𝐦𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭, todomomo

12 | 'how she felt'

"UPSET?~", DENKI INQUIRED in a melodious tone as he strummed a dramatic note on his electric guitar.

To his surprise Kyoka didn't play around with the lighthearted mood which he made an attempt to create and instead, she stayed dead silent for a moment. Despite her set of amethyst orbs appearing to be locked onto the sight of her own knees, it was clear that she was staring at nothing and had no clue in the slightest of what was happening in her surroundings. But it wasn't long before she finally gazed back at him and responded in a monotone voice, "No...? Why do you ask?"

The blonde broke eye contact with her as he looked down at the guitar rested in his hands and pressed a finger to his chin as if he were to be in deep thought. "Well, you do look obviously troubled..." His purple haired friend furrowed her brows in confusion and gave him a look which insisted him to elaborate on his words.

Right now, the two of them were chilling and playing their guitars together in Kyoka's dorm sitting on top of her bed. They had become guitar buddies after playing simultaneously for the first time in the music classroom, which you readers and I didn't get to see and admire as we were too wrapped up in Shoto and Momo's own bond to care.

But, for those of you who do care; they turned out to be friends after Denki found himself ending up in front of Kyoka's dorm room, which was surprising to his friends because they thought he was very much of a coward, and mustered up the courage to ask the girl(who he in fact found really beautiful) if they could play together again because he really enjoyed the first time they did. But that was actually only the reason to a certain extent, because the truth is he just found himself to take a fond interest to the girl. The incident was two weeks ago, but Denki still applauded himself to this day for being able to do such a thing which may have seemed like basically nothing to anyone else.

Back to the present: abiding Kyoka's silent request for him to elaborate, Denki continued, "When you're stressed, you usually bite the nail on your thumb like... that." On the last word of his statement, he pointed it to her thumbnail which was caught in between her teeth. She immediately stopped and pulled her hand away from her face in embarrassment and gave Denki a hard nudge on the shoulder as she looked away to hide the red blush which spread furiously on her cheekbones. Denki laughed awkwardly before Kyoka finally looked back at him with her head still turned away as she questioned in a low voice, "...How'd you pick up on that?" 

"What can I say, I'm just a professional spy." The blonde raised a corner of his lips to form a half sarcastic yet half scared-that-he's-gonna-get-his-ass-beaten-by-Kyoka-for-calling-her-out kind of smirk which caused Kyoka to push out her bottom lip in frustration, that same pout which made Denki's heart tingle with a feeling that he couldn't quite put his finger on. And yet, even as the author, I cannot tell you what that very feeling was as it's too soon for me to break it to you loyal readers. Anyways, back to the story before I say anything more, the purple haired girl crossed her arms and countered, "Or you're just an asshole."

The two erupted into fits of laughter that of which was short lived when Denki suddenly stopped in realization that he had a girl to console. He wasn't very good with people. Sure, lots of students fawned over him for his admittedly attractive looks, but they would pretty much run for the hills if they knew his actual personality. To put it simply, he was awkward and very dense. His academic grades were incredibly low, which his fangirls took as a 'bad boy' sort of thing, but in reality he was just dumb. And he was kind of built, but not as muscular or strong as someone like Shoto. He was a weakling in fact, and never won any fight neither physical or a mere argument.

Despite the harsh yet very true description I have given you about him seeming like it was enough, I'll tell you that he was even worse at dealing with feelings. Although he was one of the smoothest people you could ever come across, when it came to basic human emotions he sucked. He just did. Even more than studying, even more than fights, even more than just being a normal functioning university student, even more than... anything, basically. Put him in an emotional or serious situation and he'd be up and out of there. But, for Kyoka, he'd do practically anything just to see her in a good mood again. He wasn't scared of getting his ass beaten by her because of her bad mood but rather he just wanted to see her happy. It may sound cheesy, but it was true.

