Head in the Sky
Chapter |06|: Inexplicable
Author's Note:
Hello again! Lots of timeline-jumping in this chapter. Events divided by the lines are generally discontinuous from each other. 1st chunk starts at present time, 2nd chunk goes back a few hours...it alternates. You'll see.
"Boy, explain yourself well."
It'd been a long time since Hinata felt the knobs of his knees shake so violently.
Nervously kneeling, Hinata silently sweat as he averted his eyes to the floor, away from the menacing figure before him. The stern man, arms crossed, stared at the comparably foolish, young teenager with a condescending glint in his black pupils. Coupled with a hateful frown etched into his cruelly wrinkled face, the man's pressed grey suit and straight, red tie suffocated Hinata more than the man himself.
Hinata gulped.
Before normal adults who didn't look like the yakuza, Hinata would have acted freely. In a normal situation, Hinata would explain everything without any anxiety whatsoever. The current circumstances, however, were not in his favor: he was alone in the apartment of a girl who was unconscious and feverish...and it was midnight.
Even Hinata knew that it wasn't the time to act too carefree.
The man narrowed his eyes as he followed the boy's every movement. Hinata attempted a polite yet nervous smile.
It didn't please the man.
Things would turn out alright...right? He hadn't done anything wrong after all. Well. At least he thought he hadn't done anything wrong.
Hinata gulped again.
"Y-you see, sir..."
The mess had started after Atsuko, or as Hinata referred to her in any other context beside this particular one, 'Ko-chan,' collapsed past the door. Her belongings had spilled from her school bag, scattered along the doorway. Pens, pencils, opened notebooks, her cell phone—everything including Atsuko herself lay on the floor.
"Ko-chan! Hang on!"
She had lain doubled over with the right side of her face pressed onto the beige carpet floor, strands of her black hair fanned out messily above her heated red face. She huffed heavily, eyebrows twitching in an inexplicable frustration she seemed to have against her sick self.
"O-oi!"
The jolt of panic that shot through his body was accentuated by the heat he felt on his finger tips. He felt the sharp jabs of her bony elbows in his arms.
In the emptiness of her apartment corridor, Hinata lifted his friend's limp body, ignoring her trivial, prideful mutters.
"L-let me down you buffoon. You...want to get sick...too—"
"Excuse my intrusion."
Hinata stepped into her living room hurriedly, eyes darting around in the unfamiliar space. Her mutters became background noise, and his vision seemed to blur. Frustrated, he wondered why he couldn't move faster, why the walls seemed to taunt him as they, in all their hollow emptiness, closed in—why he couldn't properly step through her apartment without feeling the burden of her weight in his arms.
Right, down, forward, back.
The consuming dark whiteness of her apartment chewed at his puzzled, dizzied state of mind. Minimalistic? No. The apartment was worn in an untouched way, a painfully lonely way.
He flung open doors until he spotted a bed, toward which he ran and set her down upon. The clatter of his trail faded as he stumbled further. Everything seemed too slow.
The only sound he had heard was the muffled beat of his heart through his eardrums.
It was only a fever. The average fever.
So why had his mouth dried and his palm sweat? Why couldn't he coordinate his movements?
Why couldn't he stop shaking?
The water at her sink was an icy cold that clashed against his own warm skin. His bones itched at the contrast. Each pulse under his hands stung.
He'd quickly grasped a towel draped across a bar beside the bathroom sink, wetted it and returned to Koizumi.
She'd grown quiet and had stopped mumbling, though her eyebrows furrowed unhappily in her sleep. Laying the towel on her forehead, Hinata huffed heavily. A tinge of relief.
The water had shaken his hands—they hurt unnaturally.
He'd watched them shiver as he stood at her bedside. They hurt.
'—tani O-...oi..'
The lines on his palms had never seemed so apparently deep. His mind hadn't felt such a numbness for years.
'Hinata—"
His mind snapped back with the tick of the clock.
'Hinata... —ot. It's hot.'
Her words had escaped her mouth like in fragmented whimpers, but a little more stubborn and a little more pitiful. Sympathetic, the boy watched as the girl he'd seen so strong and resilient, slightly crumble. Her face flushed, her eyes shut, a delicate sweat staining her pale features, she had lain sprawled out atop her covers.
It'd been the first time she'd called him by his given name—the first time, and she was sick.
A sore grimace tugged at the corners of his lips as he reached for the towel.
It was nine.
As he'd cooled the towel with new water and replaced the towel on his friend, he watched her chest rise and fall in shaky movements.
He'd felt his own chest tighten slightly.
