#believe dat

“Makino Senseiiii.” You dragged out the syllable before bringing the flyer up again, trying to place it in his eyeline. He strategically kept dodging your placement, causing you to huff.

“Please Sensei, this is the only thing the Occult Club has asked for all year, and we only want transportation!” You begged again, less than a minute away from getting on your hands and knees and begging. 

He ignored you, opting to sip on his travel mug of coffee. You sighed before putting the flyer on his desk, and crouching down. Before you could perch yourself on all fours, a loud, irritating voice sounded behind you

“Amakata Sensei! Is the Swimming Club able to go buy new swimsuits??” Nagisa Hazuki. 16 years old, treasurer of the Swim Club, and, at the present moment, your arch nemesis. You scowled from your position on the floor as you watched Amakata Sensei nod sweetly at his words, his eyes lighting up and a loud “Thank you Sensei!!!” leaving his lips before he ran right out of the door that he barged in through.

Your head whipped to look at Makino Sensei accusingly and he shrugged. 

“They went to regionals, you guys don’t even have competitions.” He said, trying carefully to explain the reasoning. Your eye twitched at his words.

“Sensei,” Your voice took on an almost creepy note, your frustration at his apathetic attitude seeping through, “Are you suggesting that a group of students, exclusively female mind you, is less important than a group of males?” He turned to you at your evocative words, considered them for a second, and then just nodded.

“Yeah, kinda. Not because of gender, but because they actually bring some sort of honor to the school.” Your jaw dropped, utterly offended at his careless words directed towards the club you had built from the ground up.

“We rid the school of evil spirits!” You exclaimed angrily, hands grabbing the flyer off his desk. You were getting dangerously close to throwing a tantrum, the unfairness of the situation enraging you. 

“Sure you do kid.” Makino Sensei pet you on the shoulder dismissively, before turning back to his laptop and continuing to write his email, ignoring your offended huff as you stormed out of the staff room.

You didn’t slam the door behind you when you left, though when it closed you angrily shook your fist at it for a second. Then, you began to stalk down the corridor, cursing your Sensei. It was just so unfair! The Occult Club had done nothing wrong and yet they still weren’t getting a club budget.

In fact, all they had done was right. Heat crawled up your neck as you remembered the countless demonic presences you had banished from the school, nights where you had crept in and placed salts and burned incense, the number of ineffective smoke alarms that you had notified the school of. 

It just wasn’t right that you were treated this way. While you and your club maintained the spirtiual harmony of the school and made sure no one could be haunted, other clubs, like the damned swimming club, were able to go off and buy things willy nilly. What, because they were good at a sport? You’d hardly argue that being able to run fast was more important than not being possessed by the spirit of a long-gone janitor.

A huff was released from your nose, too distracted by your thoughts to register the hand that grabbed your elbow, dragging you into a small offshoot of the corridor. You let out a scream, immediately fighting your attacker, who let out a pained whine of your name when you struggled against them.

Immediately, you recognised who had kidnapped you. 

“Nagisa!” You snapped, immediately dragging your arms out of his loosened grip. You quickly rearranged yourself before shooting your gaze up to his. He had the sense to look a little apologetic, though the sentiment was dulled by the giant, mischievous smile spread across his face. He echoed your name, dragging it out a little and adding a “-chan” on the end before continuing.

“Why were you in the teacher’s lounge?” He asked, tilting his head slightly, exaggerating his confusion. You huffed again, straightening your back.

“I was asking for funding for the Occult Club.” You spoke curtly. His smile widened, leaning forward to grab both of your arms.

“Awesome! What are you guys gonna do!?!” Before you could interject, he continued on, leaning closer and closer to your face with every second.

“Are you gonna go to a costume shop and buy costumes for your evil personas? Are you gonna take a class to try and find out the best way to expel demons? Are you gonna go meet a bunch of other witches and talk about magic and stuff?!?” By the time he stopped talking, he was a hair length away from your face.

Your breath had hitched long before he stopped, and the heat on your face from anger had rather quickly changed into heat from being flustered. Nagisa didn’t seem to recognise this. After a second of him being so close you could see every detail of his eyes (which you didn’t memorise, thank you very much), you finally were able to stutter out an answer.

“S-something like the last one.” You managed and you saw his smile grow wider. Before you could continue to stare, you forcibly snapped yourself out of it, moving backwards, unaware of the way he frowned at your rejection.

However, he quickly perked up again.

