Chapter Text
Using shoujo manga, romance visual novels, and romantic comedies as a guide for Valentine's Day is probably not a good idea, but Nene was desperate.
Well, more so as a guide on what not to do. You see, in many anime and manga, during Valentine's Day, the female main character is usually too shy to give her chocolates to the love interest. She ends up waiting the entire day avoiding her crush before she has to face her feelings and give her usually melted chocolate to them.
And this is what Nene learned: Give him your chocolates as soon as you can to not raise suspicion. Or, give it to him at a normal time and place, and not somewhere romantic like being the only two left in a classroom after school, while the sun was setting and–
Who is “he” you may ask? Of course it’s Rui Kamishiro, her beloved childhood friend and neighbor.
It’s not like she liked him or anything. Nene didn’t even care much for Valentine's Day. She just wanted to avoid all chances of misunderstandings. Why would there be misunderstandings anyways? Better safe than sorry though.
As for chocolates, she’s giving everyone the same store bought chocolate. Homemade… she might screw up. She can cook, but baking or whatever making chocolates fell under was never her strong suit… but, she’ll give more expensive truffles to her closer friends.
Nene went downstairs with a bag holding a bunch of smaller bags with the sweets. She sat at the table writing and adding names with small paper notes then tying them to the plastic bags.
Classmates, Emu, Tsukasa, Shinonome, Shiraishi, Aoyagi, Akiyama…
“Oh? What are you doing, Nene?” Her mother asked as she came downstairs.
“Labeling these bags for tomorrow,” She replied, not looking up.
“Hm. Well, have fun tomorrow then. Say…” Her mom said, suddenly looking smug while leaning against the table.
“What’s with that look..?” Nene mumbled.
“Do you have anyone special in mind when giving these chocolates?” She asked, playing with a blank note.
“What?!” The teenager blushed. “No, why would you think that Mom?!”
“Ahh my oblivious daughter…” The older woman sighed. “Well, you do you,” She said while walking into the kitchen.
What was that supposed to mean..?
Nene sighed, going back to writing labels.
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Rui
Sorry cant walk to shcoolll with you today, have to dveorgae the halwysd!!!
Decorate the hallways. Got it. Ok so that’s one less way to give him chocolates early… no problem. She’ll find another way.
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As soon as she stepped into the school, she was hit with the overwhelming brightness of pink and red, with confetti and hearts being everywhere. It seems like the student council took Valentine's Day very seriously this year. Of course this insanity was supported by Rui, probably taking this opportunity as a chance to use one of his new inventions.
Nene sighed, heading to her classroom to distribute her first bags of sweets.
She spotted An, and asked while finding a small bag for her, “Shiraishi, what’s with the decorations?”
“Ooh~ Thank you Kusanagi!” The star haired girl said. “Have you seriously not heard of plans for decorating the halls and schools like this?”
“Clearly not..” Nene grumbled. “Happy Valentine's Day, Shinonome.” She gave him a bag while he came to his desk.
“Oh, thank you Kusanagi.” Akito said. “Definitely gonna be better than what An’s giving me.”
“Who said I’m giving you chocolate?” An said with mock disgust as she took Nene’s hand to give her own candy.
“This whole decoration thing is crazy…” Akito complained while brushing some confetti off him. “Agreed…” Nene mumbled while she saw An put the confetti back on him telling him to go throw it in the trash instead of the floor.
“Pfft, neither of you guys have any holiday spirit.” An complained jokingly. “Well, I have to supervise outside. Bye!”
“Guess I’ll go to Toya's classroom and check up on him. See you later.” Akito waved, leaving Nene.
I’ll go look for Rui and Tsukasa then.
Nene left the classroom, once again being hit with a bunch of pink accompanied by the smell of cacao and candy. It was only homeroom time, but Nene already saw a bunch of groups of girls urging their friend to confess.
She climbed up the stairs towards the rooftop assuming that's where the oddballs were. She was right… 50%.
“Where’s Rui?”
“Hello my friend Nene!” Tsukasa's loud voice said. “How do you like the atmosphere so far?”
“It’s too much.” She stated bluntly. “Happy Valentine's Day.”
“Thank you!” He exclaimed, taking the sweets from her. “As for Rui… I actually don’t know.” Nene sighed. “Really?” She looked to see around the rooftop, which were just some groups of friends.
“Have you checked our classroom?” Tsukasa asked, peering over the fence to try and spot Rui on the ground.
“No, but it’s ok. Classes are about to start anyways. See you at lunch.” Nene walked away, mentally crossing off a checklist of chances she could’ve given Rui chocolate. No matter, there’s still the whole day left.
