Resolve 2: Parallel
Kise Ryouta was distracted. And distraction was not something Kasamatsu appreciated, much less during practice. With a basketball to the back of the head, the captain snarled at him. "Kise! Stop daydreaming and help with clean up! Your damn fans end up getting all of our equipment out of order and scuff the floors!"
"Ah! Y-yes Kasamatsu-senpai!" Kise replied hastily as he scurried to do as he was told.
"Geez, what's up with you today? You've been out of it more than usual," Kasamatsu remarked, "I swear if it's some girl than you're no better than Moriyama."
The blonde shook his head. "It's nothing like that! Just…have I done something wrong?"
Kasamatsu looked at him quizzically. "What? Did you do something stupid?"
"No! At least, I don't think so," Kise replied with a distant look, "I've just been thinking about something a classmate said to me today. She said I had really hurt her friend a while back and asked for an apology…Except I don't even know what I'm apologizing for!"
Immediately Moriyama jumped into the conversation. "Kise! Have you not considered you may have deeply wounded her friend's heart through a brutal rejection?"
The aforementioned basketball player straightened up. "That has to be it! She seemed pretty offended when I thought she was confessing too! I bet that's what it is! I'll apologize to her tomorrow in that case. Problem solved~."
Kaijou's center looked on concernedly. "I don't think you should jump to conclusions like that. You might make her even more upset if you're wrong again. I say you should be honest and admit you don't know what she means," Kobori commented.
"Kobori's right," Kasamatsu agreed, "We can't have you going around and making things worse because you're listening to Moriyama's ideas."
Kise anxiously ran a hand through his hair. "But…what do I do?! Being honest is always good, but I'm afraid it'll make it worse if I don't know what she's talking about! I wish there was some easy way out of this…"
"There isn't," Kasamatsu stated bluntly, "now just accept that you have a dilemma and you have to fix it."
A small pout formed on the model's lips. "How cruel…leaving an underclassman with no actual advice."
Suffice to say that the team was there for a good extra ten minutes after returning the gym to its former messy state. Finally released from clean-up duty, Kise let out a tired sigh. Practice and then running around trying to tidy such a large place up did a number on even the most athletic of people. The sun was already beginning to set, he soon realized, and hurried his pace along-eager to return home before nightfall.
Many thoughts ran through his head, but at the back of his mind was the curious encounter he had earlier that day. It wasn't especially remarkable, but the circumstances of such a meeting were far from 'normal'. After all, it wasn't every day that a mere passing acquaintance suddenly requested an apology from someone.
A curious encounter indeed. And a small part of him was left slightly disappointed by the unfinished conversation. Not so much out of concern of what may have transpired after, but a staunch bewilderment and wondering. So Kise continued walking without giving much conscious thought to the matter. There was too many unknown variables to come to any evident conclusion-even an academically challenged student such as he could deduce that much.
That entire matter could wait for another day, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week. But it was nothing he was too concerned with at the moment.
On the other side of things, Kaede would have been quite envious of Kise's unbothered countenance. While he managed to keep his mind from worry, she was busy being chewed out over text by her melodramatic vengeful being of a friend. It was times like these when she thoroughly questioned what she was even thinking when she began hanging out with him. Oh, yes, that's right. She wasn't thinking clearly, and neither were the rest of the 'friends' she had made by the unconventional means of heavily disliking a certain basketball team for various reasons.
'Kaede-san! How could you let him slip away like that? We had him right where we wanted!'
She resisted temptation to reply with a testy answer. Instead she typed out, 'No he was NOT where we wanted. In fact I honestly believe he had no idea what I was going on about…I looked like a fool'
'Fine, fine. But make sure to do it tomorrow! We can't waste time!'
'Whatever you say Hideaki-san, anyhow, how are things going for you over at Shutoku?'
When Hideaki failed to reply within five minutes, Kaede snickered loudly. Of course, he hadn't even made any progress of his own. He had no place in getting after her when he had done no better. Setting down her phone for the time being, she went through her nightly routine and eventually settled back onto the edge of her bed.
She quickly checked for any new messages only to see that there were none. Kaede was quietly thankful for the temporal peace. For once she might have been able to sleep without stressing about the next day. Since Hideaki hadn't been able to do anything either, she deemed this plan a failure and any further interaction with Kise Ryouta was unneeded.
The next day had something else entirely in mind. Kaede had been in a good mood up until she arrived at her classroom. The train had been early for once, the weather was nice, and not one hindrance had shown itself yet that morning-not even Hideaki had messaged her some new unorthodox scheme for getting even. She should have known something was off and the world was most likely trying to compensate for the wringer it was about to put her through.
When she entered the sparsely populated classroom, she expected to see Etsu waving cheerily from her desk with a chirped 'good morning'. In its place Kaede found one Kise Ryouta leaning casually on her desk and sending her a small wave with a pleasant smile. "Good morning Tsuji-san, I guess I was lucky to come early after all."
