𝘿𝘿𝙇𝘾 𝙊𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙩𝙨 & 𝙎𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙨

↤↤ ᴄᴏɴғᴇssɪᴏɴs - ɴᴀᴛsᴜᴋɪ ↦↦

You'd spent the last couple of days trying to encourage yourself to try to confess to Natsuki. It took... longer than you wanted to admit to get into the right headspace for it, much less even come up with a plan. You knew that she wouldn't let you go anywhere near her house, wherever that was, and you weren't sure you wanted to confess at YOUR place. If you were anywhere public with other people around, she'd probably freak out if you so much as breathed something about being interested in her, regardless of how she felt about you.

So you decided to do something that you knew she liked: baking.

It looked so easy!! If you wanted to make cupcakes, you just needed to gather the ingredients, make the batter, bake it properly, make sure they were all similar in appearance, make the frosting, pipe it in a way that wasn't too simple but was still within your skill range, make sure the cupcakes were all similar again, smooth the frosting, make a cheesily cute design, and repeat it multiple times!!

...

You know what? You weren't going to give up. You didn't want to drag your hidden infatuation for longer than you needed to. If Natsuki didn't feel the same, better to get rejected sooner rather than later.

At the very least, you had an idea of things that she found cute, and that gave you a basic idea of what you needed to do. But as it turns out, executing your vision perfectly was a lot harder than it seemed.

To put it simply, you were nowhere near Natsuki's level of cupcake-making. But it was almost midnight by the time you decorated a few cupcakes that you kind of, sort of liked, and you were exhausted from the long day before that. Oh, God, and you still needed to write her a letter...

You were practically a zombie the next day. It was an active fight for your LIFE to stay awake during class, especially ones that you were normally bored with. The only thing keeping you awake was the looming anxiety of confessing to Natsuki.

You'd seen Sayori that morning, and she'd told you that you looked like you were about to die. So you spent the few minutes before lunch trying to look at least somewhat presentable.

It was easy to spot Natsuki thanks to her vibrant hair, despite the fact that she was shorter than most of the students around her. Knowing that she didn't really like to have lunch with you, you tried to fight your way through the crowd to reach her before she got to... wherever she ate, you guessed? You didn't want to make her uncomfortable– that was definitely not the right way to start a confession.

Getting to her ended up being ridiculously difficult  Unfortunately, she'd already broken into the courtyard by the time you caught up to her.

"Hey, Natsuki!! Wait up!!" you huffed, quickly scrambling out of the crowd and to her side as fast as you could. "Just... just a second..."

"Oh, wow." Natsuki refrained from any insults when she realized it was you, and instead crossed her arms firmly and scanned you up and down. "Did you even sleep last night, Y/N? You look terrible."

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry, I was just up kinda late," you explained, still a little out of breath. "But, uh, I'll leave you alone after this, but I brought you something."

You held out the box of cupcakes, well aware of how stiff you probably looked.

Natsuki just glared at the box, trying to seem disinterested (it wasn't working). "C'mon, Y/N, I've told you to not bring me things!! I have enough food already, okay?"

"No!! Please!!" you exclaimed, the words coming out much louder than you intended. "I– uh– I actually made these!! For you!! And– uh– b- because you're the best baker I know, I wanted to know what you thought of them!!!"