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By the time the bell rang for lunch, most of the bags in Nene’s backpack were gone. There were only a few left that she needed to give.
While Nene was walking out to the courtyard, she ran into Mizuki.
“Oh? Kusanagi!” She waved while walking up to Nene. “I’ve got candy for you!”
Didn't expect she’d be here today, Nene thought.
“Akiyama– Thanks. I have some for you as well.” The two of them exchanged chocolates. “Wow, these look good!,” Mizuki commented. She pointed a finger gun to Nene’s hand and the sweets she just received. “Sorry if those are a little melted, my bag has a lot of stuff in it,” She laughed.
“No worries, mine might be as well…” Nene replied. “Well, see you later!” Mizuki waved again, walking off. Nene walked forward as well, and she finally spotted the tall purple haired boy out in the courtyard, tending to some flowers. A smile that she didn’t know about grew on her face, but before she could walk outside, she was tackled by– “E-Emu!” She choked. “Happy Valentine's Day Nene!!! Woahh, your school went all out!” Emu said in amazement while hugging Nene. “Here’s your chocolate!”
“Y-yeah… It’s a bit too much. And thanks.” Nene said, pocketing the sweets. She was used to having Emu breaking into her school. They walked outside. Nene looked back in front of her, only to see Rui had disappeared. Seriously?
She sighed as the two walked around, hoping he was still there and didn’t completely vanish. “Are you looking for someone?” Emu asked, with a skip in her step.
“I'm looking for Rui to give him chocolate, but it feels like we’re playing an unintentional game of cat and mouse…” The moss haired girl groaned. Speaking of chocolate, she said “Let’s go to my classroom, it’s usually empty during lunch and I could give you yours now.” She realized she obviously wasn’t carrying the one she made for Emu.
“Ok! ♪”
The two girls walked back inside and onto the second floor to classroom 2-A. As expected, it was empty. Nene went to her desk and dug out Emu’s bag of truffles from her bag and handed it to her. “Here you go.”
“Ooo~! These look good, thank you Nene!” Emu looked up to the clock on the wall. “Oh no! Lunch is almost over at my school, I gotta go. Bye Nene!” The pink haired girl ran off. Just in time too, as people were beginning to head back to their classrooms.
Nene sat down, watching her class filling the room and the teacher coming in.
“Settle down, settle down. Everyone, open your books to page 54…”
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Class could not have been going by slower.
Every time Nene looked back up at the clock, it felt like the minute hand was moving backwards.
She tapped her pen against her paper while looking down at the assignment. It was one of those days where everything she was supposed to write down was slipping out of her mind, even if the answers were easy.
“Now that we finished the reading...” The teacher's monotone voice droned on. Damn, the girl could fall asleep any moment now. However, her ears perked up when she heard the following words: “I will be assigning you in groups for the group project.” The class let out a collective groan. No one likes doing a group project. “Groan all you want.” The teacher went on while writing out the names of groups on the board. “Please go ahead and find your group members and read the paper I left on each of your desks earlier.”
The class filled with the hideous sound of desks scraping the floor, connecting them with the people near them whom they were assigned to. Lucky for Nene, she was grouped with Akito and An. They connected their desks together, and An began speaking.
“So! Us three for this project. What’s it about anyways?” She asked cluelessly, as if she hadn’t been paying attention either.
“It’s on the paper.” Akito replied, absentmindedly flipping the paper and reading it. “It’s just making a presentation about whatever we read about.” His head was resting on his free hand. He looked as tired as Nene felt. “Thought the teacher would give us less work since today is Valentines day…”
“Hey, at least we don’t actually have to present it, right?” An said, now reading her own paper.
“There’s not much time until we have to begin our next subject… But the teacher wants us to work on this outside of school…” Nene mentioned drearily. Tired, she put her head on the desk and looked around. She looked out the window and into the colorful pink hallway, and as expected it was empty.
An sighed. “Haah… Right. Should we meet up tomorrow to start working on this?”
“Fine by me.” The boy sitting next to her said, playing around with the wire of his notebook.
“Mhm.” Nene agreed.
Wait. No, the hallway wasn't empty. Nene saw the familiar purple haired guy walking through the second floor hallway, maybe even speed walking?
As soon as she saw him, he had disappeared from her line of sight. But that was the closest she’s gotten to “catching” him, and she wasn’t going to let him slip out of her grasp again.
Not hearing what An was saying about texting them when to meet up, and before Rui could get too far, Nene impulsively raised her hand. “May I go to the restroom?”
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If Nene was caught roaming the hallways, she would probably land herself in detention. But the boy couldn’t have gone far, right?
