Pre-Chapter Notes:

- More Gensokyo High snippets? More Gensokyo High snippets. If you haven't figured it out yet, most of the sticky-notes are my way of building their school and the other characters in here.

- There may be some quotation marks involving Hatate's voice this time around.

- I was reading The Book Thief when I wrote a part of this chapter. Can you guess which part it is?

- Merry Christmas! The chapter title comes from Pardon Me by He Is We. Nice song.

The next morning, Hatate is awakened by strange voices she'd never imagine would be in a conversation, and at eight-thirty in the morning.

"–friend. I'm here to deliver her homework!"

"Homework, now, huh? You better not be some rapist!"

"Ehh?! I'm not! Really!"

"You piece of shit! I see that look in your eyes! Are you sure those papers aren't porn you've been delivering to my daughter?!"

"Why would you even think that?! Ahh, d-don't hit me!"

With immense strength and speed unfit for someone with a raging fever, the brunette has slipped into fluffy bedroom slippers and is racing down the stairs by the time she hears a loud banging sound. Nearly tripping over the steps, Hatate skids to a stop just by the front door to meet the sight of Aya curled up in a corner, attempting to defend herself while the brunette's mother holds a very, very large frying pan in hand. Hatate doesn't need to ask to know what the situation is.

Aya, fast as she is, flies to hide behind the brunette almost immediately. "Ha-Hatatan! Your mom is scary, I think she's trying to kill me! Please stop her oh my God I'm going to die!"

The corner of Mrs. Himekaidou's lip curls downwards in disgust. "These are the kind of people you befriend, girl? I'm amazed by your insanely bad taste."

"Aya's a… good person," Hatate forces out, trying not to fling herself away from Aya to deny she had ever used her disgusting voice. "… She helps me."

The reporter behind her doesn't say a thing. Hatate wants to cry and scream and slam her own head against the wall, because why why why did she ever speak? It's a mistake, a mistake, a mistake–

"Never thought you'd actually talk in front of another person," her mother spits, throwing the frying pan to the table nearby. "You must adore this girl to do anything like that, and run down the fucking stairs while you have a fever. Didn't I tell you to get some rest? Now shoo! Back to your room!"

"Breakfast–"

"I know how to cook my motherfucking eggs, girl!"

Hatate leads Aya back up the stairs and into her room wordlessly, feet dragging as her momentary adrenaline rapidly runs out. With Aya safe, and her mother no longer trying to kill someone with a frying pan the brunette never even knew they owned, there's really no other reason for her to get worked up.

The brunette attempts to open the door for Aya, but her legs buckle out at the last second and she just ends up face-first against the wooden door, hand awkwardly dangling from her arm by her side instead of firmly clutching the knob. Hatate wants to slam her head against a nearby cement wall repeatedly until her skull splits open, but she can hear Aya stifle a giggle behind her, and okay, maybe my accidents have a use.

Aya carefully holds her by the waist, trying to gently take her out of the way, and opens the door for both of them. Hatate shakes the reporter away half-heartedly, trudging into her room and not even bothering to kick off her slippers before collapsing onto her bed.

"Oh, uh. Hatatan." She turns around just enough for one brown eye to peek curiously at the blinking Aya. "Umm. Homework. Studies. And… stuff." The reporter clears her throat, before gesturing at the bag slung around her body. Hatate stares at it, not sure what to do besides look at the blue bag bursting with papers and pens. Is that a camera strap she sees?

Undeterred, though perhaps a little embarrassed, Aya flips the bag open, digs through a frightening amount of papers, and manages to retrieve a few notebooks and a binder. The reporter opens the notebooks up, points at some surprisingly clean notes and briefly explains what they are, and, curiously enough, flushes bright red when she sees the binder in her hands.

