Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom nor the characters.

Spoiler Warning: Set after the original events of Assassination Classroom... Therefore there might be minor spoilers. Be forewarned.

Chiba purposefully had his eyes covered so not to bother people. Unfortunately since the day he stepped into high school, Chiba couldn't get a break from one persistent girl bothering him.

"Chibaaaa! Oh Chiba~!"

At first, he had been rather quiet about the girl's antics—but with her daily approaches that intruded on his personal space, Chiba did feel the slightest bit bothered. His old classmates from Kunugigaoka had respected his quietness enough and accepted him on his own terms; however, this girl was always trying to force him to speak.

"Hey, Chiba."

Chiba looked up from the soda at his mouth. His friend Takayuki—one of Chiba's few friends, considering Chiba had promised himself not to be pushed into others' affairs anymore—was standing at the stall with a gun in hand. "Yo, man, why don't you take a couple shots?"

"Yeah!" Chimed in the girl Kyoto who was tagging along. She clung to Chiba's suspended arm. "I wanna see you in action, Chiba~."

Kyoto was somebody who Takayuki liked, Chiba noted several times. Unfortunately, Kyoto was also the girl that always bumping into Chiba at the wrong times. She was sweet, no doubt, but her constant approaches wore him out after some time. Most worth noticing to Chiba, though, was her very familiar hairstyle to a certain sniper he once knew: light-colored hair, tied into two low pigtails.

The three of them were at a popular shooting range across town for "Takayuki's date". It probably wouldn't have been an easy thing for high school students to even enter such a facility, but thanks to Japan's Ministry of Defense, Chiba was approved to practice at shooting ranges when he wanted. At first it was a nice idea to get approval, but after awhile he lost the motivation to snipe without a target or partner. This place was the first shooting range he had visited in awhile.

And, here, Chiba wasn't exactly sure why he agreed to be the "wingman" for his friend Takayuki, but... he was. Sadly, Takayuki was playing more of a wingman than intended. Kyoto had been chatting with Chiba the entire time, and she only took notice of Takayuki when the guy spoke up.

"It's fine," Chiba replied to his friend's offer. Although he was in a bit of a shooting mood now, he sort of wanted to refrain from revealing his skills as an assassin to other students—there were people, after all, who didn't know what transpired in Kunugigaoka Junior High School.

"Oh c'mon, Chiba," Takayuki began, lifting the shooting glasses from his face. "I know I'm pretty good, but you can't just be so quick to back away."

"Thanks, but I'm not interested..."

Kyoto finally released her grip on Chiba, sitting on the bench next to him. "Takayuki, maybe Chiba just doesn't like to shoot guns."

Takayuki laughed. "No way! Chiba, besides talking about becoming an architect and studying, could give you a whole run through about sniping. He took me to another shooting range one time, and he hit a bullseye every time!"

"Whoa! Really Chiba?!" Kyoto's eyes widened as she looked at the sniper in awe. "You're so cool!"

Chiba rubbed his head through his knit hat. He did take Takayuki once... and teaching the guy was a bit difficult.

"... Takayuki, if you're not using the gun, can you please put it down?"

"It's fine, Chiba," Takayuki looked at his gun. A bit confidently, he placed it over his shoulder, allowing the pistol to point upward. "It's not going to shoot."

"This is probably only you're second time shooting, " Chiba began, "and it's also dangerous to be pointing it upwards."

Kyoto patted his shoulder. "He'll be fine, Chiba. Takayuki can't be that reckless—"

Perfectly on cue, the pistol in question fired upward into the ceiling and shot a clean hole. Kyoto screamed along with Takayuki as the gun dropped to the floor. Several of the people around them looked their way, not shying away with their disapproval.

—"Those kids are heck of irresponsible."

—"Could've shot a head off."

—"That new employee is really gonna bite their heads off."

He probably should have known better than to take Kyoto and Takayuki to the shooting range. Now a bit frustrated with the way everything turned out, Chiba walked over to the discard pistol to pick it up. As he crouched over to reach for the grip of the pistol, though, a flurry of feet passed him by and retrieve the gun from the ground. Chiba looked up and found his voice caught in his throat.

