Day 2

Wednesday, February 2nd

Morning

I awoke today from an unusually good sleep, on time this time thankfully. Energetically, I walked through the house getting myself ready. My mom noticed this almost immediately.

"Sakana," she began as I was eating a short breakfast, "You're quite enthusiastic today. I don't think I've ever seen you so bouncy!"

"Yeah well, things happened yesterday, gonna get to meet new people today, pretty excited about it and whatnot." I said, playing it off as not much of a big deal.

"Ohh? What kind of things? Are you finally going out with that one girl you're always talking about? Ko…ko…kona…"

"It's Konata," I corrected, irritated slightly, "And no Mom, I'm not going out with her. But I did talk with her for the first time yesterday."

"If it lasted less than 30 seconds, it doesn't count, you know."

"Hey! For one, it lasted way more than 30 seconds! For two, are you implying all I ever communicated in the past with her has been quick questions and greetings for her in the past!?"

"Of course, you're just like your father way back when! He couldn't even approach me for the longest time, and all his brave attempts turned out to amount to nothing more than passing greetings." How could Mom be so cruel in her teasings!?

Dad, who had been watching TV in the other room, turned his head to look towards us and said smoothly smiling, "May I remind you who the biggest tsundere in all of our high school was? Because that would be you, sweetheart."

"Ah-HEY! WATCH IT, BUD!" Mom retorted, blushing ever so slightly.

"Oh great, so not only am I shy towards the girl I like, I have the potential to be tsundere towards her too?" I joked. "Talk about an imperfect storm."

"h-HELLO!?" Mom said loudly, "I SO WAS NOT TSUNDERE! I-I just didn't know how to react back then, that's all!"

"Oh hey look at the time!" I said, "Gotta go take a shower, I'll be back!" I rushed out to take my shower, then popped back in, grinning. "You know, you're only proving that you were, and still are, totally tsundere." I ran for the bathroom as soon as I said that.

I'd gotten a text from Aika saying she was heading out, which was my signal every morning to leave. I said goodbye to my parents, then left. Aika was a house or two away walking to me. Make no mistake, it's not like she was about to wait for me; she just texted me when she left so I knew. We began our usual walk to school.

"So," Aika started, "How's it gonna be with your sweet little Konata-chan today?"

I felt my face already starting to warm up. "Aaak, I said that once a year ago and you've never let me hear the end of it!"

"And I never will." She said, smiling in the most evil teasing way I could imagine.

"Pff, well at any rate, I wouldn't know how things are gonna work anyways. I'm going in this practically blind."

Aika gave a look. "You usually aren't that enthusiastic about trying this sort of new thing. You're not worried that you're going unprepared or anything like that?"

"I'm sorry, I can't hear all of those worries over the sound of me having lunch with the girl I've liked for two years. For a month straight." I said grinning. I couldn't help it; I was way too excited to be worried about all of that sort of stuff I usually fret about.

Aika smiled and shook her head. "The things you'll overcome in the name of love…"

Lunchtime

Here I was. It was the beginning of lunchtime, and I could not get to that lunchroom fast enough. I was elated, excited, and a bunch of other positive words that begin with the letter 'e'. I was looking around for Konata and her friends, but I couldn't seem to find them.

"Looking for us, speed racer?" a voice from behind me said. I turned around, and there was Konata in front, with the two purple haired girls from before right behind her. One of the purple haired girls, the short haired one, waved to me nicely. I just sorta waved back.

The other purple haired girl whispered something to Konata. "Ah, it'll be fine, don't get your panties in a bunch Kagami." Konata replied to her. I decided right then and there to introduce myself to everyone there. I mean, if this is gonna be happening for a month, it's only polite, right?

"Well, uhh," I bowed slightly, "My name is Ajiyoshi Sakana. I hope I…umm…" I paused for a minute. It was then that I realized I had absolutely no idea about how formalities worked. "I hope I don't make any of you upset by being around!" I smiled, trying to act cheerful under how utterly stupid I felt.

