Work Text:
These days, in Kamiyama High School news board, there was an interesting corner that had been popular among the students. It wasn't anything boring like a notification update in the school regulation, or just any common news about upcoming competitions and the likes—it was, to put it simply, a school gossip corner that's focusing on relationship gossips between the students. Every time the corner got updated, it'd make a buzz around the school.
Some students criticized the corner, saying they had no business to know about someone else's relationship status and how it could be a violation of personal privacy, but the students who enjoyed it was also quite a lot in number and the reporter made sure to ask for the person's permission. Thus, the school news club continued the corner.
The subject to be used for new topic to update the corner was usually personally decided by the reporter, members of the school news club, depending on the interactions between students that caught their interest or if there were already rumors that spread from mouth to mouth.
For this week, a sophomore reporter—who specialized in writing about the gossip among the second years—was already setting her eyes on certain students from class 2-A.
She often saw them together at school since first year, bickering with each other most of the times. Even with those frequent arguments, she could see that they were close enough to call each other by their first name. There were already rumors too about them around that time, but the time when she started having interest on them was because of the movie their class did for the school Art Festival.
The movie was really interesting since they mixed various genres into the story, and in that movie, they acted together as the main lead and the heroine. The two students of class 2-A, Shinonome Akito and Shiraishi An.
Even though there was no romance genre in the movie, the chemistry between the two was amazing. The scene where the heroine was saved by the wandering chef got her hooked, and the scene where she made him promise to return if she needed his cooking again made her bit down her lip to prevent her from letting out an embarrassing fangirl squeal.
Isn't it sneaky not to add romance genre, but write the scenario as 'please return here again when I need you' instead of 'when the village needs you'? The one who wrote the scenario must be secretly wanting them to end up together! She remembered she was silently complaining in her mind about it after the movie ended.
Those were just some scripted scenes from the movie, but the two looked so well together that she couldn't help getting interested.
On top of it, she also heard from her friend who was a student in class 2-A that one of the scenes from the movie was an ad-lib. Apparently, the male lead actor accidentally got sand in his eyes that could ruin the whole scene, and the heroine immediately started ad-libbing to back him up. He could follow her ad-lib so smoothly too despite the suddenness, isn't it great how they were in complete sync with each other? More and more, her interest was quickly peaked.
That was why, she decided to come to do some interviews. As a starter, she began by asking the opinions from the people around them.
Q:
"What do you think about the relationship between Shinonome Akito and Shiraishi An from your class?"
A:
"Honestly, when I first got admitted into the class, I thought they were dating. They always deny it though."
— Student C, Class Representative of 2-A.
"I often heard Shiraishi told Shinonome to come to her place because he left his stuff there and how her dad wanted to talk to him about something. I thought it was crazy how he's frequenting her place and meeting her parent."
— Student G, classmate from 2-A, currently having a big misunderstanding.
"When we were in the same class, Shiraishi often came to our class to talk with Akito. At some point, we teased him about it, saying he should introduce her to us since she's quite cute. But Akito always glared at us in this scary way, so we stopped that joke. Seriously, his eyes were really scary!"
— Student B, Shinonome Akito's former classmate as a freshman.
"Hm? Shinonome-kun and An-chan? How do I say it...? I can't say much about their relationship since An-chan never talks about it, but doesn't their style match well? At least, I can say they look good as a couple visually~"
— Student T, current classmate from 2-A, an aspiring stylist.
"Back then when Shiraishi was still in the Disciplinary Committee, if Shinonome came to school with a crooked tie, Shiraishi would fix it for him while doing an inspection on his uniform. The whole scene happened so naturally that it's hard to believe that they're not dating."
— Student H, Shiraishi An's former club member.
"The relationship between Shinonome-kun and Shiraishi-kun, huh...? No, I don't think I've ever heard anything about it, but it's interesting to think about. Fufu, Shinonome-kun should come to me for advice if he plans on confessing to Shiraishi-kun. I will help him planning an unforgettable confession scene~"
— Student R, a troublesome third-year senior.
"When I asked him how he could know Shiraishi even before enrolling in this school, he said it's because she's someone who experienced the same night. The question is, what kind of night did they experience together????"
— Student K, Shinonome Akito's friend from the soccer club.
"They get along well."
— Student N, their closest classmate from 2-A.
As more information had been gathered, the article was already half-way written to be finished. There was an indescribable satisfaction in her, knowing that she wasn't the only one who thought of them that way.
Now, the only things left was for her to do was to do a direct interview with the people involved and asked for their permission to post the article.
That was why, she was already standing in front of Class 2-A now. She took a deep breath before opening the door, "Excuse me! I'm searching for Shiraishi An-san and Shinonome Akito-kun. Can you please call them for me?" she asked someone who's near the door.
