Second Day

Hiroto was really second-guessing his choice of falsehood to his parents.

While yes, the chess club sounds like something he might be interested in. It was quite tricky to find a good excuse for why the boy came back without his jacket and with bruises all over his body.

To keep his lie consistent, he explained that while walking home from school after a heated chess game, the boy slipped and fell into a bush, and when he tried to get out, his uniform got caught on a branch and was ripped as he got up.

As to why he didn’t have his damaged jacket with him? Well, a club mate offered to fix it for him.

It was like, 25% the truth, so that made it fine, right?

Hiroto still felt horrible about lying to his parents, but it was necessary.

The rest of his night went on like usual, except for the many messages that he exchanged with his club mates. From Kayoko asking for specifics on his uniform customization to Umiko blowing his inbox with many, many links to different videos, articles, and magazine scans about dueling.

Turns out she is even more of a nerd for the sport than he initially thought, to the point where it was ever-so-slightly overwhelming. Her knowledge seemed never ending, and she was very enthusiastic about sharing it with Hiroto.

Eventually their chat shifted from being about dueling and the club to more personal affairs. The boy learned that Umiko lived in the school dorms and that her favorite dish was Yaki-Gyoza.

Overall, when she wasn’t being a nutcase about people punching each other, the bluenette actually seemed like an average girl, which may sound strange for him to believe that she wasn’t but-

-Their first interaction was anything but normal. Which girl would barge in the male bathroom just ask for someone to join their club?

It was… surprisingly fun to waste a couple of hours of his night just talking with someone else that wasn’t his sister.

Hiroto didn’t have any close friends that he could do that with. At best, he had some classmates that he talked to more than others, but even then, they were just acquaintances, not friends.

Although the brunet wouldn’t exactly call Umiko a friend, they did after all, only known each other for around two days, and it’s not like they would be around each other for long anyway.

Still, it felt nice to have someone to just waste away, while doing nothing.

But even those nice thoughts had to eventually sway away to the back of his mind, and give place to the doubts he constantly had in both his head and his heart.

“…” Looking at the ceiling, the brunet sighed. “I almost-“ He lifted his hand and pointed it towards the lamp’s light, casting a shadow over his own face. “...” Hiroto closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of his chest going up and down.

He remembered the moment when he grabbed Kayoko and slammed her against the ground, how his mind was at top gear and his adrenaline had shot right up to the max.

It felt exhilarating.

Blood pumping, sweat dripping, adrenaline rushing. It felt so good at the moment but-

It also brought back some unpleasant memories.

Bringing his hand down towards his chest, the brunet feels his own heartbeat. “It’s okay, nothing bad happened.” He takes a deep breath. “Nothing bad will happen.”

With those doubts in mind, it’s safe to say he had trouble sleeping that night.

***

Next morning came soon enough and to everyone’s surprise, the early hours are filled by a thick layer of fog, which isn’t that common at this time of the year in this region.

News yesterday didn’t mention anything like this, but weather is known for being really unpredictable. Still, the walk from home to school felt different today, there was certain queerness in the air that made the day feel… peculiar.

Even something as simple as a person going for a morning run was somewhat creepy. With their figure coming into vision from out of nowhere and then disappearing in the fog itself, almost like a ghost.

Hiroto shuddered at the thought of a specter, but if you asked him at the moment, he would tell you it was because of the cold.

Once at school, the brunet let out a sigh of relief. While still foggy inside, at least he knew it was full of people at this time of day and-

“Uh-“ The boy looks around and to his surprise, there’s almost no one in the hallways. “-t-that’s… strange.” Taking a deep breath, he starts walking towards his classroom.

While turning a corner, Hiroto ends up colliding with someone, making him step back in pain. “Ouch!” Shaking his head, the brunet opens his eyes and apologizes. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t-“ Once his eyes land on the person he bumped into, the boy instantly felt that something was very familiar, yet so uniquely strange about that individual.

Said person being a strange tall man with long sandy-blond hair, octagon-shaped irises and… bunny ears?

“Watch where you’re going next time, Kanzaki.” The man says with a sigh, then walks past the boy.

It took a couple seconds for Hiroto to register what the man said. “Huh? How do you know my na-“ He turns around to call for the man, but it’s only met with a foggy hallway. “…” The brunet felt a shudder run down his spine. “I-It couldn’t be a-a g-g-ghost… right?”

