Chapter Text
Emi Fukami stared at the building in front of her. The sign above its entrance read “Tartar Cream High School.” This was it, her first day at her new school. This single day could—and perhaps would —redefine the rest of her life. No biggie , she reassured herself, although in reality she couldn’t help but thinking it was yes biggie. However, there was no point in overthinking any of this. She’d been here before to get a general tour of the place during vacations, get herself familiarized and all, so she shouldn’t be this scared.
Fixing up her light brown hair and sighing heavily, the girl gathered up her courage and strode forward. She gripped tightly at the strap of her satchel in which she carried her school supplies as she climbed the steps leading to the school’s entrance. I’m in . Once inside the school, a lot of her fears went away. It was just school, as it had always been. The students around her were no different from her, just people. People she didn’t know, people that didn’t know her, people that were more or less popular than she was, but just people.
Emi attempted to make her way towards her locker, praying she remembered which one it was and the right combination. She waded through the sea of pure purple uniforms of Tartar Cream High School, their monotony only broken up by the mint-colored ties and bows adorning the necks of the male and female students respectively. Indeed, in this sea, it was easy not to notice the plain-looking students, but a face that wouldn't stand out to anyone but her still shone through the crowd, for indeed, despite his plain-looking appearance, this was a boy who’d left a permanent mark on her life. The second she saw him, she ran in his direction, careful not to bump into anyone.
“Mob-kun?!” she blurted out in excitement the second she reached him.
“Ah, Emi-san!” the plain-looking boy said with a smile across his face. The smile warmed Emi’s heart. It was much more genuine than what she’d seen from the boy during that week.
“I had no idea you’d go to this school,” she smiled back at him. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“It’s good to see you too, Emi-san.”
How to describe Mob? Shigeo Kageyama—nicknamed “Mob” due to the kanji for his given name—never quite showed his feelings fully. He had trouble expressing himself, finding the right words. Most of the time, it made him look… emotionless. But that wasn’t true.
With her own eyes, she had seen a full display of his emotions when he stood up for her, even after she lied to him for a week just due to some dumb dare her friends forced her to do. He’d been more of a person in that moment than her friends had ever been—more of a person than she’d been to him in all that time.
Either way, it was evident to Emi that in-between that fateful day and the moment in which she currently found herself, Mob had changed. Not just physically, although he had indeed gotten taller—she got taller as well in that time, but he was less than an inch away from her own height. The real change she saw was noticeable just from the confidence with which he stood, and the way he smiled. It was still his characteristically soft-looking face, the expression wasn’t some exaggerated beam of energy either, but being laid-back and soft was probably just his way of being, unrelated to any hiding of emotions.
“Honestly, Mob-kun, I’m very relieved you’re here.” Emi sighed, looking down at her shoes. “I don’t know anyone here.”
“Oh, did none of your friends transfer here?”
Emi grimaced slightly, tensing up. Mob noticed and felt a stab of guilt at her reaction. Before he could reassure her that she didn’t have to answer, she replied. “No, and… I’m happy they didn’t. They’re not my friends anymore.”
“Not… your friends?”
“After you repaired my novel, I… Our friendship just wasn’t the same. There was so much tension whenever we hung out, and every time they’d try to tease me again, I didn’t get sad, I just got… angry.” At this point, the short-haired gal was gripping the strap of her satchel so hard that Mob thought she might snap it. “So, I just stopped hanging out with them.”
“But doesn’t that mean you don’t have any friends now?” Mob asked, immediately regretting the question the second it left his mouth, cringing. Emi gave a bit of a defeated laugh.
“Yeah, kinda…”
Mob lost himself in thought, putting a hand to his chin as he thought about what to say until an idea materialized in his brain. “I’ll be your friend, Emi-san!”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Were we… not already friends?”
“Ah, well… I consider us friends, but we haven’t talked in a while, so I thought maybe you didn’t consider me a friend?”
With a chuckle and a smug grin, Emi replied “I’m calling you ‘Mob-kun’, isn’t that what your friends call you?”
“Haha, you got me there,” Mob said, looking to his side in embarrassment.
So sweet , Emi thought. She stretched out a hand. “Of course I’ll be your friend, Mob-kun.”
She accepted the offer partly as a joke, but also because, truth be told, she really did need friends. She wasn’t just going to a new school—she was restarting her social life. Mob was someone who was kind to her even when she was the worst to him. She’d asked him out on a dare because she and her friends thought it was funny that he messed up his big speech, when he rejected she felt humiliated due to how little she thought of him, she kept up her lie for a whole week during which she allowed him to buy her drinks and talk about his own life, and then she had the nerve to call him emotionless and ‘dump’ him right then and there. Emi felt like she didn’t deserve his friendship, but she would gladly take it.
Mob shook her hand, and she was surprised by his strong grip. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized he looked a bit less lanky. “Mob-kun… You haven’t stopped exercising, have you?”
He shot her a puzzled look. “No, I really haven’t. I became vice-president of the Body Improvement Club during my last year at Salt Middle School, and I plan to join this school’s as well.”
Emi was quite surprised. In comparison to the gigantic beasts in Body Improvement Club that didn’t even look like middle schoolers, Mob had been lanky, not to mention that he’d joined in very late. “This school’s gonna have one too?”