Kaede was at a loss for words. Just when she had thought she had escaped all further involvement, Kise had decided to walk right back. She tugged at the hem of her blazer and smiled politely. "Good morning Kise-san, was there something you needed?"
"I just wanted to apologize for running off in the middle of our conversation," he said. There it was, his infamous guilty puppy eyes she had heard so much about. While she felt the slightest tinge of fault, she quickly shook it off. "And perhaps let you finish?"
Now she was stuck. Either she could take this all in stride and do her best to implicate his middle school behavior or she could deflect the topic away and try to sweep the entire matter under the rug. Obviously she was going to try the latter first.
"Oh that? It wasn't actually that important…it was over a year ago after all."
From the questionable and somewhat concerned expression on Kise's face, he didn't believe her one bit. "It sounded pretty important, I'm sorry that I can't actually recall what you're talking about. But perhaps you can explain it and we can get this all figured out?" He asked, seemingly hopeful about a swift end to this ordeal.
The girl shook her head in a negative. "I wish I could, I really do. But I can't. It would defeat the purpose if I just told you. That and I'd risk getting my head gnawed off by Hideaki-san…" she said, beginning to murmur more to herself towards the end.
"Seems…complicated," Kise pondered, his own thoughts jumbled up now. "Wouldn't it be simpler to just say it straight out?"
"It would," Kaede lamented, "I'd like to do that very thing…but, just try to remember on your own okay? For now at least." Looking back, she noticed that several more students were entering the classroom, she wanted to finish this quickly. "If you do remember something feel free to seek me out, otherwise just…don't fret too much about it."
He seemed to take the hint to close the conversation for the time being. Kise merely nodded in understanding and went back to his own seat a long stride away. While he was immediately swarmed by the present populace barring a few, Kaede sank into her seat with a heavy sigh.
Etsu arrived right after, appearing to have hidden behind the door to the class-having witnessed the entire thing. "What was that about?" she asked, casting a questioning glace to the chatting basketball player.
"I don't know Etsu…I honestly don't know."
Kaede might have been able to say the day went smoothly after that. Kise hadn't tried to talk to her since then. Nothing else out of the ordinary had occurred. And yet as she exited the locker room, her heart still racing and adrenaline pumping from their practice game, she felt something was off. A quick glance at her phone told her everything. That's right. Hideaki had not contacted her since last night, an oddity of sorts, especially when he was high on a new scheme. Perhaps her calling him out on his failure had discouraged him for the time being. Personally she hoped it so.
But of course that would have been too kind. She had only just settled in to finish up her homework when her ringtone cut into the still silence. Kaede had tried her best to ignore it, she really had, but caved when she confessed to herself that she knew he wouldn't stop until either she picked up the phone or he got impatient and hopped on the next train into Kanagawa from Tokyo.
The familiarly cocky voice greeted her ears the moment she hit the 'accept' option. "About time we've spoken directly Kaede-san," Hideaki drawled casually as if he had not been blowing up her phone with rampant messages for the last two days.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Kaede leaned back in her chair with a small sigh of exasperation. "Look Hideaki-san, I know you wouldn't call unless it was something important. What do you want?"
She could almost see the plotting grin tugging at his lips. "An update, you said that Kise had run off on you yesterday before you could finish. I know he isn't one to leave things hanging in the air like that so I figured he must have approached you today. Well, what happened?"
"I swear you have to stalk these guys or something," Kaede scoffed with a hint of disdain, "But you're right, he did talk to me this morning."
"And what did you tell him?"
Kaede shrugged habitually despite knowing Hideaki couldn't see her. "Exactly what I should have. That he needs to remember what he's done by himself and not to speak to me again until he has."
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. In a few short silent seconds Kaede found herself in the pull of suspense. It wasn't like her boisterous schemer to think before he spoke.
"And you really think he'll listen?"
When Hideaki finally responded, Kaede found herself at a loss. "Excuse me? I'm not seeing where you're going with this."
"I mean exactly as I say, do you really believe Kise is going to let this go until he miraculously remembers something? Heh, excuse the pun," Hideaki snickered lightly to himself at the terrible joke. "What I mean to say is that I doubt he'll stay away that long, keep an eye on him for me will you? And perhaps further my ambitions of knocking them off their pedestals! Mwhahahaahahha!"
About mid-way through Hideaki's drawn out and rehearsed 'evil mastermind' laugh Kaede ended the call, she was quite sure he hadn't even noticed she was no longer able to hear him. She would bet nearly anything that he was still guffawing away in his room alone. Shaking her head she turned her attention to something far more worthwhile: homework.
"That guy…one of these days he's going to do something and regret it every waking moment of his life."
A/N: Ah, man, I really would have liked to get this out earlier but finals got in the way. Anyhow, a slight heads up so that the next chapter won't throw anyone off. While Kaede will remain the 'main' character so to speak, every so often the chapters may switch focus to another. The next chapter will be like that and centered on Hideaki, this is mainly to allow readers a better grasp of the situation from multiple angles. Well, hope you enjoyed the chapter and until next time!