There'd been no Misaki-chan to take charge, guide him confidently.
' "Shintani!" '
Her voice had seemed distant. It should have been loud and clear even in the depths of all troubles...but it wasn't. And this small fact had hurt more.
' "Wrong!" '
But there was that. Another voice, clearer and lighter. Different. Less confident, with a somber undertone.
Hinata stared down at the girl before him, watching his still shadow cast over her.
He realized how pale her slim figure appeared in her dull, dimmed room, how her legs weren't toned or thick, how her body lacked curves in its straight, plain shape, and how the dark bags under her eyes seemed ingrained in her skin.
He felt a little sick staring.
His attention had always been on Misaki. Misaki's silkly raven hair, her peach, sun-kissed skin, her bright, sparkling eyes. Yet, it seemed recently that whenever he needed a hand, hers wasn't the one he grasped.
His gut ached.
Had she always looked like that?
And this time, it didn't ache of hunger.
Hinata looked down at his palms and the disappearing sweat, feeling the cool evaporation of his prior anxiety.
Should I call Misa-chan?
It didn't make much sense to. She wasn't particularly friends with Koizumi and hadn't approved of her before.
Koizumi moaned in her sleep. Hinata watched as turned, kicking away the sheets at her feet. Her complexion was still stained with a feverish red, though her breathing had slowed and she appeared otherwise calm.
"Hot..."
It was really the only word she'd said for the past half-hour. Hinata checked the time again before grabbing Koizumi's towel. 9:54 PM.
Maybe Chiyako-baa-san is still awake...
This was how the hours had passed. After phoning the old grandmother, he sat around, watching his friend struggle in her sleep and kick off sheets that he'd put back on her. He picked up her stuff and placed it on her desk.
He constantly changed her towel and raided her pantry.
He opened her cell phone and searched her contacts for Chiyako-obaa.
She'd forgive him.
It was Ko-chan, after all.
"...Ko-ch—uh, Koizumi-san was sick and I was worried about what would happen if she were alone, so I stayed to look after her until I could contact Chiyako-san."
Hinata shifted in his proper Japanese posture. Compared to the man that sat across from the table in front of him, the teen clearly looked uncomfortable. When he looked up, his usually laid-back amber eyes caught the man's strict, irritated dark eyes, eyes that seemed to command, 'Stop squirming.'
Hinata stopped and averted his gaze back down until the man spoke.
"And what about your family? Were they not concerned about a curfew of any sort?"
This time, it wasn't the man's grave voice that drew his attention, but that very word: family. The only true family he had left consisted of his kind, rural grandparents, and if possible, the Ayuzawa household: Misaki's sweet mother, the playful Suzuna, and of course, Misaki, his one and only love.
It was why he couldn't give her up; how could he let go of what little family he had left?
"Ah, my grandparents live on the countryside far from the city, so I live by myself."
And your parents?
Hinata expected the follow-up, and, staring back up at the silence on the other end, read the question off the man's very face. Yet, no question came. After the silence was a stern nod, as well as an, "I see."
Was this something that the Koizumi's had in common? It made the teen want to chuckle, just a bit. This guy wasn't as strict as he thought.
"Boy—"
Something clattered from the side of the room. The man's eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly at the voice he adored so dearly.
"Father?"
The first phone call had come at 9:55 PM. Nakahara Chiyako, unfortunately, had not heard that phone call because her phone had set itself to vibrate in its low-battery state. And in the midst of that evening's meeting with such an important guest, her cell phone was the last thing on her mind.
"My Nakahara-san, still as youthful as ever."
The grey-suited man sitting across from her flaunted a charm generally carried by young hosts in a host club. Koizumi Kouta had just arrived from Hokkaido, where, as usual, he conducted his business meeting smoothly. This time, he'd even acted extra-suave in excitement for his visit with Atsuko that night. His darling child was the only one who could swell his heart with such fatherly joy.
A-chan, Papa's coming!, he'd thought to himself earlier while distributing charts to his cohorts. Behind his professional demeanor, an overjoyed man with an extreme daughter-complex had pranced with glee.
Now, here he was in his daughter's very own workplace.
"Kouta-san, you really ought to act your age."
The two often began their conversations with such banter as neither had anyone else who could withstand the same sarcastic undertones. It was relieving for both the sixty-eight year old grandmother and the thirty-nine year old father.
Chiyako chuckled, "I mean, look at you, you're approaching your forties! Even wealth can't stop time, huh?"
"Can't say much for you either, Nakahara," the CEO spat.
The gentle old woman smiled despite the vein bulging from her temples. In her small eyes and wrinkles, there still existed the energy to fight.
