Chapter Twelve: Kineshi Hairo, in Search of Lumber

SCHOOL IS JUST AS NORMAL AS USUAL for the superpowered teens. Though we all know the drill by this point. The normal day will quickly become abnormal because the timeline dictates it or MJ gets bored. Of course, this time she was too lazy to write an original chapter, so we're sticking to the anime, even if this isn't her favorite episode or anything. Looks like you'll just have to deal with it.

Currently, Akari and Kusuo were walking down the school hallway during their break. Though on their way they observed a girl having quite a hard time carrying a heavy box.

The girl grunted, "This is heavy…"

She was just about to fall but her savior was there to catch her and the box. "Watch out! Are you okay?" It is Kineshi Hairo! "Where are you bringing these to?"

"To the teacher's room," the girls answered.

Kusuo and Akari watched the interaction from down the hallway, "Kineshi Hairo. He is a central figure of our class committee." He commented, "His kindness and leadership have won the trust of most classmates. However…"

"Wait!" Hairo exclaimed before scurrying off to a few feet away from the girl, "Carry them here! Humans become stronger when they push their limits!" The girl did just as he said with a little bit of difficulty as Hairo encouraged her, "Come on! Keep it up! Push yourself harder! Good work!" The girl eventually made it to him and handed him the box. 

Kusuo deadpanned, "His energy can also make him a bit annoying."

'Sometimes it's good to be optimistic,' Akari said as they watched Hairo with raised eyebrows, 'though usually there's a time and a place for it. He's just… always like this.'

"Nice! All right!" Hairo cheered before taking the box and placing it behind his back, "I will do my best, too. I will hop to the teacher's room!" He then decided to make it much harder for himself and started to bunny hop his way to the teacher's room with the box behind his back. It's almost impressive how he can do that. I certainly could do that… I need to get more fit...

"He is tough to others, but he is tougher to himself." Kusuo stated as they watched him, "As a result, his classmates follow him."

Hairo started to pass by an open classroom door, drawing the attention of a bunch of classmates. "Look at Hairo," a student exclaimed.

A different student fist-pumped, "I want to hop, too!"

"I will join in even if I have nothing to carry." Another student cried out.

So now not only was Hairo bunny hopping down the hallway but there were a few others following in his footsteps. The super-powered teens watched them go as Hairo shouted, "Teacher's room, I am coming for you!"

'His boundless energy gives me the creeps sometimes.' Akari said with a small shiver as they watched the group jump away, 'How can one person be so energetic?'

Kusuo nodded his head slightly, "I don't dislike him, but I don't think we will get along."

Akari huffed lightly, 'Eh, you might get along. You just won't give him the chance.'

Her friend turned his dull eyes down to her, "You know that's not true." She just shrugged her thin shoulders in consideration. It's not like Kusuo actually went out of his way to make friends. Really the only person that he had actively tried to befriend was Akari and he had done that when they were much younger. He certainly wasn't looking for friendship now. Why would he? He's already got Akari so there's no need for any annoyances in his life that could distract him from her or anything that actually matters in life.

Though she thought it over, Hairo's personality certainly wouldn't mesh well with either her or Kusuo. She grimaced slightly, 'Maybe a little bit.'

---

"Did you know this, Saiki?" Hairo asked as he followed the pair of superpowered teens down the hallway, "When humans sleep, we produce about 300 milliliters of sweat."

It is later in the day, well, an unspecified amount of time. It's kind of hard to tell just how much time has passed in these animes. Whatever. It was probably just after school ended.

Kusuo side glanced at him, hoping that he would just walk away sooner or later and leave them alone. "That is so random."

"The sports festival is coming up," Hairo explained, "We are building the entrance. But my helper Kudo caught a cold."

Akari could just imagine what it was like when his helper told him that. No doubt, he had tried to convince him to help him regardless and about him giving up because of his illness. 

The pink-haired psychic stared at Hairo with a mixture of disgust and disbelief, "Are you a monster?"

"Why not ask someone else to help you?" Akari's wispy voice asked Hairo, "What if we're busy?"

"Oh, Watanabe," he barely jumped at her appearance. He just smiled wider at her, "you can help out too!"

"...Did you just ignore what I said?" She asked him plainly.

Though Hairo didn't answer and just continued on as he led the two towards a classroom. "It's almost done. We just need to connect the base to the arch. So could you help…" He slid the door open only to find that the archway was completely destroyed. How did it even get like this? I'm blaming Nendo for no reason other than he's an idiot. He may not be in this episode, but he could have done this. "No! Base! You were fine yesterday! Base! Speak to me! Base! Don't give up!"