She kept walking forward, hoping no teacher was following behind or yell out to her to stop walking, but she continued to walk and catch him. But then she slowed down… why was she going after him in the first place?
Turning the corner, Nene looked down and pat the pocket of her skirt. She didn’t even bring the chocolates, so there’s no point in going to him for that, and walking towards him might just land them both in trouble. Maybe he wasn’t even running from someone, and was just trying to get back to his class.
“Oh, what are you doing here?”
Nene looked up and flinched, ignoring her heart skipping a beat. Of course Rui manages to catch her off guard while that was what she was going to do.
“I-I can say the same for you.” She responded, mentally face palming at her stuttering.
He responded cheekily, a hand on his hip while saying “True, but I asked first-“
“Hey, you two!” A teacher yelled out to them.
“Ah, it appears we’ve been caught.” Rui whispered to her.
“Ugh..” Nene grumbled under her breath. She knew this would happen..
“What were you two doing, standing around in a hallway during class time?” The teacher said sharply, her arms on her hips. Some pink confetti from the ceiling decorations fell onto her, and Rui had to resist laughing. “We had to go visit another classroom to deliver something.” Rui said as convincingly as he could.
The teacher eyed them suspiciously. But, he was convincing enough as she said, “I’ll let you two off the hook this time, seeing as it’s usually the blond and not you.” The teacher looked at Nene sharply. “Get back to class.”
“Yes ma’am…” The two of them sighed a breath of relief as the teacher walked away.
“It seems our adventure is coming to an end. Remind me, what were you doing over here?” He asked curiously. “Following me?” He joked.
Objectively, yes, that’s literally what she was doing.But thinking quickly, she came up with something that wasn’t a full lie. “I came out here to take a break, I couldn’t focus in class.” She replied as casually as she could.
To change the topic from her before he responded, she asked “You still haven’t answered me. What were you doing?”
He smirked. “I wasn’t lying when I said I had to go deliver something to a different class.”
Nene sighed. “If that’s all, see you later then.” She turned away and started going back to class. What the hell even was the point of trying to meet up with him? She wasn’t that desperate to see him anyways.
The girl walked back to her class, her hand over her heart. Probably just racing because of the encounter with that teacher, she believed.
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Unfortunately, Nene had cleaning duty today. Which meant that she had to clean the mess that was made for Valentine’s Day.
It shouldn’t be that hard to clean… Just cleaning the board, straightening desks, and piling up confetti and streamers as well as popping balloons wasn’t that bad.
One thing that wasn’t usually seen on clean up days was seeing all the love notes that had fallen onto the ground. Every few lockers she had to pass by, she would see little sticky notes or index cards on the ground. People really don’t like cleaning up after themselves, do they?
Once Nene had picked all the ones she could find off the ground, she walked towards the trash can. But before she could throw them away, one of her classmates stopped her.
“Kusanagi, wait! Are any of those love notes?”
“Yeah, why...?”
“Put them on this desk over here! My friend and I wanted to look through them.”
She walked over to the desk they were at and put down the small pile of papers. There were already a few others laid out.
“..Why would you want to look through these? They’re all the same…” Nene asked as the two other girls started opening up any colorful notes that were folded up.
“We’re looking for a note that one of our friends was supposed to give to another one of our friends. But she dropped it, so now we have to go looking for it again.”
“Huh… ok.” Nene walked back out to the hallway, observing the two girls from the window as they looked through the notes, giggling loudly when they found names they were familiar with. She picked up a small red heart shaped confetti she didn’t throw away and thought,
What if I wrote something to him...- Why am I thinking of this?! He’s just a friend. A childhood friend.
All these Valentine's decorations have been getting into her head today.
»»--------->·♡·<---------««
The sun was setting by the time Nene got out of school. Her shadow from the harsh yet warm yellow sunlight made her look a meter taller as walked on the sidewalk. She sighed as she looked into her bag to take her phone out; she still hadn’t given those chocolates to Rui.
At this point, she might as well just show up at his front door and shove the candies into the hands of his parents. But something in her was clawing at her heart, some stupid part of her telling her that she should run after him if she sees him, look to her side and extend out her hand with the chocolates that were slightly melted from her warmth despite the cold outside and—
Nene kicked a small rock out of mild frustration, watching it skip a few times before stopping. Seriously, what has gotten into her today? First it was leaving class pretty much just to see him, then it was the notes, and now this? Surely I don't actually see him that way… Let me ask for advice.
She hesitantly looked through her list of contacts while walking (and quickly scrolling by “Him”), and thought to herself on who she should ask. Or should she just get home and wait for these unwanted potential feelings to disappear?
Biting the bullet, she made a 3 person group chat with herself, Emu, and Tsukasa.