Housekeeping
Summary: Yui shouldn't be at Hope's Peak, but she is.
Which means she can learn how to clean with Chisa.
Or something like that.
For DR WLWeek 2024: Prompt Six: Happy Ending.
Fic Rating: T.
AO3
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Hope’s Peak Academy.
A shining bastion of hope to the masses.
A school that seeks out its students based on a thinly defined concept they call Talent.
Unfortunately, the Talent they seek is not always what the student wants to do or be known for, but the prestige of being at such an academy, where every student goes on to fame and fortune and stability, at the very least, can be so appealing. More appealing than pursuing whatever they want when they want it. Besides, it’s just a few short years, and then—
Likely a lifetime of being locked into whatever their Talent is – whatever brought them to Hope’s Peak in the first place.
(So a bit like college, only with significantly less choice.)
Not that Yui Samidare is here for any of that.
If Yui’d told her parents she’d been scouted, they would have pressed her for those very reasons – fame, fortune, stability – but she doesn’t talk to them more often than not. They don’t know her day-to-day life; they don’t know her life at all. They wouldn’t understand. She wants to be – no, she is – a detective, but she would never be scouted for that. Even before meeting Kyoko, she knew that. She’s not great, but she’s trying, and for every person she helps, the world is a little bit brighter. A little bit more hopeful.
Yui Samidare seeds more hope in the world just through her simple acts of dedicated kindness than Hope’s Peak ever will through its desperate desire for control.
But we’re not talking about that.
(Not right now, anyway.)
We’re talking about Detective Yui Samidare, the Ultimate Leaper, who changed her mind on accepting the invitation to join Hope’s Peak not because she wanted fame or fortune or a possible future Olympics grab – leg strength she might have, but she’s not an athlete by any means – but because Kyoko’s father is here, because Kyoko’s father is choosing this stupid school over his daughter, and because Kyoko didn’t ask her to do any investigative work, but Yui’s going to do it anyway. She’s entangled with the Kirigiri family enough; why not go this one step further? It’s not like she’s going to die, or anything.
Yui Samidare, who stands in front of Hope’s Peak, shifts the strap of the backpack she’s wearing that none of the other students are, and presses forward.
~
Some Time Later.
Yui plops down on her mattress, arms splayed to either side of her, and lets out a huge huff as she stares up at her popcorn ceiling, backpack sliding down to the floor beside her bed. Hope’s Peak is both exactly what she thought it would be and nothing like she thought it would be. She’d imagined intensive classes covering everything under the sun, but there’s nothing of the sort, just free reign to do whatever she wants as long as she passes her exams – and they aren’t exams in the normal school sense of the word, just attempts to gauge improvement in her skill.
Her skill is leaping. How do you test improvement in that? Just jumping higher? Potentially making friends with one of the other Ultimates in athletics to…to what, exactly? Study the effects of leg strength under….
Ugh, she doesn’t even care.
Then the knock comes at her door, followed by the cheery call of “Housekeeping!”
This, at least, is almost exactly as Yui expected, but more so. As she pushes herself out of bed, she considers her belief that each class at Hope’s Peak must be tightknit, that in a school with so few students, everyone must know everyone else, even if only in passing. They recognize each other in the hallways – when they use hallways – and they’re familiar enough that unless someone keeps entirely to themselves (as Yui suspects Kyoko will do when she, too, is a student here (and she doesn’t even consider that Kyoko won’t be here (the idea that Lico might doesn’t even cross her mind)))—
Unless someone keeps to themselves, they’ll be so entrenched with everyone that they’ll naturally have friends, rivals, family.
And even if they do keep to themselves, it’s frequently on the students themselves to make sure that their dorms and meals and everything are perfect, provided there’s an Ultimate to cover that.
Which is why—
“Yukizome-senpai,” Yui says with a tired smile on her face as she opens her door. “I’m fine, really, you don’t need to—”
Chisa Yukizome, a girl who might be brighter than the sun itself, reaches up and boops the tip of Yui’s nose. “I know!” She props one hand on her hip, the other carrying a tub full of cleaning supplies. A peacock feather duster sticks its head just above her back, one thin white ribbon crossing her chest to hold it in place. “But you athletes tend to have the smelliest rooms.” She pokes her head into the room and sniffs twice.
