Rental No More - Chizuru Ichinose [Mizuhara] X Reader (Kanojo, Okarishimasu)

Episode 19: Tsukasa & Masahiro

Last Year Of Highschool, 2 Years Ago

"Group projects, annoying right?"

The guy that I'm meant to work with for this project that our teacher assigned just happened to be the one that talked the most, the 'class clown', but despite being the most outward and social out of the rest of the people in the classroom, he didn't have many friends. The reason for that probably was his outdated humor that failed to make people laugh most of the time, as well as being an absolute failure to make any girl "fall for him." In simple terms, the guy was an absolute loser, but I hoped that he was good when working with a team.

"I'm Masahiro Fukushima. My friends call me Hiro."

Y/N: "I'm Y/N L/N. My friends don't call me anything, I'm just Y/N."

Hiro: "Nice, I like that. It's very nice to meet you, and... I hope we do great on this freakin' group project."

If it weren't for this project, I probably wouldn't have properly met the person who would eventually become one of two best friends. Masahiro invited me over to his apartment one day to work on the project, explaining that he didn't live with his parents because he never liked the idea of being an adopted child and hated his parents once he found out, so he lived with them until he found refuge with a graduate from our school by the name of—

"Tsukasa Uchiyama. Also known as Tsu, the Taskmaster."

There on a couch sat a person that looked much older than us, mostly because of his beard and long hair which looked great on him. He had an acoustic guitar on his lap that he apparently managed to find sitting on the pavement on his way home two days ago. He wore very casual clothes, enough to serve as both streetwear and pajamas, and he was an extremely friendly guy just taking a sabbatical year to wait for Hiro.

Tsu: "You wanna know why they call me the Taskmaster?"

Hiro: "He does other people's homework at school and he gets paid."

Tsu: "Come on man, you ruined the surprise."

He seemed like he didn't mind much about such a thing, or about anything in particular because when compared to Hiro, he was a lot less energetic and a lot more aloof, but never shy or afraid to state his opinions and speak his mind. Hiro and Tsu could honestly be described as a chihuahua and a koala respectively, not only because of personalities, but because Tsu was taller than Hiro.

Tsu: "So, I heard y'all had a group project? Will you be needing my assistance?"

Hiro: "Nah, we're good. Me and Y/N are working on it, actually."

Tsu: "'Y/N and I', Hiro. You said it wrong."

Hiro: "A-And!?"

Y/N: "Hah, you're both weird."

Tsu: "True."

We obviously did well on the group project and got to finish it on time, but that isn't the important part. What was important was the fact that these two became my best friends in such a short period of time because we all somehow clicked with one another. We hung out from time to time, even having sleepovers where we made weird jokes and watched old action movies, and thanks to the gap year Tsukasa took after graduating high school, the three of us were planning to go to the same college when the time came to do so. If it weren't for them I believe that my life would be a lot more boring.

Tsu: "You know, y'all be having a better time if you had taken the opportunity—"

Hiro: "I don't really do alcohol."

Y/N: "I'm a minor!"

We were walking back to Tsukasa's apartment after going to a reunion party he got invited to by one of his old friends. It wasn't entertaining to Hiro, or me, but Tsu had a good enough time to be the only one to be really happy to even walk home. He drank a lot and did some rather odd things while at the party, but enjoyed the entire thing nonetheless. It was really late, like one in the morning, but we were all laughing like crazy as we walked back home.