Zorome X Miku: The Forgotten Plantation

3: Distracted

"Ow! Miku, what the heck?! That hurt!" Zorome leaped back and muttered cuss words under his breath after Miku accidentally dropped a bowl on his foot. Even though he had shoes on, a glass bowl that heavy was bound to have hurt.

"Well, it's not my fault you're standing super close to me!" Miku snapped. She did feel a bit guilty though. She was just so distracted by what she'd seen in Kokoro's book earlier. It was hard to look at any of the boys the same way, let alone Zorome. Every time she looked at him she thought about the diagram she'd seen about male anatomy. She wondered what he would do if he saw what the girls looked like on the inside and fully unclothed. She knew he'd seen parts of her body exposed before but he probably hadn't gotten the entire view. 

Zorome scowled at her. "Whatever. It looks like we're done anyway." He picked up the cup and washed it in the bucket they were using to clean the dishes. The rest of the dishes were now neatly stacked on the table, ready to be put back in the cupboards so they could be stored until the next day. 

It didn't take long for the two of them to store the dishes away. Once they were finished, Miku went and dumped the dirty water in the courtyard outside the boarding house. Zorome followed her outside, though he stood leaning with his back against one of the columns.

As Miku picked the bucket back up again, she looked over at her partner. It's so weird...that book explains why boys never have to suffer once a month like us girls do. I wonder why boys get to go without that. It's so unfair! 

Miku set the bucket down and stood up, stretching her arms luxuriously above her head. For a second, she forgot about the weirdness and focused on how nice the cool breeze felt on her skin. The past nine months had been rather warm...sometimes way, way too hot. It was nice to get a break from the scorching heat that had ravaged their home for the past while. It had been hard to keep cool without the technology that had kept them cool before the adults had left them on their own. 

"So..." Zorome's voice snapped Miku out of her thoughts. She turned her head to look at him and was reminded once more of the part of Kokoro's book she'd read. Her body felt hot beneath her skin and she totally missed whatever it was Zorome had been saying. "...sounds like a good time, don't ya think?"

"W-what?" Miku stared at her partner in flustered confusion.

Zorome let out an annoyed grunt. "I said 'I wouldn't mind taking a walk in the woods. Sounds like a good time, don't ya think?'" He repeated his sentence, sounding annoyed that he had to say it again at all. 

"Oh! Yeah, it doesn't sound so bad. It was so hot last month. A walk with this nice breeze doesn't seem like a bad idea. It actually sounds like it'd be relaxing." Miku tried her best to not think about the book she read but it was hard not to whenever she looked at Zorome. That day that he'd seen her clothes melted while fighting in Argentea was the first time any of them had really begun to think and talk about what each gender looked like beneath their clothes. However, Miku hadn't dwelled on that and if she had thought about it, she scolded herself immediately for being perverted. She didn't want to be anything like the guys!

"You're zoning out again," Zorome observed, narrowing his dark purple eyes at her. "Is something up? It's kinda weirding me out a little bit."

Miku's face felt hot and she shook her head, accidentally slapping herself in the eye with one of her pigtails in the process. "N-no, nothing's wrong! Ugh, just stop staring at me! Are we going to go for a walk or not?"

Zorome raised his eyebrows skeptically at her.  "I dunno...you seem to be acting kinda weird. Maybe you should just go to bed early or something."

"No, I'm fine!" Miku asserted herself. "I'd actually love to go for a book- WALK, I meant walk!"

"Uh, sure, okay, I guess." Zorome shrugged. "But don't blame me if you pass out or something."

"I won't pass out!" Miku snapped. "I'm honestly fine. Let's go!" She reached out to grab Zorome's wrist, only to pull her hand back and blush at the last second.

"What're you doing?" Zorome asked, looking even more baffled by how his partner was acting. 

Miku had been intending to grab him by the hand and drag him into the woods to end the awkward conversation they'd been having. However, it appeared that the red-headed former pistil had only made things even more strange.

"Nothing." Miku turned her back to Zorome. "Let's just go."

"Uh, sure." Zorome followed Miku as she headed off into the woods away from the dorms. The two of them didn't chatter that much between each other at first. Miku walked in silence and Zorome took on his relaxed pose as he walked at her side. He occasionally stopped to look at things he found interesting but other than that the two of them walked at a pretty consistent pace.

The walk would have been relaxing if Miku couldn't stop thinking about Kokoro's damn book. All she could think about was how physically different Zorome and the other boys were from her and her female friends. It was so unnerving to think about the complexity of their inner organs. It did, at least, explain why the boys seemed so foreign to her at times.

Miku and Zorome talked a little bit during the walk but not too much. It was mostly small talk about things that were going on between other members of the squad. Gossiping was something Miku enjoyed. They bickered a little as well. When they were done their walk, however, Miku went straight to her bed to lie down, deciding she wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone else. She just wanted to ponder on how weird the physiques of the boys were and wanted to figure out why Papa had hidden so much knowledge from them.