"...-san," Kouta corrected himself before continuing, "No need to be hostile; we're both here for the same reason. That brings me to ask—not to say that everything else isn't important but—well... how's she doing?"
Beside the glass panes of the storefront, whose cheery, neighborly aura glowed even brighter in the surrounding nighttime, the two sat at the only cafe-style table within the small bakery. The shops around them had began to close, their lights dimming and their neon Open signs flickering off. Yet, the bakery carried on with its pale yellow light illuminating the concrete sidewalk before it.
Chiyako enjoyed the tranquility the night presented her. No better time for a chat like this.
"Your daughter is doing just fine, Kouta. You know her, Atsuko is...she's not only Atsuko but she's a teenager."
She sipped the tea before her and set it on its matching china plate. Kouta watched the tea's steam rise from the reflection of the glass panes. He stared at the only visible concrete outside and the shadows carved upon it.
"I have to ask as the only father of a seventeen year-old daughter I only see a few times a year. She never answers the questions in my caring texts with anything more than 'Fine' in that serious tone of hers."
"Maybe if you didn't overload your messages with strange smiley faces and characters then-"
"They are sincere expressions of my love!" The grown man cried, as if genuinely hurt by the grandmother's comment. Melodramatic tears streamed down his face.
The grandmother sipped her tea again.
"Well," he wiped his eyes, "is there anything new at least?"
"Like I said, you know Atsuko. As sweet as she is and as intelligent as she is, she doesn't involve herself in school much at all. In fact, I'm lucky if she even leaks a little detail about her life!"
"If you're not sure about her, then how could I be? I mean, I hardly even see her, let alone physically talk to her!"
"It's not like you can help it; there's not much you can do about it all anyway. I'm watching over her and she seems better each day."
"Ah...I see..."
A silence followed when usually, interrogation would. Why? How? When?
Kouta hadn't yet touched his tea. The past few months had made up the greatest gap—the longest time since either of them had physically seen each other. It was now late November, nearing December. It'd been almost six months since they'd last talked face-to-face.
The father was half-scared to ask. What if she were doing better because he wasn't as involved? What if her distance from his company provided her more relief than he could ever hope for? What if the best thing he could do for her was to do absolutely nothing at all?
He didn't want to know the answers; he wasn't ready.
Chiyako fidgeted with the handle of her teacup, its porcelain figure clinking with the matching plate below it. She watched the reflection in her tea distort with every budge, brown ripples and mini-waves gliding across the otherwise peaceful surface. The reflection wasn't so unclear, however, that the grandmother couldn't spot Kouta stare out the glass panes with dampened eyes.
Was it the right time to ask about...her?
"Kouta," she muttered, small eyes glued to the china at her fingertips.
Would it ever be the right time to ask?
He turned his head only slightly in response.
Her instincts were telling her to avoid the question by all means, but it'd been a year since the subject had even been mentioned. She wasn't a member of the Koizumi family, and she'd only met Atsuko the spring before her freshman year at Seika High School. How long had it been seven years, eight years since...?
If there happened to be any chance, even a slight chance for—for what? Reconciliation? Or perhaps something that was more likely, something like—
"Have you heard from her at all?"
—closure.
The man, ready to laugh, suddenly looked at the aged woman across the table, reading her worry-burdened wrinkles and a nervous hesitance. The handle she'd been fidgeting earlier wasn't just pushed and pulled now; it was grasped so tightly that the wrinkles bore back and stretched to reveal beaming white skin.
She wasn't asking about Atsuko.
He knew. He knew she was worried, and yet he was a bit shaken from the sudden question, something that he hadn't heard in years because it'd become taboo, a "delicate subject."
For once, the deep eye bags on the often admired, charismatic and youthful CEO became apparent. The flamboyant pride and confidence he normally exuded, dimmed. From afar, he was merely the average middle-aged businessman.
"...No."
It'd been seven years since he last saw his wife. More precisely, November marked seven years and four months.
He no longer grieved her departure from their ten year marriage or wondered if he would have felt differently if she'd passed away instead of passed that way, to someone else. He didn't explode with rage or implode with frustration. He didn't hate her, adore her, or even think of her everyday. He hadn't thought of her in weeks, really. But when he did, whenever and wherever, there followed a feeling of vacancy, emptiness. Not loss, but absence.
It'd been seven years; he didn't know what to feel anymore.
The dark outside had grown darker. The grave atmosphere inherent in the subject of Koizumi Akira instilled a tension that hadn't permeated the air for those few awkward years.
