"So it was this guy all this time along, huh?" mumbled Alexander looking down at a passed-out Yuuta on the ground. His monster mask fell off, revealing his handsome and attractive face, even when there was some blood on it. Alex rolled out his eyes while crossing his arms, clicking his tongue as he guessed that maybe that kind of face was the type that catches the attention of beautiful girls like his beloved Haruhi. However, noticing that Haruhi practically had zero interest in Yuuta, Alex could live in peace.
"Of course she doesn't pay any attention to him, Alex. You're more handsome... And attractive."
Alexander scoffed with a slight blush on his cheeks as he pathetically complemented himself mentally. Too bad Haruhi doesn't seem to pay any interest to him either, though.
Sighing, he rubbed the back of his head. Then, he turned around to observe how Haruhi was dealing with Yuuta. She was telling him to get up from the ground, shake off the hard brach-smack Alexander gave him, and to go to Shione because she could heal whatever wounds he had. Alexander simply nodded, always agreeing to everything Haruhi said, as it should be. A knight always listens and agrees with everything his princess says.
"He... I just imagined Haruhi dressed with a beautiful princess yukata, and me calling her "Haruhi-him". He-he..."
And there goes Alex getting lost in his wild fantasies... Again. He was chuckling and smiling dumbly, his cheeks all flustered.
However, as he felt eyes on him, Alexander quickly snapped back to reality and quickly moved his glare to the direction he felt a glare, and there he noticed Haruhi literally staring at him, her cheeks slightly pink.
"H-Huh? You good, Haru-chan?" he asked Haruhi after a minute, his cheeks now flustering as well. This was the first time he saw Haruhi staring at him so intensively, and it caught him so off guard that now he was nervous.
"Go back to Shione. Go tell her that Alex saved me and that I see him as a knight in shining armor..."
Alexander's eyes widened in shock and his jaw almost drop off his mouth as he heard from Haruhi those words. She sees him as a knight in shining armor, and she just said it loud and clear to Yuuta! The poor blonde guy was screaming with happiness internally.
Before he could say anything to Haruhi, the brunette girl walked towards him, grabbed his hand, and began to walk toward the direction of her villa. She told him something, but she was stuttering so much that Alex didn't manage to hear her correctly. he didn't care, though. Haruhi just called him a knight in shining armor, and with a silly, wide smile on his face, Alexander let Haruhi lead their way, following her willingly.
Was it getting hotter out there? Haruhi could feel her cheeks warming up. She really was starting to wonder if Alex would be able to feel her pounding heart as they held hands. And speaking of hand holding, why had she still not let go? Something was strange. Really strange.
Her thoughts were cut off when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She almost jumped at the sudden surprise. She pulled it out with her free hand and took a look, noticing a text about Mariko, Bob, and Rain heading back to the villa because of the 'ghost'. She exited the messages to see her wallpaper. It was a picture of her and Alex while they visited a sweet shop. It was a place they visited often together. She stared at it for a few moments.
They always went to a lot of places together. And he always hung out at her house too. Whenever she was lonely he would come over to be with her. Whenever she wanted someone to talk to all she needed to do was give him a call. No matter what he was always there for her.
She was so focused on her thoughts that the young woman failed entirely at paying attention to where she was going, leading her right into a little downward hill. She stepped down, unaware and caused herself to fall forward. But because her hand was holding on to Alex's, she took him with her.
The hill wasn't big, but it caused the two to roll down the small hill and stop at the bottom. It wasn't big enough to harm them. However, when Haruhi finally realized what happened, all she saw was Alex's face inches away from hers.
"Geez, Alex, you really need to calm down!" he thought to himself and slowly looked down at his hand being held by Haruhi's. This wasn't the first time they did this, but the fact that Alex got such a hard crush on her sent his heart racing as fast as it could. The poor blonde guy was praying to any gods out there for Haruhi to not noting what was going on with him right now.
Suddenly, his phone began to vibrate in his right pocket, making him snap out of his thought and almost yelp with surprise. With a low, embarrassed chuckle, Alex quickly reached for his phone with his right hand. As he looked down at the screen, he noticed a text message from Ryu.
