“Yatsu!” His mom called from downstairs.

Yatsu opened his eyes, squinting at his alarm clock. It read a time way too early for him to wake up.

“Yatsu!”

“Five more minutes!” He called back.

A moment later, there were two soft knocks at his bedroom door.

“Can I come in?” asked her voice.

Yatsu snapped awake and his heart skip a beat.

“Hold on-ah!” he yelped, leaping off the bed and falling face first into a pile of dirty clothes on his floor.

“You alright in there?” her voice giggled as Yatsu somersaulted over the clothes before standing up.

“Yup, just thirty seconds!” he answered grabbing a pair of pants from a pile he judged clean and switching out his PJ's.

“You okay?” she asked again.

“Yip!” He squeaked, trying to pull the pants up that seemed a size too small. That pile must have been his pile of unwanted clothes. But despite the extra tight fit around his waist he managed to squeeze into them. He then grabbed a shirt from a different pile and pulled that on before glancing back at his messy room.

Damn, I should’ve asked her to wait downstairs and I bet I look like a slob too.

“Yatsu~”

He opened the door. Behind it, he found a cute petite pink-haired girl wearing the school's uniform with a backpack on her back. Sasha.

“I came to pick you up and I made you a lunch!” she smiled holding up a large plastic bag in front of her.

He nodded, unable to find words.

"That's..." Yatsu rubbed the back of his head, his eyes wandered over to his sister's room.

“We should go,” he said taking Sasha's free hand and leading her downstairs.

Mom caught them halfway out the door and handed him his backpack.

“Be on your best behaviour now,” she winked.

“Mom, please-just, don't tell Rika?”

Mom smiled back as they closed the door behind them.

Yatsu groaned and found Sasha staring at him while he still grasped her hand. He let go.

“S-sorry,” he apologized and started toward the school.

She caught up and took his hand into hers once more. They made eye contact, her eyes serious all of a sudden.

“Don't ever let go and say that you’re sorry,” she said and faced forward as they took a few more steps. “Don't ever let me go,” she whispered.

Yatsu barely caught that last line and wasn't sure if he heard it right. He decided he did and responded by tightening his grip around her soft hand.

They reached the school faster than Yatsu expected. Or maybe it felt that way? Walking in silence, holding a girl's hand can do that?

Before anyone witnessed them together, Sasha let him go and switched the bag containing lunch from one hand to the other.

“I can carry that,” Yatsu offered, thinking it made sense. She said she made him a lunch so-

She shook her head. “I'll meet you and we can eat lunch together,” her face turned a little pink. “I usually eat on the roof with Eva, we can meet there?” She phrased it like a question.

“Ya, sure,” Yatsu responded, knowing the place.

A couple months ago he followed her around at a distance for a few days. Learning everything he could. The day she made eye contact with him, he stopped, not wanting her to think he was a creep.

She walked a few steps ahead of him before turning back. “I love you."

“I-I-” he stuttered over the phrase he’d only said to one other person. Sasha, impatient with his response, left. Yatsu never finished his statement, as if it wasn't true.

We only started dating yesterday, of course I'll have trouble saying it! He spotted a place to sit and wait for the first bell to ring.

Proof Read By: JayDirex