"Horseplay with a loaded firearm is reckless," the person's voice lectured. "And with a shot through the ceiling like that, not only will you be banned but you'll be paying for damage."

Chiba stood up to his feet, not taking an eye off the employee. Meanwhile, Takayuki cowardly inched closer to Chiba. "H-Hey, We didn't mean anything by it! I swear, I'm broke!"

Kyoto jumped up from her seat, biting her lip. "Shush Takayuki, you're only making the matter worse!"

Kyoto proceeded to negotiating with the employee in hopes of bailing her broke friend out of the damage costs—unfortunately, it didn't seem to be succeeding. Takayuki, although still feeling guilty, lightly punched Chiba's shoulder. "H-Hey, the employee is kinda cute. Maybe even our age. Do you think I could flirt my way out of this?"

Of course not, Chiba thought and replied. Without a doubt, the employee wasn't going to negotiate such recklessness—especially not this employee. This employee wasn't going to let herself be pushed around either, Chiba knew. He knew better than a lot of others, actually, that she wouldn't cave in.

After all, his fellow sniper Hayami wasn't exactly that kind of lenient person.

"Hey, cutie!" Takayuki exclaimed into the negotiation before Chiba could stop him.

"Hmm?" Hayami furrowed her brows.

Takayuki swung an arm around Hayami's shoulder. "You know, you're pretty persistent with all these guns, but I doubt you could even match my skill."

"Takayuki!" Kyoto exclaimed.

Hayami thought to herself—what idiot was her old partner friends with? She really did want to get his Takayuki guy banned from the place. "If you're confident about that, then let's see. With that gun shoot all of your rounds closer to the target's center than I can, and you all are off the hook."

Chiba rubbed his head as Takayuki blindly accepted the terms of Hayami's deal. Both him and Kyoto sat on the bench as the two began setting up. Kyoto looked around at the other shooters beginning to watch. "Wow, all these people are watching! Hey, do you think Takayuki can do it, Chiba?"

Chiba crossed his arms, smiling just a little on the inside. "Without a doubt, it's unlikely he'll get even close to beating her."

"... You say that very surely..." Kyoto mumbled. She'd noticed Chiba's demeanor straighten slightly when the employee had intervened.

Takayuki fired one shot after another, hitting most of the shots into the target. His last round, by some miracle, hit the bullseye. A couple of men around the teens cheered, but the wiser knew better than to expect an easy victory.

"Impressive," Hayami stoically commented.

Takayuki brushed his hair and bowed. "Why, thank you!" He gestured to the stall. "I believe it's the princess' turn."

Watching Chiba very closely, Kyoto tapped her fingers against her knees. Captivated in a way Kyoto had never seen before, the boy with invisible eyes had been carefully watching the employee's every move. It was as if he knew her, Kyoto thought—knew her too well, even.

Takayuki, confident that he'd get out scotch-free, sauntered back to his two friends on the bench. "There's no way a girl could be any good at shooting a gun—right Chiba?"

Unfortunately, Chiba was so confident in the fact that Takayuki would lose that he didn't even care to focus on his friend. Chiba watched as Hayami stepped up and slipped her shooting glasses over her face. To him, Hayami appeared to have been spending more time practicing than himself in the passing time. He hadn't seen any of his fellow classmates from Kunugigaoka since they all parted ways—that included Hayami Rinka, whom Chiba hadn't been able to get in contact with.

An ear-splitting shot flew from the gun and to the target—an immediate bullseye. Several of the spectators murmured, and Takayuki and Kyoto both gulped. Hayami lowered her gun and breathed out before raising it for another round. One after another, she shot accurately at the target, and Chiba smiled to himself at his old partner's work. Hayami had definitely improved since the last time he saw her.

One final round fired—another perfect bullseye. The winner was undebatable.

Unfortunately, neither Takayuki nor Kyoto had the money to pay the damages.

"... How much is it?" Chiba asked Hayami, looking through his wallet. He'd left Takayuki crying into Kyoto's shoulders outside the facility.

