4.
Characters/Pairings – Ayane
Rating – K+
Genre – General, Friendship, Angst

this is how we lose it all

The cars are incessant in the background, you think.

You think.

And relent.

The wind threading the covers of the night time is especially cruel tonight, and you relent to that as well, disregarding the commonplace of zipping up one's stylish jacket. The bitter weather may prove effective to get your mind off separate matters that have taken root. You flip open your cell phone, browsing as you scroll down the mail list, instinctively scouring for the last text message you've sent to her – the last time you two were on good terms. You know you shouldn't, you should delete all traces of her from your inbox, like you have with all the ex-boyfriends.

But then, a chill sweeps your shoulders and you remember that she hasn't texted your before – she doesn't have a cell. You surrender into the urge to smirk, storing your phone snug in the front pocket of your bronze jacket. So you won't have anything to remember your friendship by. The cookies have been long digested, and the homework she's helped you with has been long handed in to Pin to god knows where – maybe the depths of the underworld. All chains, links, to her have been severed. This revelation is strangely unsettling and freeing at the same time.

The lights of the crowding city are glaring. They remind you reluctantly of the stares of the students in the stretching, judging hallways of school. You scoff under an exhale of air, and blink the blindness nonchalantly out of your adjusting eyes; the action is repetitive from the entrapment of the curriculum hours. You know if you had to choose one place to seek solace and escape from the stares of the student body, it would be in her eyes – dark, innocent, giving and never bearing any ill feelings. But now, you've only got Chizu's – red, tearful, frantic and dulling brown. It's irritatingly stupid how people believe foolish rumours spread by wagging tongues that were carelessly released from their leashes.

It's foolish to believe that she was the one who started them.

You've lost adorable pearl ear studs before, your favourite shade of lip balm, and even an ugly feathery keychain your current pestering boyfriend has forced down upon you. You've misplaced and forgotten and never looked back at anyone of your dears and sweethearts and bastards. But your legs are heavy with invisible weights sown to the soles, and your head is drowning with thoughts and blankness at the exact same time. This is not what you are used to feeling – and you're pretty sure that last you checked, you were a master at controlling your emotions and swallowing the choking tears back.

This is probably how it feels like – to lose something important.