At least it seemed to make Kagami chuckle a little. Hopefully she wasn't threatened by me or anything. She smiled and introduced herself. "I'm Hiiragi Kagami, nice to meet you."

The purple short-haired girl did the same. "I'm her twin sister, Hiiragi Tsukasa. Hope we can be friends." She said cheerfully.

"And I think you already know who I am," Konata said, "So let's just get to our table already!"

We made our way to a booth that had a table and two seats across from each other. They looked like they could comfortably hold about three people each seat. Kagami and Tsukasa sat in one seat, while Konata took the seat across. I wasn't really sure what to do; I didn't think I'd be sitting right next to Konata! I'd expected to have to sit across from her!

"You gonna sit down or what?" Kagami asked.

I already felt my face redden a little. Aaah, dammit, I'm already blushing? I haven't even been here for a couple minutes! Well, can't stand around like an idiot or anything. "Y-yeah, sorry." I said, abruptly grinning sheepishly and sitting down next to Konata. Christ I'm glad there's room for about three here. Any closer to her and I might explode.

I took my lunch out and popped the container open, revealing ten sushi rolls. Kagami looked at them curiously. "Is that all you brought? Not much variety there…"

"Aah, yeah well, ehe, I dunno, it's just what I tend to like." I said a little nervously, "Seems to be, I don't really get tired of things I like very fast."

"I wonder about that…" Konata smugly remarked.

I blushed furiously while Kagami giggled. It seemed to go over Tsukasa's head; she just kept eating like nothing happened. "H-hey now!" I flustered out, "What's that s-supposed to mean, huh!?"

"If you're wondering," Tsukasa began, "We all here already know, so there's no need to hide the fact that you like her or anything." She smiled enchantingly as if everything was going to be alright.

"A-a-a-a-are you kidding me!" I wasn't really mad, but I was pretty embarrassed and didn't see that coming. Although on second thought, I should have…

"Whaaat," Konata cooed teasingly, "You didn't think I was going to go easy on you just because you have a thing for me, did youuu?" She was having way too much fun with this. "And it's not like you make it much of a secret anyways," she pointed out, "Seriously, you give out more marks and signs than your average tsundere character, and you act like such a shrinking violet about it, it's pretty much obvious to the entire school."

"Hey, didn't you call me tsundere or whatever once before?" Kagami questioned Konata with a glare.

"Now now Kagami, we all know you're a tsundere!" Konata replied

Konata and Kagami had a short bicker back and forth until I processed what Konata said. I popped a sushi roll in my mouth. "The entire school, huh?" I said, relaxed and calm as a breeze.

Then it really processed as I swallowed my roll and started choking on a stray piece of rice in reaction, sputtering out, "T-the-kkh-ENTIRE-KH-SCHOOL!?" I contained my freak out enough that I didn't flip any tables over, but I shoved aside my sushi and put my forehead on the table. "Oh god…the entire school…knew?" I said horrified.

"Are you okay, Sakana-san?" Tsukasa concernedly asked.

"Aah, I'm sure he'll be fine in a few minutes," Konata replied, "Give him time for the shock to wear off, the poor oblivious guy." Why is Konata acting like she already knows me like the back of her hand, anyways?

"Well at any rate," Kagami tried to smooth over by changing the subject, "What sort of things do you like to do, Sakana? Any clubs you're in or anything like that?"

I looked up wearily from the table I had once buried my face in. "Not really, no. None of the clubs interested me more than what I tend to do by myself at home. Usually I go home and hop on my MMO or maybe break out the PS2. Sometimes I-"

Almost immediately after the mention, Konata asked, "What MMO do you play?"

"Typical reaction for her." Kagami smiled as she said.

"Well, I've tried out quite a few different ones, and I tend to go through phases," I began, "But right now it seems I'm settled on Mabinogi."

"Ooh, I played that one for a little bit!" Tsukasa piped up.

"Really?" Konata asked, "That's surprising, I didn't think you played many MMOs."

