"Silent Peach" | Momo x Male Reader

YOUR POV

The first day of classes has arrived. Of course I get to our classroom as early as I can to avoid embarrassing myself in front of my students and my new teacher this school year.

It's a good thing I arrived only 20 minutes before class began. I walked into the room and sat down where I was supposed to.

There's some girl who's sitting beside my seat already. I walked closer to approach my spot, but to my surprise this classmate of mine isn't really familiar to me.

She appeared to be in her own universe, reading a book intently while surrounded by noise and chaos. Her hime cut hair was flipped back behind her shoulders, where the breeze from the windows caught it. As I looked at her out of curiosity and confusion over who she was, I crunched my forehead.

I bravely grabbed her attention to try to figure it out and learn more about her.

I waved at her and said, "Oh, hello. Good morning!" with a smile on my face, making a really good impression on her.

She didn't say anything in response to my greeting; all she did was bow and wave her hand timidly, trying her best to avoid looking at me.

"I haven't seen you around here, are you a new student?", I ask her, pointing my finger at her.

She just gave another nod in response. She doesn't speak, which baffles me, but I don't mind. She must be quite shy, so I tried my best to make her feel at ease when speaking with me.

"Called it.", I said, putting my bag on the back of the chair that belongs to me classmate who sits in front of me.

"Well, our other classmates around here were all my previous classmates also so you're the one I don't recognize at all.", I explained to her.

She started writing as soon as she picked up a pen and opened her notepad. She then raised it and pointed out what it said to me.

"I'm a transferee.", my mouth just formed an 'o' at her own reason even though I actually called it already that is a newly added student here in our section.

"Welcome to our school then.", I said to her then I smiled.

She responded with a bow again.

"Can I ask what's your name?", I was about to wait for her answer but suddenly the teacher arrives and placed her bag on top of her desk as we slowly stood up all at once to greet our new adviser and second mom as a respect.

Ten minutes later, we went around the class and introduced ourselves one by one. The majority of us did this for our new teacher because, with the exception of the new girl sitting opposite me, everyone else in this room is someone we already know well.

My female seatmate entered the classroom and spoke before mine. From my seat, I observed her getting up without letting the stares of those there bother me. Nearly all of them are gasping, and some were simply staring with their eyes wide open as if they had just witnessed a mythological creature. While carrying a notebook, she moves carefully across the board before turning to face the students.

As she stepped in front of the class, she then raised her notebook which says "Good morning, I'm Hirai Momo. 18 years old, Japanese.",

I turned to look at my classmates, and it seemed that they didn't think it was strange or unusual. Like this new girl, whose name was revealed to be Momo, the environment remained completely silent. I just continued to stare at her, wondering if she wasn't genuinely shy and mute because she wouldn't have introduced herself to us in writing if she weren't.

"Oh okay! Thank you so much Momo. You can go back to your seat now.", Mrs. Oh exclaimed, giving Momo an understanding smile. Maybe she just adjusted herself instead and didn't forced her student to speak because she knows that there must be a reason too. They both exchanged bows at one another before Momo heads back to her seat.

She finally sat down and maintained her focus on the board and Mrs. Oh as our classmates continued to gawk at her and mumble amusing things about her. I then turned to face her and made a remark in response to her recent introduction. I made an effort to settle her down because I can see that she is shaking somewhat as a result of all the attention she is receiving, which I assume makes her uncomfortable.

"Your name is cute by the way, I just wanna say that.", I said to her. What I received made me quite shock after.

"T-thanks.", this time she speaks, but with a stutter and a soft high pitched voice. I gasped a bit as I looked at her in confusion. So she IS actually can talk... but why didn't she used it when she presented herself?

"Well, nice to meet you, Momo. My name's YN.", I extended my hand to her in anticipation of a handshake. She accepts gladly, but she moves slowly, and when our hands come together, she glances away from me once more, just like she did before. I simply laughed because I thought her nervousness was endearing.

