The sky was too bright for fireworks.
The seaside breeze was always a nice feel, it brushed against the skin softly and left as soon as it came, the way it ran its cold fingers through his hair was also oddly comforting.
Yuuji Naruse often felt this breeze, after all, he spent almost all of lunch and recess on the roof, sitting on a bench that had a good view of the beach. He had to be quiet as students weren't allowed on the school roof—but he didn't care.
He twirled and twisted his pencil between his fingers, his sketchbook open on his lap, looking for a good starting point for his new piece.
His cool gray eyes scanned over the shoreline yet he still couldn't find that starting point he so wished for, it was a nightmare.
Planting his elbow onto his thigh he would rest his head on his palm, slightly caressing his messy black hair as he continued to search.
"This is a nightmare." He mutters as he's about to give up when his thoughts are interrupted.
Hiss
Boom
Crackle
Yuuji turned to where the sound came from, it was evidently a firework, but why?
As he turned his eyes were drawn to a girl around his age, she had bright golden-auburn hair that was tied in a high ponytail, she had bangs that were cut just above her eyes and two longer sections at the sides of her face that reached her chin, he hair was decorated with firework like hair pins and ornaments, and bright amber eyes. Her uniform was also extremely untidy on top of that. She wore a beige jumper over an untucked white shirt—her sleeves rolled up—with a navy-blue skirt.
Yuuji's hand froze as he realised he wasn't alone up here, feeling slightly embarrassed, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
"Heyo! Did you sneak up here too?" The girl smiled at him, clearly a cheerful and carefree girl.
Yuuji didn't understand her cheerfulness but this school was full of random people like her.
"I guess so." Yuuji speaks in a very calm tone, likely due to his tired nature.
The girl gets up and sits beside him on the bench. peeking over at his empty sketchbook.
"An artist huh? But you don't have anything drawn."
"Sigh. Y'know, you should probably introduce yourself first before peering into other people's work"
"Oh yeah! My name's Himari Nozawa! What's yours?"
"Yuuji Naruse."
Yuuji begins to sketch random lines in his book, ignoring the staring eyes of Himari as he sketched the shoreline, having found a starting point.
Yuuji wasn't an awkward person, he just preferred to keep to himself, he sort of chose the lifestyle of a background character.
Himari was humming as she watched him, kicking her legs and swaying side to side, despite having just met she already wanted to be friends.
"Hey, you're gonna be my friend from now on okay?"
Yuuji looked at her with a blank expression, "can you just make someone be your friend like that?"
"I'm pretty sure you can't just make someone be your friend but I don't mind it."
Yuuji turned his head back to his sketchbook, drawing out the basic shapes of a tree before he would later refine them in the process.
"In that case let's go!"
Himari grabs Yuuji's wrist and yanks him up and pulls him down the stairs back into the halls, completely oblivious to how this looked.
"Hey! You can't just pull people around!"
Yuuji catches his pencil and sketchbook as they almost fell off his lap onto the floor as she pulled him up, although he didn't really have anywhere else to be so he just went along with her, freeing his wrist from her grasp though and just following her to where she wants to go.
"So where are we going?"
"You'll see!"
"This girl is something else, where does she get this energy from, and why am I being pulled around??"
The two silently walked through the halls, it was lunch time so they were fairly packed with students, some even sneaking a glance, Yuuji hoped they weren't getting the wrong idea, after all he had only just met.
Eventually, they reached the club office room, Yuuji didn't know why it wasn't called a club registration office but it didn't matter to him.
"Why are we here?" Yuuji was skeptical as to what she was planning to do, not wanting to be roped into joining a club at this school.
Himari seemingly ignored him and went over to the desk and picked up a piece of paper from the desk.
She brought it over to him and practically shoved it in his face, after pulling it off a little so he could read he noticed it says: "Kanezuka Fireworks Club!"
It was a registration sheet, it only had two names on it, one of which was Himari's—no doubt the club president and one other name which read: "Sayaka Aihara" in extremely neat handwriting, contrary to Himaris barely readable writing.
"?"
"You're gonna join my club!" Himari looked extremely proud of herself despite not having received an answer yet.
"No thanks."
"What?! Why?" Himari's triumphant grin turned into a small frown as she looked slightly disappointed, as if she was sure this would work, and that she also might not have been the "mastermind" behind this plan.
"I'm not interested in joining any clubs, plus, we met about 15 minutes ago."
"Sigh, I suppose you're right, but we're still gonna be friends okay!" Himari seems back to her usual cheerful self again in what seems like mere seconds, Yuuji hadn't seen anyone switch emotions so fast before.
RRRINGGGG
"Seems lunch is over, guess i'll be heading to class now, see ya."
Yuuji turned and walked out of the room, giving her a slight wave as he left.
"Bye bye!"
Himari sounded as cheerful as ever, albeit she was still slightly bummed that Yuuji didn't join, but she wasn't going to give up just yet.
Himari followed Yuuji out of the room but took a left when he took a right, her class was on the other side of the school, which she deemed to be very unfortunate.
As Yuuji walked to class he could feel a looming presence from behind, one of sheer emotion and one he dreaded on some occasions.
The presence slowly got closer until it pounced on him, jumping onto his back and making Yuuji stumble.
"What are you doing man?"
"Gotta announce my presence y'know!"
This was Yuuji's best and only friend—Kenta Mishima, he was an energetic character in the school but somehow still not on the level that Himari was.
Yuuji pushed Kenta off of his back and turned to look at him—Kenta was slightly taller than Yuuji with short brown spiky hair and moss green eyes, he wasn't popular with girls at all, not because he was ugly, he just didn't speak to them very often.
"We got our next lesson together!"
"Sigh, it seems we do."
Yuuji always seemed to be annoyed by Kenta but he always gives him a soft smile to show that that's not true, Yuuji was very thankful for Kenta, even if he did spend most of his time playing video games.
"Well what're you waiting for?! Let's go!"