If there was a girl that could be called the epitome of amazing, and strong, and beautiful, it was Kyouko Kirigiri.

Chihiro Fujisaki was confused about a lot of things – how to navigate this high school without getting murdered, what happened at the trials, and a few other, more personal things, but what he was not confused about was Kyouko Kirigiri being wonderful.

She was just so strong, and she knew what she was doing all of the time, and while she wasn't really openly friendly, she had never been mean to him. He liked being around her, even though that didn't happen very often. And while she wasn't the most open, he really thought that he could be her friend.

Or boyfriend, or girlfriend, or anything else.

Chihiro didn't find the courage to speak to her all that often, but that was alright, because it took him quite a bit to find the courage to speak to anyone. It was a bit easier when the two of them were alone, though, because he thought that she wouldn't run around and talk about how Chihiro Fujisaki had made a fool out of himself.

Which was why, when he found her alone in the storage room, sifting through boxes, he managed to say hi.

She looked up, met his eye, and nodded. He took a few steps and crouched down beside her. He always kind of liked crouching down, because his skirt folded over his legs in a kind of cool, almost tent-like way. It was a nice feeling.

"Do you need something, Fujisaki-san?" Kyouko asked. Chihiro flushed a little.

"N-not really," he said. He watched her and wished that his face didn't feel so hot. He wished that he was strong enough to pick her up and carry her away from danger.

Not that there was likely to be any danger in here, except maybe a spider or something. But in that situation she'd probably end up carrying him away.

But Kirigiri just kept looking through the boxes, and Chihiro decided to do some looking of his own. He found some food that he liked, some instant coffee that he'd had before and a bag of sweets, the kind he really enjoyed, so even if he didn't talk to Kirigiri anymore the day wouldn't be completely wasted.

"Are there any more of those?" Kirigiri asked. Chihiro glanced at her and saw that she was pointing at the sweets.

"N-no," he said. "But we could share?"

He really hoped she didn't say no, he really hoped she didn't say no-

She nodded and he sat down across from her, opening up the bag. He gave her a few, and her glove brushed against his fingers. His blush grew and he focused on reading the ingredients of the coffee and listening to the cellophane wrapper crinkle. He glanced up when he thought she wasn't looking and found that she was, in fact, staring straight at him.

"How much progress are you making on that computer we found in the library?" she asked, and Chihiro perked up. It didn't matter if he was talking to a cute girl or not, he could talk about computers all day. He wasn't sure if he should mention Alter Ego, because of the security cameras, but-

She tapped a pen to a pad of paper.

Say it's good. Write down what's really going on.

"Oh, it's good," Chihiro said. It kind of took the fun out of computers, but he filled up a good three sheets anyway. She raised her eyebrows as she took the papers back from him, but nodded.

"That's good," she said. She opened a can of tea and took a drink, then held it out to him. "Are you thirsty?"

He took the can, his face flaming, and took a drink. He wondered what it would be like if he were to actually kiss her, and then decided that that was not something he could do right now. Later, if he could get Mondo to help him train, if he could be the strong man he was supposed to be, he could kiss Kyouko Kirigiri.

But for now he'd be her friend. Eventually he would sweep her off her feet, but now he would eat sweets with her and drink tea and talk about computers.

And he thought that might be enough.

Writing Chihiro is always a gamble, especially if it's a request, because it's like "okay, so what side are they on" but I just ended up going with… my general thoughts on it. Which is, IDK.

But, anyway. This was requested by a user on Tumblr, who wanted either a Saionji/Tsumiki or Chihiro/Kirigiri, and Chihiro/Kirigiri is super super cute, so I decided to go with that.