_Chapter 35-2~ A Side Like This_

"Oh, if it isn't Iwasaki!"

Almost immediately to my yell, Ryu straightened himself, training a hostile glare my way. As soon as he saw it was me, though, he softened for a brief second.

"Why are you sitting by yourself here?" I rose my voice for emphasis as I took a seat beside him. "Did you go to the hot springs?"

Although I was trying my utmost best to maintain upbeat, his solemnity seemed to suck all my efforts from the air.

"Should I take that as a yes?" I prodded after a pause, not wanting to give up. "I went and it's pretty relaxing. Especially after that walk today... Oh yeah, where did your group go? I went to a couple temples; I bet you did too, right?"

Ryu was quiet towards both my questions. My mind felt like it was spinning as I tried to think up other things to fill the growing silence.

Remembering what he was holding, I gasped and forced a smile. "Oh, I got myself the same drink! Wow, so you like it too? I guess we're kind of similar, huh?"

Ryu paid his drink a small glance and breathed, "Yeah."

My mouth opened, but I couldn't muster any words. As a chill ran though me, I grabbed onto my arms. "Wow, it's so cold out. My hands especially considering the drink's already cold enough..."

"That's nice," Ryu murmured absently.

Peering down at my hands, I sourly frowned at him. Without a second's hesitation, I extended my hands forward and slapped them onto his cheeks. "See!" I practically cried. "They're freezing!"

Almost comically, Ryu recoiled, eyes wide at the sudden touch of mine. His surprise itself was enough to assure me that I had succeeded and a broad smile broke out onto my face.

"Finally, you reacted." Pulling my hands away, I tittered a bit as I touched my own face. "Are they really that cold? You got pretty shocked." I mimicked his reaction.

Just then, there was a crack in Ryu's seriousness. A laugh erupted from his mouth, and it only continued to get louder. He did attempt to stifle it by glancing in the opposite direction but it didn't seem to be working.

Watching this unfold, my eyes had grown wide in awe. It was the first time I'd seen Ryu laugh so much and the way that he was was something I'd never expected from him. Because—it was so cute.

"S-sorry," Ryu breathed between his final chuckles, facing me once again and wiping a tear away. A grin was plastered on his face as he met my gaze, shifting to an even warmer smile as he reached out and ruffled my hair. "Thanks, I needed that."

For some reason, an irregular heartbeat began to ring in my ears. I could only watch as Ryu rose from his seat to his feet. He gulped down what was remaining from his drink before tossing it towards the recycling bin meters away. It easily made it. Peering over his shoulder, Ryu met my eyes again. It successfully allowed for my heart to skip a full beat.

"You should head inside soon, Kikuchi." He awkwardly touched his cheeks I had smacked, grinning. "They were pretty cold."

With a quick wave, Ryu left the area towards the boy lodgings all the while I was stuck paying heed to how hot my face was feeling. My heart's situation wasn't any better. Tilting my head back and at the setting sky, I inhaled deep breaths.

Well, at least... I cheered him up, right?

*  *  *

Everyone gathered by the back forest as soon as the sun completely set the next day. The moment I got there I knew it was going to be unpleasant. The teachers were standing by the front near a huge basket and the students were forced to line up in front of it. Apparently they did this event every year—the test of courage.

After all the students drew their numbers, we were told to find our partners who would have a similar one. It was quite hectic as all the students gathered did.

"Hey Sheep, who'd you get?" Miyabi came bounding up to me, successfully distracting me from the number I had just chosen.

"I'm not sure who my partner is yet but I drew twenty-three," I told him. A sigh left my mouth. "But this sucks. I already hate scary things as is and now I have to embarrass myself in front of a random student..."

Cocking his head to the side, Miyabi smiled, pushing his badge into my hand and swiping mine for himself. "Then you can be with my partner."

My hand jerked his way. "No, it's fine—"

"Hey, no switching partners!" screeched a teacher from our left.

Both Miyabi and I apologetically looked their way. Miyabi awkwardly laughed when they gestured for us to separate.

"Have fun, Sheep."

