Disclaimer: I don’t own Full Metal Panic or its characters.

Title: 10 Reasons why Hayashimizu Atsunobu is Gay

Rating: K+

Pairing: Hayashimizu Atsunobu x Mikhara Ren

Genre: Humor/Romance

Summary: Secretary of the Student Body, Mikihara Ren has always been seen as the right hand of the president. But who really knows what goes through her purple head about Hayashimizu Atsunobu

Enjoy reading. Don’t mind if you review. Constructive criticism welcome. –pinoy.

Anonymous: Sorry for taking so long to update this story. I’m currently in 1st year college (if I were schooling in Philippines, that is.) and last year there were a lot of exams, and this year there’s even more. And since the fandom seems kinda dead it’s been hard to update. Well, this is the second last chapter, so I hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter X –

It was the last reason. The last reason that ended Mikihara Ren’s list, 10 Reasons Why Hayashimizu Atsunobu is Gay.

10. His fan has the kanji character for men on it.

Honestly, what male uses a fan that has the character for men on it? She couldn’t comprehend what was going on in her senpai’s mind, and decided it was about time that she asked him whether he was gay or not.

Although she had almost totally convinced herself that he was, well, homosexual, she couldn’t rid herself of the sweet fact that stayed close to her heart. He had definitely taken her home that day she fainted at his house. That could have been out of courtesy, but she liked to think otherwise.

-

During another one of their quiet afternoons in the Student Council room, Ren gathered all her courage and set out to ask the question that had been dwelling on her mind for the past—heck, she didn’t even know how long she had been pondering upon her senpai’s sexual preference. She hastily made her way to the whiteboard where the president of the Student Council was writing notes.

“Hayashimizu-senpai—” Her squeaky voice was muffled as he turned around and her lips roughly met his broad shoulder.

“Oops, are you okay, Mikihara-kun?” He put his index finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up. “Your lips—” She pushed him away, unsure of what the flip-flops her stomach was doing meant. All she knew was that her face was heating up, and that his grey eyes were still fixed on her lips. No, she couldn’t let herself be distracted by something like this. She closed her eyes and blurted it out.

“Hayashimizu-senpai, a-are you gay?” He spluttered and a shower of saliva graced her pretty face. Unamused, she opened on eye and wiped away the offending liquid with her handkerchief. Surely a reaction like this meant that her accusation was correct though.

“No.” He cleared his throat to get rid of the uncertainty in his voice. “No, I am not… g-ga—” He paused, searching for a more sophisticated word. “I am not homosexual.”

Ren promptly forgot about all formalities and started overflowing with questions she had been longing to ask.

“Then why do you know so much about the male body and always study our football players?”

Hayashimizu sighed and made his way to his desk and sat down, ready for a tiring conversation. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, not noticing the glint that reflected off his lens that gave him an eerie look. The purple-haired girl shuddered. “Haven’t I ever told you that my father is a sports physiotherapist?” She shook her head. “He’s always telling me things when he comes home ever since I was a child, so I know a lot in that area.”

“What about your organiser? You have everything planned out, even your toilet breaks!”

He felt his left eye twitch. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“N-no, but surely normal guys don’t do that.”

“Mikihara-kun. I am perfectly sure that males are allowed to be neat and organised if they wish.” He rubbed his temples, feeling a slight headache coming on. “Besides, I am studying to get into Tokyo University so I have a study timetable that includes my toilet breaks.”

Ren grabbed a chair from a nearby desk and put in front of Hayashimizu’s desk so that she sat right in front of him.

“You’re also quite vain…,” her voice trailed off into a whisper.

“What was that?” Now he felt a vein throbbing on his forehead.

“N-nothing. I, I just meant that, well, you know, since you have a 3 door mirror wardrobe and that hand mirror in your drawer—”

“Oh that.” Hayashimizu cut her off before she could even finish her sentence. “The hand mirror in my drawer belongs to Chidori-kun. She left it here last time she and Sagara were in this room and I have not yet had a chance to return it to her.”

“And the 3 door mirror wardrobe…?”

“That couldn’t be helped. The only other bedroom in the house was Meiko’s room and the guest room downstairs. Meiko wouldn’t give up her room for anything, and I was not allowed to stay in the guest room. So that left me with the room with the 3 door mirror wardrobe.”

Ren wondered if she should continue asking. But she had made it this far and it would be a waste to not take advantage of this opportunity, so she plunged on.

“The hair straightener—”

“Meiko’s. My hair is naturally straight.” He emphasised this with a flick of his hair.

“—and strawberry scented shampoo and moisturiser when you went shopping—”

“Family’s preference.”