“What do you mean?” He paused, raising a finger to touch his lips, eyes looking to the side, as though he was in deep thought. After a second of supposed deliberation, he turned back to you, mouth open and finger raised, eyes screaming the word ‘Eureka!’

“Are you founding a coven?” The words almost seemed to jump out of him as he bounced on his toes. You sighed through your nose, mouth closed in a line.

“No,” It sounded like it was dragged out of you. In order to not speak to him any longer, you quickly pulled out the flyer from where you’d stuffed it in your pocket, and shoved it into his hands.

It was a normal A4 sheet of paper, but it was covered with scary symbolism. The words “A Ghoulish Night Awaits!” were written across the top in what you considered a tacky font, but it appeared to be the usual amongst the Occult community. A dark purple house was under the words, a clip-art ghost in the window. A slogan read “Enter and be witness to the horror that awaits among hauntings and hell!!”

Nagisa looked at it for a few seconds, an indescribable expression on his face, before he looked back up at you. He said your name with the familiar ending, a slightly fond but humorous tone edging into his voice. You looked at him, puzzled but with a rising feeling in your stomach.

“What? What about it?” You bristled, seeming defensive even to yourself. Nagisa’s cheeks expanded like he was about to blurt something out, eyebrows furrowing in what even you could admit was a cute way. He released the air from his mouth before glancing to the poster again. “W-what is it exactly?” He seemed to be restraining something within his question.

“Well, it’s obviously a place for people interested in the Occult to meet and talk! I looked online and apparently it’s a meeting of spirited, like minded individuals. I thought it would be nice to take the club there as we, also, are spirited people.” Your words were etched with pride.

Nagisa sighed your name, in a way which was unfairly attractive considering who he was, before starting to speak.

“I’m not entirely sure this is what you think it is.” You looked at him in suspicion, squinting your eyes at him.

“What do you mean?” You waved the poster again as you spoke, and Nagisa nervously brought up a hand to rub his neck. You eyed the cliche move with mild distaste.

“Well it kinda looks like advertising for a haunted house.” He grabbed the flyer from your hands, bringing it up to your eye line and pointing at parts of it, as though to say ‘See, see!’ You looked at him and the poster blandly.

“It is not!” You cried out, immediately trying to rip the poster from his grasp. Unfortunately, Nagisa was a little more athletic than you so he was easily able to jump out of your way.

“I think it is!!!” He sung out, laughter beginning to intersperse his movements, as he dodged every single one of your attempts.

“It so is not!” Your words echoed in the hallways, causing the teachers lounge door to open. You both froze at the sound, immobile as the sound of feet patrolling the hallways echoed through the space. Nagisa grabbed your wrist this time and hurriedly began running with you in tow, leading you through the corridors.

You heard echoing footsteps behind you, but it seemed the teacher gave up by the time he had dragged you outside. The sun was beginning to set, the afternoon well and truly mature, and a wind-chill just barely ran over you.

Nagisa didn’t let go of your wrist as he turned you to face him. A smug expression took over his face, as he placed his free hand on his chest.

“What about this,” he begun, making sure to maintain eye-contact as he spoke, “I’ll take you to this ‘Ghoulish Night’ instead of the school paying for it. And I’ll prove to you that it is 100% a haunted house.” You didn’t appreciate the sense of superiority that lined his statement, the feeling of unfairness from the school’s blatant favouritisim sparking a fire within you, so you took his deal easily.

“You’re on!” You said, fire, stoked from the unfairness but burning because of his challenge, sparkling in your eyes. 

With your acceptance a huge grin took over his face, his eyes widened, and a light blush fell over his cheekbones. He looked cute but you didn’t like what that look entailed for you.

“What?” You asked apprehensively, leaning back slowly as he started to lean forward. You froze as he pressed a kiss to your cheek, all the blood in your body rushing to the spot on your face.

You were completely shocked, even as Nagisa let go of your hands and began to run away, calling your name and title over his shoulder.

“Great! I’ll see you on our date!” He shot a wink and blew a kiss at you, quickly scampering away with giggles which were entirely characteristic of him.

You remained still for a minute before you furrowed your brows and reached up to touch where his lips had. Immediately you were flustered, feeling both embarrassed and endeared at his tactic.

“Nagisa!!” You quickly shouted after him, watching as he ran away to get to the train station. Did you just get played?

i do have a part 2 planned but when have i ever been good at following through on planned part 2s? (read: never)