Hatate creeps over to the notebooks at the edge of her bed, eyeing the meticulously-written notes. She almost wants to ask – almost – if these were for her or for Aya. Then she makes the mistake of looking up at Aya's hopeful face, as if the reporter's waiting for her approval, and the brunette has to bite her lower lip to keep from squealing uncontrollably. Instead, she opts to nod, shadowing her eyes and forcing a small smile. Aya, in return, grins and begins jabbering away about the events at school yesterday.

It's when Hatate realizes that today is only a Wednesday, and there's nothing happening going on that would cancel classes. A quick glance at the clock on her bedside table reads the time to be half-past nine.

Brown eyes widen. Aya pauses, voice trailing off in confusion. Hatate opens her mouth, before once again getting that horrific feeling of her tongue getting cut off, snip-snip, and, oh, God, why does she have to –

"Hata?"

A quiet voice. A hand. Just a hand on hers.

Rough.

Calloused.

Just like how she remembers it.

"Hatate? It's okay. You know it's okay, right?"

A shudder passes down her spine. It remains to be seen if the shudder is one from fright or pleasure. Her breath hitches, her head drops to hide her face (her ugly ugly ugly face), and her legs fold to let her knees rest against her chest.

But her hand remains where it is, and Aya's hand doesn't move.

It's okay.

(The only thing that isn't okay, though, is that there are two words, six letters, that make Hatate whimper.)

(For now.)

She remembers her voice is scratchy. Rough. Dry. Disgusting, above all else.

Hatate hasn't used her voice very much. There's really only one person she ever really talks to, and it's not even on a daily basis. Her vocal chords don't get much exercise. Unused to talking to other people besides her mother, she snaps, shuts down – whatever you want to call it. The point is: she doesn't like it. She doesn't like talking, doesn't like her voice, and just about everything else.

But that doesn't have to mean others don't like it. Specifically – a certain reporter with fluffy black hair and ruby red eyes who holds Hatate's heart, body, and soul in her palm.

All so soft, so fragile, that they can break in an instant. If Aya Shameimaru were to slowly close her fingers around these things, Hatate Himekaidou will shatter.

Isn't it such a good thing that Aya Shameimaru is only careful with the things she cares about?

Within two seconds of closing her eyes, she falls asleep.

She wakes up about ten or so minutes later. Aya is still there, surprisingly enough, bright eyes staring at the brunette's face. Hatate blinks – so does Aya. Then the reporter smiles reassuringly, crooked at the edges, her eyes crinkling. Hatate returns it as best as she can, which is to say she just barely manages a grimace.

"Feeling better? Well, regarding your fever?"

Hatate shrugs. The very movement sends a pang of pain straight to her head, so maybe not. She doesn't mention this to Aya, of course. Not that she would be capable of doing so.

The reporter smiles a little wider. "Is it okay if I stay here for a while?"

'It would be even better if you stayed here for the rest of eternity while we still have time,' Hatate muses, only responding with a nod. 'But that's being selfish. Even more selfish than usual, of course, because having you right here is selfishness in its best.'

"Well, good." A chiming laugh. "I wouldn't wanna go back down and face your mom again. Who knows what household item she'll turn into a menacing weapon next time. You got a window or something?"

'Logically, mother would be in her room right now,' Hatate thinks, sparing her clock a glance. 'If she's in a good mood, or, more likely, a less bad mood than usual, she'll be watching reality TV. If you're quiet, you can get out while you still can. I'll help you. Really, it'd be easy. I'll mask your footsteps.'

It's a few seconds too late before Hatate notices that Aya's zipped in front of her study table, skimming over last night's paper innocently. The brunette makes to stand up, blushing, but the reporter beats her to it. "When'd you write this? It's pretty nice if you get past all the… well… errors."

'It only makes sense for a mistake like me to make even more mistakes,' Hatate idly supposes. She slips off the bed as noiselessly as possible, padding her way over to the table, messy papers scattered everywhere. Aya already has a pencil in hand, scratching out the errors and writing the words and phrases above. They're nowhere near neat like her school notes, but they're legible, at the very least. That is to say: Hatate can just barely make out the letters.