And so in an attempt to help her the blonde asked in the most warm and comforting voice he could muster, "Hey, uh- what's bothering you? You don't have to tell me I just um... I want to uh, help you, because erm..." He eventually trailed off trying to find the words to say, but to his relief Kyoka understood him and shifted her position to lay her head on his shoulder. Her face was devoid of any emotion, but he could tell that she was distressed inside just by the way she stared at the floor and hung her head low as she uttered only five mere words that made Denki's eyes widen in surprise, "I think I hurt Momo."

The blonde was puzzled. He knew that the student council president and Kyoka were practically inseparable from the way she talked about her so fondly(their strong bond made him kind of jealous if he had to be honest), and Kyoka was rarely ever sad so this being the cause of her being unhappy was strange. Just what had happened? "Well, you wanna talk about it?" Kyoka shook her head to decline his generous offer, and continued to curl up into a ball with her head still rested on his shoulder. She wasn't exactly the most open with her feelings.

For a moment, Denki stayed still not knowing what to do. How was he meant to comfort her with the very vague description of the situation she had given him? He looked down to his guitar as if it was going to give him any sort of help, but then the idea struck him. His lips curled upwards to form a warm and understanding smile at Kyoka as he held the pick of his guitar and started to strum a song on it. If there was anything Denki Kaminari was good at, it was playing the guitar. And he figured that instead of failing miserably at trying to console his friend with words, he would do it with music.

He wasn't playing any particular song, rather he made one up with just the purple haired girl's emotions to inspire him. The melody was bittersweet; it was slow and had a slightly low pitch making it sound like a sad song, but there were certain beats added here and there resembling the sound of a heartbeat taking away from the sad tone of the song. It displayed Kyoka's emotions just about perfectly, she felt butterflies in her stomach.

Kyoka was taken aback at first, but smiled and started to slowly bob her head back and forth to the melody. Her blond haired friend wrapped a hand around her shoulder pulling her closer making her feel safe. Safe from the immense guilt that hung over in her mind, safe from the tears that threatened to pour out, safe from the fear that her best friend would never want to talk to her again, safe from the world. It was crazy how just a mere song could make someone stop feeling like shit in just about seconds.

Once Denki strummed the ending note of the song, the two smiled at each other and kept eye contact for a few seconds before bursting into a meaningless fit of laughter. They didn't know how or why they were laughing, but it seemed to have calmed their nerves as the two of them were equally as stressed before. Denki with the stress of having the weight of pressure to make sure Kyoka felt better, Kyoka with the stress of knowing that Momo might've hated her by now and didn't want to see her ever again. "Feeling better?", Denki asked as he flashed a smile at her with pure genuinity secretly lacing his voice.

"Yeah... Thanks, Asshole." The blonde furrowed his brows at what she had called him and dramatically put a hand on his heart. "Asshole?! Why must thou still call me such impudent name after what I've done to aid thee?" Kyoka put a hand on her stomach and started laughing uncontrollably once again at the humorous interaction. She was grateful to have a friend like him, who understood her and made her laugh all the time. When she had an extreme crush on Denki prior to becoming friends with him(she still does to this day) she didn't know he was this easy to talk to. It was a wonder how Kyoka used to think that he had a charming personality before she got to know how he really was.

And Denki Kaminari wasn't even her type. She liked heavy metal and he was more into hip hop music. She always had a blank and stoic expression with a glare that could make anyone sweat in fear, while he was always super cheery and had that damn annoying grin on his face. That same grin which, though she would never admit it out loud, made her heart melt. He had sharp and narrow golden eyes that seemed to be shining brightly along with high cheekbones and a rather defined jawline in contrast to his beaming personality. He could literally light up the entire streets of California with his bright smile and Kyoka loved that.

So therefore, she loved him. But she knew that she could never get the courage to tell him how she felt. And it sucked like, a ton.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ (𝙫𝙤𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣!)

a/n: sorry for slow updates ive been struggling with studies and stuff like that 😭 but i hope you enjoyed this not very eventful yet sweet chapter for you guys to read while i work on the next one in the meantime!