Chapter Five: Reach Him! Sign of Love

LOVE WAS IN THE AIR AT PK Academy, and it was almost like everyone had been struck by cupid's arrows! Though not everyone. Even if it was that time of year when students start to become lovesick for each other, Akari thought that it was nothing more than a regular day. Why her classmates started to go stir crazy over their crushes and such was baffling to her. However, that may be due to the fact that she never really had a crush to fawn over like most girls. Even if she did, it's not like they'd notice her. If she did try to confess to someone, they probably would have no idea who she is, even if they were in the same class. Still, it wasn't like Akari would actually want to confess to someone. In order to confess to someone, they'd have to be tolerable, and she found almost everyone annoying. Kusuo was the only one she tolerated, but she wouldn't confess to him. What would be the point of confessing to her one and only friend?

Said friend was also unaffected by the seasonal love fest. He saw it all as pointless since he did not understand love at all. Considering he could hear everyone's thoughts, what was the point of falling for someone who may put up a front to hide their true feelings. The feelings that Kusuo could hear thanks to his powers. 

Take Teruhashi for example, the girl tried to keep up the front as the perfect pretty girl by claiming she would never have a relationship. Apparently, her education was more important than dating anyone. In actuality, she just didn't want to date immature brats. Though she would never say that out loud, she's the perfect pretty girl after all!

Though even if Kusuo didn't want to be involved in this frivolous teenage love fest, he couldn't really stop anyone else from forming a crush on him. Which brought him to his newest problem; Yumehara Chiyo. The mousy, brown-haired girl had a massive crush on the psychic for some reason. 

'Yare yare.' Akari heard Kusuo project his thoughts to her as she lazily lounged in her shadowy seat in the back of the class. Usually, this is how the two of them talked when they were around other people. Well, Kusuo always used his telepathy to talk, but when he was with Akari, she didn't see a point in talking out loud since he could just hear her thoughts.

Akari glanced over at Kusuo in his seat, 'problem?'

'Yumehara Chiyo,' he simply explained, like it was the most obvious thing ever.

She glanced over at said girl to see what was bothering Kusuo and picked it up right away. Akari wasn't that familiar with Yumehara, but she did know that the girl was a hopeless romantic. From what she had heard, Yumehara had bad luck with her love life, though that's as far as Akari knew. She didn't care enough to learn more. At the moment, Yumehara was currently staring at Kusuo with a lovesick expression. Her wide brown eyes appeared to have hearts in them as she stared deeply at the side of Kusuo's face. It kind of creeped Akari out. Also, if Akari squinted her eyes, she could see that Yumehara was drawing some cringe-worthy lovey-dovey pictures in her notebook of Kusuo.

Ah, now she saw the problem. 'What are you going to do?' She asked him while staring at the back of his head questioningly. 

'Avoid her at all costs.' Kusuo explained already knowing that he was going to try and lose the girl's attention as much as he could. It was such a pain. At least he knew what sort of shenanigans that she was going to try and use to get close to him. An upside to his powers.

Akari hummed, 'Do you want my help with that?'

She could hear Kusuo sigh, 'I don't want to drag you into this, you probably have better things to do.'

'Eh, you know I have no life.' Akari casually commented with a small smile and breathy chuckle. It was true, Akari had nothing else to do besides regular school things and hanging out with Kusuo. As implied before, Akari is anti-social, besides her one friend, and doesn't do anything else. Eat, sleep, school, hang with Kusuo, repeat. Kind of sad if you thought about it. 'So how are we going to do this?'

---

The first plan of Yumehara's, that the two teens were ready to stop, was as cliche as cliche can be. What are we in, a shoujo manga? Nobody just falls in love after bumping into each other with papers flying everywhere like cherry blossoms. Walking down the hallway together, Akari and Kusuo already knew that Yumehara was right around the corner. They knew this because one, Kusuo could hear her thoughts, and two, she wasn't that skilled at hiding herself. Blatantly obvious, she is. 

Yumerhara thought that Kusuo was by himself, which gave her the perfect opportunity to try and talk with him. She didn't see Akari at all. Something that Kusuo and Akari knew that they could use to their advantage. Just as they rounded the corner, Akari purposely collided with Yumehara while making sure that Kusuo could walk around the pair.

"Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry Sai-" Yumehara started to say only to look up and find herself staring at a pair of yellow, cat-like eyes. She yelped in alarm and jumped away from Akari.

The shadow manipulator blandly stared at the other girl and bent down to grab a few of the papers that had fallen. "No need to apologize, Yumehara-san."

Yumehara was still completely frozen in shock as Akari put the papers into her hands. Not having seen Akari at all, or even knowing who she is, and not seeing Saiki anywhere was jarring. Wasn't he right there!? She saw him!? Where did he go?! "I- uh, um, wha-"

Akari then slipped passed Yumehara like a shadow gliding across the floor. "See you in class."

