"So," I started as I pushed back my glasses. Haruka already knows that you're HAYATO?"
Tokiya, sitting across me, nodded his head. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know."
"Make up your mind!" I exclaimed. "Which is it?"
"I don't know." Tokiya sighed exasperatedly. "I-it happened by accident. She figured it out herself!"
"And how did she do that? Do elaborate, please."
Tokiya sighed again, pushing his glasses back. "You remember when she went to that concert of mine, right?"
"Ah, the one that Natsuki—no, that wasn't Natsuki, was it?" I stirred my smoothie with the red straw in it and then slurp it. After I swallowed, I continued, "The one with the thunderstorm and you dropping the microphone, right?"
"Yes, thank you for that unnecessary detail, Shiho." Tokiya said, sarcasm dripping in his voice. "I really need a reminder of what happened."
two days ago, Tokiya and I, somehow agreed to spend sometime together this weekend. Just the two of us. Spending our time together outside the academy. Both wearing glasses in an attempt to hide our identities. I know I didn't need one, but just in case someone still noticed Tokiya as HAYATO even in disguise, or in case someone from the academy saw us, they at least wouldn't truly know who I am.
At school I never wear my glasses. My glasses were only reserved for when I'm attending Quartet Night's works as their manager, which I rarely do anymore. Since the start of going to this academy, I hardly have the time to visit them in their works. Even last Golden Week, I couldn't come to their works. I tried, but the timing always seemed off for me.
The Quartet Night members told me that it was fine, that I should just focus on school and being normal teenager, so we could meet again when I debuted as an idol and work alongside them.
Somehow, thinking about me working as an idol with them, rather than being their manager made me felt a little down. I didn't know why, but, it did and it confused me.
"So, what?" Shiho prompted. "I saw her on the stage, trying to put Natsuki's glasses back, but I didn't see the rest. The scene cut off into something else."
"Well, she was going down." Tokiya explained. "Then, she tripped. I caught her. She was a little surprised when our eyes met. And then, somehow, she saw the bandage on my foot at that time. It was sprained when I was practicing two days before the concert." The raven-haired young man sighed. "We met before she went out. We bumped into each other, I helped gathered her fallen stuff—my CD particularly—and when I tried to get up, I winched because of my bad foot. She must've remembered and she asked if "I" was me."
I hummed as I licked my upper lip, cleaning it from the cream of the cake I ordered. "And what did you say when she figured you out?"
"Nothing!" Tokiya exclaimed dramatically. "I said nothing, but maybe my face looked surprise or stuff. It's worrying me, really."
"I don't think you should," I responded. "I mean, have Otoya asked you some weird questions that hinted on your other identity?"
Tokiya shook his head. "But considering Otoya, he might think that I was actually just substituting my "twins" at the time," He said. "Otoya did have seen the stage outfit I brought to the dorm when we move in." He paused for a moment. "He even wore it."
I tried to hold back my laugh. "He did?"
"Not the point."
"Okay, okay," I waved my hand in the air. "Look, Otoya may not look like it, but he's not that oblivious. If he knows, he might try to find out something to confirm it. If he doesn't, that means he hasn't heard anything from anyone—from Haruka."
Tokiya sighed again. "We can't be certain by that."
"I'm pretty sure we can." I retorted. "And stop dillydallying on your desserts. Eat them!"
"I don't like sweets," Tokiya replied. "I don't even know why I agree to eat cakes with you in the first place!"
"If you're going to ask me out to talk about your problem, you might as well take me to a shop full of sweets like this one!" I pointed my fork at him. "And anyway, sweets are always the best medicine for problems."
"I have never even heard of that proverb before."
"It's an original made by me."
We both continued our conversation back and forth just like this for awhile. Time passed very quickly without our notice and just when we both looked out the window, the sky was covered with thick, dark clouds.
I watched the sky above. "It's getting cloudy."
