"In short, you absolutely cannot go without enough sleep every day, Hayakawa-kun. You're still at a growing age, and a schedule like this will keep you from getting tall," Furuhashi Fumino was not angered by Hayakawa's look of disgust and continued to chatter, "I'm going to tell Rizu about this. You better be ready."
"Are you my big sister?!" Hayakawa Haku's expression shifted, and he turned to leave. "Alright, I know. Class is starting soon. I need to go back."
"Wait..." Furuhashi Fumino was about to agree, but when she saw Hayakawa Haku's tired face, struggling to stay awake, she immediately realized that pulling him out to talk had occupied the only time he had to nap between classes. Guilt instantly filled her heart.
On an impulse, she reached out and grabbed Hayakawa's arm. "Wait a minute."
"Hmm?" Hayakawa Haku looked at her, confused.
"Do you want to skip class together?" Furuhashi Fumino looked at Hayakawa and suggested earnestly, "Find a place to sleep?"
Hayakawa Haku: "..."
"Hah??" Hayakawa Haku slowly took a step back, his eyes dark and vacant as he stared at the blue-haired girl in front of him. "What? Did you just suggest skipping class to sleep with me??"
"No, no, no, no!!" Furuhashi Fumino's face instantly turned explosive red. She waved her hands frantically. "That's not what I meant at all! Hayakawa misunderstood!"
"I thought you were a pure literary girl, but I didn't expect you to be so forward, and so indiscreet. Such fleeting, frivolous thoughts," Hayakawa Haku looked at Furuhashi with a disappointed expression, shaking his head. "Furuhashi, we're students. We should be focused on our studies."
"I said no!!" Furuhashi Fumino's eyes spun into mosquito coils, looking like she was about to faint. She closed her eyes and shouted, "I saw how tired you were and wanted you to skip one class to catch up on sleep! But I thought you might feel uneasy skipping class alone, so I said we could go together! I absolutely did not mean to go and sleep with you!"
"Uh... so that's what you meant," Hayakawa Haku said expressionlessly. "What you said was very misleading."
"It's your imagination that's misleading! Why would you immediately jump to that?! I was just trying to help you rest properly, and you thought of that! You Hentai!" Furuhashi Fumino's brain had clearly short-circuited. After successfully explaining, she loudly and indiscreetly accused Hayakawa, "What kind of person thinks of things like that?! I thought your thought process was weird when you replied to my message yesterday! H!"
"Hmm..." Hayakawa Haku was speechless at Furuhashi's accusations and fell into contemplation. Two misjudgments in a short time. Is there really something wrong with my thinking? Could it be that I'm actually very H...
"I'm not talking about this with you anymore!" Furuhashi Fumino, seeing Hayakawa lower his head in a posture of surrender, became even more aggressive. "I'm asking you now, are you willing to go and sleep or not!"
Hayakawa Haku: O_O
Hayakawa Haku: "Definitely not."
Furuhashi Fumino: "..."
"What's the big deal! It's only one class!"
"I need to study."
"Ugh! That's enough! I'm giving up on you, Hayakawa!"
"..."
While the two were arguing, a silver-haired girl eavesdropping behind a nearby corner smiled faintly, then walked away.
The Emperor's Fear
Hayakawa-kun has no romantic tact.
Furuhashi Fumino was completely certain of this, and she had countless examples. The most recent was that she had genuinely and kindly offered to care for Hayakawa-kun's irregular sleep schedule out of guilt, only to be inexplicably misinterpreted and rejected outright.
This made Furuhashi very angry. Although she often called herself a stupid fish louse and was indeed at a fish louse level in science, she was well aware of the fact that she was a beautiful girl. After all, she wasn't one of those green teas who says, "Eh? Me, pretty? How could that be? I'm not good-looking at all."
Yet, her kind invitation was directly rejected by Hayakawa Haku, with the excuse: "I need to study."
That was annoying enough, but the most infuriating thing was last night. She had plucked up the courage to share her feelings with him: her love for the stars and the reason for choosing science. Hayakawa's response was...
"What emotion or thought did this passage express? 4 points."
Furuhashi Fumino felt she would remember this incident for the rest of her life.
The tactless blockhead Hayakawa will surely never find a girlfriend in his entire life.
"Hey, Furuhashi," Hayakawa Haku tapped the library table with his finger, startling Furuhashi out of her daydream. "Focus. Don't drift off."
See? There he goes again.
Furuhashi Fumino felt stifled, but she still quickly apologized. "Sorry, sorry, I'll look at the problem right away."
"Seriously," Hayakawa Haku glanced at Furuhashi Fumino, then turned back to explain a problem to Ogata Rizu.
"Kishi, kiss..." Furuhashi Fumino tried to concentrate on the math problem, but Hayakawa Haku's continuous voice next to her made it impossible for her to focus.
"Mgh..." Furuhashi Fumino hesitated for a long time. Seeing that Hayakawa Haku had finished explaining and was about to look at the exam paper, she reached out and gently poked him. She whispered, "Hayakawa..."
"Hmm?" Hayakawa Haku looked at her, confused. Furuhashi Fumino leaned closer, exhaling softly near his cheek as she quietly asked, "Hayakawa, what did you think about what I told you last night... about me loving the stars?"
Hayakawa paused, a frown creasing his brow.
What did I think? Obviously, it's a foolish hobby. Shouldn't a normal, healthy, rational Japanese high school student be focused on reality, studying seriously? Instead, you're looking at unreachable, ethereal stars in the cosmos. Isn't that the most pointless and boring thing?
Hayakawa Haku did not understand, and he did not respect it. He didn't like it one bit.
Hayakawa Haku intended to say this. However, the moment he was about to speak, an alarm bell suddenly rang loudly in his heart. He sensed a great danger close at hand.
Wait!
There's a hidden crisis in that sentence!
Hayakawa Haku slammed the mental brakes, swallowing his words.
A little common sense should tell him that a normal person would want their hobbies to be welcomed by their peers, especially if the hobby is rare or niche. If one's interests are not respected by others, or even mocked, it can severely crush their motivation. In the worst-case scenario, they might even give up the hobby entirely.
The thought made Hayakawa Haku break out in a cold sweat.
If he were to say something like, "Only an idiot would like stars," then...
Furuhashi: "Oh, so my hobby isn't respected at all. I feel a bit disillusioned..."
Furuhashi: "Maybe I should just forget the Astronomy Department and go back to humanities."
And then...
"Oh dear~ Hayakawa-kun is second place again. You were first in humanities when I was studying science, but now that I'm back, you're second again~" Furuhashi Fumino would hold a perfect humanities exam paper, looking at Hayakawa Haku hiding in the corner, a dark smile playing on her lips.
"How pitiful indeed~"
The fantasy ended.
"Ugh..." Hayakawa Haku silently lowered his head onto the desk, his breathing heavy.
No... my heart can't take this.