Author's Note: This will be set a few days after chapter 232! If you're a HimekoxBossun fan, you should check it out! The fact that there's almost no fic for this very adorable couple gave me the drive to write this. This will probably be 4-5 chapters long. And please excuse the title. lol

Disclaimer: Sket Dance and the characters here all belong to Shinohara Kenta.

-Sketto Romance-

Chapter 1 – Thickheaded

Bossun suspiciously narrowed down his eyes towards the only girl in their club room.

It was a day after their trip to Osaka and it was supposedly one of their normal afternoons where in they were left to do nothing productive. Switch was playing a new dating sim game that came out yesterday (as he had boastfully announced to them that he got the limited edition one) while Himeko arranged the volumes of manga that the two boys had arbitrarily brought on their clubroom out of nothing else to do. It was supposedly normal - as Bossun was folding more paper cranes, like always - but there was one thing off that Bossun was quite sure that there had been something pretty special that occurred recently and whatever that something was, he was obviously being uninformed about-

CRASH!

Bossun's line of thought was cut by the sound of the glass breaking. As he averted his gaze towards his left, he realized that on his attempt to get another origami paper, he had knocked off his cup from the table and its tea was now spilling over the floor. Oh boy… Himeko had just finished waxing the floor a few moments ago before she started with arranging their manga. And wait, was that cup one of Himeko's favourite…?

There was silence in the room as the two other members of the club stopped what they were doing to look over at their leader. Bossun gulped as he nervously turned his head towards the blonde. Man, his bruises from the fight in Osaka weren't even completely gone yet. Was he going to take another beating from their strong member?

Himeko started walking towards his direction and Bossun begun to wave his arms in defense. The fact the Switch's digital voice was chanting 'He broke the cup, he broke the cup' didn't make Bossun felt less nervous.

"I-i-it was an accident! I didn't mean-"

"It's okay." She kneeled over the mess and picked the broken bits of cups, placing them on the piece of cloth she was holding. Bossun blinked as the horrifying shouts and painful blows he was expecting never came. Instead, Himeko simply glanced towards him -was that a twinkle in her eyes just now?- and asked him, "you didn't hurt yourself, did you, Bossun?"

There was another silence as Switch's teasing suddenly stopped.

Surprised at her question, Bossun could only manage to shake his head. He ruined the cup, her favourite one at that, and spilled tea on the floor she had just cleaned, and all she was asking him was, was, was if he's alright?

A smile crossed Himeko's lips at Bossun's response and this only made him even more bewildered. His very shocked expression immediately removed the smile on Himeko's face though. "Bossun, is there something wrong?"

He pointed an accusatory finger at Himeko, his mouth opening and closing like a fish before he stammered. "Y-you! What's with that overly positive attitude since this morning! You've been either smiling or humming happily all throughout the day! What's this?" Bossun couldn't help but notice the blush that crept on Himeko's cheeks and this only made him feel more agitated. "Something good happened, wasn't there? Something really, really, REALLY good that it made you SOOO happy you cannot be bothered to scold me for the mess I've been doing?"

To Bossun's dismay, his outrage only caused Himeko to giggle brightly, leaving him to gape more widely. She continued to clean up the mess with smile on her face while Bossun's mouth hung open. Not knowing what to say to Himeko, Bossun turned to the other male in the room. " Switch! Himeko's gone mad!"

'Ohohoho Bossun. That's what you called the "spring of youth."' Switch's voice responded haughtily. If Bossun wasn't busy shooting half confused, half bewildered look at Switch, he would have seen how Himeko's face reddened brightly at Switch's comment. The older lad decided to continue teasing Bossun. 'Ahhhh~ it's so good to be young.'

"What? What?" Their leader started looking back and forth from Himeko - who strategically faced the trash can so Bossun couldn't see her blushing face- and Switch. "Spring of youth? Does that mean-?"

Himeko suddenly picked up their trash bin and screamed "Oh look! Our trash is over flowing! I'll just go out and get rid of them all at once!"

