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Happy Birthday, Chiba 20/5

Ever since Koro-sensei became the teacher of Class E, he had enthusiastically tried to bond with his students.

One particular thing he did was to mass celebrate someone's birthday. First, he would hang up banners all over the classroom, then fling confetti everywhere. He would sing the birthday song loudly and the slightly reluctant classmates would join in. Koro-sensei originally wanted to buy everyone a piece of cake when it was their birthday, but the class insisted he didn't have to (since they all knew about Koro-sensei's sweet tooth).

He had also created a board which he had posted everyone's birthdays on it. It was very colourful and eye-catching and it had little hand-drawn pictures of 3-E students. They appreciated Koro-sensei's effort (after all, he was the first and possibly the last teacher to really care about them, the Class E losers) but sometimes they felt slightly smothered and a bit exasperated.

One day Hayami walked past the board and noted that Chiba's birthday was two weeks away. She suddenly wondered if she was obliged to give him a present. After all, it was a well known fact that they were the closest to each other in the class. But even then they still felt slightly awkward around each other because they had only known each other for a month and half and most of the time they just talked about assassination or studies.

Even with that, Hayami guessed she was the most likely person in 3-E to give him a gift. But she had no idea what to give him.

To make matters worse, the birthday board was placed in the corridor, so everytime Hayami passed it (which was pretty often) she would feel a tiny stab of guilt.

It had been a long time since Hayami had gotten anyone a birthday present. She wasn't really close to her parents and she didn't have a lot of friends. She knew she and Chiba were definitely friends, although they preferred the term "partners". Friends should get each other gifts, right?

So with that, Hayami decided to make a list of all things she knew about Chiba (which was admittedly short):

He works best with a rifle

His specialty is long distance sniping

His marksmanship is the best in the class

He likes maths

He has long bangs covering his eyes for unknown reasons

His birthday is the twentieth of May

He is a boy

Hayami cringed. Now she was just getting desperate. Why was she stating obvious facts about him? She really knew nothing about him.

Hayami decided to stand up and walk for a bit, because she spent half of her break sitting there and thinking. She stood up and out of the corner of her eye she saw Sugaya hiding something in a suspicious way when he saw her standing up.

Naturally she was intrigued but she didn't like to stick into other people's business. But then she saw that Sugaya had been drawing a familiar figure.

"Sugaya… is that me…?" She asked curtly.

Sugaya's expression was one that of oh, crap. He hastily arranged his face into a half smile. "Uh, yeah."

"Can I see it?"

Precisely at that moment Sugaya was thinking SHE'S TALKING TO A BOY OTHER THAN CHIBA but he said, "Oh, okay," and handed Hayami the piece of paper.

Hayami took it and saw Sugaya had done an amazingly accurate drawing of her sitting in her chair. It was only a rough draft but it was pretty detailed. But then she realized the only way it could be this detailed was to literally draw her throughout the whole lesson.

Sugaya spent a whole lesson drawing her. He spent a whole lesson putting this much effort into a drawing. Most importantly, he spent a whole lesson looking at her.

Hayami just stared at the drawing, not sure what to do. She wasn't sure if Sugaya was a pervert like Okajima (whom she had the misfortune of sitting next to). But still it was kind of creepy.

Sugaya couldn't read Hayami's mood very well but even then he could feel something in the atmosphere change. It suddenly became very bizarre and awkward.

Cue uncomfortable silence for three seconds.

Hayami put down the drawing at Sugaya's desk, expression unreadable. "That's a good drawing," she said and walked away.

Uh… what just happened? Sugaya thought weirdly. He watched Hayami sit back down and added a few pencil strokes to his drawing of the girl.

Hayami decided not to think too much about Sugaya. But actually drawing wasn't a bad idea in itself. The only problem was that she wasn't really good at drawing. Sure, she could draw, but it was average.

Besides, what would she draw? A rifle? Or a target for him to practice?

So Hayami thought briefly about handmade gifts, but they were too sappy for her. Cook for him? Not him a birthday card? Possible, but it won't be very practical. Knit him a scarf? Where did that come from? And why would he need a scarf when it's almost summer?

"Hayami." An all-too-familiar voice cut through the peach haired girl's thoughts.

Speak of the devil. "Chiba." Hayami acknowledged.

