‘That’ Side Character Chapter 20: Off with the Fairies

“Pretty,” you thought, staring wide eyed at each trinket in turn, letting the colours penetrate right into the core of your eyeballs.

There were painted animals, glittery feather things, miniature butterflies and caterpillars, anything that you could think of to decorate a bunch of flowers and your hand gravitated towards some kind of cat pin that looked kinda like Kenma the cat and you picked it up to take a better look at it.

“This is cute,” you thought with a smile, closing your hand over it and warming the cold metal with your palm.

Absentmindedly, you walked to the check-out desk and presented it to the lady for her to scan.

She did so. You paid. And then you were out the door and hobbling on your way to school, your clunky boot making a loud thud with each booted step.

You had almost reached school when a thought suddenly struck you.

“Wait! I forgot to get Lolita flowers!” 

You were about to turn back when the feeling of the little bag handle in your hand caught your attention and you looked down at it.

You stared at it for a second, wondering what on earth it was. Then you opened it to look inside and you saw the cat pin.

“I… I bought this? Oh! Yeah, I did. Oh, frickity frackity! I just randomly bought this without even thinking! I bought it for me but I was supposed to get something for Lolita! … should I give her this instead of flowers?”

You looked it over- standing dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I mean. She does work at the animal shelter?” 

You thought a little longer and then shrugged and put it back in the bag.

“Yeah… I’ll give it to her,” you decided.

………………………………..

Kenma had waited for you that morning, but when you didn’t show up at his place, he decided to head on to school on his own, nose buried in his PSP.

Taking the shortcut, you guys usually used, he walked up to the fence and looking over his PSP to see it had collapsed right over.

“Oh. It’s fallen. Finally, it K.O’d.”

He gingerly walked over it, then set off across the oval, passing your head teacher and principal as they headed back past him to the fallen fence.

At sensing them pass him, he stopped and turned to see where they were going, thumbs still resting on the buttons of his console.

They were intently walking towards something and he watched as they traipsed right up to the fallen fence and then stopped and had an intense discussion about it.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying but they didn’t seem to be very impressed.

There wasn’t much else he could do so he just turned to head towards the school building, head down playing his game again.

It was a click or two before the bell rang that you came honkey-tonking your way along with your bootleg brace and quickly threw your stuff into your locker then snatched your books for first class out and bumbled along till you got into the classroom.

You laid eyes on Kenma as you entered and he looked at you with a soft look on his face so you smiled, gave him a quick hello before passing and falling into your seat, huffing and puffing and trying to adjust your hair that was all over the place.

The bell rang and in walked the teacher, making direct eye contact with you.

You tried to calm your breathing and sit straighter but it was hard to do since you had only just sat down.

“I must look a mess but it’s so hard to move in this stupid boot thing, I wonder… if I tied helium balloons to it… would that help?”

Your mind started planning out the balloons, how many you would need, where you would attach them to your leg, how you would attach them to your leg etc, etc… until you were well and truly lost in thought. You were well and truly on the way to solving this earth stopping issue, when you heard, through your internally rambling voice, an obnoxious voice calling your name.

With an annoyed look on your face, you paused your internal planning session and looked up into the very pissed off looking face of your teacher.

“Yes?” you asked, still with brows knitted in annoyance.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” she asked sternly.

You were confused. What in the fresh hell was this old windbag on about now?

“This boot is heavy,” you said. You were pretty sure she wasn’t talking about your boot, or your daydreaming, but you had nothing else to offer to her random comment.

“And that’s it? You think it’s ok to destroy school property for the sake of your boot?” she asked, “of all the irresponsible things, Y/N, this is the final straw. You will go to the office right now. We are calling your father to get you. And that is IT. You will never step foot into this school again!”

Confusion consumed you.

Utter bewilderment.

What was going on?!

“What?” you asked. You honestly had no idea what she was talking about. 

“It was me,” Kenma said suddenly and you whipped your head back to look at him.

Your head swung wildly back and forth between the two, trying to figure out what had transpired in the real world while you were in the middle of your internal ‘balloon to boot’ planning session

“What happened? What did he do? What did I do?” You had so many questions but none of them were being answered.

The teacher glared at Kenma.

“You did not, Kenma. Sit down, please. I understand that you are friends with Y/N but she will never learn if you keep covering for her.”

“Do you have proof?” he asked, giving the teacher a stern look, but keeping his head down so that his curtain bangs kept his vision enclosed.

“W-Well no, but that’s beside the point,” she spluttered.

“You saw me walking across the oval this morning,” he said softly.

The teacher had nothing to say and you just stared at Kenma, still trying to work out what was going on.

Kenma looked at you and you scrunched your eyebrows at him.

He could tell you didn’t know what was going on so he spoke up again.

“I knocked over the back fence. By accident,” he said to you, but also confirming it for the teacher.

The teacher was annoyed that he had stepped in on this, and so she made some garbled excuse about talking about this later- with him, and with you. And then she turned and stormed back to her desk to start the lesson.

<<< ‘That’ Side Character Chapter 19: Nice Companions 

‘That’ Side Character Chapter 21: Validated >>>