No, that was silly.

…

But-

“Oi Kanzaki-kun!” The voice of a classmate of his breaks the boy’s trance. “Classes are about to start!”

“Coming!” He shouts back after shaking his head. “I must be going crazy.”

What a peculiar start to his day.

***

After classes are over for the day, Hiroto makes his way to the dueling club where Umiko and Kayoko are already waiting for him.

“Hello.” He greets while bending down to take off his shoes.

“Yo!” The bluenette replies from her seat at the tiny tea table.

“Bonjour!” Kayoko doesn’t even wait for him to finish taking his footwear off. “Let’s not waste any time! I really want to see how you look with your new uniform!” She grabs his hand and pulls him inside the room.

The boy watches as she runs to one of the lockers in the room, that specific locker now had a piece of paper with her name sticking to its metal door. She opens it before grabbing onto the items she has been pestering him since yesterday.

Shoving his new uniform into the boy’s hands, she urges him to go change in the room with the cleaning supplies, which was the only other room in their club.

“S-Sure.” Hiroto holds onto his new outfit and walks to the closet.

As it turns out, Kayoko didn’t just fix his old uniform with a couple of customizations to make it different from others.

Instead, the fashionista just made a whole new uniform from the ground up. The brunet tried to stop her, but apparently Kayoko is just as stubborn as Umiko when she puts an idea in her head.

She still fixed his old uniform by his insistence, but Hiroto doubted she would let him wear it for as long as he was in the dueling club.

Once he was done changing, the brunet walked back into the room where his two club mates were eagerly waiting for him.

“S-So-“ He tries his best to strike a ‘cool’ pose. “-how do I look?”

His new uniform was barely a school one at this point, now it consisted of a dark-blue, almost black, sleeveless hoodie that contrasted well with his gray undershirt. On the left side of his hoodie, there was the golden emblem for Yumehara, that being of a Kirin’s head. For the pants, they are similar to his older one but with golden embroidery depicting a kirin running up his legs.

“Looking swell!” Umiko winks, making the boy blush. “Maybe I should get Izumi to make a custom uniform for me too.”

“You don’t even need to ask, I was already working on it.” The silver-haired teen replies with a smirk. “Now that I’m in the dueling club, no one is going to be stuck using those boring, plain uniforms!”

“Uh, I do like the old one tho-“ Hiroto comments but stops himself before finishing as the fashionista stares him down with a deadly glare. “-b-but the unique design is certainly better!” She smiles sweetly, making the brunet sigh in relief. “Ahem! Anyways!” The brunet bows politely. “Thank You Izumi-san.”

“No need to thank me dear, you were in severe need of a fashion makeover!” She says nonchalantly. “Now you’re looking good!”

“Ouch.” Once again, Kayoko doesn’t seem to understand how mean her words actually sound. “T-Thanks… I guess.”

The blue-haired girl just watches the whole interaction with a smirk on her lips. It is great having people around in the club.

Sure beats being alone all the time.

But while she truly enjoyed the friendly atmosphere, they had more urgent matters at hand.

“Ahem!” Umiko loudly clears her throat. “While Izumi is great and all, we still need to our third member to fully get the club on its tracks!” Standing up from her seat, the bluenette walks towards the blackboard. “Once our next club-mate is in, we can start to prepare for the battle with Kurohane.” The shorter teen uses the white-chalk she has in her hands to dramatically draw something on the board. “And this mystery person is-“ Moving to the side, she reveals some poorly drawn words in a dramatic fashion.

*Stare*

*Stare*

The other members of the club were left speechless, not because it ended up being a surprising and unexpected reveal, but because it was truly amazing how poor Umiko’s calligraphy was.

It really was basically just scribbles with some added squiggly lines.

After a couple seconds without any reactions, Umiko sighs. “You seriously can’t read it?”

The duo shakes their heads.

“Urgh, fine.” Maybe she really should work on her calligraphy. “It means delinquent king…” The bluenette’s explains, deflated.

“Oh! I can see that now that you pointed it out.” Hiroto replies while slamming his fist against his palm in a ‘I got it’ gesture. “It kinda does look like ‘Yankii no Ou’… !“ There’s a small pause as the words fully registered in the boy’s brain. “Ehhhhhhh!?”

Delinquent King!?