The boy was standing next to her chair, his mysterious black bangs covering his eyes as always. To this day Hayami hadn't even seen a glimpse of his eyes. She wondered what he had to tell her.

"Karasuma-sensei asked me to tell you that he'll like to coach us for an hour after school." Chiba said.

Oh. It's just assassination. Hayami thought, somehow a bit disappointed.

It had always been like that. They would work together perfectly well during assassination or even as study buddies. But outside of that, their relationship would suddenly become awkward and a bit strained.

"Hayami?" Chiba asked when he saw the girl was starting to space out.

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine with that." Hayami said. She looked up and saw the boy looking down at her, therefore creating eye contact (despite Chiba's eyes being not visible). They both averted their eyes to look at some place else.

There was an awkward silence for three seconds before Chiba walked away rather abruptly since neither of them knew how to deal with the space between them.

After school, they got their guns and went outside to practice with Karasuma. Wordlessly they shot bullet after bullet, listening to Karasuma's occasional comments and then slightly adjusting their positions.

They shot at a target which was drawn to look like Koro-sensei's head. Their bullets hit the board at the same time. Chiba hit the target bullseye and Hayami nearly hit the bullseye and was only slightly off. They lowered the guns at the same time and looked at each other, startled because they were so in sync. Chiba offered a small grin and she returned the smile. They were proud of working so efficiently together.

Karasuma nodded approvingly. His students were making good progress and these two were especially hard working.

After the coaching session, Chiba and Hayami were tasked to sweep away the BB bullets they had shot.

Chiba reached for a broom at the same time Hayami did and their hands brushed past each other. As if burned, they yanked their hands away and stared coolly away from each other. Hayami peeked at the boy and saw that he wasn't looking at the brooms.

Three seconds later Hayami cautiously ventured for the other broom next to the first broom only for Chiba to think the same and their hands touched again.

Blushing furiously, they both waited for another five seconds before Chiba snatched the broom closest to him quickly and walked away. Hayami took the other broom and sighed internally. They were utterly incapable of communicating outside work and as a consequence they wasted time.

Wordlessly but somewhat efficiently, they swept away the bullets. They did not attempt to look at the other.

After saying goodbye to Karasuma, they made their way down the stairs, a sizable gap between them.

Chiba stared at the steps in front of him as he descended. He could hear both his and Hayami's footsteps at a steady pace.

Suddenly, all the cooperation they had in training disappeared. It felt like there was a wall between them. When they weren't in training, they were nothing more than strangers.

Chiba felt a shiver down his spine. Strangers. He didn't associate that word with Hayami, but when he thought about it, that was what they really were. Strangers.

It was deeply ironic how well they could work together in assassination, but without that they just fell apart.

They walked down the stairs silently, footsteps echoing until they reached a fork in the road where they would part. Hayami's footsteps slowed.

"I'll see you tomorrow." She said.

"Likewise." He said.

They walked in different directions, away from each other.

Hayami had given up on getting Chiba a present. She didn't know what he liked and she was sure if she gave him a present it would be very awkward. And then she would say something along the lines of "don't get the wrong idea".

So she behaved normally when she walked about the stairs to school with her partner (which was not saying a thing).

Hayami felt bad about the way she said "happy birthday" to Chiba so curtly. She didn't mean it like that, honestly she didn't.

It hurt a bit when she saw Okajima clap a hand on Chiba's shoulder and say "happy birthday" to the boy excitedly. Even though the class thought the sniper duo were the closest to each other, someone else could behave more warmly to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chiba saw a yellow blur outside the classroom. He knew exactly what it was and what it was going to do.

"Happy birthday!" Koro-sensei screeched as he entered the classroom, spreading confetti everywhere. Some landed on Chiba's hair and after a few seconds of doing nothing Chiba swept the confetti away robotically, careful not to move his bangs.

"Happy birthday to our dear Chiba-kun!" Koro-sensei continued to yell excitedly and put up banners at Mach speed. He moved around Chiba quickly, while making a birthday speech for him. Chiba had to put a hand on his bangs to stop them from fluttering up due to Koro-sensei moving quickly. Koro-sensei jabbed on and on, while the rest of the students look at Chiba with something that resembled pity.

Hayami was suddenly grateful that her birthday took place right when the summer holidays began.

Chiba was embarrassed because firstly, everyone was looking right at him and secondly, he was sure Koro-sensei had paid more attention to his birthday than anyone (including his parents) had ever paid.

