After a long time of waiting and talking with Chie about Phoenix Quest, the nurse finally returns, bursting through the door of the office with a lot of extravagance.

“I have returned!” She said, giving a dramatic pause right after.

…

She turns to me and continues.

“You! Student whose name I still don't know!”

“Yes, Miss!” I said, quickly getting up from my chair.

“You are dismissed, you may return to your class now.”

“Thank you for keeping a watch on her.”

“Yes, Miss!”

I head for the door, but before leaving the nurse's office, I look back at Chie and say “See you later in class Chie!” While waving to her. She waves back and I go my separate way.

Right when I closed the door, the School's bell rings, echoing through the entire hallway. Students from all classes began to move around and populate the halls. It is time for me to get moving as well.

My next class is in my classroom downstairs, but I cannot seem to remember which it was… Was it english? Maybe Math? Or was i-

BONK

“Ow, ow, ow, sorry!” I was not paying attention and accidently hit heads with someone, it hurts!

Looks like a bumped into boy with black hair, with a single strain of green… Huh, his uniform is kinda weird, has a bunch of stitches in his bla-

“Tsk… Pay more attention to where you walk.” Huh!?

“Hey, you don't need to be so mean about it!”

“I was just telling you to pay attention, you don't have a bird brain do you?”

“I don't have a bird brain!” I said, glaring at this punk look alike.

“I didn't call you anything!” He said, glaring back at me. He is a bit scary, but I will not let a punk looking person disrespect me!

The tension between us continued to rise, some people began to notice our hostile energy but I did not care about them. He started this first!

However, this uneasiness was broken by him, out of all people, after he saw something behind me that caught his attention. I look behind and see nothing out of the ordinary, the only thing to note was Chie leaving the nurse office.

“Hey! It's you! The one with pink hair!” He yelled, as he began to run towards her. Those two know each other!??

Chie looks at the punk who yelled for her, and in a panic begins to run away from him! No, they do not know each other, he is chasing her!

“Hey, wait! Don't run from me!”

He's definitely trying to pick on her, I am not letting him do that!

I began to run after him, but the moment they turned to the stairs to go to the base floor, I bumped into a student… Once again.

“Hey! Careful while running in the hallways! Otherwise you might trip or hurt another student.” A blonde student wearing a blue hat, responds with a very annoyed expression. Actually, their hat has a really strange stamp… either way-

“Sorry, sorry.” Actually, looking at them now, they have a council badge in their uniform.

“At least you said sorry, most people just ignore me and continue running. Geez, we really should ban running o-” Wait, what am I doing listening to them!? Chie is currently in danger, I can not just stand here and do nothing!

“I-I-I'm really, really sorry, council member, but my friend needs me at the moment-” I said as I began to run again, cutting off their speech.

“Huh? Hey be careful…”

I will not let that punk do anything to Chie, I swear it on my life!

Due to the interruption from earlier, when I got downstairs, I was barely able to catch a glimpse of the punk turning a corner on the right. The both of them went down the corridor, with me far behind, right on their tail. Until Chie turns left and goes in the direction of the science labs and garden. At the end of the labs hallway, I see them turning to the right and going to the garden, a place that is a complete dead end! Chie is in a very bad situation!! Taking a deep breath, I prepare to run again to the end of the hallway and save Chie, but the moment I begin to do so, one of the lab doors suddenly is open!

A tall woman with short, pinkish, hair that covers her right eye, wearing a lab coat over a black shirt with a familiar stamp… Wait, that's the science teacher, Miss Yuka! And she just left her lab!? I have never seen her leave that place, why do that now of all time!!? I had to downgrade my running to a fast walk, sticking very close to the wall, hoping she would not notice me despite being very close to her in this hallway, but unsurprisingly she noticed me almost instantly. I froze up the moment she closed the door and started looking at me.

Miss Yuka had a confused look on her face, is it because she knew classes should have already started by now? Does she think I am skipping classes?? Am I going to be detained before even getting to Chie!? As these questions floated in my head, her expression changed to a very gentle, but very terrifying smile. I began to shake and sweat profusely at this sight, “It's all over, I'm done for!” I thought.

No, Wait!

There is still a chance to salvage this situation, maybe she thinks I was just passing by and going to my class! Yeah, play with this Narrative, Seiko! I just need to act friendly and continue walking by her, and as soon as she turns around, I make a run for it!