The next few minutes go by like that in silence – the brunette grabbed the most comfortable chair in her room for Aya, while she opted to sit on the floor and scribble some of the more recent news, according to the reporter's newly-acquired gossip. Aya makes herself busy by correcting and proofreading Hatate's half-asleep work, which only makes the brunette even more self-conscious of what she had written last night. And why is she still wearing her purple pajamas and the fluffy bedroom slippers? Jesus Christ, she wants to tell herself, you're even more of a failure than usual today in Aya's presence, Himekaidou.

"Hey, Hata?" Aya speaks up. Her voice is unnaturally loud in the quiet room. The brunette almost jumps, but manages to keep her cool. Brown eyes glance up at the reporter questioningly. "Okay, so… I'm not gonna push it or anything, but… can I ask you some questions?"

She stills. Her hand goes limp, pen dropping to the floor and rolling until it hits a chair leg. Her eyes dim. It's almost like the very life is sucked away from her, which she wouldn't mind right now, really.

'But this is Aya, and the only thing I can really, truly do for her is to follow her,' she thinks numbly, and she realizes that mindless devotion is really going to be her downfall. (But then this is mindless devotion to Aya, and that always goes well, because it's Aya.) So Hatate only allows the slightest of shivers and tries not to tie a noose and hang herself when she nods.

Though she doesn't look up, she can feel the warmth emanating from Aya's smile. "If it bothers you, just, like… tell me to stop, okay? I'll stop, I promise." (Promises. She loves them with a burning hatred to go along with it.) "If it gets too intense for you or anything, I… I'll go away, I guess. Or something. I don't know, I–"

'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.' Blank cardboard eyes. 'Don't go away. Why? Why would you even do that? But then if you leave me, even if it will hurt, even if it will kill me, even if it will pierce my heart with spears and swords ten times over, it would be the smartest thing to do. I'm just a parasite, after all. I'm not useful for much else other than to pity. Why do you even bother with me? Your leaving would be completely justified. And that is what hurts the most.'

"Hatate?"

The brunette chokes back a sob and makes the mistake of looking up, again, for the second time that day. She stares right up into glittering red eyes.

Her back is against the door before she knows it. Hands clutching her face, threatening to tear her eyeballs out. Wouldn't it be better? Wouldn't it save everyone the pain of having to look into these hideous abominations of mine? And painless. So painless –

Slowly.

Slowly, she feels hands.

Soft. Rough.

Gentle. Calloused.

They're clutching hers. Cold. Warm.

With almost frightening kindness, Aya's hands carefully unmask the brunette's face from her hands, laying them down on her side. Hatate doesn't dare open her eyes, head facing down stubbornly. She's afraid of what she'll see. Afraid of seeing Aya and seeing that she can't possibly deserve the reporter.

"Hatate… hey–"

The softest of voices.

"Can you… open your eyes? I don't… really care if you don't talk. To me, anyway. I just… your eyes tell me a lot already, you know? So, like… please look at me."

The brunette lets out a shuddering, shaky sigh. With trembling fingers, she intertwines them with Aya's, not caring if she's being horrifically selfish for even thinking of the act, and blinks back tears from her brown eyes.

With her free hand, Aya tilts the brunette's chin upwards to match her gaze. Hatate looks over at the reporter like a scared, cornered animal, unable to attack nor flee. Resigned. Accepted its fate. And that's what terrifies both of them.

Their foreheads meet. Aya closes her own ruby eyes, sighing the smallest sigh ever, as if relieved. Hatate doesn't dare move, eyes fixated on the reporter's slightly parted lips. 'I'm so close. So close. What if I move, just – just the tiniest bit, I mean–'

She's being selfish.

She realizes that.

Hatate draws away, further back until her spine is ramrod-straight, not daring to look back at Aya's face. It only makes the burning feeling in her stronger and more painful.

Click. The lock on her door. Then a shuffling sound, and a warm body pressed against hers. Their fingers never separate. A hushed voice –

"Your eyes are pretty. I've told you that, right?"

