A.N. (7/20/21) - Right as I said I wouldn't prioritize this, I've already written up a new chapter.

Chapter 2 - The Class Bell Ends

Shindou sighed as the school day came to an end.

Before he could mull over it, the sound of his phone ringing made him blink in surprise. Pulling out of his pocket and answering it, he said in a cheerful tone, "Hello, Shindou speaking."

"What's up," a familiar voice replied. "How's the elite academic life like?"

"Isuzu-chan!" His face widened into a smile. "Hey, how's it going? Is the other Miyamura there with you? Are you guys done for the day?"

"In order - great, he went home first, and yes. And you still haven't answered my question."

"Ugh," he moaned. "Yasaka* is crazy. Did you know that we had to take a test on the first day of school? I was freaking out since I didn't bring a pencil since I didn't think we were doing anything today. If it wasn't for a kind deskmate, I would have embarrassed myself in front of everyone!"

Seriously, Ichijou-san was an absolute angel. Tomorrow, he was going to return the favor somehow in return for her help.

"Heh, that sucks. Now I'm definitely not regretting picking Katagiri."

"It would have been nice if you enrolled here too," he whined. "At least then I would know somebody else here. None of my old schoolmates are smart enough to qualify."

She snorted over the phone. "Please, I doubt I would have survived at Yasaka. No, I'll just stick to my original plan of taking over the social caste of Katagiri and using my absolute genius to promote my family shop through my amazing promotional skills."

He laughed. "That sounds like a goal to strive for. Though, I'm pretty sure this is the first time you have ever used my contact information. What's the occasion?"

She sighed. "It's my brother, we got into another disagreement. Could you come on over and hang out with him to cheer him up?"

"Weird how you always do this," he commented. "Calling me over to cheer him up after you guys have a fight."

"It's not like I'm mad at him," she replied. "Words got exchanged, and it's a bit hard to face each other. But that doesn't mean we hate each other."

"Ah, you're making me envious." He smiled. "I'm almost tempted to ask my parents for a little sister of my own. Hopefully through adoption, or maybe I can get a cute step-sibling."

"Are you asking for your parents to divorce?"

She quickly returned a tsukkomi**, and Shindou laughed again at that. "Alright, I'll come hang out. Should I call him out to eat?"

"How about you just come over to our place? It's just the two of us at home now?"

His eyes widened. "Really? Izu-kun's never invited me over before. Won't your parents mind if I come over though?"

"Nah, they won't mind as long as you don't make a mess. Although, it's just going to be the two of you. I'm planning on leaving the condo a bit later, but I'll still be here for the next half hour."

"Alright, I'll head on over now. See ya then!"

"Bye."

}-{

Isuzu hung up and pocketed her phone as she exited the elevator.

Earlier, she had stopped to visit her parents and give them an update on what their first day at school was like. While she didn't give them all the details, she did reassure them that Katagiri was nice and that it looked like they wouldn't have trouble studying there.

Stopping in front of the doors to their apartment, she quickly fished out the key to unlock the door and entered.

"I'm home."

Her brother greeted her. "Hey, so what did they say?"

Izumi's current appearance has changed dramatically compared to school. His growing hair was tied back so that his multiple piercings were shown. The fake glasses he wore earlier were also gone, showing off more of his face without it. His uniform was also exchanged for a t-shirt and shorts.

She threw her bag on the couch and responded. "They congratulated us and told us that there's already a celebratory cake in the fridge."

"Ah," he said. "I did wonder what that box was for."

The two of them awkwardly stood around for a few seconds before she spoke up. "I'm going to change now, I'm planning on going to the library in a few moments."

"Ah… yeah. I'll leave you alone then."

This was usually how most of their disagreements went. Neither of them ever got mad at the other, but instead, it was usually an awkward uncertainty of how to act around the other. Sighing to herself, she made her way to her room to change out of her uniform and into something more casual.

She heard the door open a few minutes later, a surprised yell quickly following it. "Shindou? What the heck are you doing here!?"

"That's my cue to go," she muttered to herself before raising her voice. "I'll be leaving now, have fun you two."

"Isuzu, don't you dare leave without explaining yourself!"

"Shindou, there's some cake in the fridge. Get yourself a slice."

"Alright," he called out, ignoring his fuming friend beside him. "Have fun, Isuzu-chan!"

She quickly closed the door before her brother could catch her. Letting out a sigh of relief, she began making her way downstairs.

For all that her brother was cranky whenever Shindou hung out with him, Isuzu knew that he was probably embarrassed over having a friend over at their place for the first time. Until today, the two of them only hung out after school at either a park or a family restaurant. Inviting Shindou over to their place was probably going to set a precedent for him coming over more, or so Isuzu hoped.