"We should go," Tokiya said as he pushed up from his chair and headed for the cashier to pay up for our food. I also pushed myself up and tottered after him. As Tokiya paid the bill, he said to me, "I forgot to bring my umbrella."
I raised an eyebrow. "You too?"
"Well, the forecast did say it was going to be sunny today." He replied.
The two of us then left the café and went our way to head back to school, but on our way, suddenly thunder crashed and rain came pouring down hard to the ground. Both Tokiya and I ran to find shelter in the nearest building. We settled down on the side of small shop, taking shelter under its rooftop.
"Okay," I said after a moment full of silence. "Now what?"
"We should stop a taxi." Tokiya answered.
But apparently, there wasn't even a single taxi that went through the street. The street was so quiet around this area, that there were only two or three cars that passed by.
I gave Tokiya a sidelong look. "Any other idea?"
"We'll have to wait until the rain stop then." Tokiya answered once more.
And so we wait. We waited. We waited. Then waited.
"Tokiya, the rain isn't going to stop any time soon apparently," I said as I showed him the screen on my phone. I opened the weather forecast app that said the rain would be pouring down until probably this evening. "What should we do now?"
Tokiya looked as troubled as I probably was. His blue eyes traveled our surroundings, then suddenly it stopped. I followed his gaze and a bit surprised at what I saw and heard from Tokiya's mind.
"No." I quickly said.
Tokiya gave me a long side-look. "It's only until the rain stops."
"Saotome-san will flip out and throw both of us out of the academy if he knows!" I exclaimed.
"He won't," Tokiya claimed. "Trust me."
I stared at Tokiya for a long time. He leveled his eyes on me. Well, from the look of it in his eyes, there was no changing Tokiya's mind. I sighed in give up. "Fine."
"Hello, may I help you?" A woman in her mid-twenty asked politely.
After we ran across the street and entered the small hotel soaking wet, we both stared headed to the receptionist desk. I hung back behind Tokiya, trying to hide my face as he talked to the woman.
I tapped my feet repeatedly as I heard Tokiya's conversation with the woman. Tokiya rented a room, said it was to wait until the rain stopped and to dry ourselves. When the woman asked what kind of room they'd like, Tokiya said they wanted a single double bed room, and before the woman asked why, Tokiya hurriedly stated a lie. He told her that we were siblings.
As Tokiya got the key to our room, we both hurriedly took the elevator and went up to the seventh floor. We both stood in silence inside the elevator. Tokiya had his arms crossed in front of his chest, while I hugged myself and stared at my reflection on the elevator door.
I guess I do look like Tokiya… a bit.
We reached the seventh floor and found our room. The first thing we did after we entered was drying ourselves and took off our jackets.
I shivered as I wrapped myself with the giant towel. "God! It's still so cold!"
"Just wait a bit longer okay, I've already turn on the hot water and it's filling up the tub, so just wait okay." Tokiya told me.
After a couple of minutes had passed, the bathtub in the bathroom finally full with warm water. I closed the bathroom door and took off all my clothes and hung it around so it would dry down. I dipped inside the tub and let my whole body relaxed. I let out a content sigh.
"Shiho," Tokiya called me from outside. "Sorry, but can I come in for a sec? I'm going to take your clothes and dry them outside. I found a hairdryer I can use."
"W-wait, give me a sec!" I shouted and pulled the curtain of the bathtub to hide myself.
"Done?"
"Yeah! Come in!" I answered.
The door clicked open and as I felt Tokiya's presence in the room, dipped myself a little deeper into the warm water. I could see Tokiya's silhouette from behind the curtain, he was reaching for my clothes that I hung. My inner hearing suddenly picked up Tokiya's thought and as I heard what he was thinking, my face heated up and I covered it with both my hands. Damn it, Tokiya!
It was in that moment that I was caught off guard and Tokiya suddenly slipped and fell down. He grabbed on the curtain as he did and ended up tearing it down with him.