"You can't motivate inanimate objects." Kusuo deadpanned as they watched the class representative fuss over the destroyed arch. Akari raised an eyebrow as Hairo continued to shout at the destroyed arch as if he were motivating a student. She truly thought that some of her classmates were insane, and Hairo is no exception. Kusuo then turned, "Good grief. The three of us can't fix this. We're going home."

"Wait, Saiki! Watanabe!" Haiku called out desperately to them. They lazily turned back to him and found the class representative flashing them a large, encouraging smile. "Let's try our best! If we hurry, we can catch the last train home!"

Kusuo scowled, "Just let us leave."

Though the pair did end up sticking around with Hairo to help him out a bit. Akari had a feeling that it had to do with Kusuo not actually wanting to say no to Hairo, but if she said that out loud, he'd probably get annoyed with her. Then again he's always annoyed, so nothing new.

Hairo was running around the room using his fiery passion to try and get the work done as fast as possible. "Okay! I can do it!" He was sawing away at some wood quite passionately, "I can! Never give up! Never!"

"Shut up," Kusuo groaned from his own corner as he and Akari worked a bit. Well, I say work, but Kusuo was actually trying to do a little bit of work while Akari kind of just watched. She's not the handiest kind of person, to be honest. "Why am I doing this?"

Akari raised an eyebrow with her eyes gleaming a little bit with mischief, "Because you can't say no?" Kusuo glared harshly at her with a click of her tongue. Though all she did was giggle lightly into her hands.

"Never give up!" Hairo shouted.

Surprisingly, Kusuo grabbed a hammer and started to work with it, only for it to break thanks to his powers. He stared at it for a moment, "It's hard to control my strength."

"No! How can this happen?" Hairo shouted out, which caused Akari to cringe, "We don't have enough materials!"

Kusuo side-eyed Hairo, "Is he giving up?"

"I'll go get some more." Well, he made up his mind quite fast. Doesn't he have to get home or something? Why is he so desperate to get this done?

Kusuo eyes him tiredly, "Just give up."

"You two, keep up the good work!" He exclaimed with a thumbs up before sprinting out of the room, "All right!"

"What a pain. We can just leave, but I don't want to be lectured tomorrow." Akari and Kusuo then both imagined how Hairo would chew them out tomorrow if they did just disappear. Kusuo then used his powers to assemble the beginning of the archway. "It's much easier if I don't use the mallet or saw. But it may look suspicious. I'll just read until he comes back." Once he finished he sat down on a box and pulled out a book to read to pass the time.

Akari sighed and whined, "I could be taking a nap right now."

"Just take one now," Kusuo said, not even glancing up to her.

She glanced over at him with her sharp yellow eyes, "Will you be alright?"

Kusuo slowly raised his eyes to look over at her. They narrowed slightly as he took in the expression on her face. He didn't really know what to think of this. Why she was so concerned about him over the littlest of things. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know… Whatever, I'm going to sleep." So Akari cuddled up with her bag as a pillow and laid down not too far away from Kusuo. It didn't take that long for her to start lightly snoring. She truly was far more tired than she would have thought. Though then again, it doesn't take much for her to actually fall asleep. She could fall asleep just about anywhere at any time. Akari is constantly sleepy. Mood.

So while she fell asleep, Kusuo kept an eye on her. It's not like she was going to go somewhere, so why was he watching over her. Hmm, curious. It's not like seeing her peaceful, porcelain face as she let out soft snores calmed him in some way. Or that he believed that she looks quite adorable like this. No, of course not. Hell would freeze over before he would openly admit anything like that. Though it seems like it was starting to become a little bit chilly down there.

Time passed and soon enough the sky started to become a mixture of orange and yellow as the sun disappeared. Even though all this time, Akari continued to sleep soundly. She's a deep sleeper after all. The shadow-manipulator can sleep through just about anything! And even as time passed, Kusuo continued to keep an eye on her. So sweet!

