*
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hino Kahoko was all red and flustered as she poised her pen over the crisp white paper. She stared incomprehensively at the sentences written in Len Tsukimori’s cursive writing. She sighed, defeated, “Len-kun, can you explain this again?”
Tsukimori gave her a slightly exasperated look, “This is the third time, Kahoko, were you even listening to what I was saying?”
“I’m sorry Len-kun!” Hino raised her hands in front of her chest as a sign of defense – if ever Tsukimori might lash out on her – before a nervous bout of stuttering escaped her lips.
It was Tsukimori’s turn to sigh as he ran a pale hand across his hair. “I don’t even understand why I have to be the one to teach you, Kahoko.”
“If you have something to do-”
“I meant that, why not one of your classmates?” Even though he thoroughly opposed having to spend his time tutoring someone.
“Oh.” Hino tapped the pen against her chin and thought for a moment. At first, she planned to ask her sister to teach her but she realized that maybe this would be an opportunity she could use to spend time with Tsukimori alone.
Which obviously wasn’t working as planned.
“Well, I – Because…” Hino paused and quietly cleared her throat – as if the action would give her some confidence to explain the scenario going through her head. Even if she and Len have been going out for half a year already, he wasn’t exactly the type of person to be all ‘sweet and cuddly’; he still liked everything to be simple and practical.
Which in this case was – ask one of her classmates to help her in English.
At the back of her mind, the little voice of practicality was screaming for her to come to her senses when this absurd idea struck her, but did she listen?
Nooo.
She chose to deny the more practical, more sensible, more rational side of her – a.k.a., the Tsukimori-influenced side. –
“You’d probably loose all you brain cells trying to explain this situation. Listen, I’ll explain this just one more time.” Tsukimori picked up his pen and leaned closer to Hino, highly aware of the red coloring of her cheeks as he drew near; his chest slightly colliding with her back and his mouth near her ear. He watched in amusement as she flushed when he started explaining. “You use a conjunction to start the clause; this type of clause should function as an adjective, if you need an adverb clause then you use this other set of conjunction. Basically, you need at least one of these clauses and two simple sentences connected either by semi-colon or a comma to make this type of sentence.”
Hino nodded quite vigorously, when he pulled away to sit on the chair beside her again, she could feel her body somehow relax and the cloud in her head fade away.
Another mistake on her part, she realized. Whenever Tsukimori leaned in to explain to her, she could feel his breath on her ear and the side of her neck and if made her brain malfunction. His proximity was drugging her and it became her fault if she didn’t catch his explanation clearly.
“Before you answer this Kahoko,” Len gestured to the paper in front of her. “Is there anything else you need me to help you with?”
“Ah, actually one more…” Hino reached for the book lying at the far side of her desk. She opened it to a dog-eared page and gently pushed it into his hands. “That last paragraph, I can’t quite pronounce it well.”
“Practice,” he immediately replied, not even bothering to look at the book.
“But I need to tomorrow, an oral recitation. Just read it once for me Len-kun!”
Tsukimori sighed and glanced down the book, silently reading. Suddenly, he coughed into his hand, his cheeks pinking a little. He thrust the book back to Hino, “Read it yourself. Pronounce the syllables slowly, I’ll tell you if you have any mistakes.”
Her sudden look of joy almost made his heart flutter.
Almost.
If only he wasn’t embarrassed for a reason unknown to Hino.
“Okay, I’ll try my best!” Hino said with a look of determination.
“Start from the last paragraph.”
The red-haired girl arched an eyebrow. “The last?”
Len cleared his throat, “It’s the hardest. The other parts will be fairly manageable,” he explained.
Hino nodded, taking a deep breath before starting.
“The rose he saw perched on top of the table was red, a deep red. It reminded him of her, of her lips.”
Her hair too…
“All around him, he could feel her presence, as if she was right there with him. He could feel her slender hands brushing the side of his face; smell the sweetness of her breath lingering upon his lips.”
She probably has no idea what she’s talking about, he concluded.
“I love you, he whispers to nothing but the air around him and he could almost hear her say to him…”
He loved her.
Tsukimori’s eyes widened a little when he noticed Hino’s gaze on him as she finished, “I love you.”
For a moment he didn’t know how to react.
“Did that even make sense Len-kun?” she finally asked, putting the book down. “I feel like I’m not going to pass English this year.”
He had the sudden urge to laugh like there was no tomorrow, then hug Kahoko and then maybe kiss her senselessly in the library.
In the end, Tsukimori Len decides that tutoring wasn’t that bad after all.
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