Chapter 22: Buttons

Today was graduation day. A day to celebrate the end of youth's greatest years in high school, and to mark the beginning of a greater future.

Students who just graduated minutes ago were walking around, inside of the Hakuou Academy's ginormous stadium. Families and friends walked down from their stadium seatings to hug and congratulate their beloved graduates. Classmates began laughing and crying together, regardless of not knowing when they will see each other again.

Hayate stood around the large moving crowd surrounding him. He was amazed by the large number of people who have come to this event.

'This place is so huge, it's more than big enough to host the Ol*mpics!' he thought.

This is, after all, Hakuou Academy, one of the wealthiest schools in the world.

Like all of his male classmates in part of this ceremony, he wore a custom fitted button jacket, with actual gold buttons on them, along with matching black pants, which were also custom fitted. This was a tradition by the glorious academy. The cost of one graduation uniform given to each of the students as a mere gift was around a million yen.

His black oxford shoes for this event were chosen by Nagi. They were her father's shoes. It was the only existing shoe of its kind in the world. Collaborated by some of the most prestigious names in fashion, his shoes costed more than all of the uniforms in the stadium put together.

To Nagi, they were not worth selling to keep up with the bills at Violet Mansion. Hayate, with that in mind, was being very careful throughout the day with those shoes.

"Yo, Ayasaki-kun."

Hayate turned around to the familiar voice.

"Oooh! It's you!" he said. "Azumumaya-kun!"

His similarly dress classmate twitched. "It's Azumamiya-kun, idiot!" Koutarou shouted.

"Oh, sorry," Hayate replied. "Your name was so hard to remember, that the author of this story had to look you up."

Koutarou clenched his chest, feeling the pain of the author's lack of familiarity for him.

"A-a-anyway..." he said. "How do you feel about graduating? Oh, did you give your button to a girl, yet?"

"Button?" Hayate asked.

"What? You don't know? Man, you're hopeless," Koutarou said to him. "It's common tradition every year at H.A., for the male graduates to give one of their jacket's button to their girlfriends or someone they like. I already gave mine away, in case you were wondering."

Hayate saw Koutarou's jacket missing a button. He then looked at Koutarou's hand.

"Um... are you holding the button?" he asked.

Koutarou blushed. "Just give me some time!" he angrily yelled at him. "I will find a girl who won't turn me down again! Maybe! I don't know..."

Hayate watched this hopeless kid walk away and stumble, as he might have sensed the author calling him hopeless. He stumbled again.

As he watched his classmate vanish into the crowd, Hayate then heard his master's voice. It was far, but he immediately spotted Nagi looking for him, far away and lost into the overcrowded field. He walked forward and stepped on dog turd.

He stopped with an blank expression in his face and looked at what he stepped on with the most expensive shoes in the world. He was reminded that his misfortune was still lurking, right beneath his tracks.

Looking back into his direction, he could not see Nagi anymore. He hurried to where she was, swiftly and carefully around the crowd, only to find her gone.

As he was about to pull out his phone, he gradually heard some loud chanting.

"Hina! Hina! Hina!"

He then spotted a familiar figure from where the chanting came from. There she was. Hinagiku, to his eyes, looking as vibrant as ever. His jaws slightly dropped from the view.

She was walking around, greeting and congratulating every student nearby, like a great student council president would. She also looked a bit timid in her attire, wearing a small, yet similar button jacket with a white dress shirt underneath, along with a black skirt over her pantyhose-covered legs and her Chr*stian L**boutins heels.

"Katsura-san! Your graduation speech was amazing! The best, actually!" said generic female background character A.

"Now now," Hinagiku said. "There was no speech greater than another. I think they were all amazing. I honestly think Love Master's speech was better than mine."

"Ahh! Katsura-san, you're such a fair lady!" said generic female background character B.

"Katsura-chan!" Koutarou shouted her name, as he shoved himself past the crowd. "Will you accept my button?!"

"No, Katsura-chan! Take mine!" said another unimportant male student. Koutarou clenched his chest once more.

"Forget about them, Hina-chan!" said a female student. "You should take mine!"

Hinagiku nervously laughed as many arms, each with a button in hand, were waving in front of her face.

"Sorry guys, I can't take these," she said. "I wouldn't want to make anyone upset here."

"Then can I just take you for dinner?" Koutarou asked her.

"No," she immediately responded.

"Eh?! You said you wouldn't make anyone upset!" Koutarou whined. "Besides, I know this awesome place that serves the best curry in the city!"

"Not interested."

"B-but I thought you like curry!"

"Oh, I do, alright..." Hinagiku said, with a more serious tone. "I love curry so much, that I've committed to try every single curry dish from every restaurant in the city!"