"He is late." Kusuo commented, "What is he doing? It is unlikely that he is being lazy. I'll search for him. Clairvoyance." His eyes then crossed as he looked for Hairo. He ended up finding him but he was in a bit of a peculiar situation. "There he is. What is he doing? What? Where did he find that?" Apparently, Hairo was walking around the neighborhood with a large log tied to his back as he tried to lug it back to school. "If you can't buy wood at a store, just accept that." Though it turns out that Hairo didn't want to just leave Kusuo by himself, even though that's exactly what the psychic wants. "I'm fine. Give up." The log is also covered in fungi, Hairo came to find out. "What's wrong? Throw it out." There was then a scream as the door busted open with Hairo hanging onto the log that slid into the room. "You slipped."

"Sorry for the delay!" Hairo gave Kusuo a thumbs up with a dazed expression, "We can finish this by dawn now!"

"No, you can finish it sooner than that." A voice said from the doorway as some students came into the classroom.

"What?" Hairo questioned as they turned to the newcomers, "Why are you here?"

One of the boys smiled, "We were at practice, and we saw you sliding on that log." 

"You always help us," someone else said.

A different, no-named character exclaimed, "Let us help you!"

"All right! Let's do this!" Hairo was just about in tears at the show of teamwork from his fellow students. He jumped up, "Let's huddle up!"

"Go team!" They all cheered.

Kusuo just eyed them in boredom, "Don't huddle. Just get right into it."

So they all set off to work together as the sun disappeared and the moon illuminated the sky. A couple of the students worked together to clean the log Hairo got, "Get rid of the fungus!"

They then worked on cutting it, "I'm cutting it!"

A student kicked another boy who was sitting on the ground, "Don't just sit there!"

Even Hairo worked his hardest, obviously, which ended up with his pants falling down again and his butt hanging out. It wouldn't be a true Hairo appearance in this anime without his pants falling down for some reason.

After the quick montage of all of the students working together and Kusuo making sure that no one bothered Akari, they finally got it done. "It's done!"

"It looks great!"

Everyone cheered at their accomplishment, "Good grief." Kusuo said, "It took a lot of time to finish it. Normal humans have it rough. Well, it's not bad to do something like this from time to time." Whoa, did he just admit to actually not finding this annoying? What the-

"By the way," someone said, "why are you preparing for the sports festival now? It is still a month away."

Kusuo looked up, "What?"

"What are you saying?" Hairo smiled as if unbothered at the reminder, "A month goes by fast!" Every student in the room blanched, which the fiery guy didn't even notice.

"I knew it. We'll never get along." Everyone then started to sluggish shuffle out of the classroom. After all, all of them were just about completely tired now. Add in the fact that it was nighttime now and everyone was in need of some sleep. Speaking of sleep, Kusuo walked over to Akari who was still napping even though all of the work. He knelt down to her level and nudged her slightly, "Akari."

She just burrowed herself underneath the sweatshirt that had magically appeared at some point while she was sleeping(*cough* Kusuo's sweatshirt *cough*) that was used as a makeshift blanket. "Hmm…"

Kusuo sighed tiredly, and nudged her once again, this time brushing away her inky hair to get a better look at her porcelain face, "Get up."

"Oh…" She yawned cutely and rubbed her eyes, "are they done?" She glanced around the room to find that it was just the two of them left and the archway was completely done. Akari is impressed with it actually being done.

Her friend's eye twitched at the reminder of the fact that he had just wasted his time with the arch. "Yes, now let's go home."

He helped her get up from the floor and grabbed her things for her as they started to leave the classroom. Akari yawned once again, seeing that it was night outside, "Oh, it's quite late." Her soft voice commented as they headed out of the school, "I guess I'll have to stay up a bit late to do homework." She pouted lightly.

Kusuo sighed, "I'll help you out with it, just stay over."

Akari tilted her head as her sleepy eyes stared at him inquisitively. It's not a foreign concept for Akari to sleepover at the Saiki house or vise versa. However, they've done it less and less ever since they started high school. Most likely because, as much as neither of them commented on it, they were awkward teens. Even if they are best friends, sleeping in the same bed like they did as kids is a bit weird for them now.

"Oh," she coughed, "all right…"

So that night they both headed to Kusuo's house, of course after Akari told her parents and grabbed her clothes. Kusuo's parents were more than welcoming of Akari sleeping over. They did have to embarrass the two teens a little bit("Keep the door open, Ku-kun!~"), but it was pretty much fine. They worked together on their homework for a while, ate some food, and then got ready for bed. Kusuo, surprisingly and shockingly, gave up his bed for Akari to sleep on while he made a place to sleep on the floor. So the pair fell asleep like that. Neither of them admitted out loud that they were both… anxious(?) about sleeping over like this since they haven't done it since they were young. Oh, well.