"Wait—"

He ran off before I could stop him, my badge still in his grasps. I made a face, focusing on the sixteen sprawled out before me. How was swapping badges supposed to be better? I still didn't know who my partner was!

"Yo Weed, what'd you get?" Raidon was once again prodding the girl by the name I knew now to be Momoka.

"What good would me telling you do?" she retorted, frowning at him.

"Yeah," Keisuke interjected with a nod. "We're already partners. Forget about her."

Raidon ignored Keisuke's comment. Raidon snatched the button from her hand to see and immediately faced the crowd of students who had gone stock-still. "Who has twenty-two?"

I immediately looked down at my number as if the sixteen would somehow disappear but thank goodness it remained.

The boy with the number approached Raidon within seconds and with a glare from the said guy and a few threatening words about not showing up sooner, the boy grew as pale as snow.

Seeing as the teachers turned a blind eye to what was occurring instead of reprimanding him proved jut how scared they were. Keisuke who had been Raidon's partner before was off moping in the far corner, sending occasional glowers Momoka's way. Poor guy... Raidon always brought him down, and yet he was still so loyal...

"Kikuchi." I jumped at the call of my name. When I swivelled around, I was startled to see that Ryu was the owner of the voice. "Miyabi told me to find you," he said, holding up his badge.

"Why..." My eyes nearly bulged at the sight of a sixteen. Ryu reached me and we were both equally surprised to find that ours were matching. We were partners? No way... A breath of relief left my mouth. "That's why he gave it to me..."

Thank goodness it wasn't a person I was unfamiliar with.

"Okay, all students line up in order of your pairs," instructed the teacher, immediately invoking fear throughout me. I suddenly couldn't find it in me to move—especially after catching a glimpse of the eerie forest ahead of us.

"Kikuchi," Ryu said as the teacher began explaining the rules.

"H-h-huh? Wh-what? I'm f-fine. Completely fine..." My trembling voice and buckling knees proved the exact opposite of my words. "I-I'm..."

"You'll be fine," Ryu assured me.

A wry smile grew on my face. "You'll protect me from all the bugs and monsters?"

Instead of making fun of me for using the term 'monsters' at our age, Ryu timidly nodded. By the jerky movements of his body (similar to a robot), it proved he wasn't exactly comfortable with this entire set-up either. I disregarded it, though. Ryu was fearless wasn't he? Well, except of dogs. But in that case he was scared of what they could do to him, not them themselves.

After the departure of the group ahead of us, Ryu and I, flashlights in hand, started inside the forbidding forest. Our guards were high, especially as it was hard to see. Apparently if we just stayed along the path in front of us, we'd reach the exit in no time...

Sticking as close to Ryu as I could, I warily peered left and right, my heart loud in my ears. The sounds of the ruffling of leaves crunching under our shoes were the only audible sound, though they were unable to even mask away the skin-crawling silence around us. It was right when I least expected it that somebody's grotesque face filled my ray of vision. In shock, Ryu's flashlight from ahead of me dropped, and he went still. I was too frightened to scream as well. I knew something was coming and yet...

Scurrying as fast as we could, only more people with disgusting masks came at us. It was only after the third one emerged with its slimy arms did I begin to realize just how lame they really were. Clearly it was something that they put together at the last minute; there was no variety, and no real reason to be afraid.

Shaking my head, I slipped past Ryu as we continued our pursuit towards the exit. When would we get there? It felt as if we were walking for hours now.

Without warning, a blood-curdling scream rang out and I felt the rain of something fall onto my shoulders. Fake spiders? I guessed, picking one up and eyeing it with the flashlight. When I returned my light forward, a eyeball-less face appeared before me, hand outstretched. "Give...me..."

I deadpanned, easily moving past the guy whose regular body I could clearly identify with the beam of light. He wasn't even wearing a full costume; what the heck? They really didn't try with this did they? Just as I escaped, I definitely wasn't expecting to get tackled into a squeezing embrace from behind. The flashlight I held slipped from my fingers to the ground, shutting off in the process. Panic overwhelmed me at first, but I quickly came to realize the arms wrapped around me were shaking—and also that the body belonged to Ryu.