After shaking off most of my fears, I put my plan into action, walking forward while making a waving motion, and forcing a friendly smile back to her. She waves back at me, and after a prolonged, nerve-racking amount of seconds passes by, she finally stops looking at me. The brief seconds she turned and lost sight of me, I ran as fast as I possibly could to the end of the hallway and turned to the entrance of the garden. So fast that I think she did not even see me.

After many obstacles in my way, I finally arrived at the garden, and I saw both of them clearly. The punk is in front of Chie, almost towering over her, and Chie almost crumbling to the ground from fear after being cornered by him. The only thing keeping her from falling is the big tree behind her.

“HEY! Stop picking on her, you bully! Can't you see that she’s terrified!?”

“Huh!?” He turns to me and retorts back “Wh-what are YOU doing here!?”

“I'm here to protect my friend from YOU.”

“You two, please sto-”

“Protect!? What are you talking about!??”

“I can tell by your attitude, you're up to no good!”

“I'm not gonna let you mess with her!”

“Mess?!”

“This is all wro-”

“I'm not sure what you are talking about, but I'm not her to pick on her!”

“Then what are YOU doing?”

“I just wanted to tha-” He pauses for a bit, and completely changes his phrase “No! Wh-why should I tell YOU!?”

We continued the back and forth, raising the tension further.

“I won't let you do anything to her!”

“I'm NOT going to do anything with her! Why do you keep bothering me!?”

“ENOUGH!”

Her plea echoes through the garden, fading to silence as both me and the boy remain speechless…

Chie falls to the ground shortly after, her leg injury seemingly still affecting her?

“C-Chie, are you okay?”

“I-I'm fine…”

“Seiko… Please don't fight over this, I don't want anyone hurt over my inability to talk…”

Inability to talk? “Wha-What exactly is happening here Chie?”

“He… He has every reason to be angry at me…” she says as she lowers her head, is she actually guilty of something!?

“Wait, angry?” The punk said, with a confused look on his face.

“Eh?” She responds, equally confused looking at him.“Yo-You're not angry because of the button?”

Button? Now I am very lost!

“N-No, why would I be?”

“Hang on, hang on, I'm very confused now. What’s going on between you two?”

“Uh, well… I thought he was upset at me, for that pink button on his blazer.”

The pink button? Oh yeah, the odd pink button top button on his blazer… but why is Chie apologizing for this?

“I see the button, but how does this involve you in any way?”

“Ah, right, you don't know the entire story. I'll tell you everything.”

“Wait, everything!?” He interrupts Chie, a bit agitated by the idea of her revealing "everything"…?

“Ye-Yes… She's my friend, it's not a problem if she knows all of it.” Chie responds, albeit, a bit scared by his reaction.

The punk turns to me and gives me a stare that could pierce through a thousand souls, likely judging me on something in his mind.

“Fine! I guess you can know, since she trusts YOU.”

“Well, thank YOU for allowing it”

“We-well, this all started last week, during lunch break. I was searching for a place to sit, very far from the crowded places at the school. I ended up sitting down right beside the gate to the garden, since barely anyone visits during lunch break, and it has a nice calming breeze. The perfect place to eat peacefully.”

“While I was enjoying my lunch, I noticed some voices coming from the garden, so I decided to take a peek at what was going on. It was two students stomping on the poor defenseless flowers, making a huge mess.”

“I really wanted to stop them, but I couldn't find the courage to say or do anything… I could only watch…”

“But then, he ran down the corridor after seeing the two students destroying the garden from afar. He yelled at the two and scared them off the garden, the evil students didn't even notice me watching when running… Because he looked very scary.”

“Oh, you were… protecting the flowers?” I said looking at him.

“Ye-Yeah, what about it?” He responded, looking to the side a bit like he was avoiding my gaze.

Huh…

“Yes, he did protect them! After the students ran off, he took care of the flowers, tended to them and cleaned the mess they left behind even after the bell rang. But while taking care of the bush with prickly flowers, he lost his balance because of the mess still on the ground and ended up falling inside of it"

“He quickly got out, but he had a lot of tears on his blazer, and even a button was missing. He also had a few cuts that seemed like would hurt a lot. However, despite being hurt by them, he still took care of them. Seeing all of this, I managed to gather a bit of strength inside me to run to the nurse's office and alert her about his cuts.”