Hayami was punching numbers into a calculator. "... Don't worry about it."

"Huh?"

Hayami looked up from her work. "I'm taking it out of my paycheck. There's no reason you should have to pay for them." Chiba silently thanked her with a nod.

As Hayami continued to punch in some other digits, Chiba stuffed his hands into his pockets. He noted how her hair had grown a couple of inches since middle school and how he had grown a couple of inches taller. She was as quiet as ever, though, and Chiba could feel the familiar awkwardness between them.

"... You're still practicing nowadays?"

At Chiba's words, Hayami snapped away from her math. "Yes. I've been coming here for awhile now. The owner is one of my friend's dad." She laid the calculator down.

"That's good to hear... I haven't picked up a gun in awhile." Chiba scratched the back of his head. After today's show, he was slightly convinced Hayami had probably surpassed his rusty skills. He should really get back to practicing sometime soon

"I see..." She replied. Hayami wasn't expecting that.

There was still an elephant in the room for both Chiba and Hayami. Neither of them had been in contact for the longest time—the reason was something the former didn't understand. The two looked at each other, almost unsure whether they should break the gaze or not.

"...I tried texting you a couple of times," Chiba started, "to see if you wanted to go shooting."

"Oh," Hayami spoke. "I changed phones and phone numbers and forgot to tell you. By the time I remembered, I lost your contact."

Chiba smiled. It was just something small like that, then. "I see. So do you mind if I get your number?"

Hayami's green eyes blinked innocently before she pulled a notepad and pen to herself. Carefully watching her penmanship, Chiba saw his old partner scribble a string of numbers out before tearing the paper from the pad and handing it to him.

"H-Here," Hayami blushed, her hand brushing against his as he took the sheet from her. As he thanked her, Hayami bit her tongue. "By the way, was that supposed to be a date?"

If people could have seen the upper half of Chiba's face, they would have seen his eyebrows rise. "More or less. I was supposed to be my friend's wingman though. Why?"

Hayami went back to pressing buttons on her calculator aimlessly as she had been before. "Just curious what kind of friends you've been making. They seem crazy."

At that remark, Chiba looked in the direction of the door. "Takayuki is a flirt, like Maehara, but crazier—he means well though. As for Kyoto... She gets a bit personal."

Personal. How personal? Hayami jabbed the delete button—she was learning a lot of things she didn't really want to.

"... Kyoto isn't really as fun to go shooting with as you are, either."

"Huh?" Hayami's ears pricked up.

"Yeah, Kyoto can't nearly hold a candle to you. She talks a lot and does very little on my behalf. On the other hand, you talked little and did more for my sake than a lot of other people. To be honest... I think I enjoyed your company a whole more than both Takayuki's and Kyoto's."

Tugging at his hat, Chiba rubbed his head. "They're also not hotshots like you are," he added quietly.

"...Chiba."

His eyes fell upon a blushing girl averting her gaze. "Hayami?"

She hadn't expected to hear something like that from Chiba, of all people. How was she supposed to respond to something like that? "...I-If you're so desperate for a shooting partner or something... then don't hesitate—"

"Chiba! C'mon!" Before Hayami could finish, Takayuki was yelling at Chiba.

Chiba sighed. "I gotta go. Thanks again."

Hayami nodded, somewhat hurt that he was already leaving. "Right."

Chiba turned and began to walk away from the counter; however, he stopped about four paces away before turning around.

"Hayami?"

The named girl looked up.

"I kinda need a girl who can use a gun to help me practice this weekend."

Hayami blinked, again, before answering with a smile on her face. "Just text me the details."

Chiba nodded, smiling to himself, and walked out with her number stuffed in his pocket.

Thanks for reading to the end of "A Girl and A Gun"! Hopefully you all enjoyed it! I had fun myself—although, to be honest, I definitely know nothing about guns or shooting ranges(most of it was whatever I could hastily research aha cries). I apologize for my lack of knowledge(and completely random choices of Japanese names). (And OOC...)

Anyways, thank you again for reading!

-Melodoki