Yo, Tsundere-kun, I'm already at the Villa, brought Miyuki with me. Where you at? I don't see Haru-chan around, is she with you?"
After reading, Alex moved his head to take a quick look at Haruhi, which was busy on her phone as well, before replying to Ryu with a quick text:
"What the hell, Ryu!? I will kill you for calling me like that when I get there!"
"And, yes, I'm with Haru-chan. We kind of lost track of time here in the woods with the game. We're going back to the Villa right now, don't worry."
As Alex sent his last text to Ryu, he read everything one last time with a small smile before slowly returning his phone to his right pocket.
"Haru-chan, Ryu-kun just sent me a text-"
Before he could finish talking to Haruhi, the blonde guy suddenly felt being pulled by some random force, and once again he experienced the familiar gravity pulling him down a hill with Haruhi. By instinct, Alex managed to wrap his arms around his beloved crush to protect her and closed his eyes while they were rolling downhill.
They were lucky the hill wasn't that dangerous, so when they reached the bottom of it, they were fine.
Alex slowly opened his eyes once he felt that the rolling stopped, and his heart almost jumped out of his chest when the first thing he saw was Haruhi's beautiful face in front of him, AND JUST A FEW INCHES AWAY FROM HIS.
He widened his eyes like an owl and his whole face went red out of embarrassment. His body froze in such an awkward position. He practically looks as if he was pinning down on the ground, his left arm holding her from behind her and his right arm holding him up.
"OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!" Alex began to panic internally, screaming into the void.
"W-What the hell I'm supposed to do now, huh!? S-Should I just kiss her or... No, no, no, you idiot! You can't just kiss her like that!"
Alex was so helpless. The only thing he could do was to just stare into Haruhi's eyes, trying to guess or wait if she made a move or react.
Their eyes met and a shade of red started to form on Haruhi's cheeks. She could feel the warmth of his hand on her back. She knew just from that hand of his that he had protected her the whole way down the hill.
Every single time she had gotten herself into something, he always protected her. He really was like her knight in shinning armor, wasn't he?
"T-Thank you, Alex," she said.
"For keeping me safe during that fall. Y-you're not hurt or anything, right?"
There goes that heart beating rapidly again. She was starting to acknowledge it more and more now. Many thoughts on it's causes were playing on her mind. And as they ran through her mind, that blush on her cheeks grew darker.
"W-We should head back to the villa."
"Y-Yeah, we should head back," replied Alexander, trying really hard to keep a cool composure, but again, the heartbeats of his exciting heart weren't helping him at all.
He moved his eyes to take a glance at Haruhi's pink lips. This was the perfect opportunity to finally kiss them and finally confess his feelings to her, but there was a small voice at the back of his head that was yelling at him to not do that. After all, kissing her out of the blue and in such an awkward position wasn't the best idea. And let's not talk about how freak out Haruhi would probably react. Their beautiful childhood friendship could end if something followed by.
Swallowing hard and pushing back his feelings, Alexander gently moved off Haruhi and pushed himself to his feet. After dusting off his clothes, he looked down at Haruhi and held out his right hand to help her get up from the ground.
"You're not hurt, right?" he asked Haruhi once she stood up from the floor.
"I can carry you on my back if you hurt a leg and can't walk. That won't be a problem for me."
Alexander let out a kind of awkward chuckle, still nervous about what happened. He was pretty sure this was the first time his face was that extremely close to Haruhi's. He felt her warm breath and smelled the pleasant scent of her skin, the main factor of why he wanted to kiss her so badly before. That scent gave his feeling such an overwhelming sensation that almost drove him crazy. But, as a knight with shining armor, there were boundaries he must never cross, and rules to follow, one of them to always be a gentleman.
Sighing deeply, Alexander rubbed the back of his head and shrugged his shoulders a little bit before placing his hands in the pockets of his shorts, turning his head to look at Haruhi.
"And, I... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way after landing on top of you, by the way. I was even embracing you way too close to me, and our faces were really close. I, huh... I didn't mean to do any of that."
Haruhi's gazed left Alex's eyes and landed on his hand outstretched to her. She took hold of his, and with his assistance, stood up from the ground.
