Story-relevant A/N: This is the first of a double post
ᓚᘏᗢ
Koneko
(Old School Building)
Shortly after leaving Uzumaki-kun, we were walking through the quiet halls towards the room we officially use for the Occult Research Club– or ORC for short. I could tell from the way Akeno kept turning her head to look at me, giggle quietly, and then turn away, that she found something incredibly amusing at my expense. I tried to ignore it at first, but by the time we reached the door, I had just about had enough of her.
I stopped in front of the wooden doors and turned to her. "What is it?" I asked, deadpan. I didn't even care that she probably just wanted to get a reaction out of me at this point.
"Oh, it's nothing really," she waved it off with an indulgent smile. "I just couldn't help but notice you haven't hidden your ears away yet. You seem to be getting more comfortable with having them out recently, thanks to Uzumaki-kun." There was a mischievous twinkle in her amethyst eyes.
I blinked, ears twitching reflexively as they were brought to my attention.
"Mm." I grunted in reluctant agreement.
If I ignored the blatantly teasing implication in her tone of voice at the end, I could admit she made a valid observation. It had become a habit to reveal them when training to keep my progress as rapid as possible, and I guess I'd gotten used to having them out when in the company of friends who I trusted with my sort-of secret.
Regardless, I prepared to go through the process of hiding them again, in the off chance that one of Sona's peerage members came over later.
Just before I went through with the transformation though, I hesitated. Did I really care if they found out I was a Youkai?
I remembered the times we'd all hung out for movie nights or brunches over the years, and the fresh faces every time someone new joined Sona's peerage. But most of all, I considered how at ease I felt now, having my real features exposed with my friends, after years of keeping them hidden even in private.
'... I don't want to hide from myself anymore.'
After sending Akeno one last warning stare, I reached out and opened the door, ears slightly flattened atop my head from nerves as I entered with her following shortly behind me. I spotted Rias behind her desk, looking down at a sheet of paper with a pair of glasses sitting on her nose.
She glanced up at us over the rims for a split second before going back to her paperwork. "Welcome back Akeno, Koneko-chan, you're just in time to-" She did a double take, mouth opening in surprise as she looked at my ears, "-Oh!"
A wide smile stretched across her face.
My ears flattened further against my will as she got up and walked around her desk to approach me. I mentally prepared myself for the affectionate doting of my master that was in my very near future.
As the smothering hugs and rubbing of ears commenced to the sounds of Rias's squeals of delight and Akeno's chuckles, I couldn't help but feel like maybe I'd made the right call. I still wasn't 100% certain yet, but it was close.
No, that wasn't just because my master's fingers scratched at just the right spot, where the very base of my ears met my scalp.
Rias rubbed and patted my head for a few minutes, before she sighed.
"What's the matter, Rias?" The dark haired [Queen] questioned teasingly, as she moved to the side of the room where her tea-making station resided. "Not as satisfying as you'd hoped?"
I subtly pressed my head harder into the redhead's hand when her scritching slowed momentarily. She caught the hint and picked up the pace again.
"No, no, it's not that. I'm definitely satisfied." She squeezed me further into her chest as she said this. "It's rare enough already that I get to see her Youkai features outside of hot springs visits. I guess I was just hoping I could get her to purr."
I fought through the pampering-induced bliss to pull my head back and deadpan up at her with a warm flush in my cheeks.
"… I'm right here you know," I said as flatly as I could. "I'm not a cat." My voice wobbled a little with the sensation of her continued petting. "I can't purr. Don't have the anatomy for it."
Rias frowned down at me.
"But it would have been adorable!" She whined at the biological reality getting in the way of her hopes and dreams. She paused with a blink, a thoughtful look appearing in her blue-green eyes. "... Could you shapeshift for it?"
I deadpanned even harder this time.
"This is why Shiro doesn't let you hold her."
