how to be a human being; hirofumi yoshida

v.

Who knew talking to people all day could be so exhausting?

Saki had to practically drag herself out of the school building, barely having the energy to switch her school shoes to her outside shoes and fix her bag back on the top of her shoulder. She had denied all requests from her new acquaintances to walk home together, seeing as she didn't live far from the school and was admittedly supposed to check in with Yoshida once more before he went off to his devil hunting patrol. Speaking of Yoshida, she barely made it a hundred feet off the school's campus before a hand reached out of a darkened alleyway and landed on her shoulder.

"You certainly took a while leaving the school," Yoshida said casually, keeping his hand on her shoulder as though he expected her to try and continue on without him.

She shrugged off his hand easily but didn't go anywhere, a small smile forming on her lips that she had to turn to keep him from seeing as she said, "Yes, because everyone seemed to want to walk home with me. Or ask me to go out to karaoke with them next week. I denied all their invitations because I'm stuck with you, and you're stuck with me, and you don't seem like the type of guy to go to karaoke."

"I would, if it was for you," he hummed.

As though he hadn't said anything particularly profound, Yoshida took his hand off her shoulder and started walking in the direction of her apartment building. Had she been anyone else, Saki might have thought he had spoken with romantic intent, only she had heard his words through the lens of a bodyguard speaking to the one he was guarding. She synced her steps to his, school bag swinging to the same beat she was walking, and unlike that before, took in her surroundings with a touch of curiosity and languor.

They made it to her apartment building, to which Saki waved at him goodbye and began her trek up the stairs. However, instead of retuning the wave and walking away, Yoshida proceeded to follow her up the stairs, sending her his little smile when she realized what he was doing.

"Why are you following me?" Saki asked, raising an eyebrow in intrigue, "I thought you had to patrol after school."

"I do, but not until later," Yoshida said, "I want to check in on your apartment and work on my homework. Is that alright with you, Saki?"

She gave a shrug. "Doesn't bother me."

Upon reaching her apartment, Saki unlocked the door and held it open for Yoshida to follow in after her, then neatly toed off her shoes and placed them beside his equally neatly placed shoes. She made her way into the kitchen to grab an apple or two, along with a knife to peel them into little rabbits, while Yoshida settled in at her table, pulling out sheets upon sheets of homework to finish by tomorrow. When she joined him, sitting across from him, crossing her legs underneath her, there wasn't nothing but silence, the scratching of pencil on paper, and the knife cutting through the peel of the apple. 

Normally, she wasn't opposed to silence, having grown up in it and all, but there was an uncomfortable feeling building in her chest the longer she sat there with nothing being said. She glanced up at him every so often, memorizing the way his hair fell so delicately in front of his eyes and wondering how on earth he could see what he was writing when his bangs were so long. The words from the girls she had spent time with at school returned to her as she admired the beauty mark at the right corner of his lip, the gossip filling her head and falling through her lips before she even thought to stop it.

"Kimi-san said you should have been a model instead of a devil hunter," Saki blurted out, the silence becoming overbearing, "And Ume-san said your eyes are like obsidian gems. I told them that I thought you were ok, I guess."

 Yoshida stopped writing, glancing up with an intrigued look in his eyes, amusement brushing over his expression as he met Saki's now nervous gaze. Instead of saying anything, he awaited what she would say next, somehow knowing if he stayed quiet, she would dig herself a deeper hole. Perhaps it was payback for making him buy that donut for her when they first met, or maybe he was genuinely interested in what she had to say.

"I thought the conversation would have ended there, but then the whole group kept talking about how pretty and popular you are. Ume-san said you get an average of ten love letters a day and two confessions a week. Apparently, you turn them all down because you were secretly in love with someone in the devil hunting business, but they died in a tragic accident and now you've sworn to never love again."

His lips twitched and Saki thought for a moment he was going to berate her for repeating all the rumors she had heard. The twitch turned into a smile, then a full-blown laugh, a sound that was far nicer than anything she had ever heard before in his life. Yoshida's shoulder's shook as he laughed and laughed, his head buried into his arms, hiding his mirth-filled expression from view. Finally, after a minute or two of laughter, he recovered and uncovered his face, the traces of laughter still evident in his eyes and smile.

"You say the silliest things sometimes," Yoshida finally said endearingly. He rested his chin on his hand as he simply took the time to study her like he would one of his schoolbooks, the weird little smile on him never falling.

"I do?" Saki desperately tried to ignore the heat rising on her cheeks at the intensity of his stare. She added hesitantly, "Is that okay?"

"It's refreshing, is what it is. I don't think being your bodyguard is something I'll ever regret."

He went back to schoolwork like he hadn't said anything particularly profound, leaving Saki sitting there, playing his words over and over again in her head.