“So it was really you who called her.”

“Ye-Yes, it was me. But I still wanted to help you in some other way, but I couldn't find further courage to do anything directly…”

“Luckily for me, the opportunity to do just that came to me after class, when he left his torn blazer on his desk after being called by the nurse for a check-up.”

“I made the decision right then and there to take it home an-”

“Wait, wait, wait! You stole his blazer!?”

“I didn't have any other choice! But it wasn't for any bad reason!”

“Once I got home, I tried my best to stitch up all the tears on his uniform, but I ended up hurting my hands in the process… I'm not very skilled at sewing like my mother…” Ooooh, that's why she had the bandages on her hands…

“I ended up asking my mother for help, and she pretty much did everything while I watched. The only issue is that we didn't really have any black buttons to replace the lost one, only pink ones. I didn't want to keep his blazer for more than a day as well, so we did what we could…”

“I see…”

“Wait, your mom didn't question why you brought home a boy's uniform?”

“Well… She did. I said to her that I was doing this to help someone. After that, she didn't question anything, and had a smile all the way through. I think she was happy that I was doing a noble deed for a friend…” She said, while her face was getting a little red.

“After that, you went to my classroom on the first floor, and left the blazer at the same place you found it. Without anyone noticing you and before classes started.”

“Ye-Yes… That's what happened…”

A bit of an awkward silence lingers in air after that reply, until Chie breaks it.

“I-I'm sorry for taking your uniform without asking, and I apologize for the pink button!” She says, lowering her head all the way to the ground as a sign of apology.

“Huh!?” The boy, taken a bit off guard, responds “I-I wasn’t mad about this. I actually wanted to thank you for fixing my uniform.”

“If someone had to apologize, it should be me for scaring you. I have a few problems expressing things to people…”

Chie raises her head from the ground and the two seemingly solve this issue on their own, after Chie managed to say her piece.

“Huh… I never thought you would be this type of person.” I said while looking at the boy.

“…”

Almost everything is solved. There is still one thing I must do before all this is solved!

“I also apologize for barging into all this and escalating everything. For the fight earlier too, I had the wrong impression of the situation.”

“I'm sorry… uh…”

“Actually, what is your name?”

“… It's… Hiroshi, my name is Hiroshi.”

Hiroshi, huh…

Extending my hand to him, I say “So, Hiroshi, I'm sorry for the problems I caused. This bird brain doesn't want any bad blood between the both of us, so how about we put our fight behind us!”

Hiroshi, after a bit of hesitation, shook my hand and agreed to leave this all behind us.

In this silence while shaking hands, we both heard a… sniffle?

We both looked at Chie and said that she was getting a little teary…

“Ar-Are you okay?”

“Ah! Is everything okay Chie!? Do you need me to call the nurse!??”

“I-I-I'm alright, it's just that I finally managed to talk to someone again…”

She did manage to find the strength to apologize to him…

“Huh!?”

“It's a long story, I'm sure she will tell you as well, now that she is your friend.”

“Frien-Friends!?”

“Oh come on, don't give me that now. We are all friends here aren't we!”

“…” Hiroshi does not respond, but I have a feeling that he is not against it either.

Us both helped Chie get up from the ground she has been this entire time-

DING DONG

“Oh, is that the school bell? Wait! We have been skipping class this whole time!?”

“Not much we can do about that now.”

“Maybe, we could just head back to the classroom and act like we didn't skip the previous one.”

“Would that work? I feel like someone would notice.”

“It's fine, you and I were still helping Chie at the nurse's office.”

“I… Don't know about any of that.”

“It will be fine, don't worry about it!”

Dashing to the garden's entrance, I call for my friends.

“Come on guys, we may be able to blend it with the people leaving and entering class!”

“Ye-yeah!”

“Alright.”

“Let's go go!”

Hehe, I made not only one, but two friends today, and they are fun and good people too!

I thought today was going to be the same as the previous days, but it looks like things have changed completely. Even looking at the sky right now in the garden, despite the tree blocking my view a bit, I can see that the once dark skies became a beautiful bright blue. The sun managed to win at the end despite all of the obstacles…

Everything is going to be alright after all!

~~ ❀ ~~