Kichiro breathes a sigh of relief as he watches Misha bundle her way through the crowds into the corridor. Like everyone else, she’s making a beeline for the canteen. Gotta get them exclusive barbecue chicken baguettes.   

“Are you ill, Kich’? Ya’know, all that sweating and stuff. Bit f**king odd to be honest bud.”, Tora, blunt as always, quizzes away.

Kichiro takes half a second to decide if he will tell his friends about what has happened in the past few days.

“I'm fine, I'm fine. The milk in my cereal was probably old or something like that… or like I was err.. nervous for the like… the… first day, yeah the first day”, Kichiro unconvincingly replies.

Yukiro, in an attempt to relieve Kichiro’s clear uncomfortableness, changes the subject, “Yeah, leave it out Tora. Could be worse though, that Misha girl, being that late?!” Yukiro shakes his head, tutting with disappointment.

Kichiro keeps his head down and makes a sound like a dying cow, indicating agreement. Yukiro couldn’t have picked a worse topic.

“Anyway, did you see the new Call of Booty update! Why are they always so big it doesn’t make sense....” Tora rambles on with one of his usual neeky tangents, to Kichiro’s delight.

It was decided there and then that Kichiro could not tell them about all that had happened; this case was officially classified.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misha, as a lone wolf, enters the canteen. So far, her first day has been an utter failure so maybe she can revive the day with some grub. She picks up the katsu curry from the buffet and scours the tables for an empty seat. Not even one... oh wait, wait, what’s that… an empty seat!

She races to the seat. No one else is getting that seat. That is her seat.

Ah, great. The rice tastes like little shreds of dried skin. The chicken is tough and chewy, giving her jaws a full on muscle workout. The sauce tastes like a baby threw up, then blended that sick with a spoonful or two or korma sauce and a few chillies. Lovely. Can’t beat that classic canteen cuisine.

As she sits, she notices a face from across the table. Isn’t that..? No, it can’t be. Wait it is!

…................................................................................................................................................................................................

The final bell rings out to signify the end of the day. A sound which is adored by students, no matter your age, nationality or religion. A sweet, sweet symphony.

As Kichiro gets up from his seat, he notices Misha has already left the lecture room. In a hurry? Maybe she has work or something? Frankly, Kichiro is relieved to dodge another awkward situation so he couldn’t care less.

He walks to the bus stop where he hops on his bus, making its way to the train station. During his bus ride he notices something... odd. A girl was sprinting down the street, almost racing with the bus. She was keeping up with the bus at one point, but it soon left her in its dust.

The bus pulled into the last stop before Kichiro’s stop.  As he waited for the newest of passengers to get on, something hit him as hard as a Mike Tyson uppercut. He hurriedly jumped up from his seat, startling the other passengers. He pounded down the 3 steps, with his flub flying about, and pelted towards the front of the bus.

A fleeting thankyou to the driver and boom, he was on the streets.

The girl that was running was her.

An idea flew into Kichiro’s head from out of nowhere. An idea that was something Kichiro would never do. An idea that no one would do, in fact.

“Misha.

Run into me.”

Kichiro dawdled in the middle of the path, setting his mastermind trap.

Misha, now literally sprinting as fast as she could, put her head down and gave it everything. She couldn’t be late for her planned café meeting wit-

A clatter of body's. A unison of groans. A contrast in emotions.

Misha, enraged by this stupid dawdler who now had ruined her chances of making it to the café on time, launched insults his way.

Kichiro got up from the ground in fake shock. His plan had worked, to an extent.

In his head he realised that what he just set up was extremely weird and unlike him. He was seeking a social interaction… with someone other than Yukio or Tora? Someone other than… his two best friends…?

He apologised as much as he could and tried to calm down Misha, who seemed like she was ready for blood. Then their eyes met. It was as if God had come down and slapped them both right across the face.

“Hi... again”, Misha said, looking away with an expression of disappointment and disbelief. Why was she in ANOTHER encounter with this freckly, chubby, sweaty kid. As she glanced at him she realised, maybe he’s just a tiny, a little bit, a smidgen… cute. Misha blushed. She couldn’t believe she actually found this boy attractive in any way.

Kichiro’s head exploded. He had never been this close to Misha before. He could not believe how beautiful she was. Her deep, brown eyes were like ancient fossils that glistened in the sun, revealing a new pattern each time. Her cheeks reminded him of little stress balls that needed squeezing. He almost had the urge to reach out and squeeze them, until he came back to his senses. He needed to calm down.

It was then when Kichiro realised a major flaw to his plan. He forgot to do the extremely important part of his ingenious “get Misha to run into me" tactic. What does he say once she's hit into him?

He realised he had to actually converse now. Not just any conversation either, he had to *drum roll*...... IMPROVISE. Sweat starts to arise to view on his forehead. His cheeks begin to go bright red. He regrets this whole scheme. “What IN THE WORLD was he thinking?”, he and Misha both thought.

“Misha. Why are you running? There’s literally a bus.” Smooth Kichiro, smooth.

She sighed. This conversation was wasting her time.

“I can't miss this meeting, okay? But thanks to you I'm definitely late for it. Please, tell me do you have any solution or anything helpful at all to enlighten me with?”

Kichiro stood with his head down, embarrassed. He replied with a defeated, “No, sorry…I... sorry.”, and moved aside to let her through.

Misha, still fuming, shaked her head as she set off.