“Indeed! Goda-senpai goes to this school too, so he’s going to establish the Club here as well.”
“That’s fantastic!”
As she said that, the bell rang. Both of them looked mortified.
“I’M LATE!” they said in unison. They gave a bow as a goodbye before rushing over to their respective lockers. Late on the first day of class , Emi thought to herself. Dammit!
She found herself rushing to her classroom, sweating. Much to her relief, most students weren’t there yet. She saluted her new professor before picking a seat in the middle of the classroom. She purposefully sat somewhere where a lot of seats around her were empty. She wanted the chance to say hi to her new classmates as they sat down, that way she could make a good impression. Someone sat next to her, so she looked at them and said “Hi, Mob-kun!”
“Hello again, Emi-san” he replied.
After a few seconds, they both stared at each other in mutual delayed shock. “YOU’RE IN CLASSROOM 1-B?!” they exclaimed in unison.
“Shhhh!” their new professor shushed. “You can get all buddy-buddy at lunch time! Class is about to start!”
Mob and Emi sat up straight, remaining in pure, shameful silence.
After an extremely uneventful half of the school day—mostly filled with introductions from professors and students—the bell indicated lunchtime. Everyone poured out of the classroom and into the cafeteria. On their way to the cafeteria, through the line, and then to their table, Emi and Mob continued to make small talk. It was during these moments that she noticed he lacked his characteristic bowl cut. He seemed to have let his hair grow out a bit more and stylized it in an odd way she couldn’t quite describe. It was cute, though.
They searched for a table to eat at, and Mob seemed very excited when he spotted the one he wanted to eat at. She wondered what about that table had made him so happy, and that’s when she saw the person sitting on that table. A boy with long, kind of feminine hair sat there, waving hi to Mob. As they sat down, the blonde boy seemed to give a bit of a death stare to Emi, which immediately made her uncomfortable, and she wondered if she should even sit here.
“Mob-kun!” the blonde boy greeted his friend. “So happy to see you!”
“Glad to see you too, Teru-san!”
Yet again, the blonde boy glared at Emi. “And who is this lady?”
Somehow, the usage of such a sophisticated and polite word felt almost insulting to the girl.
“Ah, of course! Teruki-san, this is Fukami Emi. Emi-san, this is Hanazawa Teruki.”
“I-It’s nice to meet you, Hanazawa-kun.”
Teruki remained in silence for a while, simply looking over at the girl. Suddenly, he smiled and waved at her. “Nice to meet you too, Fukami-san! Hope we’ll get along!”
Emi had trouble figuring out what to make of this Teruki boy or what he thought of her, but for now she decided to play along and smile back at him.
“Say, Mob-kun, where do you know Fukami-san from?”
A blush grew on Emi’s face. Teruki seemed to dislike her enough as it was, so imagining what he’d say when Mob—who seemed to be important to him—revealed that they met because she pulled a terrible prank on him was mortifying.
“She’s a friend from middle school,” he replied. Ah , Emi thought, I was really overthinking that . The confidence in Mob’s response surprised her. “She doesn’t really know anyone here,” Mob continued, “so I thought it’d be nice if she could hang out with us.”
“Well, a friend of Mob’s is a friend of mine.”
After the awkward introduction, the three of them ate together and made small-talk all about their new school, the people they knew there—or in Emi’s case, how she didn’t know anyone—as well as their plans for this school year, and Emi even inquired about Teruki and Mob’s friendship. Oddly enough, Teruki seemed to consider himself both Mob’s best friend and his greatest rival. If there was something that day taught Emi it was that Teru was not a normal person. Once lunchtime was over, everyone headed right back over to their classrooms, where they’d spend the rest of the school day.
The school day finally ended. Emi and Mob made their way out of the classroom and walked towards the school exit. For Emi, it had been a fairly pleasant first day at this new school, all things considered, even if she did feel a bit lost. When she stepped out of the school, she was inclined to ask Mob to walk home with her. Her heart immediately sank once she considered just what that would entail, however. How could she ever offer to walk home with him when last time they’d done that was when she lied to him for a week? No, it’d be so insensitive of her. So, she began to simply make her way home, without so much as saying goodbye to Mob. He’d probably want to walk home with Teruki or Goda anyways.
“Emi-san!” she heard Mob call out. When she turned around, there he was, his smile as soothing as ever. He looked around, noticeably nervous, before finally gathering up the courage to speak. “Would you… like to walk home with me?”
Her heart skipped a beat, a smile growing across her face. Mob-kun’s changed , Emi thought to herself, and so have I .
“I’d love to.”
And they did. They continued catching up on each other’s lives, sharing anecdotes, talking about their fairly uneventful school days from their last semester, amongst other things. Eventually, they got to the Kageyama household, where they bid each other adieu, each one going to their respective homes. As Mob got to his house, his family inquired as to his first day at Tartar Cream High School.
“So? How was it, nii-san?” asked his younger brother, Ritsu Kageyama.
“I think… I’m really gonna love this school.”
When Emi got to her own house, she hopped onto her bed, pulling out a manuscript featuring her latest story: The story of a boy with psychic powers. During their walk, Mob had inquired as to what she’d been writing lately, and she couldn’t bring herself to admit she was working on a story inspired by him. She stared at the story in her hands with fondness.
It would appear this story’s going to have a few more chapters