However, aside than that, she is really mysterious. I'm aware that she is more than meets the eye. and I feel compelled to make an effort to be close to her.

------------------------------------------

It's break time, so several students-including myself and my buddy Myoui Mina, whom I'll be eating lunch with-left the classroom for a while to get to the cafeteria. We took a seat here and began eating after receiving our meal orders, exchanging our experiences thus far throughout the firsthalf of class hours on this day.

"How's the new girl in our class?", my friend Myoui Mina asked me after she took a bite on her sandwich. I shared to her about our new classmate who is also my seatmate.

"Momo? She's good. Definitely quiet.", I said my first impression to her after I took a sip at my mango shake.

"I can see that too. Got me really puzzled earlier why she introduced herself using a notebook.", Mina said, confirming my thoughts about them earlier on what they must have thought about Momo when she did that. "But I just neverminded it. She's interesting anyways and... maybe she can't really speak at all so I respect that."

"She actually can speak.", I corrected her.

"Oh? Jinjja? (Really?)", she reacted in disbelief.

I told her, "Yeah. She's too bashful that's why. I can tell that she's trying her best to communicate with me." I can still recall Momo's earlier actions that stood out to me, such as the way her eyes avoided me and the delay in her speech.

"Maybe she has social anxiety," Mina speculated, which caused me to twitch.

"That's fear of interacting with other people, right?", Mina nodded to me after.

"Yup. That's why as you can see from what you told me about her that she's doing an effort to talk to you is because she's really not that used into communicating with people. She's scared and nervous on socializing which she can clearly show through the way she acts.", Mina explained to me; making it all too clear and understandable to me now why Momo is being like that to me. "And for us, we will think that she doesn't want our presence or whatsoever, but we should not mistaken her for that because it doesn't mean that she's not speaking, she doesn't want to socialize. She still is..

... yet the only problem is that she's struggling due to her fears, right?"

"Exactly."

"Okay, now i'm fully enlightened.", I said to my genius friend here who I won't doubt about her climbing onto the overall school academic ranking. Mina is really just that smart.

As I consider what Momo would have gone through with this, I feel horrible for her. She must have found it very challenging to live that way. She is undoubtedly making an effort to overcome her worries, but I wonder if anyone is supporting her in this struggle.

"You must be lucky.", Mina said while not looking at me.

"Eh? Why did you say so?", I blurted in confusion.

"Didn't you noticed a while ago? All of us especially the boys were looking at her with an obvious admiration in their eyes.", Mina said as she chuckled. I noticed it too, but I didn't think about myself about that though. " I easily felt the immense sense of jealousy in the atmosphere of our room too when you became her seatmate.", she said. I gulped as I imagined what could've they looked like earlier while me and Momo are interacting at each other. They must have very deadly and burning aura in their eyes all connected at me as they feel extremely jealous at me for sitting beside a very beautiful woman like Momo.

"That makes me get scared a bit, you know that?", I said to Mina while caressing my arms to show that I somewhat got goosebumps about that.

"Well, you have someone with you that captures everyone's attention. You must be really tensed.", Mina said as she squirted another amount of ketchup in her hotdog.

"Meh. Don't really care. That won't stop me still for trying to know her well.", I said while showing how unbothered I am. "I don't know why, but there's inside of me that's receiving something like a signal which makes me want to get closer with her.", I said while I'm indicating my heart by tapping my chest. I sighed after.

"Maybe you found her like... she needs some sort of, help?", Mina shared her guess.

"I guess so? Wait, maybe you're right... I mean, she doesn't have any friends aside her family for sure which makes her hard to escape these fears she's having on people.", I said to Mina as I can feel once again what I mostly felt on Momo a while ago when I observed that she looks quite uncomfortable having me with her which made me adjust myself and started to think of words to tell her that will make her calm down.

Concern.

Worried.

Anxious.

These are the exact feelings I'm mostly having while facing her earlier.