the downward spiral to romance

7. The Longest Day

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7. The Longest Day

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Without a hitch, the second day of the festival starts. Unlike the absurd queue of customers from yesterday, Class 2's Horror House had a manageable number of patrons for that morning—much to Ryuzaki Sakuno's relief who has to handle a lot because of her front desk position. At the moment, she's about to end her morning shift if not for the last task that she has to do.

And so, she walks from the ground floor to upstairs of the school's main building; a huge box of sandwiches on hand. Originally, it wasn't her role to pick up the food, but somebody had to do it since the class representative had to bring reports of last day's booth profits to the festival committee. Reaching the second floor, she unconsciously stops by one of the windows. She overhears loud laughter coming from the tennis club room, not so far away from her spot. Sakuno looks down; seeing Momo and Kikumaru fooling around with Inui who seems to be conducting some experiments under the strong noontime sun. As the warm, summer breeze blows on her skin, she realizes the beads of sweat on her forehead.

Deciding that she's spent enough time dilly-dallying, she continues on her steps. She hopes to arrive at the next staircase that she had to climb in order to arrive by their booth in a few minutes.

"Ryuzaki."

She stops on her steps, looking around for the person who called her. When her eyes meet with a familiar set of amber eyes, her heart starts to race. He's already in his school uniform, finally out of his bake-neko costume for the booth.

"R-Ryoma-kun..?" she asks, the memory of how she suddenly ran away from him yesterday plays on her mind. After the small event with their Fuji-senpai yesterday she avoided the tennis prince completely for the rest of the day by pretending to be busy with her station and running around errands that weren't supposed to be her job. In a fluster, she's about to run away again when Ryoma asks.

"What are you carrying in that big box?"

Deciding that it would be rude to flee again, she replies, "T-These are the sandwiches meant to be given to everyone during the break..."

"Isn't that Asahina's job?"

"Eh? Yes, it's the class representative's job," she tells him. "But right now, Asahina-kun is busy with reporting yesterday's profits to the festival committee... so I volunteered."

He raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, "Isn't that heavy?" he says while approaching her. She flinches, feeling his hands graze her arms. She could feel her face heat up, a reaction that was almost automatic whenever she's near his presence. In no time, he removes the box from her hands.

"Ryoma-kun...!" she blurts.

"What?" He starts to walk, catching the girl off guard. In a delayed response, Sakuno catches up to him, completely flustered.

"G-Give it back! I could carry it by myself..."

"Heh." Ryoma stops on his steps, tilting his head slightly before smirking at her in amusement, "Yada."

Seeing how he's having fun teasing her, Sakuno could only exhale loudly. In a pout, she asks, "Mou... Why is Ryoma-kun even here? Isn't it still your scarer shift?"

He freezes-- a visible sweat drop could be seen in his expression. He suddenly takes interest in looking at the windows. Clearing his throat to save himself, he eventually replies, "Anyway, don't you need to get this box back to the booth in time? Let's just go."