Kusuo waited for Akari to catch up and let the smallest of smirks to grace his face. 'Good job,' he complimented her.

The black-haired girl just shrugged her shoulders a little, 'it was simple enough.'

Later, they were back in class where Yumehara was more than ready to intact her next ploy to talk to Kusuo. The handkerchief plan! Akari watched the girl still past Kusuo's seat and purposely drop her pink handkerchief right next to him. While Yumehara waited for Kusuo to notice it, Akari gracefully walked over, gave Kusuo a small smile, and picked up the handkerchief.

"That's weird!" Yumehara asked loudly, hoping that Saiki would notice, "Where did my handkerchief go?"

"Is this it, Yumehara-san?"

"Wha!" Yumehara jumped at the pale hand that held out her pink handkerchief. It wasn't Saiki at all. It was that girl again! The one who Yumehara did not recognize in the slightest. She slowly and glumly took the handkerchief from her and ran off crying. 

"You're welcome..?" Akari said with a raised eyebrow. She then thought to herself, 'You know, this is kind of fun.' 

Saiki eyed her in amusement, 'I thought you said I was the sadist?'

Akari bristled in embarrassment as her pale cheeks became a vibrant red, 'S-shut up.'

Yumehara was certainly determined. For the rest of the school day she tried a few more attempts to get to talk with Kusuo. During gym class, she tried to get Kusuo's help in retrieving her runaway ball. However, some unforeseen force had magically bounced the ball back into her hands. She then tried to get his help with opening a door because her hands were full. But Matsuzaki had opened the door instead. In her last attempt to woo Kusuo, she baked some cookies during home ec class. She eagerly approached Kusuo with the plate and asked if he had wanted some only to find a completely different guy standing in front of her! Was she going crazy!? When she tried to go off and find him again, she found that he was already munching on some cookies. Which he may or may not have gotten from Akari, but no one needed to know that.

Overall, every one of her attempts had fallen flat. To mirror her downtrodden mood, dark clouds started to accumulate and pour rain on the school. Though in one last-ditch attempt, Yumehara hoped that she would be able to share an umbrella with Saiki! Though let's be real, all of these love fantasies that she thinks up make no sense. Like seriously, has she never read the manga? Saiki is nothing like what she makes up. Saiki Kusuo showing an emotion other than annoyance to another human being? Actually being kind to someone? Ha! Don't make me laugh.

'You know you don't have to do this, right?' Akari commented as she stood on the roof beside Kusuo. Her long black hair stuck to her scalp as the rain pelted down on her as she watched her friend prepare to use his powers. 'You could just not offer her your umbrella, then she would get the hint that you're not interested.'

Kusuo turned to her with his ever-present emotionless expression. 'I don't want to interact with her at all.'

'Ah, understandable.' Akari nodded her head from behind her damp hair, 'Still, it would probably save you from her crushing on you again in the future.'

'This is the better option.'

'Whatever you say, Ku-kun.'

Kusuo then raised his hand towards the sky which shot out a blue ray of light. Using this power, he was easily able to clear the grey clouds and stop the rain.

"And there's Saiki." The pair heard Yumehara as they strolled past her to head home. This time they were headed to Akari's home. It was especially exciting since her father said he'd make some homemade coffee jelly for Kusuo. How could Kusuo pass that up! 'It's no use. It looks like we're not meant to be together.' Yumehara thought glumly, 'Farewell, Saiki.'

'Farewell, Yumehara.' Kusuo thought to himself after he heard Yumehara. Thankfully, his plan had worked, just like they usually do. 'Forget about me and go find another guy. I'm sure you'll find someone soon...'

As Akari and Kusuo continued to walk out of school and Yumehara watched them go(not seeing Akari, obviously), another boy walked up next to her with his umbrella. "Do you need an umbrella?"

"It's not raining anymore," she said sadly.

"It is. I can see it's raining in your heart." The boy said wistfully, "Allow me to be your heart's umbrella."

With the same lovesick expression on her face that she had previously reserved for Kusuo, Yumehara gasped. 'Is this the man I'm destined to be with?'

'Come on that's way too fast,' Kusuo said with annoyance.

'Such flowery words.' Akari thought to herself as she thought over what the other boy had said to Yumehara. She was unable to hear the other girl's thoughts unlike Kusuo, but she could already tell that she had been whipped by the boy's words. She clicked her tongue, 'annoying.'

Kusuo turned to her questioningly, 'You wouldn't be wooed by that?'

'No. I don't like to talk as it is, so why would I like it when someone talked to me, especially about something like romance?' She started to explain with a shrug of her shoulders, 'Besides words only have so much power, I'd value action more than anything.'

Even if the two had known each other for years, they never talked about the topic of relationships with each other. At least not the romantic kind. So neither of them knew what the other's preference was in a significant other. Did they really care? No, not really. Was it something that they should know about each other? Who knows. Though that wasn't something to ponder on. Kusuo and Akari had the delicious treat to drool over once they got to the Watanabe household instead.