“I’m not an athlete,” Yui says, wriggling her nose. “I’m just unnaturally good at jumping.” She glances over her shoulder to her desk, which is covered with papers related to her primary case. Sure, sure, she’s paired up with Kyoko once or twice since becoming a student here, but the Black Challenges seem to have quieted down (worrisome, but she doesn’t want to think about that right now) and Kyoko seems to be doing just fine on her own. Her primary case, of course, is focused instead on Kyoko’s father. Something at Hope’s Peak made him choose to stay here instead of with Kyoko; it has to be pretty big because she can’t imagine just leaving Kyoko behind.
But Yui can’t talk about any of that with Kyoko.
And she can’t talk about any of that with Chisa either.
“Unnaturally good doesn’t lead to being an Ultimate,” Chisa remarks. She places a hand on Yui’s arm and gently moves her to one side. “Besides,” she continues, “cleaning everyone’s dorm is kind of my thing.” After she sets the tub down on the floor in Yui’s room, she holds a timer aloft – just like the sort a coach might. “I’m speed-running things today. Hope I can beat my best score!”
“Ah.”
Yui glances over her shoulder, spins on one heel, and then faces Chisa again – or her back, while Chisa levels her hands on her hips and scans Yui’s not that dirty room. Disorganized and a bit chaotic, yes, but not dirty. (It’s impossible to have a dirty room here, in her opinion. Chisa’s around so frequently that she doesn’t have time for anything really gross to build up. Not! That it would!) Her lips press together. “Yukizome-senpai, you…want to speed-run cleaning my dorm?”
“Mmhm!” Chisa gives a firm nod. “How’d you like the organizing last time?”
“It was okay, I guess.” Yui rubs the back of her neck and lets the door shut behind her with a gentle click. To be quite honest, she hadn’t really needed everything organized, but it was interesting to see how Chisa’d chosen to arrange things. She moves to her desk and starts compiling all of her papers together. “Yukizome-senpai, do you really need to—”
“Chisa.”
“Hm?”
Chisa reaches over and places a hand on Yui’s back. “Chisa, please. We’re all friends here.”
Are we?
But Yui blushes anyway and nods once as she stuffs her papers into a drawer without thinking too much about it. “Why don’t I…why don’t I help you?”
“With cleaning?” Chisa’s eyes widen. Then her head tilts to one side. “That could cut my time down. But it could make it worse, since you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Then it’s a learning curve.” Yui pops her knuckles and turns to Chisa, forcing the blush down (and failing) as she meets her eyes with a determined gaze. “But with my leg strength and my jumping ability, maybe I’ll have an easier time getting stuff higher up than you do!”
Chisa holds her gaze, but her expression sours. “Are you saying I’m short.”
“No!” Yui shakes her head frantically, hands out as a defense. “Not at all! I—”
“Just kidding!” Chisa pats Yui’s arm with enough force that it really doesn’t feel like she was kidding. Then she pulls out a pair of heavy duty gloves and hands them to Yui with a grin so menacing that it makes Yui reconsider her words. “Let me show you how to help!”
~
More Time Later.
Chisa clicks the top of the timer and reads the numbers as it stops. Then she pulls a notebook from within her apron, flips to a page in the very middle, and examines it. Her brow furrows. She pencils something on the page and then snaps the notebook shut.
“How’d we do?” Yui asks, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. (She’d learned a while back not to use the back of her hand while she’s cleaning; that’s a good way to transfer something from it to her eyes, which only makes the stinging worse. Unbearable, even. The first time, she thought she was going to die. Chisa bought her a pair of goggles after that, but Yui refuses to wear them. She might be a lot of things, but she’s not a Goggle Girl.)
((Also the goggles look really weird over her glasses. She doesn’t want to look weird around Chisa.))
“Shaved off thirty seconds!” Chisa taps the notebook with her pencil and then tucks both back into her apron. “We still haven’t beaten my top score—”
Yui groans. “Don’t mention it.” She tucks her cleaning towel half into her pocket.
Chisa removes one of her gloves and pats Yui’s back. “It’s our best score together yet.”
“Yeah, I thought I had some time save dusting the ceiling if I jumped just right—“ Yui cuts herself off and flushes. She sounds like a housekeeper. She sounds like Chisa.