She pouted at the reminder of my actual cat avoiding her snuggles. You'd think she might have learned by now that most beings actually have a sense of personal boundaries, but as expected from a member of a family of nudists, her idea of them was as skewed as ever. Asking me to alter my body, just so that she can indulge in her otaku cat-girl fantasy? I refuse to take part in allowing her degeneracy to grow.
"Oh well," she sighed once more as she released me, before brightening up with a small smile. "At least I still got to see my already-cute little servant looking even cuter than usual!"
I barely kept my form from twitching or stiffening when her wording made me remember that moment from earlier, but I was unable to stop the light blush I already had from deepening.
"You look cuter than usual when your ears are out, you know."
Luckily for my dignity, neither of them noticed my increased embarrassment. And even if they did, there was no reason for either of them to assume there was an outside factor to it. Rias's behavior more than met the criteria.
I made my way over to my usual spot on the couch while she stepped back around her desk
"I believe we have Uzumaki-kun to thank for that," Akeno commented with her back turned to the room as she tended to the tea. I could practically hear the mischievous smile in her voice as I sat down. "It seems that our kouhai is quite taken with the boy, showing him her true form so openly while they train."
I mentally sighed.
"WHAT?!" Rias, who had just sat down in her chair, slammed her hands on her desk and stood up, a shocked expression on her face. "Why him and not me?!"
'Dammit, Akeno.' I closed my eyes and counted backwards from ten, futilely hoping that when I opened them, we could drop the subject and just get on with my next lesson.
My eyes opened.
Rias was staring at me with an exaggerated look of betrayal, and I knew that things wouldn't be so easy.
I blame Naruto-sensei. Somehow, someway, I just knew that this had to be his fault.
~,,––,,^^-
Naruto
When the final class of the week ended the next day, it saw me, Mitsuri, and a shy looking girl being chosen to do the end-of-day cleanup of the classroom.
A little more than half of our classmates had already left the room, though there were still a few groups of teens who had time before their clubs started, just hanging around and chatting. With Mitsuri sweeping the floor, the other girl cleaning the whiteboard, chalkboard, and erasers, that left me to straighten and clean the desks themselves.
And then there was Koneko.
"Hurry up. I want to get there before it gets too crowded."
A pair of girls talking quietly to themselves glanced our way, before turning away and gossiping just a tiny bit louder.
Koneko, who decided to stick around and mess with me out of boredom. Sitting perched on top of my desk, knees pressed together and feet lightly kicking back and forth, she had decided that she could get the most amusement at my expense by annoying and distracting me in front of our classmates, while maintaining her innocent looking blank expression.
"Ahh, shaddap already ya midget." I grumbled as I wiped down her own desk, ignoring the increased whispers and Koneko's protest at being called the M-word. I had started with my desk and worked my way towards one side of the room, before moving to the other side and working my way back. Probably not the most efficient way to do it, but I wasn't thinking about that at the time. "I'm almost done. I just have the last two after yours, and then we can head out."
"You two going on a date or something?" Mitsuri asked as she walked over, having finished sweeping and storing the broom in the closet. The other girl was following closely behind her, seemingly trying to hide behind the tall tomboy. "Normally you two go off into the forest alone together after classes, right?"
The girl behind her (and more than a few others listening in) quietly gasped at that.
I groaned and my head fell, before I squinted over and up at the redhead with a frown. "Don't you go starting with this stuff too, Mitsuri. You already know we're not like that." I saw the lazy smirk appear on her face when I took the obvious bait.
Unfortunately, I'd been made aware earlier in the day that there were some seriously weird rumors spreading about me, some even involving my two friends. It was a serious shock to learn– overhearing it from people who I'd never met before, even!– that I was somehow both a playboy who blackmailed the two girls into dating me, and that they were actually love rivals fighting for my attention. Then there were the gang and Yakuza affiliations, the undercover mission I was on for a governmental secret society, and being the son of some rich American CEO.
Needless to say, this was all news to me, and my friends took great enjoyment teasing me after I nearly blew my lid during our lunch period hangout, neither of them particularly caring about the rumors. The nonsense that was being said was just too much for me though, and I vowed to find whoever was spreading them and give them a stern 'talk.'