"Shinonome-kun is currently not here, but An-chan is talking with Akiyama from Class B over there. An-chan, someone is searching for you!"
As soon as she was called, a girl whose hair looked like a starry night-sky made her way towards her. She smiled, "Oh, is there something you need from me?"
"Hello, sorry for interrupting your lunch break. I'm a member of the school news club. Do you know about the Kamikou gossip corner? I'm thinking of making you and Shinonome-kun the next topic for the article. Would you give me your permission?"
"Oh, right. I think I heard about it." Her face quickly turned into a scowl, "The topic for the article, huh... I don't really mind as long the article doesn't write any false stuff. But are you sure? There's nothing to write about us, you know?"
"No worries, I won't write anything that can lead to bad rumors! If you think about it, this can also help you shutting down the rumors that say that you guys are dating," She tried to convince her more. "Anyway, I want to do a little interview about the relationship between you and Shinonome-kun. Do you have the time?"
"Ahh... Well, I will see if I can answer the questions. Let's do it in my seat then. Here, you can take Akito's chair."
An moved the chair from Akito's seat and placed it beside her seat for her to sit. Mizuki who was spending their lunch break in An's class grinned in amusement as they held their cheeks on their palm. "Can I stay here to listen? It seems fun."
"Mhm, I don't mind. I also want to ask for your opinion at the end of the interview, Akiyama-san," she sat down on the chair and took out a voice recorder from her pocket. "I'm going to record our conversation with this device, is it alright?"
"Sure, it's fine. But I'm saying this once again... I'm not sure I can give the kind of answer you're expecting, alright?"
"It's alright! You can answer the questions with the truth, Shiraishi-san, and I will write the article from the date I've gathered. Then I will start," she turned on the recorder. "Hello, everyone! I'm here to do some interview with Shiraishi An-san. First question is... are you really not in some kind of romantic relationship with Shinonome Akito-kun?"
"Romantic relationship... no, there's nothing like that. We're just teammates to reach for our dream together. I know Akito since we're still in middle school, so we already know each other before entering this school. We might seem close to other people."
"I see, so you guys work together to reach your dream... that's so youthful. I want to ask whether you think it's possible for feelings to develop between you guys, but that kind of question is hard to answer, right? Then I will change it," she flipped the page of her notebook. "Do you think you can consider Shinonome-kun as your favorite type?"
"Mmh, I'm not sure since I never think about my favorite type... Objectively, I think Akito has nice style. Ah, if we're talking about his voice then I guess I can say it's my type? Well, Akito's personality is far from my type though," An said nonchalantly, and Mizuki burst out laughing.
"Hey, An~ Aren't you being too harsh? He's still Ena's little brother, you know~?"
"But it's the truth that Akito has terrible personality!"
"Oi, you are the one who talked about someone behind his back, so why am I the one with terrible personality?"
Her shoulders shook when he talked near her ear from behind without any warning, An turned around in annoyance, "Hey, Akito... don't suddenly talk in front of someone's ear like that! If I were to get heart attack, are you gonna pay for my hospital bill?"
"Stop exaggerating, I should be the one complaining for being called having terrible personality so unfairly," he rolled his eyes. "Anyway, you're using my chair again, An?"
"I'm just borrowing it for a bit."
"It's ¥1.000 for ten minutes every time you borrow it."
"Whoa, so stingy... Teacher, there's student extortion here!! You see what I'm talking about, right? With Akito's personality, there's no one who would want to date him!"
Akito's brow twitched, "Oi, what did you say? I wouldn't want to date someone with your kind of personality either!"
"That's fine by me, since I will search for someone who's not Akito after all!"
"Alright, alright. Ah, I feel bad for the person who will marry you in the future. My deepest condolence."
"Hey, I should be the one to say that to Akito! Okay then, I will accept my friend's invitation to come for a mixer. Just you see, I will get a date before Akito. "
"Ha? Where is the mixer? I will come too."
"It's none of your business, don't follow me around. I'm going to have a lot of fun without Akito~"
"You tend to trust people too easily... You're thinking of following some stranger, right? Tell me the place."
As the fight took place, the interview was forced to end. She tilted her head as she listened to their argument, feeling confused whether it really wasn't a lovers' quarrel that was currently happening. If this was a flag to jinx their fate, then they probably would get married in ten years from now. Well, there's enough data already, so let's just end it here, she then spoke again into the recorder.
"That's it for the interview with the involved parties! Let's ask for some closure commentary from the student of the neighboring class. Now, Akiyama-san, what do you think about the fight between the S.A duo from class A?"
"I hope they kiss hahaha."
— Student M from class 2-B, completely having fun since it wasn't their problem.
And so, a week later, the Kamikou gossip corner would get updated with the topic of S.A and S.A from year two. The article confirmed that they were, in fact, not dating (yet). No one knew what kind of change would happen in a year, but that was also a story for the future.