Really, she was quite meddlesome whenever it involved her brother. Although, she didn't really see it that way. More like it was how she showed how much she loved him.

That said, her excuse of getting out of the house was now backfiring on her. Since she didn't want to stay at home while Shindou was over, she didn't know what else to do but pretend that she had a prior errand to run.

Well, there weren't a lot of activities one could do alone. But one that she did at least know of was checking out a room in a manga café for a few hours. Although, she was a bit tight on cash, so it was probably better to just hang out at a bookstore instead.

Making up her mind, she found herself standing in front of a building with the words BOOKstation boldly displayed in the front.

Heading over to the comic and magazines area, she picked up a copy of the latest release of Weekly Shinobi and found a corner to herself to read.

A content smile covered her face.

""Ah, this is the life.""

She blinked as she realized that her words had somehow echoed itself. Turning to her right, she found herself staring at a girl standing next to her who was also holding a copy of Weekly Shinobi in her hands. The two of them stared at each other as they both realized that they just said the same thing.

Then, Isuzu noticed the school uniform she was wearing.

"Ah, you go to Katagiri too?"

The other girl's eyes widened. "You too?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I changed clothes when I got home. I wasn't expecting to meet another person from school here." She faced the other girl and gave a small bow. "My name is Isuzu Miyamura, nice to meet you."

"A-Ah…" the other girl seemed startled by her introduction, quickly bowing in return. "N-Nice to meet you t-too. My name is Sakura Kouno."

Both of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Isuzu awkwardly spoke first. "So… you like Weekly Shinobi. What's your opinion on Konoha?"

The other girl's eyes widened in excitement.

}-{

Even though this was the first time he had a friend over, Izumi found that it wasn't as awkward as he expected. Shindou still acted as friendly as he usually did whenever they hung out after school, and the both of them were relaxed as they made small talk about their respective days.

"I'm just saying, you should quickly make up with her."

Izumi sighed as his friend commented after listening to his story. The two of them were currently hanging around in his room while eating a slice of cake each. A small table was out for the two to set down their plates as Izumi took the bed while Shindo sat on the ground.

"Look, you know that she's just worried about you right? She even asked me if I could come over to cheer you up."

"I know," Izumi said. And wasn't that a surprise. "Still can't believe she even knows your phone number."

"I gave it to her the last time we met," Shindou replied. "We exchanged contact info in case we wanted to discuss things with each other about you. Today was the first time she's ever called me."

Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise to him that the two extroverts of his life would get along so well with each other. Still, he gave his friend a suspicious look.

"Stay away from my sister."

"Yikes, don't worry." He quickly held up his hands. "Pretty sure we don't see each other that way. Besides," he gave a quick wink. "You'll always be my favorite Miyamura."

He sighed at that and slumped against the wall.

"I know I shouldn't be so annoyed with her," he began. "But I can't help it. I always feel like she's always getting involved in everything I do. She even invited you over here just because of today. How can I call myself a big brother if she keeps acting like that?"

"You're twins."

"I'm still older," Izumi said. "Blame Japanese customs for always expecting the eldest sibling to be the most responsible."

Shindou leaned forward. "Does she really annoy you that much?"

Izumi's shoulders slumped as he turned to look away in embarrassment.

"No," he admitted. "I'm just complaining for the sake of it. I know she cares for me, I can't hate her for just trying to look out for me."

In truth, it was rather the opposite. He loved his sister dearly for always thinking about him, even if he did sometimes think her actions were insufferable. Since his parents rarely had the time to look after them, it was always the two of them doing everything together as they grew up. And until Shindou came along, the only friend that Izumi had was his sister.

Still, just because he loved his sister, it didn't mean that he couldn't grumble and whine about it whenever he was irritated. It just meant that he wasn't serious when he said that she annoyed him.

"Complaining for the sake of it," Shindo smiled at him. "Why does that sound just like you?"

One of his eyes twitched. "You know, sometimes I complain to her about how you annoy me too."

"Ack," Shindo placed a hand over his chest. "That cuts deep."

Both of them stared at each other for a few seconds before suddenly bursting out into laughter. Yeah, it was nice to have Shindou over at his place for once. Once again, he had to thank his sister later once they apologized to each other.

And that thought quickly made Izumi return back to the topic.

"How should I say sorry," he asked. "Do I just walk up to her and apologize?"

"Ehh," Shindou shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, why not? It's not like you guys are really mad at each other. Words got exchanged and conversations got heated, you guys still like each other at the end of the day."

Maybe that was just how it was with siblings. And since the two of them were twins, that might be truer than others. Conflicts between the two of them died just as fast as they started, and both of them always managed to forgive each other at the end of the day.

