— Sounds of word and rain fading into the distance.

That was the first meeting of the two.

Yamashiro, having introduced the two to one another, retreats from the classroom, leaving Aoko glaring at the boy.

Aoko asks for his name.

He introduces himself as Shizuki Soujuurou. 

“Sorry, but I have no intention of being kind. I don’t have that much time on my hands, so we’ll make this quick. 

“That’d be great. Time is important, after all.”

Aoko gets annoyed by the way he kept responding normally despite how aggressive she was being, but for the time being, leads him around the school.

In any case, she would only have to accompany this fish out of temporal water for today. At least, she hoped it was only for today. As she told herself this,

“Aozaki,”

the boy began calmly talking to Aoko.

“What?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Like I said, what?”

“Maybe it’s just in my imagination, but it looks to me like you’re glaring at something. Was this morning no good, after all?”

Aoko realises that he’s not making fun of her; was he really just that dense? Aoko’s irritability has always been so obvious to people around her that even her housemate (you know who) has admonished her about it. 

Aoko tells him that that’s just the way she is, so she doesn’t have to bother with wording something out or talking about it. Shizuki understands readily and even agrees, causing Aoko to reconsider the use of the word “dense” to describe the boy’s strangeness; as her teacher had said, he was just “off”.

Afterwards, Aoko leads this “rude stranger” around the various classrooms and facilities of the school. It takes quite a while (nearly 3 hours) as Soujuurou needed explanations for many things. Aoko notices that he looks troubled and suddenly felt closer to him… but of course, it also annoyed her. 

“Hmm? Being worried about the time, that must mean you have other business to take care of. Oh, I see, so you’d mess with other people’s plans but do as you full well please. Well, you’re certainly a nicer person than you appear, aren’t you?”

“Huh? Um, complimenting me won’t get you anything, you know.”

“Nobody was complimenting you! Well?”

“Well what?”

“I meant, what is it that you have to do now?”

“I’d prefer to kept that secret.”

Aoko smiles and walks towards Soujuurou, who starts backing away.

“Shizuki-kun?”

“Like I said, it’s a secret.”

“This will be my last question. — Do you enjoy making fun of me?”

“…All right, I’ll explain.”

Soujuurou tells Aoko that he has a part-time job starting at 1PM, but he knows that working is not allowed at their school. Aoko calls him an idiot for trying to keeping it under wraps instead of just getting permission. Soujuurou tells her that he did get permission — but only for one job, when he needed several to cover his living expenses and tuition. Aoko has a better opinion of him after hearing about this, and decides to let him go, telling him that she herself will be heading home after this.

Soujuurou says, ‘“See you later” to Aoko (who is again annoyed by him being so overly familiar with her) and walks into a nearby classroom. Aoko wonders for a moment what he was trying to do, then runs up in time to stop him from leaving the school through the window, having forgotten that he is on the second floor.

Aoko, watching him leave (via the staircase this time), wonders again about why she got so angry at some random transfer student, and the strange emotions she felt. 

***

That concludes Chapter 1 of Mahoyo. I’m thinking of whether to continue into Chapter 2 or sidetracking to Chapter 1.5 first, but in any case, it’ll be after I finish the next bits of Nekomonogatari.