Not listening to Bossun's banters of "It's not even half full!" and "You've just threw away the trash half an hour ago!" Himeko left the clubroom in a dash. Gaping at the door that the blonde left opened, Bossun didn't realize that he had already stood up from his sitting spot, his paper cranes forgotten. He snapped his head towards Switch's direction. "It's Katou isn't it?" Switch's eyes gleamed in amusement as Bossun frantically paced the room back and forth. "She and that ninja finally got together, didn't they? A-a-and she thinks," Bossun's stopped prancing and his face begun to crumple, "I'm just a completely childish, irrelevant oaf to even tell that their relationship had just levelled up!"

'As far as my resources go,' Switch attempted to cheer up Bossun, 'both Himeko and Kato Kirin are still single as of the moment. ^^'

This seemed to have calmed down Bossun enough for him to sit down again but there was still the disbelieving look on his face. "So they've just both found out that they have mutual feelings for each other and Kato is just waiting for the right moment to profess his undying love. Okay, I'll just sit back here and continue being a very unimportant person who doesn't mean a single thing to anyone in the world. Yeah, I'm just plain useless Bossun who can only fold papers…"

Switch silently wondered how long it would take for Bossun to realize what was in front of him. Himeko seemed to have already find out her own feelings for their leader during their trip to Osaka, but Switch was convinced it'd take Bossun an eternity to level up his understanding in terms of romance. But of course, Switch wouldn't just stand back and not help his two friends on this important stage of lfe. 'Bossun, Himeko is always amazed at how you do those origami!'

Bossun perked up a bit at this comment but it was far from enough to remove the idea on his head that Himeko liked Kato and vice versa. "Oh sure she'd like these papers much more than his kunai!" Bossun responded sarcastically. "I can't beat anyone with paper unless I tried becoming Saicho of Team Kuu!"

'Is that jealousy I'm hearing Bossun?' Switch's tone changed to a teasing one. 'Oh my! Our Bossun is jealous of our Himeko liking another guy! Ohohoho!'

"Je- " He gaped. "Why should I be? Of all things, je-GAH!" Bossun crumpled the paper and threw it on annoyance. He stood up in annoyance and Switch was ratheramused by the tint of red that tainted the other lad's face. "I'm going home!" With that, he grabbed his bag and made way to open the door. He wasn't able to step out of the room though as there in front of him stood Himeko who was now looking up at him—was she blushing? — with curious eyes. Her expression went disappointed though when she spotted his bag with him.

"Oh Bossun, you're going home now?"

She looked back up at him and Bossun's expression crumpled in confusion. There was that expression again! Since early this morning, there had been this very different look that mixed on Himeko's eyes whenever she looked at him. And he couldn't decipher what it was! Bossun had been with Himeko for a long time now and he had already seen all of Himeko's expressions. Angry, happy, annoyed, embarrassed, sad; he'd seen them all! So why was it that this expression— this one similar to that look she gave him after she, ehem, hugged him at Osaka — was something he never knew she had? Did something happen? Did something change? Was it…

Oh. Yeah. Spring of youth.

With the conclusion in mind, Bossun averted his gaze from Himeko and muttered a noncommittal 'See ya' towards Switch's direction before heading out.

Still holding the trash bin, Himeko just made way for him and watched him walk away for a while as if debating whether she'd follow him or not.

'Wasn't there something you wanted to tell him?' Switch's voice piped in and Himeko blushed at the question.

"Y-yes." Himeko stared on the ground, half of her wanted to run to Bossun, half wanted to bury herself on the ground. "But I'm not sure if it's the right time…"

'Hmmmm. But it seems that Bossun has come up with an interesting conclusion.'

Himeko's head snapped towards Swtich. "Eh? What conclusion?" With an imagination like Bossun's, who knew what kind of things he thought! Did he already know? But that Bossun was so thick headed there was no way he'd find out!

'She and that ninja finally got together, didn't they?' It was Bossun's recorded voice that came from Switch's laptop and Himeko's already red face turned even much brighter. "That buffoon-" She turned around again and followed Bossun's direction on a quick speed, completely forgetting that she was still holding the trash bin.

Switch's eyes sparkled towards the door before he averted his attention back to his game. Ahh, it's sure nice to be young.

