Chapter Text
Nene considered herself a patient woman.
Perhaps not in the traditional sense. Admittedly, it was difficult to resist her baseist desires, which often led her to make drastic decisions. Such decisions included but were not limited to, skipping directly to the climax of a trashy romance novel, becoming a gardening superstar, and impulsively swallowing a cursed mermaid’s scale, all in the name of love.
She was still reaping the repercussions of the last one.
Nonetheless, Nene’s version of patience came from her ability to stomach said repercussions. This entailed bleaching and scrubbing away mildew flecks—and the gods knew what else—from the lining separating the foundations of a toilet and the linoleum of her school’s third-floor bathroom. The task alone grated on her nerves, but it was made infinitely worse when she was reminded she had ongoing commentary from the peanut gallery. The primary source was from one persistent shell in particular.
“You missed a spot,” said peanut murmured, his cool breath skimming along the edge of her jaw.
“G-Gah!” Nene gasped, squirming away from the body that had unceremoniously pressed itself against her rump. “Get back! I’m allergic!”
“Allergic?” Hanako pouted, pointing at his face as Nene brought herself back to reality. “To me?”
Instead of dignifying his comment with a response—and largely because she was bashful for having been caught daydreaming—Nene released a hearty ‘hmph!’ and refocused on the task at hand. It was a mistake in hindsight; purging the rusty rings leftover from the toilet water was rarely preferable to anything else.
“Do you need to be inspected for a rash, Yashiro? If so, I’d be delighted to volunteer.”
Key word, rarely.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you very much.”
Regardless of her curt response, Nene’s face erupted in warmth that was half indignance, half embarrassment. She could deal with Hanako’s teasing, or so she liked to believe. He was predictably pervy, but that was because she knew he liked pushing her buttons, sometimes just out of sheer boredom.
Just when she thought she’d heard of every coquettish quip in the book, he’d throw out some new variation that had her floundering, and she’d inevitably spill some combination of water, citric acid, and sodium carbonate down the front of her school uniform. She’d curse him, but also herself. She knew her transparent reactions were only goading him to continue.
Nene watched Hanako out of the corner of her eye as he floated past her and into the bathroom stall she was disinfecting. He didn’t bother trying to keep any semblance of distance between them; the front of his chest pressed into her side as he bobbed out of reach. He came to sit on the closed tank of the toilet, resting his foot unapologetically on the lip of the seat.
Nene’s eye twitched. She had just scrubbed that.
Hanako grinned at her, then leaned forward. “Are you mad at me, Yashiro?”
Nene scrunched up her nose. Her lack of immediate response gave him pause.
“Are you?” he asked, his grin faltering.
She felt her stomach twist in mild panic. “N-No!” she insisted, honestly. “Well, not more than I usually am. You don’t make this job easy, ya know. You saw what I had to plunge last week! Yuck!”
The glow in Hanako’s eyes reignited, and relief swept through her. As much as Nene despised cleaning the girls’ bathroom, she did enjoy the time she spent with Hanako. Even if he pestered her consistently. She tried to strike the perfect balance of disdain for cleaning toilet bowls and genuine joy at their camaraderie. After all, he had admitted that having her there meant a great deal to him. It pulled him closer to the memories and sensations of the living.
But then that sly grin spread across his lips again, stunting Nene’s relief and instead dredging up suspicion.
He leaned even more forward until the tips of their noses were practically touching. Nene blinked from where she knelt on the linoleum, her eyes nearly crossing just to keep him in focus.
“So what I’m hearing is, you’ve become an expert plunger?”
The innuendo wasn’t lost on her; it rarely was when it came to him. Perhaps it was the proximity of being trapped in a stall with nowhere to hide, or maybe it was the fact that the phantasmal boy in front of her was especially vexsome today, but for once, Nene’s first instinct wasn’t to flounder.
It was to spit it right back.
“Well, how much do you know about plunging?” she heard herself fire, her bathroom rag and disinfectant bottle firmly grasped in her gloved mitts.
Before she could fully process that she had just stooped to Hanako’s level, something peculiar happened. His entire body went stiff as stone, and his amber eyes were blown wide like ammonites. Spots of rose bloomed high on his cheekbones then instantly spread across the entire top half of his face, growing like vines to reach the tips of his ears.
