"Is she there?"
"How can I see if you're blocking me?"
"Ah! I forgot, you're shorter than me."
"Get out."
Hajime pushed Oikawa away to see if Hashimoto was inside her classroom. He observed the room and saw that there were three girls crowding someone and instantly, Hajime knew that it was Hashimoto.
"Is Seijunnie really a girl?" Oikawa suddenly speaks. He watches Hashimoto converse with the three girls. "Iwa-chan... she's better at picking up girls than you." Oikawa throws a statement at Hajime. The shorter man only clenches his fist before speaking "Just shut up, would you?"
The two kept quiet and watched Hashimoto until the three girls bid goodbye and left the crossdresser alone. Once Hashimoto is alone, she leans back on her chair and looks at the window. Hajime feels irked by her action so he narrows his eyes at her.
"Is she..." Hajime muttered. He eyed the crossdresser and saw her brushing her fringe away from her face. It finally made sense to Hajime what Hashimoto was doing. "She knows I'm here, that's why she's acting like that." Hajime says.
"Like what? Like a model?" Oikawa asks for clarification and Hajime hums in response.
Hajime sighs before entering the room and walking towards Hashimoto. The girl notices him and smiles. Hajime grabs a chair and pulls it so he can sit in front of Hashimoto. Oikawa follows and grabs a chair as well and sits beside the crossdresser.
"You should teach Iwa-chan how to get girls." Oikawa suggest earning him a kick from Hajime. Hashimoto snickers at their comedic act. "Why are you two here?" she asks.
Hajime stares at her for a second before looking down on the ground. He thinks about his question and decides to just tell her the truth.
"We accidentally over-heard you and your sister fighting at the rooftop."
Hashimoto stared at the two with her arms crossed. She clicks her tongue thrice then gasps. "What should I do? Two men heard me and my sister's fight." Hashimoto covered her mouth and Hajime as well as Oikawa couldn't help but think that the crossdresser was joking.
"Stop joking. We heard something serious. Aren't you worried?" Hajime tapped the table in front of him while waiting for the answer.
"I'm not worried if it's you two besides you should know that I practiced judo a year after waking up from that six months sleep." Hashimoto informs. "I'm a black-belter at judo. Don't do anything I would hate." She adds before winking at the two.
The two male students gulp. They made an unspoken rule not to mess with the Hashimoto siblings. After that, silence invaded the room. Fortunately, Oikawa was there to speak.
"Why did you sleep for six months?" Oikawa asked while staring at Hashimoto whose elbows were at the table and her chin placed on her palm. She side-glances at Oikawa and smirks.
"You need to earn at least ten thousand friendship points to unlock this route." Hashimoto taps her index finger at the table while smirking. She suddenly starts humming a song while tapping her fingers to the beat.
Hajime smiled at Hashimoto's antics and stares at Oikawa. He sees his friend stunned and mouth slightly ajar. Hajime shakes his head in amusement. "Why are you looking at her like that Trashykawa?" Hajime asks teasingly.
Oikawa glances at his childhood friend. "Seijunnie is... woah... are you really a lady, Seijunnie?" Oikawa questions the crossdresser who laughs upon hearing his question. "Why? Was I too handsome?" Hashimoto replies.
"Not as much as I am but... preeetttyyy close. What you did a while ago looked sexy."
"Really?! Aren't I sexy? Of course, not as much as you but still! Aren't I sexy?"
Hajime shook his head at the two person in front of him. So different yet so similar. It made Hajime question his choice of friends. He watched the two narcissist talk to each other about their charms and looks for twenty seconds until he decided that he's sick of hearing them talk about themselves.
Hajime claps his hand to get the attention of the two and successfully catches their eyes.
"I know I shouldn't be asking you this but... I'm really curious about what happened to you before and what made you like this. There must be a reason why you're crossdressing, right?" Hajime raises a brow and waits patiently for an answer.
