Canon: Remove if not applicable.Rasu never considered himself to be pretty. Rather, he found himself to be the opposite. He was so scrawny he was bony and things that shouldn’t he so visible through skin were; but he had died of starvation and you kept the appearance you had when you died when you came to Sheol. He had scars all over, and he had permanent, and very pronounced, bags underneath his eyes, and his tail was way too long for a normal merman that wasn’t even partially eel or anything of that sort. Plus, he thought that his eyes were way too large, and he didn’t need to blink as much as other people, living or dead, needed to.
So when the vice principal said, for...some reason that Rasu didn’t understand, that he thought that he was pretty, Rasu could, first of all, not believe what he just heard and he stopped blinking entirely. And moving, apparently, because after a while, when Hokuto turned to look up at him with his cheek still resting against his arms, which he used as a cushion on top of the actual cushion that he was using since he had claimed a bed at the infirmary, Hokuto freed an arm and waved a webbed, partially see-through hand with veins and bones visible through his skin, in front of Rasu’s face. “Rasu-san, you okay? You didn’t die again, did you? Hey, can ghosts have heart attacks?” The last question was directed out toward the room where Maria was bustling about taking care of some student with a scraped-up elbow and another with a bloody nose, and the question managed to unsettle the students so much that instead of answering the question, Maria told Hokuto to shush and, though not in so many words, to not talk nonsense in front of newcomers and say spirits, you impossible child instead of answering questions. Rasu vaguely heard and later processed that when the newcomers asked who that was, she said no one you’ll need to deal with and Hokuto huffing.
“Rasu-san?” Hokuto called up, and pushed himself up. His back was draped with his own tail fin and it was when Rasu realized that he wanted to touch that curve that the fin touched that he finally managed to unfreeze. Physically, at least, because he looked down and fiddled nervously with his fingers, feeling more awkward than he usually did. “Um, what, no, I’m. No, that’s. No...” He didn’t even know what he was answering to any more. He was pretty sure it was both to the question about heart attacks and the statement that he was, of all things, pretty. The vice principal made a confused but also patient sound, the kind that a sort of lazy person makes; or at least, the kind that the lazy person that the vice principal claimed himself of being (hardworking but probably way too relaxed and way too fond of skipping out on the troublesome things even if he’d still do them). It was the kind of sound where Hokuto would wait without expecting Rasu to rush, until Rasu managed to collect himself and find his voice and words. The vice principal could be totally scary (his eyes were sort of sharp and even though he was much smaller than Rasu he still scared him a lot before they got to know each other, which only took about fifty years or something). Despite his sharp eyes and his general aura though, he was nice and really patient because any other person (except maybe the principal, but the principal was the vice principal’s dad so maybe that’s where he got that patience from) would have been able to wait for nearly an hour and Rasu trying to avoid talking right away by handling some work.
Eventually though, Rasu mustered enough courage to tell Hokuto that “I’m not. Pretty.” Hokuto propped up his chin against his webbed hand and peered up at him. Where Rasu’s eyes seemed to constantly be wide open, Hokuto’s seemed to always be partially lidded, yet somehow he didn’t generally look sleepy. Under Hokuto’s gaze, Rasu flopped his long tilback and the fin over his head, hiding just a little underneath it.
“I think you are, though.”
Rasu’s face turned red. He pulled at his tail fin, and though he could see Hokuto a little still through it, past the thin bones in the fin, he was more a shape and nothing distinct. “N--no I’m. Not..”
“But I think you are,” Hokuto repeated.
Rasu dared peeking around the side of his fin after some time. Hokuto had a calm, slight smile on his lips, and his ears were red. He was blushing with his ears again. That was always so cute. But he was still wrong. And somehow Rasu managed to tell Hokuto so.
“Nope, I’m not wrong. You’re super pretty, and you’ll have to after-live with that.”
Rasu’s eyes might have never been wider and his face never as red. That was a very, very strange thing to hear. And to see Hokuto blush with his face, too, he didn’t do that as much as he blushed with his ears.