Nobody lies about Uzumaki Naruto and gets away with it!
'Even if it would have been kinda cool for some of that to be true…' Being a secret government agent would have been badass!
I shook my head, bringing myself back to the present.
"Also, quit phrasing things like that!" I complained. "You already know I've been teaching Koneko-chan self defense!" I moved on to wiping down the second to last desk as I continued. "Anyway, she's picking it up quick enough that I decided it's fine to skip training for a day, so we're gonna go hang out at the arcade and play some games." I paused, getting an idea. I set down the damp rag and turned back to face the three girls. "Speaking of, do you and your friend there want to come with us?"
I took a moment to observe the other girl while Mitsuri thought about it
With straight, black, neck-length hair, black eyes, and a modest figure, she looked almost like a young version of Shizune. Except she was way shorter. Not as short as Koneko, but shorter than me.
In other words, she looked like a stereotypical "plain" Japanese girl, if you excluded the fact that I haven't seen a single girl in this school that could actually be described as plain compared to the average person on the street.
"A-ah, no thank y-"
"Yeah, sure."
The two girls looked at each other.
"Eh?" The girl blinked up at Mitsuri, shy expression completely gone in favor of a confused one. "But what about the club that you wanted me to join with you?"
Mitsuri stiffened.
"Oh, uh- yeah, well, uh…" the tomboy stammered, eyes looking anywhere other than at one of us. "... can we put that off until Monday?" She finished weakly.
Koneko and I shared a glance at the uncharacteristic behavior. I grinned widely, but it was Koneko who jumped on the weakness first like the cat she was.
"Mitsuri-san asked you to join a club with her?" She asked with a tilt of her head. "I didn't expect someone with your build to be into sports, Amatsu-san." Mitsuri seemed to cringe a little at something Koneko said, and my grin widened further.
'Sweet, sweet payback!' I cheered internally.
"Ah, no, please call me Norika, Koneko-chan!" Amatsu Norika cheerfully urged the smaller girl. I did my best to commit the name to memory. She continued, back to a more subdued tone that I figure was more normal for her. "It isn't a sports club, by the way. I'm actually not very good at sports at all, you see…" She said in a self deprecating manner, shifting back and forth on her feet. She coughed into her hand after a moment of awkward silence. "Ahem, anyways, the club she asked me to join with her is the T–fmm mfmfmpmpfffm. Mmphg?" Norika made a confused noise when Mitsuri's hand covered her mouth and muffled what she was trying to say.
"... Geez, I wonder what club it is, to get the ever-unruffled delinquent Mitsuri so embarrassed?" I thought out loud just to needle her further.
"Who are you calling a delinquent?!" She shot back at me with a venomous glare, a blush as red as her hair on her cheeks.
I pointedly stared at the male uniform she wore, the jacket left unbuttoned like my own.
Koneko turned to me with only the look in her eyes giving away her amusement.
"I understood what Norika-san said." Mitsuri's eyes widened in panic when the half-devil said that. "They're joining the–"
Before she could finish spilling the secret, the class door opened suddenly and loudly, and in walked two serious-looking upperclassmen chicks. Both had straight black hair and glasses, but that's basically where the similarities ended. The first to enter the room was of average height with a more petite body type, eyes with the same purple color as Akeno's, and her hair was cut to chin length with a fringe covering her forehead.
The second girl, just a step behind the first, was taller and more voluptuous by contrast, with hair so long it reached down to her knees. Her bangs parted in the front to show her forehead, and a pair of locks trailed down either side of her front, framing her, uh, generous chest. The most interesting thing about her appearance though, was the cool combination of one of her eyes also being purple, while the other was a light brown.
Seriously though, since when was purple a common eye color?
I heard a couple of people whisper "Kaichou" under their breaths, while others seemed to be in the same boat as me, not recognizing either of them.
"Is Uzumaki Naruto still present, or has he already left for the day?" The first girl asked the remainder of the class in an authoritative tone, and everyone quieted down.