"Well, to be honest, I didn't really play it the way most people did, I think…" Tsukasa said a little slowly, "Umm…I tried learning how to play an instrument, but I didn't really get it…"

"Yeah, figures," Konata replied with a light chuckle, "I played Mabinogi way back when. I wanna say it was my second or third MMO that I ever played. Thing is, I got bored with it after a while."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Well…" Konata looked as if it were coming back to her bit by bit, "After I soloed the Desert Dragon, there wasn't much else I wanted to do, so I quit."

My eyes widened. "You soloed the Desert Dragon. THE Desert Dragon!? No way!"

She puffed out her chest victoriously. "Yup, one of the few that have ever been able to! But ever since then, I felt like I accomplished all I needed to, and everything else was so much boringness that I knew I could do even if I didn't already. I never got into it far enough to want to do everything in it."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know those feels. I didn't even bother to try and beat the final boss in Kingdom Hearts because I knew I could easily after I beat Sephiroth."

Konata's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. "You beat Sephiroth on Kingdom Hearts? The first one?"

"Sure did," I said proudly, but not boasting, "Though it was hard as all hell and took me a good fifteen or twenty tries. Spent a lot of time trying to do that."

"Impressive, most impressive!" Konata commended, "That's a pretty hard boss for most people. Beatable by all means, but quite difficult."

Tsukasa leaned towards her sister and asked quietly while Konata and I went on, "Do you have any idea what they're talking about?"

"Only vaguely," Kagami replied, "Seems like they were made for each other already, frankly." She took a bite of her lunch, then said slightly irritated, "Oi, we're here too, lovebirds."

I broke away from the conversation Konata and I were having, blushing furiously. Konata grinningly replied, "Hey, that's to be decided still!"

"Anyways," Kagami went on, "Sakana, is there anything else you do besides gaming?"

"Well…" I had to think for a minute and collect in my mind all the types of things I did. "I like to wail on my guitar a lot, though I'm not good at it by any means. I've also got a piano keyboard I tend to play often, though again, not very well.

"Wow, you play guitar and piano?" Tsukasa said, clearly impressed.

"Aah- hey-hey-hey now! Don't go expecting me to play any magnificent pieces or anything, alright? I'm not that great!" I said hastily. If there was one thing I hated, it was letting people down, so I didn't want to get hopes up. "Besides, most of the things I play are probably things no one here would recognize. They tend to be from obscure OSTs or something like that. Oh, I just remembered, I like cooking for others quite a lot, though I'm not really good at it and I don't get to very often."

"You don't really sell yourself very big, do you?" Konata commented. I swear I almost heard my mom saying her usual 'Oh shut up, you play just fine!' line from afar.

"Ehehe, well I just call 'em like I see 'em." I replied.

At that point the bell for the end of lunch rang, and we all said our goodbyes and headed to class. Shortly after I took off on the way to class, I heard someone say my name behind me. I turned around, expecting Aika to be there, locked and loaded with the latest teasing I was going to be administered, but it was Tsukasa of all people. I noted that Kagami was a little ways away behind her; she must have asked Kagami to wait for her I reasoned.

"Umm…Sakana-san" Tsukasa began, "I just wanted to let you know that, if you didn't already realize it, you're welcome at our table whenever." She smiled enchantingly. "I hope we can become good friends!" she said enthusiastically and pure-heartedly.

I tilted my head to the side, a little confused at first, but then just decided to take it as a compliment. "Well, thank you Tsukasa!" I said cheerfully, "I hope we can as well, though honestly, I don't think we'll have much of a problem being friends at all. You're really nice, you know?" I added on a spur of the moment.

"Ah- thank you!" she said, looking humbled, "I've gotta get to class now, bye!" She turned away and went back to her sister. Huh…aah, Tsukasa's so friendly! I love it!

Just then I felt a poke on my back. I turned around. Aah, there was Aika. "Hey loverboy," she said grinning, "Aren't you going to be late for class soon?"

"Aren't you?" I retorted, smiling.

"Guess we'd better hurry then."

Not much happened after that. Walked home with Aika as per usual, ended up going to bed fairly early that night. I fell straight asleep, happy that not only was I getting to know the girl of my dreams, I practically had three new friends now. I was content.