"Natsuki-chan, are you guys together?" the guy asked, whispering through his hand which he had pressed against Natsuki's ears.

"What? No, why?" Natsuki glanced at Taehyung whose discomfort was starting to be visible now. She tried to keep a smiling face.

"My friend right there was asking if he," he gestured towards Taehyung who was looking at the ikebana, "was in a relationship or not, maybe she is interested in him."

"Oh?" was all she could say because the possibility of someone else asking Taehyung out in front of her had never crossed her mind. Now that she was being asked if he was available or not, something inside her told her not to say anything. She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to say the truth either.

"I don't know, man!" she said in a careless voice. The guy chuckled at the use of 'man' in her sentence.

Then they had just looked at the pictures and the conversation was cut short when Taehyung had called them over.

•~•~•

"So, do you like guys with spectacles and those who are always smiling?" Natsuki didn't know why he was suddenly talking about it.

Her feet slowed down and she couldn't think of an answer.

"I don't know..." she looked down, "I've never thought about it so seriously." then she looked back at him and said, "why are you curious though?"

"Huh?" it was obvious that he was taken aback, "oh, no, nothing special." he shrugged, smiling again.

"Let's go then, we should quickly finish this task at hand and go back to class." Natsuki looked around for more things to do and more places to visit.

"Didn't you say you wanted to visit the ghost house?"

"Oh, right! I don't think, this," she gestured at the pamphlets, "will take so much time. Let's finish the work first and we'll come back in the evening, then maybe the others will tag along too. It will be fun."

They walked past a couple of classrooms, handing out pamphlets and trying some new things on their way. Just like that, the day was over and they were exhausted. Natsuki figured, the others will be as exhausted as ever.

"When are Jimin and Haru-kun visiting us?" they turned the corner of their floor's hallway, finally approaching their classroom.

"Tomorrow," she remembered, "the next half of the day tomorrow, we have to be present at the auditorium for the performances. Many students from some other schools will be there too."

"I see," and they arrived at the classroom, lit with beautiful light bulbs and other small lights.

"Hey, wait, I didn't get the time to properly watch this video before." Natsuki suddenly stopped, not entering the classroom yet.

Taehyung stopped too, averting his eyes to the brightly illuminated display screen just at the foot of the door.

"I don't doubt your skills so I didn't watch it properly before." she looked back, catching him off guard, "I knew you'd do an amazing job, Yukio!" and she winked before looking back at the video playing on the screen, crouching down to the screen's level.

The screen was too bright, almost blinding that it hurt Taehyung's eyes but he couldn't look away. Half of Natsuki's face was illuminated by the light emitting from the screen in the dimly lit hallway which was worth the ache in his eyes because of the brightness.

Do you know the feeling when the person's aura is so bright and warm that it almost hurt to be around them, but you still do it because you can't stay away from them either?

It's not easy to explain what Taehyung was feeling at that very moment but he knew his heart was happy looking at Natsuki's smile when she looked at the video which contained the photos he clicked. It gave him satisfaction when Natsuki complimented him.

Natsuki heard him laugh, and her attention was stolen.

"Hm?" she tilted her neck, confused.

"You will go blind at this rate, step away from there." Taehyung snickered again and she realised. He was right, she'd been standing a bit too close to the screen.

"Right," an apologetic, more awkward smile grew on her lips but she soon stepped away. The video had started playing again from the start, repeating the same loop.

"As expected from Yukio-san!" she said, dramatically, indicating that he had done a great job in editing the video.

"Thank you for the compliment, Natsuki-san." he also played along. She giggled as they entered the classroom. There weren't many people at the moment but Fumiya's face was bright and happy which gave away that their café was a success.

"Suki-chan!" Fumiya came running towards them, almost knocking out a flower vase.

"How did it go?" Natsuki asked even though it was written all over his face.

"It was a success!" he held up two of his fingers up in the air, doing a peace sign.

"Congratulations," Taehyung started, "to us?" the words came out as a question more than an affirmative sentence.

"Yes!!" but Natsuki cheered and no one thought much about Taehyung's words as they all cheered along.

"Let's go to the ghost house!!" Natsuki, driven by the excitement, yelled it out aloud and that earned her a glance from everyone around.

Taehyung chuckled and Fumiya looked at her weirdly.

