Walking together to school

Chiharu and Akio meets up to go to school everyday at 7:30am. They live close to each other, and their school's a short distance away.

Akio is not a morning type of guy, and he's usually really low on the teasing he does to Chiharu in the morning, as he's really lethargic which makes him more honest. This is a result of him fiddling with his phone and playing online party games with his friends till late into the night.

On the other hand, Chiharu's the type of person that makes sure she gets 8 hours of sleep, and she can fully wake up and get out of bed the moment the alarm clock rings. She does some light morning stretching, brushes her teeth and take her morning bath, and eats breakfast with her family. Morning is the time when she feels her best.

"Senpai, your hair's kind of disheveled." Chiharu points out to a still half-asleep Akio as they strolled slowly towards school.

"Oh, really? Thanks, Chiharu-Chan." He uses the front-facing camera on his phone to fix his hair. Their idle chatter resumed shortly.

"Chiharu-Chan, you look so damn good. There's no bags under your eyes at all.. you take care of yourself so well." Akio glanced at Chiharu and yawned. She was slightly flustered by him calling her "so damn good looking", and she uttered an illogical answer to what Akio said.

"Maybe you should spend your nights working on your subjects instead of games..."

"Huh, but that doesn't solve the issue of me being so tired in the morning, right? You're so cute, Chiharu."

She turned red instantly, and it took sometime for her to compose herself. She had no idea what she was saying as well.

"Maybe you should sleep earlier, then. I go to bed every night before 10pm. I know, that's really early... but it's been a good habit of mine since I was a child."

"Huh, that must be nice.. I can't do that."

"Anything's possible if you put your mind to it, Senpai." Chiharu unconsciously said in a way that made her seem wise beyond her years. Akio took notice of that, and found it really cute. However, what she said made him think of his studies.

"Sigh.. I wish I'm those kind of guys who are really good at mathematics, and I could say cool things like 'My favorite subject is Math! Numbers are absolute, and there is only one correct answer!' But I'm too stupid for that." Akio said sheepishly, putting his hands behind his head.

Chiharu giggled a little after hearing what he said. She found it to be cute, too.

"You know, Senpai, I'm not good with numbers too. I just practice a lot until I grasp all the concepts properly. My forte's actually the humanities." She said while semi-giggling. Their conversation is starting to gear towards a nice atmosphere.

"Really? To me, you're really hardworking for sure, but you reap good results from effort because you're really smart. My brain's just no good, so I'll never be able to score as well as you. But it makes me really happy that this smart Chiharu-Chan's willing to lend me a hand in my studies!" Akio looked at her with a big grin on his face.

"Y-y-y-you're wel-- I mean, you're not inferior to me, in any way!!" She let out her voice fully, as she got embarrassed by what he said.

Being around Chiharu helped Akio shake away the tiredness of the morning, and he started to feel more energetic.

He lets out a breath of air and continued to stare at Chiharu, who was averting her gaze from him. He could tell from the look of her face that her head was going blank.

"Maybe you're right. I should try harder. I was actually at risk of being held back last year, you know? I just didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry about me. I was failing all my subjects in the midterms, and my teachers warned me about potentially being held back if I repeat the same performance in the finals. I worked my ass off for a week, and I think I actually did pretty well for my standards.. So I guess hard work does pay off?"

He expected Chiharu to praise him, but it didn't go that way.

Chiharu's "get back at him for always teasing him me" radar was going off, and she recalled his test scores for his finals.

"Oh, is that so, Senpai? How much did you get for Math and Science?" A smug look surfaced on her face.

"Eh... I got C for both." He scratched his head in embarrassment.

"You could had done even better if you already put in the work right from the start, Senpai. So let's try harder together!"

Ah, she's just too cute. Akio couldn't resist the urge to tease her.

"Yes, yes, I get it, Ayakouji-sensei. Ayakouji-sensei, please help me tell Chiharu-chan she's being really mean to her Senpai~~!" Chiharu got completely flustered again by his words, and she failed to reverse their roles once again.

"I-I-I was only trying to encourage you.."

"I know that, hehe. You're just too cute, Chiharu." He puts his hand on her head and pats her.

"Please don't do something so embarrassing in public, senpai.."

"No can do."

"COME ON!!!"

And thus the two of them continued to enjoy each other's company on their way to school.