Sewing Kit
Made on: 13 May, 2021
Word Count: 1,664
Relationship(s): Akane Kasai & Yuuki Tougou,
Characters of Focus: Yuuki Tougou, Akane Kasai, Akane's Stuffed Rabbit,
Metadata: Fluff (for the most part anyways), Shino is mentioned but doesn't have any lines, Sorry Shino!, (The fluff is both literal and metaphorical in this fic!!),
Setting During canon
Warnings: None
Yuuki paused before closing the door all the way, there was a muffled sniffle coming from somewhere in the club room.
Easing it shut gently, he peered around the seemingly empty room. Stepping over a forgotten bag, he nears the table and glimpses a dull yellow underneath it. Yuuki blinks, gathers up all his strength, which, being near the end of the school day, is not much, and squats down.
Instead of a spirit, facing away from him is Akane. She's curled up around something and shaking.
Shuffling forwards on his knees, Yuuki places a hand on her shoulder, pausing when she stiffens and looks over, teary eyed. Slowly, she uncurls and turns to face him revealing a torn stuffed bunny in her hands. It's fur was muddied, half un-stuffed and deflated, it's head torn off, and had one if it's eyes nearly holding on by a thread.
"I was going around to see if I could find that rumored dog," her voice is rough and quiet, "and I, I did find a dog, but it wasn't—" she pauses to wipe at her eyes, "it attacked me, and got to my bag and chewed everything up and now— and now—"
She gasps as if drowning, leaning forward into her own arms, mourning the loss of an old friend.
Yuuki pats her back, "I'm sure we can fix him up. My mom owns sewing supplies and you can come over and we'll make him good as new."
Sniffling, Akane wipes her sweater sleeves over her eyes and nose, "Really?"
"Really."
"Oh you poor thing." Is the first thing Yuuki's mother says after he and Akane had explained the situation. Yuuki had bumped into Shino in the hallway on their way out of school and told her what happened, but her curfew was strict so she wished them luck and parted ways.
"It's been a while since I've had to patch up stuffed animals, but with both of you working on it, I'm sure you'll succeed!"
With her instructions, Yuuki and Akane shuffle into the bathroom with a plastic bag. Yuuki was in charge of removing the stuffing while Akane prepped the sink. Soon, the last bits of fluff was taken out and the bag was tied up; it was time to wash the fur off. Yuuki turned around to tell Akane, but was distracted by the large amount of bubbles coming out of the sink.
"Uhhh, Akane." Akane hums in acknowledgement, "How much dish soap did you put in there?"
"A bit. Oh did you finish?"
During the washing process, which Akane did with the determination of a man at war, soap got everywhere. The foam dripped down the counter and into the tile floor, making both Yuuki and Akane pause to take off their wet socks and grab some towels to clean up the suds that were soon replaced. Yuuki looked up from the soap he was cleaning up from the tiles for the nth time to see that, somehow, bubbles had gotten in Akane's hair.
Yuuki points at his head. "Uh, Akane. You got something right here."
"Here?" Akane reached up, forgetting to wipe her hands off, and got more soap in her hair.
"Nevermind…"
After the fabric got thoroughly washed, they took out a blow dryer. It was an older model, or at least it looked old with all the white plastic yellowing, and was controlled with a button and a red slider.
"Do you know how to work one of these?"
Akane shook her head, "I don't blowdry my hair."
Yuuki looked in the mirror. His hair was as short as always. He got his dad's thinner hair and never had a problem with it drying.
"Well, let's try our best!"
Plugging it in was easy. The button on the handle turned the fans on. What was hard to figure out was the slider.
"You're moving it the wrong way!" Akane reached over his arm to adjust it.
"I am not! We tried the bottom setting first and it's as low!" Yuuki attempted to hold the machine above his head and out of reach of Akane. Unfortunately, he forgot to account that their heights were practically equal.
They grappled for a moment, for enough time Yuuki started to consider the dangers of wrestling over an electric machine in a small bathroom, but Akane emerged victorious. With a twist, she pointed the nozzle at Yuuki and pulled the button. Like one of those scenes from the cop shows his mom likes to watch. A blast of hot air hit his face.
He squeezed his eyes shut on instinct and felt the warmth wash over him. "This is pretty nice."
He could hear Akane moving the slider while she replied, "Really? Maybe we should invest in one of these for the club room."