Hashimoto glances at Oikawa then to Hajime. She gulps and laughs awkwardly. "I told you, both of you doesn't have enough friendship points for me to tell you about it so stop asking me. I'll tell you if I deem that you have enough points to be trusted." Hashimoto rubs her neck.
She avoids Hajime's eyes so the male student remains staring at the crossdresser. Hashimoto knows it so she blushes at embarrassment. She finally gazes at Hajime. "Stop staring! I won't tell you even if you act like that! Seriously, so annoying!" Hashimoto hisses at irritation.
Oikawa laughs at her and stands up. "I'll leave you two alone now." He says. "Tell me if she told you anything, Iwa-chan. Bye!" Oikawa makes a peace sign and leaves quickly. The two wait for him to close the door and when Oikawa finally does, Hashimoto sighs and Hajime gets serious.
"How much did you hear?" Hashimoto questions him.
"From your sister saying 'it isn't as simple as that' to 'helping me bring back who you really are.' That's all I heard." Hajime answers bravely with his arms crossed.
"Forget about it. Don't think too hard, it won't result to anything. So better stop digging information, do you understand?" Hashimoto tilts her head to the left. Her eyes fixed on Hajime.
"Did Yuno get that from you?" the male suddenly asks throwing Hashimoto off. Her eyebrows knit together. "What?" she asks.
"The 'do you understand' question." Hajime answers.
"Ahh, that. She didn't get that from me. We both got it from someone else."
"Is that so? Is it one of your parents?"
Hashimoto shakes her head. She looks at the window and her eyelids drop. Hajime looked at her. He couldn't force her if she didn't want to tell but he knows that if she doesn't tell it then the more reason she needs to say it.
"You can't keep it a secret forever. If you don't tell what you're feeling to someone sooner then you'll get swallowed by it. No matter how much you try to practice dressing up as lady, it won't give good results because the real problem is still there."
Hashimoto glances at her senior. She gives a half-smile to him before looking at the sky again. She hums another calm song but her fingers doesn't tap on the beat. Hajime noticed that she was humming a sad song.
The two stayed that way, with Hashimoto humming and Hajime watching her hum, until a crow stops by the window then flies away. After that, Hashimoto looks at Hajime with a pale face and troubled eyes.
"You won't tell this to anyone, right? You won't tell it to Oikawa-san because I swear if you do – "
Hashimoto stops speaking. She clenches her fist to stop her shaking hands then covers her mouth and breathes heavily. Hajime can see how nervous she is and it makes him feel guilty. He pushes his guilt away and just waits for the crossdresser to speak.
Hashimoto gives one last exhale before speaking. She looks at Hajime for a while. She wants to back out but she stays seated. "Uhh... you see..." Hashimoto tries to find somewhere to start so she stops to think. After seconds of thinking she starts speaking again.
"I was bullied at ten years old for not letting my female upperclassman know my cousin Yuuta, who was five years older than me. He was almost perfect so it's obvious that he'd be liked by everyone." Hashimoto smiled sweetly while talking as if it was a dear memory of her.
"She's too good at pretending to be fine. That isn't good." Hajime thought.
"Anyway, I was smart and well-liked back then and my family was wealthier than most so the bullies told me that I probably payed the teachers and that my friends are just there for the money and not for me as in, myself. In short, I got bullied every day. Yuno knows about it but I told her not to tell anyone. It must've been hard for her." Hashimoto leaned on her chair.
"Then?" Hajime asked so Hashimoto smiled at him. "You really want to know everything? Fine, listen well." Hashimoto stretched her arms and yawned. She sat up straight and placed her interlocked fingers on the table.
"One day, the bullying got worse and one of the bullies 'accidentally' pushed me off the stairs. This is the reason why I was in coma and it's because my head fell first at that time. So I slept for six months and once I woke up, Yuuta was in front of me. We had a talk and he asked me why I didn't say anything. Of course, it didn't end in a good note. I said something bad to him so he rushed out of the room out of anger. Do you know what I said to him?" Hashimoto stopped talking.
