Chizuru wasn't so pleased about this part, especially as their faces were all a little too close.

"Um…"

"So this is a little gay."

"No! It's touching!"

"Hmm…" She and Souji made eye contact and she had to quickly look away. He was way too close for her to deal with. This guy always gets to me. When she did look back though, she started, surprised that he wasn't giving her one of those annoying grins. Instead, he was also looking in another direction. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought his cheeks were a little pink.

What's going on? What is this? Things were silent for a strange amount of time and even Heisuke picked up on it.

"What's wrong with you guys?"

"Nothing!" Definitely nothing.

"Souji?"

"Weren't we going to be exploring the house?"

"Yeah…" Heisuke was still eyeing them both but he did start to move off. "Where's your room then?"

"Um…" Is there anything incriminating in there? She'd been trying to keep it more neutral since the whole gender swap thing so it should have been alright. She'd been preparing for people coming round after all. "Follow me." She could blame anything weird on Kaoru just screwing with her anyway.

Her room had never been massively cluttered, partly because she usually just shoved everything in cupboards, and partly because there were still some things in boxes after the move. Heisuke and Souji followed her in and for a moment they surveyed the place with a criticising eye.

"This… is kind of boring."

"Where's all the embarrassing stuff?!"

"I've only been here a few months, I haven't unpacked all the little stuff! And what were you expecting to see anyway?"

"Some baby photos or something?" Chizuru sighed and then she reached out and pulled over one of the boxes. Photos of her and Kaoru when very small wouldn't matter so much.

"Here." She removed a small photo album and handed it to Heisuke. "Enjoy."

"Yes!" He threw himself down on the bed, with Souji sitting beside him while they surveyed the pictures.

Mostly they were of the twins in various days out; at the zoo, in a park, one even with their father. It was all pretty normal. Their father had been pretty lazy when it came to dressing them so often they just wore the same shirts and shorts, occasionally dungarees. Dresses were less common, and because the pair had looked so similar at that age, it was hard to tell who was who.

"You guys looked like a pair of kids from a horror film."

"What?"

"Like when you get the twins that stand there and stare at you from the end of a hallway." Heisuke held up a picture of Chizuru and Kaoru holding hands in a park and smiling up at the camera. If Kaoru's smile was a little wider, and Chizuru seemed more awkward, it wasn't hugely obvious.

"Well thanks."

"This is seriously lacking in photos of you guys in the bath though."

"You think I'd keep those where you could find them?" She'd stuck those in the bottom of a box in the attic a while ago.

"Curses! He really thought this through."

"Indeed." Souji had moved over to the box and was picking through some more photos. "This is pretty cute. Older Ruo in a skirt…"

"What?!" Oh no. Heisuke and Chizuru both rushed over to see a photo of Chizuru and Kaoru on a beach trip last year. He was standing in a pair of shorts and a shirt, leaning up against a potted plant whilst Chizuru was smiling, a long skirt and a tank top on. "Ruo?!"

"Um…" She didn't know what to say. Honestly, they did look very much like themselves, and if you knew Chizuru well, you couldn't fail to know it was her.

"Why are you wearing a skirt in this picture?" He hadn't seemed to work out that she was supposed to be a girl it seemed.

"Err…"

"It was because of that game you guys used to play right? When you'd switch clothes?" Thank you god.

"Yeah! That's it!"

"Oh… I thought it was maybe before you started, you know… transitioning? Is that the word?" Heisuke looked kind of awkward about saying this. …What did he just say?

"…Um… What was that?" Did he just…?

"Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean to say anything! It's just…" He shuffled around a little. "You're one of those… is it transgender people?" He noticed?

"You knew?!" All this time she'd been worrying about Heisuke finding out and this whole time…

"Well yeah. Not right away or anything, I kind of realised. But I didn't want to say anything since if you considered yourself to be a guy… Well, then I guess you are one…" …How is he so nice?! It looked like he'd worked all this out in his head a while ago. I really underestimated him…

"This… Um… It's not exactly what you think…" She needed to tell him the truth since he was her self-confessed best friend.

"I can't believe he actually worked it out before me. Damn Heisuke." Souji chuckled a little. "I guess you do notice random things before other people."

"I'm not stupid, I pay attention! Ah! Sorry for pointing it out though…." As if he was worried he'd hurt her feelings or something.

"No it's fine! I'm actually… I'm not really switching gender or anything like that… It's complicated…"

"Huh? But you're dressing like a guy? And being referred to by a guy's name? And using the guy's bathroom?"

"Um…"

"Her and her brother agreed to switch genders for a bet to see who got found out first. Obviously we're not telling him that we worked it out." Heisuke blinked.

"Wait… Kaori is a guy?! Shin is dating a guy?!"

"You didn't notice it in him?!" She wasn't sure if she was pleased or offended that she wasn't as good as Kaoru at this.

"I know you better! So wait…. A bet?"

"Yeah… We used to switch a lot as kids so he said we should try it…. I'm sorry I lied…"

"So… You're not becoming a guy?"

"Not really… I'm just me I guess?" She wasn't really sure how it mattered.

"Huh… Wait, so do I need to keep this a secret? Who else knows anyway?"

"Only myself and Sano. Man, he's gonna be surprised."

"Huh… This is kind of exciting! It's like a secret club!" Well… He's not mad… "So Tsuruo's not your real name?"

"No… It's Chizuru."

"Hmm…. I guess if you ever go back to being called that name, I will call you Chi." He really likes his nicknames…

"Thanks?"

"So why didn't you guys tell me this before?! I can see why you didn't tell the others but come on!"

"Because you normally suck at keeping secrets." Heisuke went to shout back at him, but paused.

"OK, I'd like to argue but I guess you have a point…"

"You did surprise us though."

"Heh… Don't underestimate me!" He looked properly pleased with himself. "Don't worry Ruo, we will make sure you win this bet! What do you get if you win anyway?"

"The loser has to do what the winner tells them."

"Then you better ask him to buy us all a really fancy meal or something."

"Of course I will." It would be a good way to apologise to the others for lying and to thank these guys.

"Just make sure you don't make any 'chicks with dicks' comments at Shin." Heisuke started spluttering.

"I wasn't going to do that!" …I think you were… I guess he won't say anything about me… It's just whether he'll ruin it for Kaoru.