'Uh-oh,' I thought, instinctively knowing I probably didn't want to stick around for long. 'Time to pull an escape.'
I nonchalantly turned my back on my friends and made my way through the aisle, towards the side of the room where the windows were.
Unfortunately, it's just a bit more difficult to go unnoticed when everyone in the room is suddenly staring at you, at the exact moment you need to get gone.
'Traitors!'
"You, the blond boy by the window."
'Crap.' I looked over my shoulder at the two, pointing a finger at myself with a fake expression of confusion, as if to say "Who, me?"
"Am I correct to assume you are Uzumaki Naruto?" The smaller one asked while gazing intently at me, seeming to be the one in charge.
"... Who's asking?" I asked instead of responding. If I could gather information while buying time, I may not need to resort to drastic measures.
"I am Souna Shitori, president of the Student Council, and this is my vice-president, in charge of disciplinary action–"
"That ain't me." I denied instantly, cutting her off the moment I heard "disciplinary action" mentioned, the altercation in the hallway yesterday coming to mind. "I'm the American transfer student, Jonasan Sumisu," I lied.
The unimpressed and irritated look she sent me probably meant she wasn't buying it.
"... Tsubaki, if you would." She addressed the girl at her side.
"Hai." The girl with insanely long hair– Tsubaki– stepped forward with a nod. She held up a clipboard, and without looking at it, choosing instead to meet my stare with her mismatched eyes, began listing its contents from memory.
"Uzumaki Naruto, class 1-B. Aged 15, Blond hair, blue eyes, and with the notable presence of facial tattoos resembling whiskers–"
"Not tattoos…" I muttered, crossing my arms with a pout, but it seemed like only Koneko heard me with the way she tilted her head at me.
"–Despite not having received a formal education and barely missing the requirements in most subjects, your placement scores in the Natural Sciences vastly exceeded what is expected of students years ahead of you, earning you your spot in the academy through specialized excellence." She lowered the clipboard, not even pretending to read from it anymore. "While your teachers have expressed praise for your diligence in the classroom, there have been multiple noted concerns over your casual disregard for proper decorum from both staff and students."
"..." I stared at her blankly. "... Okay. In normal-people words this time, please."
"The Student Council requests your presence so that we get your account of things, and hopefully address-"
"I didn't do it," I stated instantly, peering out the window distractedly.
"-these concerns by helping– what?" She cut herself off, confusion entering her tone.
"Whatever I'm being accused of, I didn't do it," I reiterated, turning back to her. "Those two perverts are lying- hey, who's that behind you two?"
"Huh– what are you-?" The two council members turned to look reflexively.
Luckily, I already gave the cane back to the old man yesterday, so its presence wouldn't complicate what I was doing.
During the confusion, I opened the second-story window and dove headfirst, falling to the front courtyard within seconds, already having made sure the area was clear of people and safe to land.
Hitting the ground in a roll, I kipped back up to my feet and casually strolled back into the building to swap out my school shoes for my sneakers. Two minutes later and I was making a clean escape, sprinting through the gates and off the property.
As I was leaving, I caught sight of a pair of teens standing by the other side of the property wall. One of them was yet another girl with black hair and purple eyes, talking to a strangely familiar-looking brown-haired boy whose back was turned to me. At a glance, it looked like only the boy was wearing the Kuoh uniform. As I turned my head to get a better look at the boy while running past them, I noticed almost as if in slow motion, how the girl's eyes shifted and locked on to mine, perfectly tracking my gaze as I sped by.
Then the moment passed and they were behind me.
I put the odd interaction out of my head and pulled out my phone as I ran, texting Koneko to ask where and when we should meet up later as I slowed to a jog.
Should I have stuck around and heard out what the Student Council wanted from me? Probably. Did I really want to at the end of the one day that Koneko and I had plans off-campus? Absolutely not. It also didn't help that I totally messed up the interaction with my first avoidance instinct, and accidentally turned a possibly benign conversation confrontational. After I caused them to call out my details in front of everyone, there was no other option I could think of than to double down and dig my own grave.