"Akane…"
"Yeah?"
"Why would we need a blow dryer in— ow! Hey! That's too hot! Turn it off!"
Yuuki shoved the machine away as Akane let go of the button. There was a beat of science before she started laughing.
Looking in the mirror, Yuuki found that he looked like he got attacked with a leaf blower and groaned.
The actual matter of drying out the bunny didn't take as long.
"Ok, now what."
"Sewing! Obviously!" Akane cheered, spinning around to face the doorway before hesitating and spinning back. "Can you ask your mom if she has anything we can use?"
His mom, as it turned out, did have a box of sewing supplies in the closet they were allowed to use. It was a purple rectangular thing with a worn down fabric top and held practically all they needed, besides new stuffing. However, when Yukki was attempting to remove the box from under the old blankets and decorations that the closet stored, a bag fell on top of him. It landed on his head softly, he could hear Akane making a startled sound behind him, before sliding off him and hitting the carpet with a light thud. Yuuki blinked, more out of shock than anything.
“What was that?”
Akane shuffled behind him to get a closer look, “It looks like… oh! It's stuffing! What luck!”
“Huh.”
Really, Akane has to be the luckiest person he knows. Maybe she was cursed by the forums to have good luck forever or something, seems like a thing a grateful spirit would do.
"You know how to sew!?"
Yuuki sighed, opening the box with all the sewing supplies in it. They were now situated at Yuuki's kitchen table, sitting next to each other with their backs towards the small kitchen. "Yeah, I had a habit of getting holes in my jeans. I picked it up after watching my mom patching them up enough times."
Akane clapped, "Cool! I wish I knew how to! Man, all of my stuffed animals would look so much better…"
Yuuki shuffled through the thread an extra time. It would be faster to just let him do it, but...
"It's your lucky day then."
"Heck! Yeah!"
Soon, All the normal table items, the napkin holder and vase with fake flowers, got shoved to the other side of the small wooden table leaving more than enough room for their sewing boot camp. Yuuki then got set up with some pink thread and a non-bent needle.
"A running stitch isn't too hard, so you should be fine." Yuuki finished attaching the thread to the fabric. “First you want to hold the fabric like this, and then just weave the thread back and forth.” he demonstrated a handful of stitches before handing the bunny back.
Akane got the hang of the stitch soon enough, she especially got a kick out of pulling the thread and cinching the fabric together, although she had to undo it afterwards to get the fabric to lay right. She did, unfortunately, nick her fingers a bit in the process.
Yuuki startled from his thoughts as he heard another hiss coming from Akane.
"Did it break the skin?"
Akane removed her thumb from her mouth to examine it with a grimace. "No, I don't think so. Why didn't anyone tell me how painful sewing is?"
"Do you want me to do the rest of it?"
"No! Back off!"
Luckily, since it was just a small little thing, it didn't take long for the bunny to be all stitched up. Yuuki was in charge of flipping the fabric inside out— Akane complained that her hands hurt too much — and as he did that he examined Akane's work. The stitches were… messy. It varied in length and straightness, but it worked. When he saw the visible lines of pink in the remade seams on the right side, he had to admit it was a little bit charming.
Stuffing was easy, again, it's a small little thing. Although when Yuuki pointed that out Akane whined "Hey! Don't call him small! He's a normal sized bunny!" And then proceeded to throw extra fluff at him.
He stitches the opening closed with a ladder stitch and, wow, that didn't take long at all. "Thank you!" Akane throws her arms around his shoulder, "If you ever want me to do your homework, just let me know!"
Yuuki sighs, "I think I'm better off doing my own homework," he hugs her back, "and no problem, you did most of the hard work, anyways."
She tugged her shoes over her heels one at a time and stood up. They were shooed out of the kitchen since Yuuki's mom had to start making dinner, and Akane realized how late it was and decided she should probably go home. She smiles at him with one hand on the doorknob, the other clutching the stuffed bunny, "you'll have to come over to my house sometime and hang out soon, alright!"
"Alright. Bye!" He waved as she exited. As soon as the door clicks close he remembers they forgot to put everything away.
"Geez…"
The mess was worth it, though.
End Author Notes: Hello! Hi! I hope everyone enjoys this one!!
I'm sorry for not including Shino, but it is very hard to write her into these types of stories due to some things said in ch7... Oh well.
Regardless, I had a lot of fun writing these two!