It felt like everything slowed as the curtain fell. We both stared at each other for a long moment, then when my mind finally processed what happened, by reflex I took the nearby shampoo bottle and threw it at him.
"GET OUT!" I screamed.
"I-it's not like that!" Tokiya abruptly said as he shielded his head from the shampoo. "Calm down Shiho! I'm sorry, okay?! I'll get out!" The raven-headed boy collected my clothes, got out and slammed the door shut behind him.
"I'm going to kill him. I am so going to kill him!"
With the mood to relax was gone, I got out of the bath wore the bathrobe, and stepped outside. I found Tokiya sitting on a chair on the far corner of the room, using the hairdryer to dry my jeans. "I'm done," I said. The raven-haired man glanced up at me when he noticed my presence.
"Y-yeah, okay," Tokiya answered awkwardly. When our eyes locked for a moment, he quickly averted it away and looked back down on my half-dried jeans. "I'll get in, in a bit."
I walked to one of the beds and sat down on one. My hair was damped and my fringe strayed to the side.
For a long moment, we both sat in awkward and thick silence. Unable to bear the awkwardness anymore, I cleared my throat and said, "Tokiya."
"Y-yeah?" He answered.
"I'm not angry, so don't worry," I said.
"No, I'm the wrong one here," Tokiya said with a sigh. "I'm really sorry." He apologized, then he continued, a little frantically. "A-and I swear I didn't see anything!"
"I get it, I get it," I assured Tokiya. "So don't worry."
Tokiya's face showed that he was still unconvinced, but before he could apologize once more, I said, "Why don't you go and take a shower? I'll dry mine and your clothes."
"Are you sure?" He frowned.
"A thousand percent," I answered.
Tokiya nodded, left the clothes and went to the bathroom. As the bathroom door closed, I took Tokiya's seat and dried both of our clothes. It took me around half an hour to dry both my and Tokiya's clothes with my best effort. The raven-haired young man was still in the bathroom when I changed back into my clothes, hung his clothes in the room's closet, and laid around on my bed.
I watched the rain still pouring down heavily from the sky. Slowly, by watching the rain fell, I began to felt sleepy. And without my knowing, I fell asleep.
-Author's POV-
When Tokiya finally finished showering and soaking himself with warm water, he got out of the bathroom and saw that his clothes were hung and found Shiho sleeping on the bed.
The girl seemed to be sleeping soundly.
Seeing this made Tokiya felt a little self- conscious about the girl, like how her hair was still damp, at how long her eyelashes was, and how soft that lips of her seemed like.
Tokiya seated himself on the bed, next to the girl laying body. His hand reached out to a strand of her hair. "Lowering her defenses while with me is a bit mistake, Shiho." He leaned forward and kissed her hair.
The room was so silent when he did this, so when his phone rang, Tokiya almost jumped in surprised. He looked around and found his phone on the nightstand between the beds. The raven-haired young man looked at the caller ID and raised an eyebrow at it. "Otoya?" He then answered the call. "Yes?"
"Ah, finally!" Otoya voice said from the other line. "Tokiya, where are you? It's almost 3 PM! I got worried, you know."
"I'm sorry, it's raining hard over here, Shiho and I are currently waiting for it to stop then go home." Tokiya explained.
"Hmm… Is that so," Otoya responded. "Well, if that's the case, then be careful on your way home. It's also raining here, but not that hard. Probably will stop soon, too."
"I see." Tokiya answered. "I'll see you back at the dorm, then."
"Okay! Bye Tokiya," He couldn't see Otoya, but he was sure the red-headed boy was grinning. "Say hi to Shiho as well from me!"
Tokiya turned to look at the sleeping Shiho before answering, "I will." And ended the call.
Hullo~ Yes, I finally updated this story. I'm very sorry it took me so long, but here it is now, and I hope you guys will enjoy it!
Anyway, like always, don't forget to leave review and comment~ Thanks!