Ren frowned. He had refuted nearly half of her reasons. Ah, well, there were still 6 more to go. Surely he wouldn’t be able to explain all of those to her. Like his clothing.

“How come you wear a pink shirt underneath your school uniform?”

“I wear a pink shirt underneath my school uniform?” The boy made a show of unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt to check what shirt he was wearing underneath.

“N-no, not that one!” The purple-haired girl panicked. She hadn’t expected him to do something like that, and as a result her face was now a bright red.

“When have I worn a pink shirt underneath my school uniform?”

“That day when Sagara-kun—” Hayashimizu coughed. If Ren hadn’t bowed her head to avoid looking at Hayashimizu she would have noticed that he too was embarrassed.

“That shirt, huh~ Oh! I know what one you’re talking about. That shirt got washed with the red clothing, so some of the red dyes seemed to have seeped into my white shirt. I never wear it any more.”

“But there was that day that you were wearing tights and a horrible brownish-green… article of clothing.” Not to mention eyeliner or eyeshadow, she silently added.

Hayashimizu made a barfing noise.

“That disgusting, terrible, frilly, regurgitatingly ugly article of clothing was entirely the drama teacher’s fault. If we weren’t required to wear that attire for our medieval play, I wouldn’t be caught wearing that anywhere.” Ren breathed a sigh of relief. That meant that he didn’t take a fancy to those kinds of clothes.

“I still think you might be gay.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

She put out her hand and started counting reasons off her fingers. “You sit with your legs crossed; you shave your legs—”

“WAIT. Hold on. What’s wrong with sitting with your legs crossed? Many males do that.”

“Hmph. Well that still doesn’t change that fact that you shave your legs.”

How on earth does she know that I shave my legs, Hayashimizu found himself wondering. But in order to clear this misunderstanding, he’d have to explain to her why he shaved his legs. “I swim.”

“So what if you swim? Issei-kun swims and he doesn’t shave his legs!”

Hayashimizu scowled. “I swim competitively. In fact, I’m already up to state level.” A tinge of pride laced his voice.

“…and?”

“And shaving your legs means that you can swim faster because there’s no friction.”

Ren shrugged. Well, she didn’t quite get it but it sounded technical enough, so that reason was invalid.

“You do know that you cannot write romance stories at all, right?” She looked at him in the eye and he found himself shrinking under her gaze. “But what really strikes me is that your writing is so beautiful. Even more so than mine.”

“My mother taught me how to write. And as for that… that short story that you brutally stole from me,” as well as my pride, he added silently, “that was for my writing class.”

“The pink paper—”

“—was really Meiko’s,” he finished.

“Then how about yesterday when you asked me to get your history textbook from your locker?”

“What about yesterday?” He shifted uneasily around in his seat, remembering that he had fallen asleep by the time she had returned.

“Those beauty magazines?”

“What about the beauty magazines?”

“Well, why do you have them? Clearly, they’re beauty magazines for women.”

He laughed. It was actually kind of fun to see her get riled up about something, even if it was at his expense. She was always so gentle and calm and mild and now this side of her he had never seen before was getting him all excited.

“Well?”

“They’re my mother’s. I pick them up twice a month before school at the bookstore just around the corner for her. She’s currently on a business trip so I just keep them in my locker.”

Ren looked unsatisfied with his answer, but there was nothing he could do about it. After all, it was the truth he was telling. She fidgeted a little, and he supposed she had run out of accusations.

“You haven’t told me why you have men written on your fan.”

Or not.

“That’s a secret, Mikihara-kun.” He leaned forward and pressed his index finger to her lips and smirked. She sat still, dumbfounded by the current turn of events. “But I’ll have you know, I’m not homosexual.” He looked uneasy, as if he were debating whether to say more. She watched has his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“I-I’m not homosexual because I’m in love with the girl in the same room as me.” He quickly stood up, nearly tripping over the chair legs in his rush and left the room.

“…he’s in love with me?” Ren touched her lips where Hayashimizu had touched them just less than a minute ago. She thought back to her list of reasons of why she had thought he was homosexual and realised that he still hadn’t told her why men was written on his fan.

Ah, well, 9 out of 10 isn’t that bad, she thought as a smile tugged on the corners of her lips.

-

Author’s Notes

IT’S FINISHED?! No, it’s actually not. There’s one more chapter to satisfy the Hayashimizu x Ren fangirl inside of me, but the list of reasons of why Hayashimizu Atsunobu is gay is completed! I know some of the explanations were a little farfetched, but oh well. It’s fanfiction.

Whoa, and this chapter was massive. It’s like longer than 3 of the previous chapters put together xD

Well, please look forward to the last chapter.

Review?

--Duckii Mustang

Last chapter: Kissable Lips