It didn't take long before Bossun's back was visible again to Himeko. He hadn't even reached the school gates by the time she exited the building. But as she neared him, lots of thoughts bombarded her mind.

What was she going to tell him? Was she really going to confess now? Now? What if he was on his way to confess to someone else? What if he already knew? Did Saaya feel this nervous when she confessed with Bossun? How did Switch find out? Oh but that's Switch! He'd know everything! Did he know how Bossun felt for her? Should she have asked him first? But that's wrong! Remi-sensei told her she looked blooming today! Captain asked her why she was smiling happily! Bossun was just a step away! He was turning around with a very disgruntled look!

Bossun let out a shriek when she suddenly grabbed him on both arms. Himeko didn't let this bewildered reaction fazed her determination- it took a life-changing event for her to realize her own feelings and just a shriek from him won't destroy her newly found courage- and before she could stop herself, she announced. "NAKATANI-SAN SAID THAT THERE'S THIS WONDERFUL CAFÉ THAT OPENED NEAR THE STATION. WE SHOULD GO ON A DATE THERE, BOSSUN!"

There was silence between them and Himeko finally realized that there were still actually other students who were on their way home outside the school gates. By the way they stopped- some giggled, some whistled- Himeko was pretty sure they all heard what she had just told Bossun. She didn't have time to be bothered by all this though since she was currently giving all her attention at Bossun… who was just staring at her with a surprised look.

Oh heavens. She was pretty sure his usually brilliant mind was concocting very far-fetched ideas since this was a matter of something romance-inclined. If this had happened a few days ago, she would have taken back whatever she said and tried patching it up with stupid excuses. He was looking at her as if she said a very foreign word.

After what seemed like an eternity to Himeko, Bossun finally opened his mouth.

"Date?"

Himeko nodded resolutely. This only resulted to Bossun's eyebrows arching in confusion. And was that annoyance in his expression?

"Shouldn't you be asking someone else?" He muttered suspiciously as he narrowed his eyes at her. "Someone like… a certain ninja?"

Himeko blushed out of annoyance at how Bossun was still pushing Kato on this discussion when she already asked straight for her to go on a date. This thick-headedness somehow gave Himeko more resolution. "No! Not Kato! It shouldn't be anyone but you, Bossun! Come on, let's go! Nakatani-san said it closes early!"

If Himeko bothered to look at Bossun's face as she pulled him along, she would have seen the slight tinge of pink on Bossun's face. He didn't understand why his breath hitched when she sprouted that question.

Did she really want to go on a date with him?

But why would Himeko asked him to go out, on a date, nonetheless? Did she and Kato had a fight so she needed his help to make that ninja jealous? Yeah. That's probably it. Himeko was just too embarrassed to explain the rest of the situation so the only thing she managed to say was 'Go on a date.' And it shouldn't be anyone but him because he's the only person around who'd volunteer helping. She'd probably had asked Switch before she came running after him. Switch probably had some other plans whereas he, useless Bossun, didn't have plans with anyone else…

Despite knowing that Himeko was just asking him for the sake of making Kato jealous, Bossun wondered why he never actually tried and pull off from Himeko's grasp when her hold wasn't even that tight.

He could have said no, really.

-to be continued—

Author's Note: Reviews will be appreciated~ It was a bit hard trying to get Himeko and Bossun's characters as I think these two have tendencies to have different reaction on different circumstances… Though I think Himeko would be more resolute on her feelings towards Bossun now that she knows of her own feelings. I assume that it might take a while for Bossun to realize his own feelings though. Oh and Saicho of Team Kuu is from Flame of Recca and copyrighted to Nobuyuki Anzai.

-Sketto Romance—

"Oi, Himeko."

"NO!" She hastily said, more to herself than to Bossun, without even looking back at him. "I'm not backing out!"

"That's not it." Noting the nervousness on Himeko's voice now but not commenting on it, Bossun shifted his eyes towards the thing that Himeko's holding. "You still have that trash bin."

This finally made Himeko stopped and she looked at what her other hand was holding as if she never knew how it got there. "Oh bother! We'll just take it to the café!"