Oh well, that was for future-me to worry about.
'I wonder if Mitsuri and Nika– Kira–... Amatsu will show up?'
They did not, in fact, show up.
Koneko had informed me through text shortly after my escape, that Mitsuri and her friend ended up going to sign up for their club after all, and couldn't make it today. Which one did she want to join, you might ask?
The Tea Ceremony Club
Mitsuri– the sportiest girl in the class, who spoke even more bluntly than me and wore the boys uniform– wanted to join the Tea Ceremony Club.
Apparently, after I'd left and things calmed down, the other girl– Norika– had explained what was up to Koneko. It turned out that one of Mitsuri's goals for high school was to join a club that would help her become more feminine, but she was too embarrassed to go by herself, and so asked her new friend to join up with her. They'd met on the first day of classes, and hit it off for similar reasons. Norika, who's high school goal was getting over her shyness, went up to the most "intimidating" girl in the class and introduced herself. Whenever Mitsuri wasn't hanging around with Koneko and I, she was with the other girl.
When I got done laughing to myself at the mental image of her drinking tea with a bunch of Ojou-sama's, I considered the idea a little bit more seriously. Joining a club, not necessarily because you're interested in the actual activity, but because you want to better yourself in an area? I could dig it.
'Good for her,' I thought with a smile. It was always great to see people actually putting in effort to overcoming their personal obstacles.
That didn't mean I wasn't going to mercilessly tease her about it later, though. Ammunition is ammunition.
That did give me some ideas for joining a club myself though…
As I walked down the street in the busier section of town a few blocks away from the arcade, occasionally having to weave in and out of crowds, I found myself standing in front of a bakery that doubled as a café. With two large windows that reached from knee-level up to the ceiling, and bright posters advertising their treats and drinks, it gave off an inviting and casual atmosphere even while standing outside
After double checking my texts to make sure the sign matched the name I was given for our meeting place, I pushed open the door with a little chime and entered, looking around the shop curiously. I was bit early, considering the fact that I had nothing better to do to pass the time until we were supposed to meet up for a quick snack, but I felt like indulging in sugary baked goods for a little while before Koneko got h–
I froze mid step when my eyes reached the front counter.
White hair shifted as the girl turned away from the cashier with a tray piled with sweets balanced on one hand, the other one halfway to her mouth with a cookie in hand. Her golden eyes met mine and froze as well.
She was wearing a salmon-pink sweater with a simple black cat face design on the front, and a wide neck-opening that showed off her collarbones, paired with a simple black-trimmed white skirt and white over-calf socks. A small, black pouch-belt thing peeked out from under her sweater on her side, probably to make up for the lack of pockets.
"Ah," Koneko said after a moment of awkward silence. "Uzumaki-kun. I didn't expect you here this early," She tried.
I deadpanned at her.
"I can see that," I said drily, pointedly looking at the mountain of pastries, cupcakes, and more traditional Japanese desserts stacked on her platter. I wasn't the only one staring either, multiple customers taking glances at the small girl's bounty, with a middle-aged dude grumbling something about 'brat's making a scene' or something. 'Seriously, how much of a glutton is she?' Really though, I couldn't exactly go pointing fingers this time, all things considered. "Something tells me we both had the same idea, arriving early," I admitted.
I quickly paid for a small plate of the first thing I saw (chocolate chip cookies), and shifted my head to gesture at an open table after grabbing my order from the dude manning the register, to which she nodded. Ignoring the stares as we walked over and settled into the booth for a little bit of privacy, I had to ask. "More importantly, how the hell did you beat me here? I left school first, and came straight here the moment you gave me the address."
She shrugged. "Magic," she said simply, holding two skewers with pink, white, and green dango. "Here." She held one out to me over the table, then slid one of the dango off of her other skewer with her teeth and began chewing.