The brunette curls up tighter. Eyes shut tight. With a scratchy, almost hissing voice;

"I wish… you were as much a liar… as you are beautiful."

The two of them don't speak for another thirty minutes. Hatate thinks she fell asleep somewhere in that timeframe, but her memory of those thirty minutes and fifty three seconds is hazy at best. She remembers the cold, of course, and the headaches that came along with it, but that's only normal. Her fever is still going strong. It surprises her that she hasn't completely collapsed in the past few minutes, really.

On the thirty-first minute, Aya's eyes flicker over to Hatate. The brunette responds with an inquisitive, if tired, look. The reporter's lips twist into a small, quiet smile. "I need to go."

'Please don't,' Hatate wants to say, but then again, that wouldn't do much. She nods, weakly, her vision blurring and sharpening at random intervals, the pounding in her head growing stronger. It's almost like she crumbles without Aya's presence, which is true, to an extent.

Aya's smile grows in reassurance, everything's going to be fine, you're going to be okay, I'll visit you again tomorrow. She moves to position herself on her knees and presses her lips against Hatate's forehead, before straightening, retrieving all of her things excluding the notes, and exits the room silently. Hatate doesn't move, the tingle on the spot right where Aya had touched her still present.

There is a sound of a door, much more distant, opening and closing with little other noise. Good. Only then does the brunette allow herself to sink into a little hole and to breathe through her mouth, because her lungs feel like they're constricting themselves and her blood is blocking her nostrils. Good God, she tells herself, you've never been this way before, and now you're all over some girl you met just a few weeks ago?

'But it's not just some girl, it's Aya,' she wants to argue, but realizes that really, it's true, Aya is just some girl, and Hatate is just some girl, and really, they're all just some people in just some planet in just some galaxy. It doesn't matter. They're all insignificant, but Hatate even more so. The brunette's breath wavers, but the tears don't come, just the feeling, which isn't any better, if worse.

What's worst – she spoke. She used her voice. It was bad when Aya had to hear her pathetic excuse of a voice when she talked to her mother, but when she had specifically spoken to her, to Aya with this desert-dry cardboard voice? Her fists clench, voices berate her for bothering, for even trying, for even thinking of it, and oh, Lord, why does it have to be this way –

It's these times where Aya Shameimaru is really, very important.

Hatate crawls over to her bed, wraps herself in blankets upon blankets, and succumbs to sleep. Her last thought is a wish to die very quickly in the never-ending darkness.

Of course, she lived.

The next day, she's still feeling none the better, and so she decides to actually take her temperature because God knows when she'll get better. Hatate does her daily morning ritual, attempts to change into proper clothes but fails and just shrugs on an extra long sweatshirt and pajama shorts, and scours the house for a thermometer. She eventually finds one buried deep under a mound of things in a drawer, which she dutifully cleans.

Her mother is out today as well, though the brunette hadn't heard her exit the house, most likely due to her sleep, which was comparable to that of a hibernating animal. Her temperature, though, is at a not-quite-healthy-yet 38.4, and so Hatate drags herself back into her room with her newfound thermometer and flops uselessly on her bed.

If anything, it gives her time to think. She doesn't like it, but when she can't muster the strength to move over to her table and write, she's going to have to think.

"Your eyes are pretty."

No, they aren't. They're abhorrent. Hatate covers her face with her pillow and tries not to envision Aya's precious face. See, she tells herself, this is why I shouldn't be left alone with nothing to do. The first thing I go to is always going to be Aya, whether I'm writing, or thinking, or whatever else.

'And she kissed me.'

'…'

'… Well. Not really. But it was a kiss on the forehead. That's kind of serious. What the hell am I supposed to do with that now? I can't just say 'oh, cool' and brush it off like it was nothing. I'm a parasite and she bothered to give me her attention. What on earth am I supposed to repay that with?'