"Don't worry. I'm not hurt," she replied back. Her hand stayed in his for just a few more moments then she finally let go and brushed some dirt off of her clothes.
Although the pink in her cheeks was starting to fade, it momentarily returned as she listened to his last comments.
"I-It's okay. You didn't make me uncomfortable or you were just helping me. There's nothing wrong with that," she said.
She gave him a smile.
"Everyone else is already back at the villa. So, let's go back too." Once they were both ready, she walked with him in the direction of the villa.
On the rest of their trip back to the villa, Alexander was silent the whole time. His mind was clouded with thoughts about everything that happened in this scary woods challenge. He admitted he enjoyed it quite a lot, and of course, the best of all of this game was the quality time he spent alone with Haruhi.
"This is a great time to finally confess my feelings to her," he thought as his cheeks were turning pink. He was walking beside Haruhi, at her right side, with his hands in his pockets. After blinking once, Alex slightly turned his head to look at Haruhi for a few seconds before returning his gaze to the ground. A low sigh escaped his mouth.
"But what if she rejects me and our friendship gets ruined? She doesn't look to have a love interest towards me, I probably would've noticed it if that's the case, but so far... I don't want to mess things up with Haruhi. I won't be able to take such a hard hit."
Alexander clicked his tongue with a slight frown and kicked aside a rock that was unfortunate enough to appear on his path. He was so frustrated to be such a coward. What's the worst that could happen, anyway? Him being rejected by Haruhi? Followed by being completely ignored by her afterward, avoiding him in school, and cutting out all contact with him? Oh, wow, now I'm the one being overly dramatic about this whole issue thing.
It took Alex and Haruhi a few minutes to finally arrive at the villa. Alexander was now quite exhausted with everything that happened in the woods and all the activities he did after arriving at this place. All he wanted to do now was to just take a shower and drink some milk before going to bed. Yes, the milk part was important because of how else his body is going to grow.
"Ugh, I'm so tired," Alex said with a deep sigh after entering the villa through the door of the backyard.
"I guess I'm not used to doing so many things in a single day. I admit I'm just a lazy cat most of the time."
With a chuckle, Alex turned around to look at Haruhi.
"But, hey, I'm not complaining, okay? I did enjoy this whole crazy day. Like, a lot... Especially being with you." That last sentence sounded more like a mumble. Already blushing faintly, Alexander smiled and turned to his right, looking at Haruhi. "
Well, I'm going to a shower now. See you-"
"Ah, you guys are finally here!" shouted Ryunosuke, walking toward Alex and Haruhi with a towel hanging from his right shoulder.
"Just in time. I was about to go to the thermal baths. Do you mind if I take Alex-kun from you for a few minutes, Haru-chan?"
Alexander blinked his eyes twice, kind of confused before turning his head to look at Haruhi.
"Oh, did your parents added some thermal baths outside of the villa this year? Because I don't remember seeing any of that last year when they invited my family for a weekend."
For what might have been the first time ever, Haruhi was quiet. Alex didn't talk, so she didn't talk. There were thoughts going through her head and they distracted her too much for her to think of anything to chat about. Before she realized it, they had arrived at the villa and Alex finally broke their silence.
"Huh?" Haruhi spoke first because she hadn't entirely focused on him again yet.
"Oh." She looked at him and smiled.
"A lot did happen today, didn't it?" she replied.
"But I think it turned out just as it needed to be." He mentioned he was going to take a shower and she was about to say her goodbyes to him when Ryu showed up.
"N-no, not at all," she said back in response, but then turned her attention back to Alex for a moment when he asked her a question.
"Oh, yeah. My mom wanted it. Go ahead and enjoy it. It's great for your skin and it's pretty relaxing too." She gave them both a smile and waved her hand like she was shooing them away.
"I have a few club president stuff to do, so I'll be going," she added then headed off to her room. She closed the door behind her and turned on the light. Her room was still a mess from when she had looked for that treasure chest. She sat down on her bed for a moment.
"Oh boy," she whispered to herself. A light shade of pink started to form on her cheeks.
"What do I want to do about this?"