"Oh, thanks," I said with a smile, accepting her offering. I blinked. "Wait, how does 'magic'–" explain anything, is what I was about to say, before I remembered one crucial difference between Devil magic and chakra; Teleportation was apparently piss-easy with magic circles compared to using Fuinjutsu. "Nevermind." I conceded the point.
We sat snacking on the sweet, chewy, rice-based treats for a minute or two.
"You left your bag in the classroom, by the way," Koneko reminded me after a brief period of quiet. "The Student Council took custody of it for you to pick up before classes next week."
I face-palmed with a groan. "So it was all for nothing, huh? I'm gonna have to hear out what they want to say to me no matter what?"
Koneko nodded, and that was that.
After I finished my dango moments later, I reached down to my plate for a cookie only for my fingertips to touch a smooth surface. Glancing down in confusion, I was met with the sight of an empty plate, only crumbs remaining. Glancing back up, I saw Koneko's head turned suspiciously away from my gaze.
The tiny thief across from me pointedly refused to meet my deadpan glare head on, instead choosing to metaphorically ask for forgiveness by pushing her tray to the center of the table between us, well within my reach.
I accepted the peace offering, but not without some grumbling as I picked up and bit into a chocolate filled bread-thing. I didn't have a particular preference for the cookies over everything else that was available, and she was offering much more than what she took, but it was the principle of the matter!
I quickly changed my mind when we finished the snacks in front of us, and she proceeded to walk up to the counter and buy another mountain of goodies for us to snack on. I knew my stomach would regret this later, but for now, I just enjoyed stuffing my face and talking about what games to play first. An hour later, and we were out the door and well on our way to the arcade.
"C'mon, c'mon, shoot faster! Crap, crap, crap, dammit– SHIT!" I struggled to keep up with the zombie horde that approached me, my weapon just not doing enough damage to kill them faster than they approached. In the corner of my vision, I spotted a golden machine gun that glowed with an inviting holy light. Hope filled me at the sight, and I turned to collect the heaven-sent gift–
But it was not to be, as the evil Devil standing next to me shot the weapon upgrade pickup first.
My character was overrun by zombies within seconds, that split second of diverting my fire having cost me dearly, the horde closing enough distance that nothing I could do could have saved me.
"DAMMIT!" I set the controller in its rack and gripped my hair as I raged impotently, not yet far-gone enough to reflexively damage the arcade's property in my anger. Koneko stood next to me, cool as a cucumber while slaughtering the horde that killed her partner with the upgrade she stole from me, the "YOU ARE DEAD" text on screen mocking my valiant efforts.
"Congratulations," she said approvingly, barely paying attention while she finished off the remaining enemies. "You beat your best score and your 'no-death' stage record. You're a tenth of the way to my level after only two sessions, impressive."
I growled at her amid the sounds of the various machines around us.
We were approaching the end of stage nineteen, and my current score was approaching sixty-thousand points. The game advertised itself to have 40 different levels, broken into 5-stage increments each, meaning that Koneko was a player that was capable of reaching the end-game stages, if not beating them– something that was very rare, based on this machine's leaderboard only having twenty people who've even reached level 30 at all, with all of them having scores in the double-and-triple digit millions.
Despite the seemingly genuine praise, both her tiny little smirk and my admittedly-basic understanding of the game told the truth; with each stage's slight increase in difficulty and each level's slightly-bigger jump in difficulty, the more you had to improve as you progressed just to stay alive. Koneko may "only" be around ten times my "level" going by her high score of actual levels beaten, but the truth was that she was much more than ten times my ability because of how the difficulty scaled up the further you got. This was blatantly clear based on her high score beating mine by almost ten thousand times, being over 500 million, and in second place on the leaderboard.
She was just taunting me with a genuine, but also backhanded, compliment.
"I only died because you stole that powerup!" I complained– I mean, accused– loudly. "You sabotaged me!"
Golden eyes rolled, not even pretending to focus on the screen anymore.
"I left it on screen for you for over three seconds." Koneko denied with a shake of her head. "Not grabbing it by then is on you." Urk! I clutched at my heart in vain.