"What?" Hajime muttered quietly.
"I said 'if you actually cared then you would've done something, but you just asked and then ignored the rest. You saw my bruises and everything but you didn't pay attention to it. You probably didn't because you thought that your reputation was more important than your cousin.'"
Hajime's eye grew wide upon hearing Hashimoto's words. He wasn't used to the crossdresser speaking harshly so he just gulped and nodded repeatedly. Out of the blue, he heard Hashimoto laughing. He looked at her and noticed that she was shaking her head.
"Yuuta didn't visit me for a week after that then I found out that my cousin got hit by a car while buying me an apology gift. Needless to say... he died."
Hashimoto sighed and blinked a lot of times. She sniffed a bit and stood up. Hashimoto grabbed her bag and walked away but Hajime immediately grabbed her by the wrist.
"Where are you going? We're not finished talking yet." He spoke calmly. "Turn around." He added. "Hashimoto." Hajime called out but she didn't face him. "Hashimoto Seijun." He called out instead.
"I changed my name." Hashimoto suddenly said. Hajime didn't let go of her wrist, instead his hold became tighter.
"Seijun isn't really my name. My real name is Shiori, I changed it because I was scared of acting like a girl again. I thought that if I was like Yuuta, I would be fine."
"What made you think of that? There's so many solution and you chose that?" Hajime spoke questionly.
"Can you blame me? After I went home, I didn't get out of my room for two and a half months in fear that the bullies are waiting outside! I was over-thinking everything and became dependent on Yuno! I tried to think of a solution but none comes to mind because something negative keeps appearing every solution I try to make. When I realized that I missed my cousin, I thought changing myself would be good." Hashimoto ranted while pulling her arm away from Hajime.
After a lot of pulling from the crossdresser, Hajime finally stood up and made her face him. "Stop acting like that and look at me!"
Once he turned Hashimoto, he saw that she was crying. His mouth suddenly went dry. He didn't know what to do so out of panic, he accidentally hits her in the arm instead of gently patting her.
"Ow!" Hashimoto yelps. "Ah Iwaizumi-san! Why are you hitting a crying girl?! Can't you see I'm suffering! Honestly, you ruthless guy!" Hashimoto slaps Hajime's arms repeatedly while pinching his hands.
"Stop it! It hurts!" Hajime flicks the crossdresser in the forehead. Hashimoto walks away from her senior and breathes heavily while wiping her tears away. The two students look at each other and somehow, Hajime was the first to smile which shocks Hashimoto but makes her laugh in the end.
Hajime laughs as well and he covers his mouth to stop his smile but he fails so he just lets it out. Once the two calmed down, the two sat facing the window, two chairs away from each other. It was close to 6 PM now so the two wondered if they should go home. Hajime glanced at the crossdresser.
"I can't promise you that after I help you everything will be better but I swear, I'll help you in every problems you face as long as you trust me."
Hashimoto felt her breathing hitch, she faced her senior and somehow, a tear escapes her eye. She quickly blinks and wipes the tears away but more tears escape so she just covers her whole face with her hands. She starts to sob uncontrollably.
"You... you don't... know how much I wanted to hear that. Thank you..." Hashimoto doesn't smile at her senior nor does she look at him. Instead, Hashimoto gazed at the sky and wiped her tears silently.
While watching her, Hajime couldn't deny that something in him was wrong. Right now, while the sun was setting and the night was falling, he realized that he finds her pretty with a smile but as he stared at her crying her heart out somehow... he still finds her beautiful.
How was it? The romance is about to arrive and I'm excited for it. Lessgo!
About Hashimoto's backstory... is it fine? I'm scared it isn't and that I may be over-doing it but over-all I think I did good at this. By the way, I'm in love with what Iwa-chan said to Hashimoto! I just find it so perfect and ugh! I can't explain my over-whelming felings at his speech!
Anyway, jope you like it!
