Excuse me. You're An Shiraishi, right...?

Wah?! Y-You scared me...
Yes, I am... Wait, you're...

My name is Shiho Hinomori.
I'm Kohane Azusawa's classmate.

Would you mind if we talked for a bit?

What?!
That wolf's actually Kohane...?!

Yes, and I apologize on her behalf for scaring you.

N-No, you don't need to apologize!
It's my fault for panicking the way I did!

*Sigh*
I feel so stupid. She was just trying to tell me that it was all a big mistake...

I was under the impression that their haunted house involved chasing people around the entire school...

We can't really hog the school to ourselves...

R-Right...!
That's not really possible, huh...!

(Hang on. What if...?)

Um, Shiraishi?
Are monsters, like zombies and stuff, sort of not your thing?

H-Huh?! Wh-What are you talking about?

I can handle those much better than ghosts...
But... I-It's just... I have to prepare myself mentally for those kinds of things, you know...?

(I guess that's a yes...
She might be on par with Saki and Honami...)

...

I feel awful for Kohane...

Huh?

We promised to meet up today, and to check out the haunted house together.

Even after telling us every day about how great the preparations for it were going... She sounded like she was having so much fun...

(Yeah, she did seem to have a lot of fun with this...and she worked really hard.)

(She actively came up with ideas, taught everyone on the promo team what she knew and did whatever else she could for them...)

(She obviously wanted our class' haunted house to succeed. But above all else...)

(She probably wanted Shiraishi here to genuinely enjoy it.)

*Sigh*
But I ran from her... Not only that, I caused trouble for a lot of other people and made you guys look for me...

Kohane must be feeling so sad right now...

Yeah...

If this keeps up and you don't get to actually have fun, Kohane's probably going to feel really disappointed.

In herself mostly.

What...?
Not me...?

I mean, Kohane's not that kind of person. I'm sure you know that pretty well, Shiraishi.

Oh...

The School Festival isn't over yet.
You still have time to enjoy it.

To be fair, we're at fault for the wolf's head having a wardrobe malfunction and scaring you.

I'm sure Kohane feels the same way.
So, please try to talk to her when you do meet up.

I promise to bring her here.

...

Okay...
Thank you, Hinomori.

Hehe. You're such a cool person. Hinomori...
Kohane's actually told me all about you.

Huh? Kohane's told you about me...?

Yeah, more than a few times.
She really likes how you're really strong with an unbending personality.

...

I see...

So, um...

If you do find her, can you tell her that I'm sorry for running?

I promise to wait here like you said until she's able to make her way here.

Okay.

Then, I'm gonna go look for her now.

Okay, I'll be waiting!