The Story of Misunderstanding Eyes
Summary: In which Shintaro mistakes Kano to be Ayano's boyfriend, and the misunderstanding causes him to never even say goodbye to her. ShinAya.
Disclaimer: Does not own.
A/N: Posted on fb... now posting here.
It was his classmate's fault, really. What caused the whole misunderstanding. And yet...
Blaming someone else for his own lack of courage was kind of...
Ah, it didn't matter anymore. Shintaro picked up the paper crane and prepared to toss it into the bin.
It had been a normal day at school. Shintaro tugged at his collar. 'Ah, this jacket is starting to get really uncomfortable to wear. The weather starting to get really warm... I guess summer is coming.' He thought.
The table beside him was empty, even though it was almost time for class to start. Lately, Ayano had been turning up late for school, just barely making it in time as the bell rang.
'I wonder what that stupid girl is up to?'
Ayano had been REALLY weird for the past few days. She kept disappeared in-between classes and only appeares just as the bell rang.
Suddenly, he heard the girl in front of him whisper to her friend: "Hey... Ayano-chan seems to have some weird preferences in guys, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Her friend asked.
"Well... she keeps hanging around that arrogant guy, Kisaragi."
"Ah right, he's a huge jerk. You know what he said to me the other day in front of the drink machine? He said "Maybe if you quit drinking so much strawberry milk, you wouldn't be so fat." Ugh!"
"Eww! What a jerk!"
"Yeah!"
Shintaro twitched. Those girls were doing a REALLY good job of keeping their voices down. Their conversation continued.
"It's so weird... she's such a nice person, why does she want to hang around such an asshole?"
"Beats me."
"But anyway..." The first girl continued. "Lately I've seen her hanging around this younger guy."
Shintaro lifted his head up from his hand. 'WHAT?' He thought.
"Ehh?!" The friend said.
"Yeah... I've seen her with this cat-eyed guy with blond hair a lot lately."
"Wow... her tastes really vary, huh?"
"Yeah... this blond guy looks like a creep, though! I'd almost prefer Kisaragi..."
"Eww, I wouldn't."
Just then, Ayano came in, looking flustered and sweaty. She sat down in her seat just as the bell rang.
Shintaro glanced sideways at Ayano.
She seemed just the same Ayano as always...
Red scarf, check. Red hair clips, check. And the silly goofy grin on her face, check.
"Shintaro-kun?"
Her annoying voice, check. "What?"
"Um... why are you staring at me like that?"
"Because you have a pimple on your forehead." Shintaro replied bluntly.
"E-Eh..."
Shintaro turned away. Why was he so bothered about it, anyway? Let her have a boyfriend if she wanted. It was...
It was none of his business what she did.
For the next few days, Shintaro kept a distance from Ayano. He didn't want any trouble, especially not 'relationship-related' trouble.
That's what he told himself, anyway. He didn't want to be bothered by some jealous boyfriend. It wasn't worth the time or energy.
And yet...
'That girl... replaced me so easily... for a younger guy.' The boy thought moodily as he walked. 'Aren't I supposed to be her... wait, what am I thinking? It's none of my business!'
He stopped in the middle of the corridor. He could hear... sounds of crying.
Shintaro peeped into the classroom. A girl was sitting there, tears spilling out of her eyes.
Ayano.
Shintaro raised his eyebrows. Up until then, she had seemed just fine. Still (annoyingly) cheerful. What had happened..? It was almost on Shintaro's lips to ask that question. He moved forward.
And then stopped. Was it really okay to intrude on her like that? She obviously didn't want people to see her like this. Plus, he was no good at comforting people. Once he got in there and asked her what was wrong, he would be forced to put up with a really awkward and tiresome situation.
'Anyway, she has that other guy now to comfort her.' Shintaro thought, with an odd pang in his heart. 'So I don't have to do anything.'
He turned and walked away. That dumb girl didn't need him anymore.
He had been replaced for some other guy.
As Shintaro walked out of school, he didn't notice the half-smiling, half-crying red-scarved girl on the rooftop. He didn't notice her looking at his back longingly, stretching out her arms towards him. He didn't notice the 'cat-eyed boy' looking at him with pain in his eyes, before turning to plead with Ayano not to jump.
He didn't see Ayano shake her head, still smiling. She took off her shoes and laid down her bag - some paper cranes tumbled out of it but she didn't notice.
As the evening sun bathed everything in a reddish light, Ayano jumped...
The red light seemed to stain everything, especially the poor broken body on the school grounds.
Kano couldn't stop screaming. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Shintaro stared angrily at his phone. All it took was one phone call... just one phone call... to ask Ayano if she was ok. Just one.
He still didn't move.
The clock struck 9. Shintaro supposed that by now, Ayano was doing her homework or something. So it was better not to bother her...
It was stupid, anyway! How could he possibly just call her like that and ask: "Hey, are you okay?"
No way was he doing that.
He started when his phone started to ring. "If I could just cross that 10cm..." it's speakers vibrated.
Shintaro frowned. Ayano must have changed his ringtone again without telling him. Irritating girl. And what was worse was that she had changed it to a sappy HoneyWorks song. He would scold her tomorrow.
Ayano was never coming back. Surrounded by his crying classmates and the strong smell of flowers and tears, he felt himself wanting to explode. Unable to take it anymore, he grabbed his stuff and left.
Was it really, really his classmate's fault? In his heart, he knew it wasn't. He suddenly remembered that line:
"If I could just cross that 10cm.."
"If i had just crossed that 10cm, maybe she wouldn't have..." Shintaro stared listlessly at the crane in his hand. Then he suddenly realised.
It was the last crane that Ayano had folded for him, but he had thrown it back at her...
"..." Shintaro stared through the fence. "...!" No more Ayano.
"Aya... no..." He began to cry, his lonely figure crumpling on the rooftop.
A/N: *waves at any of my fb friends that see this*