"What ghost house?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, don't you know? Class 11-B is doing a ghost house. We should definitely go and check it out!" Natsuki explained shortly.

"Are you sure?" Fumiya looked around. They needed to tidy up everything before they leave. Even if they start now, it might be too late when they finish. They needed a couple more people who can help.

"Uh, right, we need to clean up." Natsuki sighed, disappointed.

"The help is here, ma'am!" Jimin stood at the doorstep, grinning like a God.

"What? How come?" everyone turned around at once, facing Jimin and a very embarrassed Haruki. The way Jimin shouted, probably half of the classrooms on the floor had heard him.

"Why are you not at school?" was the first thing that came to Fumiya's mind.

Jimin and Haruki both entered inside, "Isn't that obvious?" Haruki rolled his eyes.

"We skipped!" Jimin winked, showing everyone his lopsided smile.

Taehyung looked at his wrist watch, "Skipped what? Last lecture?" he asked and because he sounded genuinely confused, everyone started laughing.

"Oh, Yukio, you're so innocent and cute, they skipped half day. Probably sneaked out in the lunch break, right?"

"Yes," Jimin replied, laughing his ass off.

"Cute, huh?" meanwhile, Fumiya had only picked up on one word as he whispered, leaning down towards her ear.

"W-what? I didn't say that-"

"You did, Suki-chan." Fumiya whispered again, cutting her words.

Natsuki decided to ignore him, focusing on Jimin's pointless talks.

"Alright, let's start working, so we can all go to the ghost house together!" Taehyung reminded them, but it was mostly a reminder for Jimin who seemed to forget that he was supposed to help them in tidying up.

Soon enough, they all started doing their work.

•~•~•

"Woah! This shit looks scary." Jimin exclaimed, as soon as he saw the gloomy atmosphere in front of the ghost house. The staircase and hallway, it all looked gloomy and spooky.

"Aki-kun!!" Natsuki smacked him hard on the back, reminding him not to curse.

"Ouch! My bad!" he rubbed his back on the spot where Natsuki hit him. It stung for a second before it was gone.

Haruki laughed at Jimin who then whispered something to him in anger, probably a string of curses which, thankfully, Natsuki didn't hear.

"Are you not scared?" Taehyung, who stood next to Natsuki, asked her.

"I told you, I'm not!"

"Just like that night on the festival?" he said and all the memories from that night came flooding back in her brain.

"It was night time, okay? And here we already know that this is all fake." she scoffed, pretending to be big and brave as she straightened her posture. Inside, she wasn't sure if she'd be scared or not unless she takes a look inside first.

"It's almost dark too," Taehyung looked out the window of the hallway.

"I'm not scared, alright?" she followed Taehyung's gaze, "wait, don't tell me..." she snickered, "you're the one who is scared and not me, is that it?"

"Depends on what they have inside."

"Alright, alright, let's head inside, shall we?" Fumiya announced before Natsuki could reply to Taehyung. He was probably still in the role of the manager of café.

"Those who are scared can hold each others' hands or something." Fumiya said, especially glancing towards Natsuki.

"Hey, hey, why does everyone think I'm sacred?" she almost sounded offended, if it wasn't for the sparkles of mischief and excitement in her eyes, they'd think she was upset because of the tone of her voice.

"Okay, I'm not," Fumiya held his hands up in surrender.

"You better!" and they all headed inside.

The said ghost house was situated at the ground floor, taking up the whole corridor and almost all the classrooms were decorated and designed into a temporary ghost house.

They had to enter from the staircase, as they step down one or two pair of stairs, the hallway of ghosts starts. They named it like that but it was initially just a dark hallway which was very dimly lit and that gave it a spooky effect, the scary decorations on the wall and ceiling also worked well.

"They totally transformed the hallway into something else," Natsuki mumbled, walking behind Fumiya and Haruki. Jimin was the first one to enter and the most enthusiastic one as well, so he walked ahead of everyone.

The sun had already set, half of it already disappeared into the horizon as the last specks of light remained, making it even scarier, but it just made them more excited.

"I know right?" Taehyung's voice startled her but she managed to remain unbothered. They walked side by side for a moment before they were facing a classroom door.

"Should we split up?" Fumiya suggested.

"Sure," Jimin said, "Haru and I will go together, right?" he looked at Haruki who didn't look much interested but agreed nonetheless.

