Omake Week 2016, Day 2: It just wouldn't be Omake Week without my longest-running omake series making an entrance! This year features a story that's a bit too long to be a true omake, more of a one-shot ShizNat fluff piece.

Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater

(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)

A/N: This takes place during the fall of their first year together (Shizuru's first year of college), so it's a bit of a look-back from more recent stories…though it probably takes place only a week or two after Chapter 86.

~X X X~

It was a brisk fall day, and Shizuru Fujino's cheeks were red from the wind as she walked in the door and set down her bag.

"Honey, I'm home!" she called, imagining her Natsuki's face at the greeting. Natsuki would not miss the phrase's obvious connotation of a spouse returning, and with any luck would end up blushing furiously at the implications. Natsuki was just so cute when she got flustered, and the cantankerous remarks she gave to hide her true feelings (and at her genuine frustration at having her strings so easily pulled) always made Shizuru want to giggle.

The expected response did not come, however.

"Ah! H-hey, Shizuru!"

There came the thump of feet from the living room as Natsuki got up from where she'd been sitting and scurried out to meet Shizuru in the foyer alcove.

"Um, before you get your shoes off, would you mind running an errand for me? Nothing big, just up to the convenience store."

"Oh? A favor, is it? And what will Natsuki offer in compensation for sending me out to shiver in the late autumn breeze?" She'd have let Natsuki off the hook and just said yes, but her first attempt at teasing had apparently gone nowhere and she had no intention of going out again without a warming dose of her girlfriend's cute responses.

"I'll pay you back, you know. You can even grab something for yourself while you're there, my treat."

"Ara, Natsuki is generous. But," Shizuru amended, smiling—all right, she could admit to herself, smirking—"what I want from you isn't something I can buy."

Natsuki snorted, her nostrils crinkling. "Idiot."

Ah, there's the cute face I wanted to see.

Shizuru pouted.

"Does Natsuki not think a trip to the convenience store is worth a kiss?"

"A kiss?"

"Ara, what did you think I meant? Ah! Natsuki has such a perverted mind to think I would ask for such things!"

"It's the voice of experience talking," Natsuki shot back.

"Mmn, well, I suppose it isn't a bad thing if thoughts of me immediately make your mind go in that kind of direction."

Now Natsuki blushed, and Shizuru chuckled.

"There. I've been well repaid for my errand. What was it that you wanted?"

"That I…?"

"What you wanted from the convenience store? The thing or things you wanted me to get enough to give me that delightfully luminescent blush?"

"Oh…yeah, that. I'd…I'd like…"

"Natsuki, what is going on?"

"Dammit, Shizuru, now you've got me all flustered! How am I supposed to think straight with you turning everything into some kind of battle of wits? I'm lucky I can remember my name!"

Shizuru folded her arms across her chest.

"Natsuki."

She fixed her eyes squarely on her girlfriend's. While the withering Kuga Death Glare was known to quiet rooms, clear tables, and make petty thugs hide behind the bar, it was nothing compared to the force that pinned Natsuki in place, squirming.

"You are possibly the worst liar I know, and I am including Mikoto in that list. You didn't want me to go to the convenience store; you just made that up without stopping to think about it. It was just an excuse to send me away."

Natsuki stared at her helplessly. Shizuru knew her well enough to be sure if she'd gone wrong with her deduction, Natsuki would be up in arms, shouting back defiantly.

"Why, Natsuki? What's going on?"

She couldn't believe that Natsuki was up to anything bad, like getting caught cheating and wanting to get Shizuru out of the way to let her bundle the other girl out of the house and clean up the evidence. That would be completely alien to her character. But if it was something silly and innocent, like she was in the middle of wrapping Shizuru's Christmas present (not that she'd have bought it this early), then why didn't she just say so instead of being paralyzed with indecision?

It made little sense, and Shizuru found herself becoming worried precisely because it didn't make sense.

The frozen moment between them seemed to stretch on and on. In reality, though, it was no more than fifteen seconds before Kiyohime slithered into the room to greet her returning mistress. Several of her heads looked up at Shizuru, hissing.

"Hello, Kiyohime. It's good to see you." More happy hisses echoed her. "But what's that that you have there?"

The hydra's second head stretched up towards Shizuru, a crumpled ball of paper in its mouth.

"Gah! No, don't give her that!"

"Oho, is this Natsuki's hidden secret?"

She hesitated for a moment. Part of being a couple, sharing a home, was respect for the other's boundaries. Prying where she had no business going wasn't an act of love and trust.

On the other hand, this wasn't just vulgar curiosity, like a child snooping around for her Christmas presents and ruining the surprise of the gift. Natsuki really had tried to shoo her out of the house with a lame story, and upon being caught really was stammering and refusing to explain further, not even in general terms to reassure Shizuru without giving away specifics.

