Blossoms of the Dark

LXXVIII Selene: Library

It's been a few days since the train incident.

It's been a few days since Todoroki-kun and I reluctantly agreed to work together.

We've managed to remain professional for those few days.

At least, we managed to remain professional while classes were in session.

According to Ectoplasm-sensei, the first twenty minutes of Math class will be a lecture. The remainder will be work time for the playground project. But just before he lets the class separate into groups, he makes an announcement. "I forgot to mention the most important thing about this project. It's due on October 31, and you guys will go to an elementary school after classes end and present your projects to the children. Each child there will be given a scoresheet ranging from 1 to 5 for various aspects of your project. 5 is the highest score. Their opinions will be taken into account for your overall project grade." He writes the name of the elementary school on the blackboard. I'm not familiar with the name, but it seems like Todoroki-kun is. He stares at the name and mouths the vowels and consonants.

We turn from the board and look at each other. We're thinking the same thing: Sensei really forgot an essential detail.

"We're going to have to work harder now. Excluding this week, we only have about two weeks to complete this project," he says.

"I agree. We have to make it exceptional. A good part of our grade depends on the children's ratings. And children are surprisingly picky things."

"You're telling me."

There is a moment of tense silence between us, but I break that by bringing our attention back to the task at hand.

"Winter, spring, summer, autumn, dawn, day, and night. Do you have an idea of which flowers we should use?"

My diversion seems to work. He follows along. "You're the one of us who wears flower blossoms in her hair. You should know the most about them. Let's start with an easy one: spring. What do you have for that? Try to go for a variety of colors."

I think for a moment before writing down a list on a page of my notebook. The list has three columns: flower, conic section, and color. Once finished, I pass the notebook to him, and he reads the list.

"Weigela; parabola; blush pink and white. Crocus, also parabola, lavender. Daffodil; ellipse; sunny yellow. I already knew that daffodils were yellow." That's a barb. "Hyacinths; another ellipse; white, cream, rose pink, apricot, lavender, cobalt blue, deep purple, wine red. I've already seen the white and lavender ones." Another one. "Primrose; circle; white, canary yellow, deep purple, magenta." He recites everything on the list. "That's impressive. I actually didn't think you would know that much, even though flowers are your signature. Is there a chance you have a list for our other six sub-themes?" he asks as he returns the notebook back to me.

I smirk and proceed to create six more lists with the same three columns. However, each list has a different number of flowers. "Flowers that bloom in autumn, winter, dawn, and night are tricky. They're not the kinds of plants you'd find at your local nursery or in someone's garden." As an afterthought, I add, "Maybe there are some in a botanical garden. But I haven't been to a botanical garden in years. I don't even know where the nearest one is. I should-"

He interrupts, "That's fine. You don't have to go that far. You shortened our work immensely by your lists. In fact, I can start drawing soon. I was thinking that we should meet up after school every day in the school library to work on the project. You can find books about the tricky flowers and work on the equations while I draw the playground structures by their dimensions. Is that alright with you?"

I'm caught off guard. I didn't expect him to suggest seeing me outside of school hours, let alone invite me to work with him.

"I'm only recommending this so that we can get this project over with quickly and efficiently."

Ah. That's why. His unspoken words echo: And so that we can go back to having nothing to do with each other. "Sure. I'm free after school hours. How long do you think we should stay in the library, though? And do you think we should come on weekends as well?"

"Classes for us end at 4:10 pm. So we can stay another two hours. The sun will set around 6:30, and before then we can leave. As for weekends, do you have the time? It's not a bad idea; I don't do much on my weekends anyway."

I recall my schedule. My meetings with Kurogiri and Shigaraki start between midnight and 3 am. And this month, Hanada-sama hasn't made a deal using me as the barter piece. At least not one that I know of. "Two hours on weekdays are fine. I can come to the library on weekends from 10 am to 6 pm. My weekends are just as free as yours."

"It's done then."

He extends his hand, and I take it.

"Starting tomorrow."

"Starting tomorrow," I affirm.

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