BLOOM [OHSHC]

Chapter 13 - Unafraid

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The end of the semester descended upon us with all the grace of a natural disaster.

Picture this: mysterious, faceless kids crawled out of the woodwork, suddenly asking for tutors when they'd been skipping class the whole semester; the dress code fell by the wayside in favor of sweatpants, sneakers, and comfort; tensions ran high in the halls and in classrooms, students snapping at one another like hissing cobras or bursting into tears at a moment's notice.

I went straight into anxiety/survival mode: battening down the hatches (AKA going silent, ignoring everyone except essential people), stocking up on supplies (living off of coffee and protein bars I stashed in my backpack), and conserving energy (only performing the necessary functions to look like I was still an operational human). Finals week was a disaster zone, and I was determined to survive it... hopefully emerging alive and with good grades.

With my luck and my fucked up school schedule, I had ten final exams or final projects to submit; each of my eight classes had one or the other, but Intermediate Latin and Social Psych had both an exam and a project, which obliterated my sleep schedule more than anything else. Luckily, Kyoya helped pick up my slack in Social Psych so I could focus on Latin a little more. And he said I held my own in our other classes, so we studied together fairly often during lunch or during breaks.

Thanks to my scattered brain and panic attacks about failing, I'd actually finished my Japanese Lit and Painting final projects a few weeks early, so that bought me a little spare time in both classes to study for other things and catch up with Haruhi, the twins, and Tamaki.

Plus, on top of trying to pass my classes - and generally be a badass at everything - the host club was planning an end of semester party of some kind (I don't know what exactly, I kinda spaced out during the meeting), and I had the summer orchestra concert to perform at as well.

Needless to say, I stretched myself way too thin.

And apparently, that was obvious.

"You don't look so good."

Mori towered over me, stretching as we prepped for our final assessment in our kendo class. He looked totally fine. Calm, cool, collected, as per usual.

In that moment, I hated him. "You don't say," I muttered sarcastically, brushing my washed out hair away from my face as I tied it up in a loose bun.

"Kimura," he chided as I tried to run away, his gigantic hand clapping down on top of my head and rotating me to look at him, "Seriously. You need to take care of yourself."

I let out a deflated sigh, my shoulders slumping, and pursed my lips. "I'll get right on that, Mori senpai... Just as soon as life stops being stressful and my parents quit involving themselves in my crap and I stop overloading myself with too many commitments, and... oh? Oh right, that'll be never." I yawned, as if to emphasize my exhaustion levels.

He frowned at me, like a grumpy giraffe, and I nearly laughed because I started imagining him in a giraffe costume. Then I started imagining the rest of the hosts as jungle animals for a day, like as a party for the Club, and wow, sleep deprivation much?

"Honey," Mori said lowly.

Like magic, Honey senpai appeared at Mori's side, chipper and vibrant as always. "Takashi? What's going on?"

"Kimura isn't feeling well," Mori lied straight to Honey's face. Because his hand still gripped my head, he turned me to face Honey then, giving my temples a squeeze as if to urge me to do something sickly.