She took the crumpled paper and unfolded it. It was a page from a writing tablet, about five by eight inches, and bore characters in Natsuki's distinctively bold handwriting.

"'I look into your eyes and I see rich, dark burgundy,'" she read aloud. "'It is an ancient vintage, spiced with the power of years, that intoxicates me, sweeps me away to where I can do things I could never imagine alone. They show me new roads I'd never before seen, to places unthought of and joys I had never believed were real, and I am swept—'" She stopped there, because the note broke off mid-sentence.

Shizuru looked up at Natsuki, then down at the creased paper, then back up at Natsuki again.

"You were writing a love note?"

The blush that transformed her girlfriend was a hundred times more intense than anything Shizuru drew out by teasing. It wasn't just the reddening face; the emotion consumed her entire body, from her drawn-in posture to her wriggling limbs to her truculent expression, the way she bit at her lip.

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Natsuki snapped out defensively, a reaction Shizuru would likely have expected had she not been so blown away by the discovery.

"Nothing! It's just that…you never write love notes."

"Yeah, well, I can do romantic stuff, too. Just because I'm not all that good at it—"

"But Natsuki, this is lovely."

"It's stupid and cheesy and it was supposed to be a poem, not a note, and—" She grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and yanked. "Gah! Dammit, what made me think I could do this, anyway?"

"Natsuki—"

"You want to know why I didn't want you to go into the living room? It's because I've been in there for the past two hours, and there's about half a pad's worth of those things littering the floor around the table."

"Natsuki—"

"So you go on, start in with your teasing about how I'm so lousy at romance that I get tongue-tied even when I'm trying to write something. I'm just no good at this, Shizuru! Every time I try to put how I feel into words I get all tangled up and I can't think straight—"

"Natsuki!"

This time her voice was loud and sharp enough to cut the younger girl off mid-spiel. Shizuru at once stepped forward and took Natsuki into her arms, feeling her girlfriend tremble in her embrace from the force of her emotions.

"Natsuki, it's all right," she assured her, sliding her hand down long, dark hair in gentling caresses. "You don't have to get so worked up over these things. It is not a test, you know. I'm not standing here with a grade book ready to assign a score to your romantic gestures. I'm just really happy that you want to do things like this for me, after all the years I pined for you, thinking it was hopeless we could ever be together."

Natsuki sniffled, making it plain that she'd been right on the edge of tears.

"That's fine you say that," she muttered, fisting her hands in Shizuru's jacket, "but you toss off sappy romantic gestures at the drop of a hat and you don't even get embarrassed about it!"

"I do not feel embarrassed by the fact that the girl I love is willing to accept my romantic gestures."

She wondered if that had something to do with why she carried on so often, because some part of her still couldn't quite believe that Natsuki really accepted and returned her feelings. Shizuru had never been prepared for such a world to exist as anything other than pure fantasy, especially since due to the madness of the HiME Festival her confession had come in the worst possible way.

"That's what I mean! It comes so easily for you, while for me it's like pulling teeth."

"Natsuki, no one is asking you to—" Shizuru began, but was interrupted when Natsuki pushed backwards out of her arms so she could look Shizuru in the eyes, her face just a foot away.

"I'm asking me to," she said firmly. "I'm not doing this as some kind of assignment or task; I'm doing it because you deserve to hear it. You always say it's not important, but it is. Yeah, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, but you deserve the words, too. You're my girlfriend, and you're worth the trouble it takes to properly tell you I love you, only I keep messing it up!"

Shizuru smiled. It was not an easy smile, because she was positively melting inside from the feelings that welled up at Natsuki's speech, but she managed it as she didn't think what Natsuki needed from her right then was for her to break down, overwhelmed. So she managed the smile, for Natsuki's sake.

"You didn't just then."

"I didn't what?"

"You didn't 'mess up' telling me that you loved me." She reached out and cupped Natsuki's face, lightly sliding her thumb over the skin, which was still warm and a little swollen from blushing and near-tears. "And now, I am going to go into the living room, uncrumple every ball of paper, and get to see for myself how hard Natsuki has been working to put her feelings into words for me."

"Gah! You can't mean that."

"I can and I do."

Natsuki's protests lasted well past Shizuru changing out of her shoes and followed the older girl out of the foyer. Unnoticed by the humans, Kiyohime remained behind and dug several noses into the bag Shizuru had left on the floor. She knew, after all, that the errand Shizuru actually had run before coming home from class that afternoon was to stop at Animal Hut for hydra treats, and she definitely felt that offering relationship help deserved a tangible reward.