Time Flies By // TBHK Role Swap AU

Chapter 19: The Happy-Go-Lucky Garden Ghost

It was the next day and by their agreement, Kou and Amane met in front of the cooking club. They didn't go see Yashiro that day so they wouldn't give their plan away.

They already booked the counter and Kou brought in the ingredients, it was automatically decided after yesterday that they were preparing Strawberry-flavored Rice Cakes. One thing remained in Amane's mind, well, spilled out.

"What if the rumor was wrong-"
Amane blurted out while they were in the middle of cooking some in a pan.

"Its gonna be alright, its the effort that counts right?" Kou mentioned, Amane nodded as they continued the process. It was fairly simple, combine your ingredients, mold them, spray cooking spray into a pan and cook the cakes.
(A/N: This is just a random thing I found on the web lemme know if its wrong or not-)

Once they made enough for everybody to have a couple, Amane and Kou split one in half as a taste test and decided to take the batch down to the garden. Upon arrival, first thing they noticed was that it was dead silent. Kou was holding the plate of rice cakes so Amane had the job of opening the door, he grabbed the metal push bar and moved forward opening the heavy door.

"Yashiro!" Amane called out, Kou was hiding behind the wall to keep it hidden from sight.

"Yeah whats up?" Yashiro looked up from her usual spot besides the tree, she was reading a cheesy romance novel from the school library. She put a bookmark in it and laid it besides her gravestone and walked over. "Why're you so late? I thought you went home."

"We made a little something, we heard you liked it soo.." Kou stepped in with the covered plate full of the strawberry-flavored rice cakes. Yashiro's eyes immediately went big in awe, having a small gasp come after.

"Is this for real?!"

"Yep, fresh too!" Kou assured.

"Ahhh thank you thank you! Cmon lets go over there and eat!" Yashiro was shouting from her sudden hyper-ness and they walked over to the colorful benches. There was two of them, they were plastered with a bunch of designs and dry paint splatters, they were done by the art class back in 2011 as a final grade.

They sat down and Amane took the cover off as they each grabbed one to start off with. They talked about their days, stuff going around school, and things they heard on TV.

Yashiro grabbed her second one but something kept snatching her attention from the distance, it was a bizarre sound, she couldn't even describe it.

"Ill be right back, I forgot something!" Yashiro kept taking small bites of her cake as she walked back into the building, roaming the hallways, she didn't see anything right off the bat so she kept exploring. Its been awhile since she just roamed the halls, it really took her back.

"Nene-Chan! Whatcha eating?" Aoi appeared out of thin air once again from behind, seems she had a habit of doing that. Yashiro jumped a little, almost losing her grip on her snack.
"Ohhh strawberry-flavored rice cakes. Man, I remember we use to eat them during movie night, we had fun then didn't we?" Aoi recalled, Yashiro took another bite but it was much harder to swallow than before.

"Yeah but uhm, what do you want?." Yashiro didn't feel like running, plus she was sorta interested in what Aoi had to say considering their cruddy relationship, shes surprised Aoi didn't despise her.

"Yknow, I overheard your little friends talking behind your back yesterday. They might have seemed normal today but isn't that just a little weird to you?" Aoi came up closer behind her, placing her hands of Yashiro's, who was slightly trembling.

"You're one to talk... but yeah, I guess so." Yashiro muttered, taking another bite from the cake. For a ghost, Aoi had really soft yet cold hands.

"Nene-chan, you know Im always going to be your truest friend right? I would never treat you like them, you sure you want us to just end now?.."

"Look, I learnt from last time, Im not buying into your words again." Yashiro got out of her grip, taking the last bite of her cake. "Last time I listened to you I made the dumbest mistake of my life.." Everything in their conversation felt like a script, it played exactly off what some of her imagination had thought of over the years.

"But I just wanted to help, you were upset so I helped." Aoi tried reasoning, Yashiro caught Aoi's small glance down at her bandages ankles.

"Aoi, Im done with this conversation, why can't you just leave me alone?!" Yashiro retorted, Aoi took a deep breath.

"You sure? Well, I dont want to overstay my visit. Bye Nene-chan." Aoi pulled a weak smile and waved as she disappeared once again, like she was in the corner of Yashiro's imagination.

"Yashiro? Why were you talking to yourself?" Amane asked, walking towards teary-eyed Yashiro.

"Myself? She was just-." Yashiro rubbed her eyes, having the stored up water run down.

"Nobody was there.." Amane reasured, Yashiro brought her hands up to her face taking another deep breath. Amane went up in front of her.

"Are you ok? What can I do to help? What even happened?" Amane offered, Yashiro just shook her head.

"Im sorry I ruined the mood, just head on back I need a minute." Yashiro ushered as Amane started hesitantly walking away, she stood over at the close wall, slowly sliding down till she hit the floor. "Cmon pull it together.." She quietly chanted to herself, Amane never walked away completely just in case, he hated seeing her upset, and he wish he knew how to help her more. What would happen if he was in her situation? Thats what he needed to think of.

Amane walked back over to her, regardless if thats what she wanted, and sat down next to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No.. not yet at least. Lets just head back to Kou and finish eating." Amane nodded in slight agreement, and stood up first to help Yashiro back up, they walked back out there in awkward silence with Yashiro still covering up.

"What took so long?" Kou asked. "You ok Yashiro?"

"I couldn't find my thing." Yashiro bluffed, Kou confusedly shrugged as they sat down to continue the eating the rest of the batch. It was enough to lighten Yashiro's mood to more of her regular cheery self, though she couldn't shake off the feeling of how realistic it was, it bothered her. But she couldn't let them know, she was known as the naive yet happy-go-lucky garden ghost thats a hopeless romantic. And she planned to stay known as that, no matter if its wrong or not.