"Now we sing the birthday song! Everyone, together!" Koro-sensei announced after a one minute long speech about Chiba.

Chiba looked at his teacher. "Sensei, I appreciate your efforts but I don't think that's really necessary…" he trailed when he realized everyone's staring had intensified when he began to speak.

"A birthday only happens once in a year! It's a special date! We must celebrate it!" Koro-sensei waved his tentacles around, resembling seaweed. Students had thought Koro-sensei was a bit too excited on their birthday but Koro-sensei insisted everyone had to celebrate.

Rather awkwardly, everyone joined in the singing, even Hayami. But no one felt more awkward than Chiba. He wanted to curl up and disappear from the surface of the Earth. His face stayed as expressionless as ever.

This is so embarrassing…

Hayami felt bad for the boy but knew she couldn't do anything so after singing (which was admittedly soft) she returned coolly to her work.

In the PE lesson, they focused on knifework. Karasuma let Isogai and Maehara try to hit him as demonstration. The class watched as the boys came up with different strategies to hit Karasuma, but the teacher dodged all of their blows.

Finally, Karasuma said, "You can stop now." Panting, Isogai and Maehara put down their arms while Karasuma didn't even break a sweat.

"It was better than the last time." Karasuma said. "Last time you just tried to hit me, but today you came up tactics."

Karasuma continued to talk to the class about the importance of tactics and cooperation.

"Teamwork is vital in your assassination, especially when you're working in a class because I doubt you can pull it off on your own." Karasuma told them.

This struck a chord in Chiba. As a highly individualistic person, he tended to do everything on his own. He even did his sniping on his own when the class was first tasked with the mission. It wasn't until Karasuma requested him and Hayami to work together did they become sniping partners. But even with that there was still an awkward distance between them.

The same thing came to Hayami's mind. She looked at Chiba who sitting in front of her. Hayami quietly listened to Karasuma while a plan began to form in her mind. She took a deep breath to steady herself because she felt nervous just thinking about it.

After school, Hayami waited for most of her classmates to leave, except for Chiba, because it was his turn to clean the classroom. Hayami pretended to read a book, while her mind ran through the plan she had formulated earlier.

Chiba had the distinct feeling Hayami was waiting for him, but why would she? He cleaned the blackboard absentmindedly, the white dust of the chalk rising from the board.

Hayami was getting more and more anxious as Chiba came closer to finish cleaning the classroom. When he did eventually finish, she walked up to him, trying to be casual but she was extremely anxious inside.

They looked at each other for a few seconds before Chiba spoke. "Were you waiting for me?"

Hayami almost said "yes" but that would be weird but "no" would also be weird. So she opened her mouth and closed it. Such an intelligent reaction, she thought.

A few seconds passed again and Hayami wanted to ask Chiba something but her initial courage had faded away and she had no idea what to do.

Fortunately for her, Chiba could see that Hayami was stuck in an awkward place. He hesitatingly offered a small grin in hopes to make her feel less awkward.

Hayami could not look at him. As she made her mind up, she said very quickly, "I would like to know you better."

Chiba slightly raised his eyebrows but that could not be seen.

Hayami flushed slightly, light pink dotting her cheeks. "I didn't mean it in a creepy way! It's because we will be most likely to be working together in the following year and we can't just always be this awkward around each other." she said in a rush.

Chiba was a bit amused by Hayami. He had never seen her even close to being flustered or talk that much.

"Oh, sure." Chiba said.

They sank back into their usual silence and Hayami felt her plan was a utter failure.

But as they walked down the hill, they started sprouting information about themselves.

"I have three sisters, I'm the second eldest."

"I'm a single child."

"My favourite food is boiled egg."

"Mine's beef stroganoff."

They talked like this for a while, since it didn't require for them to talk directly. Soon they came to the topic of birthdays.

"Actually," Hayami said. "I wanted to give you a present, then I realized I didn't know what you liked, so this happened…" she gestured to both of them.

"It's okay." Chiba said. To be honest talking with Hayami and getting both of them to open up was a good present already.

They reached the fork in the road again. Chiba took the left.

"I'll see you tomorrow." he said, smiling a bit.

"Likewise." Hayami said as she returned the smile, echoing his words from yesterday.

A/N: Thank you for the favourites and follows!

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