After Story: Companionship

Chapter Twenty-Five: Close Call

Sure enough, I found Yukine out by the baseball diamond. She didn't seem to be paying attention to the game, though. As I got closer I noticed that she actually appeared to be spacing out. Was it too hot outside for her? "Yukine? You okay?"

She jerked at the sound of my voice. "Oh! Tomoya-senpai! What a surprise!"

I wiped my hands on my pant legs as I stopped in front of her. "I don't mean to be pushy, but it's been more than fifteen minutes, and I was starting to worry about you."

"Really?" She looked at her wrist before looking up at me in shock. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean...Wait, you were worried about me?"

I gave her my best incredulous look. "Of course I was. You said you'd be back in fifteen minutes, and you weren't. So I was worried that something might have happened to you."

She clasped her hands in front of her chest. "Aw, you're so sweet..."

*CRACK*

The sound of a bat hitting a ball caused me to look just in time to see a ball flying toward Yukine's head. "LOOK OUT!" I yelled, grabbing her and throwing us both out of the ball's path.

*CRASH* *THUMP* *SLAM*

***

I cracked an eye open to find myself in the gym storage shed. I opened the other eye to find the place pitch-black; the door must have shut behind us.

Waitaminute...how would the door shut behind us on its own?!

It was then that I realized that I was still holding tightly onto Yukine as she lay on top of me. "Are you okay?!" I asked, somewhat panicked.

"Mmmph," she grunted into my chest. After I loosened my grip enough I felt her look up at me. "I'm okay. That was exciting, wasn't it?"

We sat up and I got to my feet before turning to help her up. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I noticed that I could still see some light leaking in from around the door. Good, at least the place wasn't as dark as I thought.

I looked to Yukine. The dim light made it harder to see, but she appeared to be okay. In fact, she was staring at me with wide eyes. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.

She nodded. "I'm fine." She clasped her hands in front of her chest with an expression of wonder on her face. "Wow, it really worked..."

"What worked?" I asked.

"The spell."

I had a sinking feeling... "What spell?"

She took a step closer to me. "I found a spell that would -" She cut herself off, gasping and slapping her hands against her mouth. Even in the dim light I could see her cheeks reddening and shock reflected in her eyes.

"Yukine, what's going on?" I asked cautiously as I lay my hands on her shoulders. "Is this because I took so long in getting to your stuff? Like I said, I'm really sorry abou-"

"No, I understand," she interrupted as she reached up to cover one of my hands with her own. "It's not because of that. I...really didn't think it would work."

"Your spell?

She nodded. "It was a simple thing, really; just a spell to trap the person in with a cute girl. I changed it a little to see if it would trap me with a cute guy."

I snorted as I dropped my hands from her shoulders and turned to see about opening the door. "Well, it looks like that one blew up in your face; you got stuck with me, instead." I tugged on the handle a couple of times, but it wouldn't budge. Weird.