CHAPTER 3 - June Jitters (4)

[CAT LOVER]

At first, Chiba would once in a while make a glimpse at the class's ideal girl, Yukiko Kanzaki. As a boy, he was also entranced by her beauty and her elegant demeanor, which would be difficult to overlook especially when she was just sitting beside Okajima in the row before him. That's why he had voted her as his favorite girl in Class 3-E during their final night in the Kyoto school trip.

But for the past week, his mind would at times run towards Hayami instead – her petite frame, the sharp glint of her emerald gaze, her hair that reminded him of tangerines, and the warmth beneath her apathetic words and actions.

No sooner than that, the black-haired beauty was tucked away within the remnants of his past thoughts.

He would also think about the little surprises that he discovered about his sniping partner while they were together. Like how she would count the number of her bullseye hits out of the total pellets she used, and how she would cross her arms whenever she tried to hide her soft side.

If she couldn't solve a math problem, her lips would pout for a moment before her gaze would plead to him for help. Also, when he did something clumsy or stupid, she would look away each time he caught her stifling a laugh.

And...

"Hey, Kurahashi. I heard that a cat café has opened recently downtown," said Nakamura upon approaching the animal-lover on the first row.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chiba spotted Hayami flinching on her seat.

Kurahashi's eyes gleamed, both fists below her chin. "Really? I want to go there!"

The grin on Nakamura's face widened as she stole a glance in the sniper duo's direction. "We can go there tomorrow. I'll ask the others."

"Yay!" Kurahashi clapped, clearly enthused about this. "I can't wait!"

The scheming blonde began to invite the other girls – all except for Hayami, who was shaking the whole time while Nakamura was going around the room.

The ones coming to the said café were Kanzaki, Kaede Kayano, Yada, Hinata, and Kataoka.

While the female class rep finalized the attendees for tomorrow, she noticed that one person had not been asked yet. She was about to approach Hayami's seat when Nakamura grabbed her shoulder in a bolt.

"Let's not invite her," she whispered to Kataoka's ear.

Kataoka fervently turned to the evil-faced Nakamura. "Why not?!" she exclaimed.

"Trust me, class rep. It will be good for her." Nakamura winked.

Knowing the blonde prankster, Kataoka could not help but worry.

"Oi, Chiba. Are you still coming to the arcade later?" asked Sugaya with a hand on his hip. "Even Karma and Sugino are coming."

Since he has no shooting practice with Hayami later, Chiba had already agreed to hang out with some of the guys after class. But when he spotted the frustration of his sniping partner, as shown with a crease on her forehead, he guessed that she wanted to come with the girls tomorrow, but for some reason, she was not invited.

Maybe he should accompany her later to the school gate instead.

"Pass. I just remembered that I have an errand to do," Chiba said.

Sugaya's eyebrow arched. He could sense that something was up and it was not about the said errand. "That's too bad. Well, you know the place in case you change your mind," he stated.

The taciturn sniper simply hummed.

***

In the end, no one among the girls who were going tomorrow had thought of inviting her. Although Hayami was being discrete about it, Chiba could still sense her moping for the rest of the afternoon. Not knowing how to uplift someone's mood, he stayed silent the whole trek downhill the mountain.

When they had arrived at the school gate, a yearning feeling to spend more time with her spewed out from within him. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

"Bye," said Hayami with a wave. As she spun on her heel, she heard him call out her name. She half-looked over her shoulder.

"Wanna go somewhere?"

After that, they went to the cat café that Nakamura had mentioned. Upon seeing the cats scattered inside, Hayami's face changed from poker-face to ecstasy. And when they were led to a table with cushion seats, she hurriedly cuddled a white blue-eyed Ragdoll on her lap.

He kept on spectating when her head rolled his way. "Don't you dare tell anyone else about this," she told him, her eyes narrowed.

As she was always perceived to be phlegmatic, it would draw a lot of attention on her if the others (especially in Class 3-E) would come to know about this side of her.

"My lips are sealed," he said as his one hand did a zipping gesture across his mouth.

Satisfied, she resumed snuggling the lucky cat with a mushy expression on her face. A British Shorthair, then, walked up to their table before nudging its head on Chiba's knee. The raven hair let out an affectionate sigh as he stroked its fur.

For some reason, seeing his gentle smile with a lovely cat in his arms induced Hayami to pull out her phone and sneakily take a picture of the heart-fluttering scene.

Luckily for her, he only noticed her watching and not snapping a photo of him. As she quickly hid her phone inside her pocket, he raised the stunned gray cat towards her.

"Do you want to play with this fella? You can have your turn," he offered.

She maintained a blank look as she said, "It's alright. Don't mind me looking. Besides, he seems to like you." It would be a waste to lose the soft expression he had earlier.

Who would've thought that he could have that kind of face?

From then on, every time the events of that day would invade his thoughts, he would subconsciously smile to himself, sometimes accompanied by a chuckle. Finding out about her love for cats had been quite a surprise especially the major flip of her personality when she doted on them, which he surmised to be adorable.

As for the restless class rep, she confronted Nakamura the next morning about her 'wicked scheme' regarding Hayami. With a smug look, the prankster genius revealed her plan of setting a spontaneous date for the two snipers including the stalking she – with Karma Akabane – had done on them inside the café, with the help of Sugaya's artistic disguise.

That would explain the sudden absence of Karma and Sugaya that day from the boys' after-school arcade.