"I will go solo!" Natsuki gasped at Fumiya's declaration. "Aren't you scared?" she asked him.

"I want to challenge myself!" he smiled, which felt more like a smirk and he waved, talking off, away from them into the dark hallway.

"That leaves us two!" Taehyung said and Natsuki nodded. Jimin and Haruki had already disappeared into the classroom so they decided to walk in the direction of Fumiya. There might be two or more classrooms they can explore ahead.

"No popping ghosts yet?" Natsuki wondered, looking around as they walked past a classroom door.

"Waah! Holy heavens-" she was just speaking and suddenly she screamed, remembering heavens because of how startled she was when a clown masked person decided to pop out of the window all of a sudden.

Taehyung just flinched a little, and that was more because of Natsuki's scream than the scary looking clown. The clown, as soon as Natsuki screamed, disappeared back into the classroom, the window closing behind them.

And the silent engulfed them again.

"Damn, that was scary!" Taehyung muttered, trudging closer to Natsuki.

"Oh," she gulped, "it wasn't that scary, I just hate clowns and it startled me." she tried to laugh her fear off by playing it cool.

In reality, she and Taehyung both knew that she was indeed scared there for a moment, but none of them said anything about it.

"Oh really?" a hand slipped right through Natsuki's cold ones and the sudden warmth made her shiver. "But I'll be honest, I was pretty scared." he gently squeezed her hand.

"O-oh! Don't worry, you can rely on me!" she laughed, but inside, her head was spinning and as if there was a fire beneath her skin, it burned with warmth.

His hand was bigger than hers and the feeling of holding it may have been foreign but the way it fit just right in hers made her feel comfortable and relieved even. She was suddenly shy.

She was thankful for the dark surrounding which hid her blushing cheeks well. They both knew it was awkward but paid no attention to it.

Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room!

"Now we go straight into the gym class and when we get out, it will be over!" Natsuki said, trying to sound calm and pretended to look inside through the already half opened door. It was too dark to see anything but she was just keeping herself busy.

"Right! Let's go!!" Taehyung walked ahead, pulling her behind him as he tucked on her hand.

Every second of when they walked and their hands dangled between their bodies, she was reminded of his hand in her own. For a moment she got worried about the sweat forming in her palm but she could do nothing about it.

"Do you mind it?" Taehyung suddenly asked, looking up at the ceiling which was filled with fake spider webs. Natsuki wondered how they made it, because it really looked spooky. Spiders are spooky!

"What?"

Taehyung held their intertwined hands up for her to see, "my hand is kinda sweaty."

The instant relief she felt after listening to his words was indescribable. Just how much lovely can he be? He could sense the slightest discomfort and had the audacity to make her feel better in an instant!

"No, not at all. I'm alright." she tried her best to sound supportive and cool as they kept walking.

"Don't look at your right-"

"Huh?" and she did just what he told her not to.

"Aahh!!" a small scream left her mouth because of the zombie cutouts which were stained in a red liquid which looked almost similar to blood. It wasn't too scary but she was, once again, surprised.

"Yukio," she whined, "are you doing it intentionally?"

He just laughed, shrugging his shoulders, "I told you not to look at it!"

She pouted, feeling as if she was being treated like a kid, which, wasn't entirely wrong.

When they passed the bleachers, many creepily smiling faces like structures popped up from the back side and it was honestly like a jump scare. Natsuki didn't want to look at their smiles any longer but she couldn't look away.

When she flinched at the sudden noise of creepy robotic laughter echoing in the room, Taehyung tugged her hand, pulling her closer.

"Don't look," he grabbed her face by the cheek, making her face him instead of those smily faces, "Those smiles look like they can do hypnosis."

"What?" that came out of nowhere, almost making her laugh.

"That's nonsense!" she didn't laugh but smiled, "but thanks, I'd rather look at you instead." she said in a small voice.

The crazy laugher had stopped and so, Taehyung heard her loud and clear.

She pursed her lips, turning away as they passed the bleachers. The door was just a few steps away. In a short amount of time, they had circled around the whole gym but she didn't even realise it.

"We're just ther-"

"Boo-Haa!!!" Fumiya suddenly jumped in front of them, scaring both of them.

This time, Taehyung was also as scared and shocked as Natsuki who was currently pressed against his chest in shock.

Uh oh!

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Love is blooming~
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