"Kiana… you're going to be late for school…"
Mei sighed as she shook a still asleep and in pajamas Kiana Kaslana lying on her bed.
"She's not gonna wake up, y'know? I've tried many times and failed just as much." I explained behind her as I stood at the door to Kiana's room.
"What do we do then?"
A grin appeared on my face as I moved over.
"Watch."
I went over to Kiana's side. I gestured for Mei to stand back a bit before I slowly grabbed her ear…
And then I screamed.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! WAKE UP! TIME TO WAKE UP! I'M STEALING ALL YOUR SNACKS IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP NOW!!"
Kiana jolted awake in an instant.
"My snacks?! Who the heck is taking my snacks?! I'm gonna-"
She paused when she finally saw Mei, who had a hand on her forehead, and I staring at her.
"Err… Good morning?"
"Good morning, Kiana. Go get ready for school."
As Kiana hastily scrambled to get ready, I just smiled at Mei.
"See? Don't be afraid to be a bit rough with her. She can take it."
"Understood."
Her nod was somewhat sagely as she took in my words.
"I can still hear you guys!"
"We know."/"We know."
—---------------------------------------------------
As we(including Bronya now) approached school, I noticed that Mei lagging behind slightly as she nervously curled a finger of hers around a strand of hair.
Kiana and Bronya were busy arguing something that I wasn't really paying too much attention to so I decided to slow down a bit myself.
"You feeling nervous?"
"That obvious huh?"
"You look like you're going to sprint in the opposite direction at any moment." I chuckled slightly. "C'mon. Keep your chin up. You've got this."
"Motivational coach Gojo, huh?" Mei let out a small giggle.
I put a hand on my chin. "Hmm, I suppose I could start a Homutube channel as one…"
"And dip your face in sparkling water at 4am every morning?"
A shrug was my response to that.
After another brief moment of walking, we finally arrived at the school gates. It was noisy, with students all around chatting and minding their own business.
It just seemed that all of them liked to become busybodies the moment we walked through the gates.
All at once, the noise lowered to a whisper as every eye made their way towards the lady of the hour next to me. The whispers weren't loud, but I could basically hear the subtext of the stuff they were saying.
For example?
"She's actually coming to school?"
"Unreal… she just walks in like nothing happened?"
"Sshh. Don't be too loud. Who knows if her dad will get out somehow…"
Huh… that last one was actually smart of him… or her…
I dunno. I don't really pay attention to the random faces of a bunch of kids at school.
But regardless, Mei did not take it well at all, as she instinctively shrunk slightly behind me, as if to shield herself from the gossip.
It was at this moment that Kiana decided to make herself known.
"What are you guys looking at?!" She shouted unhappily. "Can't control your eyes or something?"
That did the trick as everyone realised that they were being far too brash with their actions and pretended to go back to normal.
However, eyes still glanced towards us a few times as we walked into the school.
Bronya played her part as she held onto Mei's hand.
"The Bronya…"
"It's fine." Mei hurriedly told her. "It's not your fault."
I just patted her on the shoulder as well, showing my support.
It wasn't easy for a kid to have that many eyes on them, especially in such a negative manner.
But though most people seem to be relatively gossipy about her, there was something interesting all of us found out.
Mei's shoe locker?
Full of love letters.
So I did what any responsible adult would do.
I grabbed the juiciest-looking one and cracked it open like it owed me money.
"Dearest Mei, my father is the president of Blablabla Company. I believe that we could come to…"
Yea… I'm not reading all of that.
But you get it right? All those love letters were basically guys trying to play the knight in shining armour and get with the girl when she's down.
And then, if Ryoma one day gets back up onto his feet?
Mei tried her very best to keep an ugly grimace off of her face. She actually kept a poker face very well, but I could see the subtle hints of it since I was standing right next to her.
Kiana just took the letter from my hand.
"This letter sucks."
"The Bronya believes it was written with HomuGPT. Probability of an AI-generated letter is close to 99%."
"So that means we should toss it?"
"Subject Kiana. It's not that simple. Sister Mei would offend everyone who sent the letters at once if she did that…"
That was true, but Bronya forgot about an extra point.
She would still be misinterpreted as being 'too above' them by other girls.
Was it stupid?
Yes.
But kids are stupid.
"Who cares about those guys…" Kiana grumbled slightly.
Mei stood there silently, the letters in her hands slightly crumpled at where she held it. She looked like she had clearly been planning on throwing it all away, but Bronya's words made her hesitate now.
Her eyes turned slightly red as a hint of wetness appeared around her eyes. She had clearly not been expecting this level of pressure immediately after returning to school.
Looking at her expression made me kinda uncomfortable.
So in the end, I decided to make a spontaneous decision.
I was gonna do something that Ms. Bronya Zaychik was very familiar with.
I snatched the letters out of Mei's hands and shoe locker before dumping them all into the trash can for her.
A bunch of gasps came from a bunch of very badly hidden students who were watching as they couldn't help but mutter.
"What the hell, Gojo Satoru…" They muttered. "It was about to be cinema…"
Making sure a brick smacked the back of their heads with Blu- I mean, when the wind smacked a random object on the back of their heads, I walked up to Mei.
"You didn't have to do that."
Her voice was quiet, almost unsure. But for just a moment, she wasn't shrinking, she was watching me.
"Oh… but I do…
My dearest Mei…"
She was stunned as she looked at me blankly. Kiana squeaked out in surprise while Bronya's eyes widened.
"H-huh?"
"From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I knew. You weren't just a girl. You were a storm that was approaching, a divine tempest crashing through my heart."
"..."
"Ha?!" A bunch of shouts came in the background.
"Your voice is like thunder, shocking the very essence of my soul…"
"Please end it all…" Mei placed her hands on her face.
"And your twin drills… crap, that was for Bronya's script."
"Subject Gojo is recycling confession material."
"Ssh. Shut up, Bronya."
Mei recovered at this time as she looked at me with shock in her eyes.
"W-why are you doing this? Your reputation…"
"Why?" I looked up for a bit before giving her a wink. "I'm kinda into Japanese women now~"
"Subject Gojo changed his tastes again?"
"Yes. I'm a very fickle person."
"Understandable. Have a nice day."
I turned around. "C'mon now, ladies. Let us leave here now. I believe that many will be gathering here soon~"
I blew a kiss across my shoulder to add on to it.
"I… don't even understand what's going on anymore…"
"Sister Mei will find that Gojo's mind is a strange place."
It was only after we begun to leave that Kiana, who had been frozen in shock all this time finally had her brain CPU rebooted.
"What the fuck just happened?" She croaked out.
Bronya raised up both hands.
"Absolute Cringe."
(A/N: Please give powerstones and comment if you liked the chapter. Please review as well.
What do you guys think about a discord server?)