HELLO~ This is Psychoticauthor and I'm back with a new chapter for this fanfic of Orange (TAKANO Ichigo) which centers on Suwa! It's because I love him and he deserves someone... HE DESERVES TO BE HAPPY! Please, please, please try and read this fanfic~ And comment if you like it, quite okay, or meh ~
and I haven't edited it yet, it's fresh from my imagination so if there's anything wrong uhhh tell me on the comments *kyun*
If red was the color of love, then orange must be the color of a love that was slowly fading into nothingness.
When Ami was still a kid, her favorite color was orange, because for her it was bright and pretty and it was the color of the setting sun – a color of another day to come. But in a lot of occasions, the kids on Ami's class always teased her for liking that color; never was there a day when they did not tell her that orange was a wannabe color red.
Ami knew now that the color orange was not a wannabe color. She knew and believed that it was its color of its own. But still, she could not help but thought of it as the color that represented a dying love or an unrequited love.
"I'm ho–"
"I'm sick and tired of this marriage!"
"You think that it's only you who's having a hard time?"
"Are they fighting again?"
Ami almost jumped off her feet when she heard the voice of her brother from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw her brother removed his shoes and put them on the rack. The shouting of their parents could be heard clearly even at the entrance and both of them sighed at the same time when they heard a plate fell on the floor and broke.
"How many plates has that been?" Her brother scratched the back of his head and patted her head gently before he proceeded upstairs. "Let's buy later after I finish changing, okay?"
She nodded and said okay in a small voice.
"Ami!"
It was her mother.
She went to the kitchen and saw on the floor broken pieces of a plate, her father sitting on his usual chair in the dining area, and her mom just behind the kitchen counter.
"What?" Her voice was filled with irritation.Here we go again, was the what were running on her mind. "Are you going to tell me that you're going to get a divorce?" She had a hunch.
She wasn't able to get an answer from her father because he averted his eyes when she looked at him, so, she turned her attention to her mom who looked taken aback. But just like her father, her mom did not look at her eyes and just stayed silent while she washed the plates.
"You know what?" Ami sighed in resignation. "You keep on fighting, on breaking things, on spouting hateful things to each other! You keep telling us that you will get a divorce but you guys never get one!"
"This time it's for real," her father placed a piece of paper on top of the dining table.
Ami eyed the paper for a second before she made her way towards it, her every step were heavy. Of course, she knew what that was and for her, it was not something new. She had seen one of those ten years ago when her parents decided to end their marriage for the first time.
Junpei, her older brother, begged them not to, "for Ami's sake, please try and get along with each other" she remembered him saying as he hid her behind his legs.
Ami took the completely filled-out divorce form from the table and looked at it closely, her hand trembled a little which she tried to stop by gripping the paper tightly putting pressure on her palms. They stopped shaking.
"I don't know what love is," her voice was calm but deep inside she was afraid of the thought of her family falling apart. "And I don't know how to maintain a family when love is no longer there. And I won't tell you to keep on being together if you two can no longer stand each other. B-b-but –"
Ami slammed the paper on the table and furiously wiped the tears that started to spill from her eyes, she wanted to stop the tears but she couldn't and she soon found herself wailing in front of her parents. She tried to continue what she was saying but only incoherent words in between sobs were escaping from her lips. She did not want her parents to split up.
At the kitchen, Ami's sobs and some loud and hurried footsteps were the only sounds that could be heard. Junpei stopped right behind the trembling body of her crying sister and pulled her into an embrace while he covered her head with his arms.
"I won't beg you two anymore. I am old enough to take care of my sister. If you want to split up then go ahead, but heaven knows you two love each other more than anything. And heave – no, I know that you two treasure Ami more than anything. You guys choose: stop being paranoid and jealous over each other's co-workers or split and lose both of your kids!"
Ami could hear the loud throbbing of her brother's heart, she knew that like her, he was also afraid of losing their parents – of their family.
"Let's go, Ami," Junpei held her hands and pulled her into the hallway, to the entrance, put on her shoes for her, and led her outside.
When they were already a few blocks away from their house, he stopped pulling her and wiped the tears of her eyes and cheeks. And laughed.
"Why are you laughing?" Ami asked and swatted her brother's hand away.
"Ah… well, the Ami I knew in school is a girl who is serious and who is as cold-as-stone. But now, you're crying so much!" Junpei kept on laughing.
She jabbed her brother on the stomach enough to shut him from laughing. "A teacher shouldn't laugh at his student's problem! A brother shouldn't tease his sister just because she cried over her parents wanting to get a divorce!"
"Yes, yes. But a student shouldn't jab her teacher on the stomach!" He caressed the part where Ami hit him and pretended to have been hurt badly. "Now you need to compensate for the damage you have cost my beautiful body!"
"Shut –"
"Class rep? And… Sensei?"
Ami's body froze on the spot and felt her cheeks heated up when an oh-so-familiar deep voice called out to her and her brother from behind. She did not turn nor looked at him, she just stood there her face painted in red.
"Suwa-kun! Fancy meeting you here," her brother smirked at her before he left her with Hiroto Suwa standing just few feet behind her.
"Ah, well, I just bought some drinks in the convenience store."
Ami felt the stare that Suwa had been giving her back since before but she knew that her face was still looking like a tomato that was why she tried her best not to give him any attention.
"What were you two doing here? Don't tell me –"
She knew what Suwa was thinking and before he could utter them she cut him off. "Just so you know we're siblings! So, whatever you are thinking is wrong!" She almost bit her tongue from how fast she spoke.
There was no answer. She shut her eyes then slowly turned to face Suwa and with one eye she peeked at his face. His cheeks were puffed! He was holding back his laughter!
She let out a sigh of relief while she opened both of her eyes. Suwa burst into laughing. He was laughing so much that he had his arms support his stomach.
"What's funny Hiroto-san?" Ami tried to regain her composure and acted as if they were in the classroom where she was known to be serious and unfazed.
Suwa kept on laughing for a good ten more seconds before he stood up straight and wiped his nonexistent tears. "No, uh, it was just that you were so frantic trying to explain what you and sensei were doing and I haven't seen you like that before."
Ami did not say anything. And the atmosphere became sort of awkward.
"Uh… you know… I know that you and sensei are siblings. Well, technically, the whole class knows." He smiled at Ami, a smile that reached his eyes – the kind of smile he always had whenever he talked to the people important to him – people like Naho and Kakeru.
"Cute…" Ami smiled at him, her heart noisy from the thumping it was making because of Suwa's angelic smile.
And just like that, both hers and Suwa's face started to turn bright red. Ami because she just called Suwa, a guy she rarely talked to, cute, and Suwa because he was mesmerized of her smile after she complimented him.
Suwa looked away when their eyes met while they awkwardly laughed at their situation.
"You're much cuter!"
His blush became brighter and brighter – so bright like the color orange.