“Hnah-?”
Nene blinked. Had that noise come from him? She watched in muted fascination as Hanako adjusted the cap on his head, even though it hadn’t been the slightest bit askew. The movement momentarily shielded his eyes. The painted afternoon sunlight cut through the slit in the stall, turning the flushed skin of his cheeks to rose gold.
“Curious, are we,” he managed at last, with none of his usual bravado.
And with that, the seeds of theory were planted.
—
Over the next few days, Nene churned the events in her mind. Hanako’s red-tipped ears plagued her every thought, making it difficult to concentrate in class. She wavered between feeling smug and anxious at her most recent discovery.
It wasn’t surprising that Hanako was hardly the casanova he liked to portray, but Nene could count on one hand all the times she had seen him so outwardly flustered. The most glaring instance that came to mind had been that fateful day on the roof when she had kissed his cheek as a symbolic protective charm.
But in that case, he had just been caught off guard; that’s usually what unbalanced him. Hanako wasn’t one for surprises, plain and simple. But still…
Okay, truth be told, Nene didn’t totally abhor his shameless flirting. Sometimes it even gave her a bit of an ego boost. Someone who truly found her repulsive wouldn’t flirt with her as much as he did, even in jest. Right? Right?!
Nene chewed on the inside of her cheek as their teacher rehashed their latest geometry unit on the board. She glanced out the window, her eyes skimming over to where the Confession Tree had once been rooted.
She sighed wistfully. And yes, as long as she’s trying this whole honesty thing…Hanako did have his cool moments. He could be sweet in his way, and despite not being her type, he had increasingly found more opportunities to make her heart clench fondly.
Even so, the way he flirted so openly put him at an advantage she didn’t much care for. Ego boost or not, it wasn’t always fun to be the butt of the joke! But the other day in the bathroom…he had acted just as unraveled as she had all those other times. So maybe, if she could turn the tables just a little–
“Nene-chan?” Aoi prodded gently, causing Nene to leap into the air with the grace of a bullfrog and smacking her calf against her desk leg. She bent over and rubbed the injured area, hoping her ankles wouldn’t swell. She didn’t need any help in that department.
“Ah! Ao-chan, sorry I’m so spacey!” Nene babbled, fixing her hair and clothing.
Aoi smiled, bringing a hand to her mouth to politely cover a giggle. “I asked what you were thinking about since class already ended.”
A cursory glance told Nene her friend was correct. Geez, had she really not noticed everyone shuffling into the hallway? She needed to get a major grip.
“Thinking about a crush?” Aoi inferred, and while the violet-haired girl had no concrete evidence to confirm that fact, it didn’t stop Nene from turning tomato-red.
“W-Well, it’s not really like that at all! It’s n-n-not like I like him or anything. He’s so not my type and besides he’s, um, let’s say, not all that present-”
She stopped herself short. This conversation was bringing on a major case of deja vu.
Aoi seemed to think so too. “Is this the boy you were nervous about confessing to you under the Confession Tree?” Without waiting for Nene to respond, she cocked her head to the side, surveying her wisely. “You know, it’s okay to have a change of heart, Nene-chan. You’re a girl. And sometimes a guy can become more attractive to a girl once she gets to know him!”
Nene tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, considering this. There was a lot she still didn’t know about Hanako, but the stuff she had learned was pretty nice. He might have been a closed book, but she had grown to treasure the moments he opened his pages to her. When he felt more human than apparition.
“I didn’t think about it like that,” Nene conceded. She glanced at her friend sheepishly, almost afraid to ask what she wanted to. It was just so embarrassing. “Ao-chan?”
“Yes?”
“What’s the b-best way to flirt?”
Aoi’s eyes widened briefly in surprise before a dazzling smile coated her feminine lips. “Oh Nene-chan,” she said, clasping her hands together, “this is going to be such fun!”
“Yay.” Nene pumped a fist half-heartedly into the air.
Fun was subjective, after all.
—
After Nene had graduated Flirting 101 with Professor Aoi, she spent the next few days shirking her bathroom cleaning duties. She knew it would come back to bite her later, but she honestly needed the space from her ghostly master to pump herself up.
