A Chaotic Morning

The next morning.

Kushida sat up in bed, clutching her head, which still throbbed faintly. She pressed her temples and took a long while to come around.

"Where... am I?"

"Wait!"

Kushida cried out. The surroundings were completely different from her dorm room, and her hair stood on end. She hurriedly patted herself down as if checking for something, then finally stopped and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness. Thank goodness."

"But what happened? Wasn't I... yesterday..."

The fragments of memory in her mind gradually came into focus. Kushida looked around and eventually spotted An Xiao fast asleep on a chaise longue some distance from the bed.

Without making a sound, Kushida slipped out of bed. Seeing that her uniform was merely rumpled, she breathed another sigh of relief.

Though she had let An Xiao grope her chest last night, that was all that had happened.

Grinding her teeth, Kushida went over to An Xiao. She clenched her fist, about to give the still-sleeping bastard in front of her a "forced physical wake-up call," when he seemed to sense something. He shifted uncomfortably, but didn't wake. Instead, he rolled over, curled up, and continued sleeping.

Kushida's movements came to a halt.

This guy... actually looked pretty good, especially when he was asleep.

Remembering what Shiina had done the night before, Kushida took out her phone almost as if in a trance and snapped a picture of the person in front of her.

Click!

"Ugh... it's morning already?"

An Xiao felt as though something had stabbed him in the eye. He rubbed it, still not used to the light, and spoke with a faintly dead-inside air.

"Well, Kushida, you're up too!"

Kushida quickly put away her phone, then walked over to An Xiao and grabbed him by the collar. In a chilly voice, she asked, "Could you tell me why I'm in your room?"

"What you're doing now is a lot worse than what happened last night."

Kushida had expected An Xiao to panic and try to explain himself, but his reaction was completely unexpected.

"You're the one who should talk!" An Xiao slumped against the chaise longue, looking utterly defeated. "Think about what you did last night."

"What did I do? I just went to your kitchen and took some desserts from the fridge."

"They were pretty good. Then I had some fruit too. I think it was pineapple..."

Kikyo Kushida tried to remember, but her memories cut off completely after she'd eaten the pineapple.

"Was there something wrong with the pineapple?"

"It had 40-proof rum in it. The bottle was right next to it. Did you guys not even look at what was sitting beside the food?" An Xiao said listlessly.

"Where did you get alcohol? And I didn't taste any when I ate it," Kikyo Kushida said, eyeing An Xiao suspiciously.

"It wasn't meant for you guys. It was for our homeroom teacher." An Xiao shifted to get comfortable before continuing.

"She's a complete boozehound. She was the one who gave me the rum."

Honestly, if he hadn't recently had something he wanted to ask her for help with, An Xiao wouldn't have gone to all this trouble either.

"As for the taste of the alcohol..."

"Add lime juice, lime zest, and salt, then freeze it for about six hours. There's basically no alcohol taste left."

"I can't exactly go to class smelling like booze, can I?"

As he spoke, An Xiao became a little more alert and recounted everything that had happened the night before.

"I'd just finished my porridge and was about to go to the kitchen to call you guys when I saw you and Shiina slumped against the kitchen wall, barely able to stand and not fully conscious."

"Even so, you dragged Shiina onto my bed and spent over an hour insulting Horikita in all sorts of ways."

"You just wouldn't stop. Shiina was much better—she only sat there grinning like an idiot."

"It wasn't until one or two in the morning that I finally managed to get you to sleep," An Xiao said, then yawned widely.

As the saying went, drinking wasn't the problem. The real problem was having someone remind you afterward what you'd done while blacked out.

Her memories were still patchy, but after hearing An Xiao's account, Kushida was able to recall most of it.

Heat rushed to her face in an instant, spreading to her ears.

"...Did I say anything else last night?"

"No. You just insulted Horikita, and maybe a few other people in Class D."

"That's good." Kushida let go of An Xiao's collar and straightened her rumpled clothes. Fighting down her panic, she started to leave.

It was still early. If she left now, there was a good chance she wouldn't run into anyone.

Just as Kushida reached the door and put her hand on the knob, An Xiao's still-sleepy voice came from behind her again.

"I don't know what you've been through, or why you care so much."

"But if there's something weighing on your mind, you can talk to Shiina... And if you don't mind, you can come talk to me too."

"What's that saying? If the jar's already broken, you might as well throw it away."

At An Xiao's words, Kushida's hand on the doorknob stopped. A long while later, her voice came through as the door opened.

"Mind your own business."

Click.

"Mmm... Did Kushida just leave?" Shiina Hiyori poked her little head out from under the covers and looked sleepily at An Xiao.

"Yeah." An Xiao stretched and got up from the chaise longue. Looking at the slightly shifting bundle on the bed, he asked curiously, "By the way, Shiina, when did you wake up?"

"Was it when Kushida grabbed me?"

"Maybe... a little before that."

P.S. Honestly, mixing chunks of pineapple with lime juice, lime zest, salt, and 40-proof rum, then freezing it for six hours before eating it, tastes pretty good. You can't taste the alcohol, though the effects hit a little hard, since it's a combination of high-fructose fruit and strong liquor.