omoikiri // harumaki

one

"Spring is melting."

Harua yawned as he placed his head on his desk, closing his eyes as the gentle spring breeze wafted against his cheeks. The air had become warmer already - spring was drawing to a close, and the summer was nearing. "I didn't know you were so poetic, Jo-kun."

"My mom said it this morning," Jo reiterated with a laugh, glancing down at his sleepy friend. "We're getting two new students today — are you going to be friends with them?"

"Probably — but I don't know what type of people they are," Harua replied, his voice slightly muffled by his head's position against the desk. "If they're nice, I'll try."

"Why are you so tired?" Jo asked, leaning over Harua to peek at him. "Did you sleep late last night?"

"I was browsing Gentle Monster's website and got distracted for two hours," Harua replied with a sigh. "Good sunglasses are so expensive! It'll be a couple of months of allowance if I want to buy a pair."

"Then don't buy Gentle Monster," Jo shrugged, leaning against the wall. He raised a hand, gently ruffling Harua's hair with a small laugh. "You can sleep. I'll wake you up before the teacher comes in."

"You're the best, Jo."

Only a few minutes passed before Jo awoke his best friend, causing the other to sit up with a yawn. He quickly fixed his hair as he stood up with the other students to greet his teacher. He watched as two boys walked in beside the teacher, eyes widening when he made eye contact with one of them.

"Good morning, class."

"Good morning, teacher."

"Today, we have two new students with us," the teacher announced with a friendly smile. "Please introduce yourselves to the class, please."

The first boy bowed his head, a bright smile decorating his expression. "Hello, I'm a transfer student from South Korea. I'll be your classmate for 4 months. My name is Byun Euijoo. Nice to meet you~"

The other dipped his head slightly. "Hirota Riki, but you can call me Maki."

The teacher clapped her hands excitedly. "Welcome to the class, boys. You can grab those two open seats near the middle."

Harua watched as the two boys found new seats. Euijoo sat beside one of the girls while Maki sat just beside Jo. He felt his heart racing with excitement - Maki seemed cold-hearted and quiet, but something inside Harua said that they could somehow be friends.

"Right, right, let's begin with the class meeting. Murata-kun, have you taken this morning's attendance?"

"Yes, Teacher," one of the students said as he stood up to walk to the teacher's desk. "Only Nakakita-kun seems to be absent — other than him, it's perfect attendance."

"Nakakita Yuma is at practice right now — I'm well aware of his absence," the teacher hummed. "Right. The Summer Festival is coming up. Today, we'll decide what we'll do as a class, and tomorrow, we will assign roles and responsibilities. Murata Fuma-kun, you may lead the meeting."

"Yes," Fuma bowed to the teacher before picking up a marker. "Does anyone have any ideas for what we could do for the festival?"

"Maid cafe?"

"Ah, seriously? At least four other classes will do a maid cafe!"

"The boys can dress up for the maid cafe!"

"Our class could just do maintenance for the other classes, you know. I'm just lazy."

"How about a bake sale?"

Fuma hummed as he wrote down the ideas. "I quite like a bake sale. Any more ideas?"

Harua raised his hand excitedly. "Horror experience!"

"Usually, class B does the horror house," Fuma said as he made an X with his hands. Harua pouted, and Fuma laughed, turning to write his idea down. "But I'll ask the other class leaders what they think. Anything else? Hirota-kun?"

Maki looked up from the desk for a second. "Uhm... I agree with a bake sale."

Fuma hummed, pointing the marker at the boy beside Jo. "Euijoo-san, would you like to suggest something?"

The new student glanced between the board and the class leader for a moment before letting out a small laugh. "My Japanese isn't that amazing, so I don't think my input would matter."

"Murata-kun, you can speak Korean!"

Fuma laughed before shaking his head. "I can try translating for you." Fuma spoke accented Korean to the boy, and Euijoo made a bright face of realisation after he understood everything. "I see!" The class laughed, and the other lowered his head in embarrassment. "I think we should do a snack stand."

"Oh, snack stand sounds good as well," Fuma agreed. "We could do Japanese snacks or even integrate some Korean snacks for our new student over here."

"We could do a dance performance!"

"Ah, nice one, Urua-san!"

After ten minutes of exchanging ideas and examples between the class, they narrowed it down to three possible events they could conduct. Fuma drew a table for the three events and began tallying the votes. Harua voted for the horror house, of course, since it was his idea. He could only smile as Maki voted for the horror house as well.

"Hirota-kun," Harua said excitedly as he tapped the other's shoulder, "my idea was good, huh?"

"Haru!" Jo scolded immediately. "Don't bother him!"

Harua pouted slightly at the tall boy. "We could be friends, Jo! We should help him settle in, hm? It's his first day here."

Jo glanced at the quiet boy beside him with a smile. "Harua's quite an extrovert. It seems that he's taken interest in you, hehe."

Maki looked behind him before turning away. "Whatever you want, I guess."

"Then let's be friends," Harua smiled softly at the other. Maki turned away with no response. Jo frowned at Harua's oddly happy expression, shaking his head before focusing forward again because the teacher called for them.

"Thank you all for your ideas," the teacher smiled brightly. The bell dinged to indicate the end of the homeroom period, and the class all made the same move to take their textbooks out. "We'll pick up where we left off yesterday for history. Everyone, turn to page 76. Hirota-kun and Euijoo-kun, I will print out summary sheets of this module during lunch, and you can pick them up at the teacher's office."

Harua's eyes fell on the pale glow of the sun outside the window. The air was warmer than last week — spring was melting.