It took Hatate a few more minutes before she managed to gather the strength to trudge over to her wall, covered with Post-It Notes. Aya had taken the liberty of sticking a few more yesterday once again, since some were dated with 9/17/14. She takes the easiest-looking one (Rumors about yuki-onna in preschool area) and starts scrawling down the news once more.

This time around, it takes a few more seconds for her to recognize the door opening and closing in a strange, unfamiliar way, because the door is actually closed this time, not slammed. Hatate peers out of her door to hear footsteps and a certain reporter's head popping up from the staircase. "Good morning, Hatatan! Are you feeling better?"

The brunette manages a smile, a weak one, and opens the door a little wider for Aya. Her legs buckle, which is only a surefire sign that she is most certainly not getting any better, and so she quickly takes a seat by her study table, the half-written sheet of paper hidden by the notebook Aya had left the day before. After setting down more notes for Hatate, Aya quickly sticks some more colored paper on the wall, a cheery smile the whole way. "I got you some medicine, so your recovery should be a bit speedier this time around."

'… Medicine?' Hatate blinks. Brown eyes glimmer in confusion.

Noticing this, Aya turns around to look at the brunette properly and digs something out of her bag. The rustling of plastic is evident as she brings out a small bottle with liquid of some sort, and another bottle with capsules in it. "I wasn't sure whether you liked liquid or capsule, so I just got both. It's no big deal, Eientei sells this stuff pretty cheap anyway."

(Hatate remembers – she frequents Eientei for its medicines. She only ever buys some when it's really bad, because the cold medicine in there costs nearly double the usual price in a typical pharmacy. The last time she checked, which was about a year ago, fever medicine and such cost about as much as her tuition fee for school.)

The brunette hesitates before taking the bottles, setting both on her table with a nod. She looks up – a silent thank you, which she hopes Aya gets. Judging by the gleeful look on the reporter's face, she certainly had.

"Don't bother paying me back, by the way, it's not like I really need the money," the reporter laughs, waving a hand in the air nonchalantly.

Hatate blinks – "So you're rich?"

"Well, yeah, I've got money, I guess." Aya shrugs. "It's no big deal. By the way, nice pajamas."

The brunette flushes in embarrassment, hurrying away into her bathroom to change into something vaguely acceptable. Once she slams the door closed, though, a stupid little smile pops into existence on her face as she thinks, Aya bought medicine for me, they're like gifts from her, she cares about me enough to buy things with me in mind…

When she comes out in a blouse and jean shorts, Aya's cheerfully sticking notes on her wall. It looks like there's a lot of news today, from the short time Aya had been in school… what?

Hatate's sudden jolt catches Aya's attention, as the reporter turns to look at her with a confused smile. How does that even work? Well, it's still cute on her, so whatever. "What is it?"

"I…" she manages to croak out, before immediately shutting her mouth again. It was bad enough when Aya had to hear her speak yesterday – it'd probably be even worse this time. Hatate shakes her head before gesturing towards the notes. Brown eyes swim in bewilderment. "Where did these…?"

It takes a little while for Aya to catch on, but she eventually gets the idea. "Um, well, I've been cutting classes for a little to hang out with you and everything… you know? Every time it's Chemistry going on, I sneak out to get you the homework from the day before and also from the short time I've been in school. Ah, I also went ahead to Eientei to get you the medicine while on my way here, so…" She trails off, seemingly unable to continue.

Hatate nods numbly. 'She cares enough for me to cut classes for a subject she's failing. Aya is… doing this… for me. I…'

A dizzying sensation overcomes her. She stumbles slightly, her hands clutching her head. 'Of all times–'

A yelp of surprise; a pair of hands (rough and calloused and everything in between) on her shoulders; her bed underneath her. A blanket. Then a voice, Aya's; "Rest a while, alright? I'll stay right here, Hata…"

The brunette shudders, curling up into a ball. She hates fevers.

"Rumors of yuki-onna in school kindergarten" is a reference to Letty and Cirno's friendship, if that wasn't obvious enough.

Next time: Hatate gets better? Maybe? Hopefully?

Slacker, 12/25/14