"Iwa...saki?" I carefully asked, suppressing my astonishment.

He didn't respond—only enclosed his grip tighter around me.

"W-wait..." I began, eyes-wide, "are you scared?"

No way, right?

"N-no," Ryu finally murmured after a few seconds. His voice had come out smaller than earlier but the underlying fear from it was obvious.

He was scared. He was scared of places like these?

"But it's fake," I tried to tell him.

"S-sorry," he apologized instead, grip tightening. "I-I know it is, but...."

An inner part of me couldn't help but 'aww' for some reason. Ryu had a side like this to him?

After a couple seconds, I grew uncomfortable at the darkness surrounding us. Slipping away from Ryu, I bent down to find my flashlight. Before I could though, he grabbed my hand to stop me.

"W-wait, don't leave me behind."

My heart skipped a beat, unable to stop the melting in my chest. What the heck? I was going to get a heart attack if he suddenly got any cuter!

"I won't leave you," I assured him. "I wanted to find my flashlight, I dropped it. Do you have yours?"

"I dropped mine... earlier."

"Then I'll find mine. It's fine, right?"

He grip tightened.

"I... kind of don't want you to. This is embarrassing." Hearing his words, I knew that he was most likely blushing; just the thought of that made me 'aww' even more.

"We have to leave eventually," I said. "Let's just hurry and get out of here, okay?"

Ryu didn't respond, but he did allow me to find my flashlight. After securing it and making sure it was still capable of producing light, we continued forward towards the exit. I was hoping nobody was around to scare Ryu more than he already was, but I guess I was hoping for too much because almost immediately, whispers erupted from around us.

Strange whispers, at that.

"Miss Reina is so kind...!"

"Right?"

"I can't believe she's not scared of this stuff—how cool!"

My blood ran cold at the way they were addressing me. Either I was going crazy, or...

I darted my flashlight's beams left and right and just as I expected, rows of the boys dressed up in those horrid masks were surrounding us. Ryu was probably unaware of who they were though, considering how much tighter he held my hand.

Anger surged up inside of me in that moment. "What are you buffoons doing here?!"

"Buffoons? Miss Reina gave us a nickname...!"

Dreamy sighs followed, invoking me with that familiar feeling of disgust. Without warning, a sudden flash went off, successfully blinding me for a second.

"Got the picture?" one of them asked.

"Aki's going to love this!"

Aki...? Although not reacting to the earlier words, it was then that Ryu had snapped out of his period of fear to push me behind him.

"What does Aki want?" I inquired.

"He told us to get a photo of Miss Reina's terrified expression," one subordinate explained. "He wanted to see how cute it'd be."

My jaw fell. "Huh?"

"Delete it right now," Ryu commanded.

One scoffed. "Don't tell us what to do."

"Idiots, delete that this instant!" I ordered.

"Y-yes, Miss Reina! At once!" they gladly chorused.

Accordingly, almost all of the delinquents pulled out their cells and were deleting photos. I didn't even want to consider how many they took, and how. Why the heck was Aki giving orders like this? He was always so involved in everything and hard to predict!

After telling the delinquents to get back to scaring other students, one volunteered to escort Ryu and I to the exit. When we finally reached the safe place where other students were already waiting at, I breathed out in relief.

"Thank goodness we're done!"

I turned my head to find Ryu blushing from ear to ear. I could only guess it was due to earlier's embarrassment.

"Do you still need me to stay with you?" I teased, with a self-satisfied smirk.

Ryu covered his face. "Please forget about what happened."

I laughed a little. He was probably mortified—not only because he was frightened when I wasn't but also because he was scared of the puppy-eyed delinquents he had made it his goal to protect me from.

Poor guy.

I'd be using this against him for sure.

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I love this chapter xD  I found it warming to write. Plus, it was basically Ryu and Reina moments. I'm glad that they'll only continue too in the chapters to come... :3

Also, I kinda want to know your guys' thoughts on Ryu! Are you guys glad that you're getting to know him a little better these past chapters?

Look forward to the next update! <3

-Misty