That said, there are benefits to helping Chisa clean. It’s relaxing. It helps stretch her legs after she’s spent a long session pretending that she’ll improve her leg strength when really she would rather be investigating. Even more importantly, it’s likely that Chisa cleans some of the other rooms, too – not just the dorms, but the classrooms or other rooms where important information for Yui’s investigation might be found – and if Yui gets good enough at helping Chisa for her to take her with her, then maybe she’ll pick up on something that she wouldn’t be able to get to on her own.
(Or could, maybe, but that would involve jumping through open windows and shoving them even more open to propel herself in, and Yui…doesn’t want to do anything strictly speaking illegal while she investigates. Getting expelled would defeat the whole purpose of being here, after all.)
As they gather their things (something which is insistently not included in the speed-run cleaning, since it’s technically speaking not part of the cleaning), Yui asks, “How are things with you and Munakata-senpai? He asked you out yet?”
“Nope!” Chisa answers cheerily, either not noticing the blush that spreads across Yui’s cheeks as she asks or pretending she doesn’t. “It’ll probably take him a few months. He’s the sort who wants to get everything just perfect first. All that control, you know?”
Yui shrugs. She doesn’t know, if she’s really honest, since she hasn’t spent much time with the Ultimate Student Council President. She’s seen him in the halls now and then, and she certainly knows who he is, but he’s never really appealed to her. Something about him just throws her off. (Not to mention that his friend – Sakakura – makes her uncomfortable in a way she can’t put her finger on. Like he’s the sort of punch first, ask questions later sort of person. And that doesn’t sit well with her.)
Then Chisa turns to her, one finger up between them. “That means you still can. Get your foot in the door! It’d be fun.”
“W-what?” The blush that had been fading from Yui’s cheeks grows bright all at once, and she can feel her short hair standing all on edge. “Me? Ask you out?”
“Sure!” Chisa beams with that smile that’s brighter than the sun, her hands clasped behind her back as she leans forward. “I spend more time with you than I do with him anyway, and if it doesn’t work out, we’re still friends. Dates don’t have to be a bunch of pressure! And they definitely don’t have to be perfect.”
Yui licks her lips, and before she even realizes what she’s saying, she asks, “So why don’t you ask me out, then? Seems like you have some ideas.”
She wants to turn away. She wants to be focused on taking her gloves off – that cold snap of the plastic as they come off and drop into the tub with the rest of her cleaning things – instead of standing here facing Chisa. She wants to be looking anywhere else but at Chisa’s face, but she can’t avert her eyes.
(She thinks she can’t breathe, but here she is, standing still, breathing like she doesn’t have any other choice.)
“I’d say I’m not that kind of girl, but….” Chisa’s voice trails off. She hums. “Alright! Let’s go on a date!”
Yui startles. “That’s not a question!”
Chisa meets her eyes and steps closer. “Were you going to say no?”
Now Yui looks away, unable to maintain the contact. She’s sure her whole face is red, sure the tips of her ears are. “No.” Then she tugs her lower lip between her teeth and asks, unable to look up, “Would you have?”
“No.” Chisa reaches out and takes Yui’s hand, but it kind of sucks because they still have those stupid cleaning gloves on. (She still feels the squeeze anyway.) “Why would I ask when I already know your answer?”
Yui glances up, resisting the urge to push her fingers through her hair. Chisa’s expression is warm and inviting. “I guess…I guess you wouldn’t.” Her brow furrows. “You’re good with kids, right?” (She doesn’t know why she’s asking. She can’t imagine that Chisa isn’t.)
But Chisa shrugs. “Depends on the kid.” She leans closer. “Why? You have one?” Then she holds up a hand and steps back. “Not a conversation for now. A conversation for later.” She takes a deep breath and holds up the timer again. “We’ve got to get to the next room; once we’ve gotten good times for all of the rooms, we’ll have to go straight through all of them and once and time that—“
“Ugh.” Yui knocks into her. “If I’d known this is how you were going to be—”
“—you would have helped anyway. Just to keep me from going through your stuff.” Chisa grins. “Now, c’mon! The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can plan our date.”
Yui blushes again, and she can’t get a word out for the next three rooms.