She knew she was being ridiculous. What was there to be nervous about? It’s not like she had any skin in the game. This was simply payback for all the harassment she’d had to endure at the hands of School Mystery No. 7.
Unfortunately, Operation Grow a Pair was extended a few days longer than necessary, and Hanako took notice. He just so happened to make his displeasure known the following week after school when Nene was elbows deep in fertilizer.
“Yashiro,” Hanako hissed, practically dissolving into existence beside her, with Hakujoudai bobbing by his shoulder to boot.
Nene let out a girlish scream, and her hand trowel flew into another dimension. She didn’t even have time to bemoan her unplanted carrot seeds because the ghost in front of her was no-nonsense.
“Just where have you been? My bathroom floors are getting grimy. And the Mokke have been no help!”
“S-Sorry, I’ve been busy,” Nene scrambled, still thrown from his jump scare.
Hanako folded his arms, unimpressed. “You know just because we’re friends doesn’t mean I won’t still punish you for shirking your assistant duties.”
This is it, Nene thought to herself. He had even given her an opportunity to take this conversation in a new direction. Now’s my chance to show him my stuff! Take this, Hanako-kun!
Channeling the advice Aoi had drilled into her brain, Nene casually swept one dirt-soaked hand across her face and through her hair, shifting her weight on the ground and doing her best to look up at Hanako through her eyelashes.
“H-How would you punish me?” she inquired, silently cursing herself for still stuttering. This wouldn’t work if she did things half-heartedly.
To her dismay, Hanako missed her intention completely. He bent forward, just out of her range, and cocked an eyebrow. “Well, I could turn you back into a little fishy for one.”
Despite the dread that the threat sent down her spine, Nene held strong. She needed to up her efforts. Remembering the nugget of knowledge Aoi gave her about a casual and fleeting touch, she extended her arm.
“Is that all?” she asked, dropping her voice. It sounded forced, but not too forced. “There’s nothing else you would do?”
Steeling herself, she used the least filthy part of her index finger to dance across the skin of his throat, feather-light, before skimming it down his chest, pulling away only when she reached where she thought his naval was.
The effect was immediate. Hanako’s body jolted violently, and his mouth popped wide open enough to accommodate a serving of mochi. The blush on his face bloomed and migrated as prettily as it had the other day, but this time it was accompanied by a tug of his collar.
Nene noticed all of these things from her place on the ground. Yeah, that’s right. She did that. She was just that kind of woman. She was as cool as the cucumbers she harvested.
Mentally, it was quite different.
Oh my GODS, I can NOT believe I just did that! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Although her internal monologue was in turmoil, she managed to keep a lid on it, and it was a good thing too because Hanako was formulating a reply.
“W-Well, I’d probably send you through a portal via the toilet. Give you the royal flush t-treatment,” he choked out.
Ignoring the terrified pounding in her chest, Nene bit her lip briefly, just like Aoi had instructed. “And you’d do that because I’m being bad, Hanako-kun?”
The tugging at his collar amplified, and a sheen of sweat populated his hairline. “Um, I guess. Y-You feeling okay, Yashiro?”
Rising to her feet, Nene ducked her head briefly, giving herself a moment to collect her bearings. Taking a brave step forward on behalf of scorned women everywhere, she leaned towards him until they were face to face. The tips of their noses clinked together gently, like champagne flutes.
“I promise, Hanako-kun. I’ll be a good girl from now on,” she said softly.
She almost completely lost her nerve when Hanako made a startled noise in the back of his throat. His irises, normally deep pools of amber, darted around frantically, looking at everything but her. Nene stepped back, preparing for a speedy exit. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up this act.
“See you later, Hanako-kun!” she called brightly, sprinting into the school before he could notice her voice cracking.
Once she was safely inside the building, Nene collapsed against a row of lockers, catching her breath. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Had she gone too far? Not far enough? The whole ordeal had been mind-numbingly stressful, but also, sort of exciting and…even empowering? She’d felt so cool, being the one in control, reducing him to a surprised and flustered mess for once.
She wiped her sweaty brow. There, she thought. I bet Hanako-kun will think twice before messing with me now!
If only she knew what was to come.