Koutarou and the others all sweatdropped. 'The hell?' most of them thought, as they stared into the student council president's eyes become more fiery with passion.

"And you know what?!" she asked them. "None of them came even close to what I had! That was when-!"

She instantly shut her mouth with her hands.

'That was when Hayate-kun stayed home and made me dinner...' was what she almost said out loud.

As he witnessed the cheers and praises near the student council president, Hayate could not help but smile. At the same time, he felt his heart pinch, seeing how popular she really is from the other side of the field.

Classmates continued to walk pass him, with not a greet or a praise. Hayate felt a lonely anxiety. If anything, he believes that this is no surprise. After all, most of his leisures in school was spent on serving his master.

'And Hinagiku-san as well...' he thought.

He realized of what he thought and immediately shook his hand.

'No no! It's over! None of this is going to happen anymore! She ended this for good reasons...'

Hayate frowned. He thought that he would be fine after a couple of days with her out of the mansion. But in the end, he could not help but realize just how distracted and uncomfortable he really has been without her.

Before his mind was thrown into more depths, a chilling sensation was sent to his left cheek.

"Yaawhuh!" he yelped. The chilling sensation was from a cold can of iced tea in Hinagiku's hand.

She stood right in front of him, looking annoyed.

"Can you stop looking so down?" she asked him. "If you keep doing that, you'll never see the bright future ahead of you."

Hayate did not know how to respond. Here is the girl he loves, facing him, offering him a cold can of iced tea, days after no contact since she had broken up with him, as she gave him inspiring advice that would always bring him closer to her.

And as usual, he responded, "I'm sorry."

He slowly took her can of tea. At the same time, he could hardly look at her from this close.

Hinagiku looked drop-dead gorgeous.

She looked at the also well-dressed and handsome boy, scanning from head to toe, eyes feeling satisfied after viewing every inch of his body, and noticing that his jacket still had all of its buttons. Being just as dense as he is, she did not know why his eyes were looking away from her.

'Could he be mad at me?' she thought. 'Could he possibly hate me now?'

Hayate finally had the courage to look back at her. This time, she was the one who was frowning.

His butler instincts immediately followed. "Hinagiku-san... what's wrong?" he asked her.

"Nothing", she said, being stubborn.

She looked at him and waited for a response, but after a moment of silence between the two, her heart could not take it anymore.

"Do you hate me, Ayasaki-kun?" she asked.

He blinked a few times, unsure of why she had asked this question and stunned to be addressed by his last name. "N-no... not at all," he said. Her eyes were staring deeply into his. Hayate did not feel comfortable and looked away again.

"Then why do keep looking away?" she asked. His eyes slowly came back to hers. His lips slowly moved, unable to tell what he was going to say. She felt like her heart was about to burst at this rate.

"Because you look... breathtaking," he said, subtly blushing. He timidly looked at her. "And it isn't right for me to look at you this way, as we are just friends."

His response was not what she expected, but Hinagiku felt relieved. She smiled from his compliment. It was the biggest smile she ever had on for the entire week.

Her smile glowed to him and he hated that. Because deep within his heart, he knew that he will never see that smile again. So he smiled back, trying to enjoy the most of what he can share with her; time, both standing with the large crowd who are doing much of the same with one another.

Hinagiku will also miss his smile. The same smile that has gotten her to fall in love with. She looked down onto his jacket and stared at his button, slowly raising her hand grab it.

"Hayate!" called Nagi, struggling to squeeze through the large crowd, then running into her butler, jumping on to him to give him a hug. "Congratulations, Hayate!"

"Ahaha, Ojou-sama! You found me!" Hayate happily said.

"Congratulations, to you as well, Hinagiku!" Nagi said to the president.

Hinagiku did not reach that button and withdrew her hand before they noticed. She smiled at Nagi and thanked her. More people had joined their circle. The rest of the student council group along with the residents of Violet Mansion all came together and congratulated all of the graduates.

Hayate was overwhelmed with so much joy, that he almost cried as he began to look into the sky, where the birds flew and the sun shined. He gave one long glance to each person within his view. From Kayura to Ayumu, to Chiharu and Alice, Maria then Nagi, and last but not least, the very girl who looked at him back.

Her smile turned down to be more subtle upon his glance. Her chartreuse eyes met with his electric blue ones. At that very moment, she could already tell that by looking at him any longer, that she would begin to cry as well. So, she looked away and struck a conversation with Chiharu, who was next to her.

Hayate understood her action. He knew it was by no means to offend him.

'It's better this way...' he thought. As they stood on opposite ends of their circle, he turned his back as well, to face Nagi and Maria.

'Because after this... I'll never see your smile again.'