Damn her logic! My stomach started to hurt from that shot to the gut.
… Or maybe that was the multiple pounds of junk food in my belly?
"The level's almost over," She noted. "Are you going to buy back in, or are we moving on to the next– hold on." She cut herself off, reaching into her pouch with her free hand to pull out her phone, which was audibly buzzing now that it was free. While one hand murdered waves of the undead, the other answered the phone with a monotone "Buchou" said in greeting.
She listened for a couple seconds. "I'm at the arcade with Uzumaki-kun, remember?" I saw the game announce she'd reached the 5th level with a screen transition.
"Mm," Koneko vocalized after another moment of listening to the other end, "We're really still here. Why? Do you need me?" She asked with a tilt of her head, probably out of habit, despite Rias not being here to see it. Her eyes widened the tiniest bit, and she pulled her phone away from her ear to look down at the screen, before bringing it back up. "Okay. See you then."
She pulled it away for the last time and tapped the end call button, turning to me.
"What's up?" I asked with a single raised eyebrow.
"We lost track of time," she informed me. "It's already 10:30."
My other eyebrow joined the first, and I pulled out my own phone, confirming the time with a whistle.
"Jeez, how the hell did that happen?" We'd apparently been here for over five hours now. I took a moment to look around us for the first time in a while and realized that yeah, there were very few people left, considering the place closed at 11 on weekends. There were only three other people within my view; a pair of teens playing a racing game, and a bored looking middle aged dude button mashing on a fighting game. We were some of the last ones here.
"Whelp," I shrugged, "It's probably about time for us to head out then, yeah?"
Koneko nodded once.
"Rias-buchou wanted me to see her at our club room, so I'm going to put up a perception filter and teleport straight there, instead of walking with you," she told me. Her head tilted slightly. "I'll text you tomorrow?" She asked.
"Works for me." I nodded, giving her a thumbs up as she made sure it was safe, and a magic circle appeared under her feet, the telltale glow washed out by the arcade's colorful flashing lights. "See ya later Koneko-chan."
She gave me one last nod just before she disappeared with a flash.
Since I hadn't stopped someone to change before meeting up with Koneko, I've been in my school uniform the entire time, and ended up using the sleeves of my jacket to tie it around my waist in order to cool off during our gaming while keeping it on my person. Shortly after leaving the building the arcade was in, I decided to stop at one of the many 24/7 mini marts that were common in the town and get some groceries, considering it was Friday and I usually did my shopping on Fridays. I considered putting my jacket on like normal since it was still a tiny bit chilly, but figured leaving it like this would work out for the better at the moment.
I couldn't get everything I needed for the week, but there were a couple other things I realized that I needed for tonight in particular that were easy enough to get. One of them was technically illegal for me to buy, but there were ways around that little issue. Normally I wouldn't be so quick to steal without reason, but exceptions existed, and today was one of them.
After (mostly) paying for my goods, I thanked the cashier and wished them a nice evening, with a casual wave over my shoulder as the door chimed shut behind me, bags hung from my elbow. Walking down the sidewalk past all the storefronts, I slipped my hand underneath the folds of my jacket and slid a single cigarette out of the stolen pack hidden there, placing it between my lips. Reaching into one of the bags, I pulled out the lighter I bought, bringing it up with my other hand cupped over it to light the disgusting tobacco stick, just like I'd seen Shikamaru do in the past.
I approached the corner of the block while lighting the cancer stick and hooked a left, staying on the sidewalk. My eyes glanced to my left for a mid-turn, looking down the sidewalk that I'd just come from. For a split second, I glimpsed the form of a tall, but otherwise average looking man in a hat and coat at the very end of the block, walking casually and without hurry in his posture.
Then the corner of the building replaced him in my vision as I kept walking without pause.
'How irritating.' I crinkled my nose in distaste. Even without actually inhaling the acrid smoke, my nostrils burned. I would be glad when I can toss the rest of these things in the trash later tonight, but until that point…
'Man…'
… What a drag.
~,,––,,^^-
A/N: gg go next