He sighed at that thought. "Guess that's all I can do."

"Great," Shindou smiled. "So, introduce me to the rest of your place. You got any video games?"

"I have a library of video games and movies," Izumi offered. "Or if you're not interested in that, we can raid my sister's library of manga for something to read."

"Didn't take her for the type of girl to read manga."

"It's a favorite pastime of hers."

}-{

Isuzu clapped Kouno's hands into her own.

"You are now my favorite person in the entire world," she declared. "I would gladly take a bullet for you. If you asked me to jump off a cliff, I would immediately ask how high before following your orders."

The two of them had hit off splendidly. Isuzu was surprised to find out that Kouno also read many other series that she did, and the two of them spent the next hour talking about the various stories they read about in the past.

While it wasn't rare for girls to read manga nowadays, it was a bit harder to find someone who liked shounen manga. Meeting someone like Kouno, who knew a lot about various popular series that Isuzu also liked, was quite a lucky encounter.

"A-Ah…" Kouno seemed surprised by her declaration. "T-Thanks…? I enjoyed our time as well."

Something about the other girl's personality appealed to Isuzu's sense of nature, and she grinned as she took in the other girl's arm.

"Want to hang out somewhere? I know this cool place that allows you to read tons of manga while selling cake to eat."

"N-No, I wouldn't want to impose…" finally her thoughts caught up to her as she took in what Isuzu just said. "Wait, manga and cake?"

"There's this manga café that allows you to read while sitting at tables eating sweets," she explained. "It has quite the selection of stories and the desserts there are pretty good. Although, I usually don't go there since I'm not a big fan of cake."

Fun fact, even though she was the daughter of two parents working at a confectionery, Isuzu didn't like cake. Or rather, she didn't like the spongy part of the cake. If it was something like ice cream or jello cake, then it was fine. But otherwise, Isuzu didn't really like cake.

It was a quirk that got raised eyebrows from the rest of her family, but that's just how it was for her.

"It's pretty cheap too, so we can stay there for a while if you're interested."

Kouno looked deep in thought for several seconds. "A-Alright then, I'll be in your care."

"Great!" She began dragging the other girl alongside her towards their destination. "Come on, it's not that far away."

}-{

It was several hours later that Isuzu finally began making her way home.

Kouno's eyes had widened when she first took the other girl to the library of manga and light novels. The two had spent the rest of that time either reading or making comments about their respective choices of literature while they ate. It was a fun time, and Isuzu had managed to extract a promise to meet up tomorrow at school to hang out.

While walking back to her place, a message came from her phone and Isuzu took the time to read it. Apparently, Shindou had already left and was just informing her that Izumi wanted to talk with her.

Gulping, she made her way through the doors and into her apartment.

Her brother was waiting for her on the couch, and he turned to face her. Before she could say anything, he bowed his head and spoke.

"I'm sorry."

"Eh?" She gave him a surprised look. "What for?"

"I shouldn't have snapped at you earlier today," he continued. "I was stressed and I took out my anger on you. That wasn't right."

"N-No," she stuttered ."It's fine, what you said wasn't wrong. I know that some of the things I do are a bit annoying to deal with."

"Still," he said. "That doesn't mean it's right to get mad at you."

He stood up and walked over to her. After hesitating for a few seconds, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug.

"You were just trying to look out for me. But I'm your big brother, I shouldn't need to have you always worried about me."

"I don't worry," she complained. Still, she returned the gesture by wrapping her own arms around him. "But I do want to see you happy at school. Plus, I was excited that we were going to be in the same class for the rest of the year."

"Heh," he gave a soft laugh. "I'm glad that you're in my class too."

The two of them broke their hug and smiled at each other.

"So, who's making dinner tonight."

His smile faded as he winced. "Ah, crap. I forgot to get us groceries."

She rolled her eyes. "Want to go out to eat tonight? You're paying."

He awkwardly began to laugh. "You're not going to ask for anything expensive, right?"

She gave him a cute smile. "Hm~"

Turning around, she made her way outside even as her brother caught up to her.

"H-Hey, that wasn't an answer!"

Still, he had a smile on his face as the two of them left to go find a restaurant.

Finally, I'm working with the real slice-of-life action.

This entire story is practice for writing out a school life story. Since Horimiya is primarily a rom-com, I'm working my way up by connecting the SI to the rest of the cast.

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Notes:

* (Yasaka) is an elite school that is said to have the best academic qualifications in the area. Also known as either Hachisaka or Hachi High in several translations.

** (Tsukkomi) is the act of pointing out that something is ridiculous or silly. Usually, this is in response to something another person says or does.