𝔅𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔡𝔶 || Minamoto T. || JSHK

14.0 a piece of work

semi-edited.

School exams. The bane of every student's existence. Yashiro Nene was no exception.

After the whole ordeal with Mitsuba and the Hall of Mirrors, new trouble arose for the young first year. That's right, final exam season was upon them.

"Huh? That's it? Man, I thought it'd be something scarier or something." Hanako acted oblivious to the situation as Yashiro gave him a serious stare.

"Hanako-kun, if I don't do well in my exams, I'll have to attend tutoring classes and I won't have enough time to come clean the bathroom!" This came as quite the shock to Hanako. What did she mean not have time to clean the bathroom?

While Hanako despaired over his domain, Yashiro daydreamed about the possibilities of her failing her exams and being the only one to need the extra classes. She'd be dubbed as a tutored radish!! She didn't want that.

"I DON'T WANNA BE CALLED A TUTORED RADISH."

"Senpai?"

"Oh! Kou-kun!"

The dual toned first year smiled at the blonde. The two younger students complained to each other about finals, with Kou smiling brightly in his announcement that he also didn't know how he would do.

Hanako let his mind wander, only catching small tidbits of their conversation. He thought back to one other thing, rather one other person. "Kid, what about your older sister? Haven't seen much of her lately."

"Hm, nee-chan? Mm, I'm not really sure. I haven't seen her in a few days. Tried asking nii-chan about it but he didn't really say much. But now that you mention it, I haven't seen her at school lately either."

There were so many things that made no sense to Kou. Actually after the Hall of Mirrors ordeal, Yumeko hadn't shown up around him. She also hadn't been going with Teru on his missions. Even after the kegare situation with the mokke, she had been the one to save him and Yashiro from getting wet from the pool but she had disappeared soon after. Adding this whole painting situation too, Kou hadn't seen one mention of his older sister anywhere.

Huh? Wait, even after he and Teru had cleaned up and gone grocery shopping, the younger boy hadn't seen Yumeko. Weird, she always was with them... right?

"Oh, now that you mention it, I haven't thanked her for saving us the other day. Though it was a little surprising that Minamoto-senpai suddenly threw us off the roof like that. I can't believe how quickly she caught us!"

Yeah, now that the older girl mentioned it, there was still more that Kou wanted to know about his older sister. She was being so much more secretive recently and all these disappearances of hers, it couldn't be coincidence right?

Hanako wondered what was going on. On one hand, the younger Minamoto was truly baffled about the situation and could hold no useful information. And while the older Minamoto probably had the answers he was looking for, Hanako wasn't ready to sacrifice himself against the older boy again.

Actually there was something he wanted to know, based on the older girl's... position. Whatever one might call it.

As Yashiro's situation was becoming more known to others, he wanted to find a way, somehow, to save her from her fated death that was creeping ever closer. Given that Yumeko was a vampire, he wanted to know... the possibility of Yashiro being turned, would she still be able to live her life as she wanted?

However, with no sign of the vampire anywhere (he had the mokke check basically everywhere), there was little Hanako could do to plan ahead.

"A-anyway! Hanako-kun, you wouldn't happen to have some sort of magical item that would help me pass my exams right?" Her eyes gleamed curiously. Hanako stared at Yashiro for a long second, face blank before giving her an even more deadpanned expression.