Chiyako bit her lip softly, continuing to stare down. Moving his eyes, Kouta traced the outline of his shadow beyond the glass.
In the end, it'd been seven years and the man involved was Koizumi Kouta, a nation-renowned CEO and a proud father.
Even his ex-wife couldn't change that.
"A—ah," the businessman sighed childishly, acting, as usual, out of his age group. He cooly set his elbow on the table and with a hand on his cheek teased, "that poor daughter of mine. My poor, poor darling."
Looking from the glass pane to the table and finally, up to Chiyako herself, the man chuckled and grinned in a manner that reminded Chiyako of her older brother in Kyoto. In all his unnecessary arrogance, he was still a man with principles, responsibilities, and maturity. It was enough for her to put away her false irritation with his reputation and mannerisms and her underlying irritation with his lack of time. He was a good man, a good father.
She steadily smiled in return.
'A matter of the past is a matter to be passed,' I guess.
Taking the opportunity, she directed the mood elsewhere, feeling a tad guilty for the detour the conversation had taken.
"I really can't think of anything new regarding your daughter, Kouta. As lovely as she is, I'm sorry to say that Atsuko just doesn't—oh."
The old woman stopped midway, a new thought crossing her mind. Kouta's head snapped up, eager for the news. His eyes screamed for the words that the grandmother was trying to conjure.
"Hm..."
Eyes wide, Kouta stared wildly.
From the corner of her eyes, the grandmother watched the father itch with anticipation. The news she was about to tell him would break any father's heart.
Slyly, she smirked. The grandmother hadn't lost all her youth either. She still had feminine sense... and it made her giddy like a prepubescent girl.
Ah, young love is a crazy deal no matter what time and place...
"Well..." she began, trailing off with the corners of her mouth rising.
One of Kouta's legs shook the table. He tried to calm himself with tea as she started.
Calm down, you. She's holding back on something good. Is it a—no,no. Atsuko? My darling would never...would she? Okay, calm down, calm down. It's probably something like last time when Atsuko found a thousand yen bill on the floor and gave the money to some kid. Calm down, calm down...
His thoughts drove him insane. This was his one and only daughter after all.
"There is a certain boy friend-"
Droplets of tea and saliva spurt onto the table and floor as Kouta choked. He spit the drink back into the cup, coughing out a taste that didn't seem as bitter before. The liquid shot up his nose, and he struggled to breathe and he continued to clear his throat.
"He isn't her boyfriend, but he is a boy and a friend, and it's not that I'd never seen Atsuko talk to boys, but to someone so comfortably-"
A loud hack erupted from Kouta as he choked a second time on his own spit while clearing out the tea in his throat.
B-b-b-b-b-b-boyfriend?
"He's such a nice young man too. Handsome in both mind and heart," she snickered until a light, airy laugh escaped her control, "oh, and they thought I wasn't watching when they stood there so close, pressed against each other, giggling and-"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the man burst into devastated, furious sobs. The melodramatic tears returned ten-fold as rapid waterfalls that burst from his eyes like geysers. He stood so suddenly and violently from his seat that he knocked over both his chair and the teacups, spilling tea as the chaos began.
"NOOO-OHO-HOHOHOOO! ATSUKO, MY DEAREST ATSUKO! WHAT HAS BEFALLEN YOU?"
The overprotective father desperately flailed his arms in the air, grabbing his slicked back, dark brown hair as if ready to tear it all out. He screamed at the top of his lungs, as angrily and loudly as they could withstand. Even his very pupils screeched in despair, shrinking and dilating crazily.
"My, my..."
She calmly observed the man as if observing a zoo animal. Pleased with her work, she enjoyed his obnoxious reaction. That is, until he retorted.
"OLD LADY, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY 'MY, MY'? THE PURITY OF MY PRECIOUS DAUGHTER IS AT STAKE HERE—"
She jumped from her seat and pointed a sharp finger at him, yelling, "WHO ARE YOU CALLING 'OLD LADY'—"
"WAHHHAHHH! MY DAUGHTER!" he cried to the heavens as he fell to his knees, slumped over as his final sobs faded into the mere trickling sounds of the salty streams of his tears.
It was in the midst of the havoc wreaked then that Chiyako noticed her cellphone on the ground, moving on its own as it vibrated against the tiled floors.
Must have fallen out somehow.
And as she allowed the grown man to continue crying pitifully over the phenomenon called puberty, she watched the lit screen on her phone die out. Once in her hands, it lit again, reading, "12 MISSED CALLS."
Oh my.
As she flipped the old gadget open, she was confronted with a list of red X's and the repeated name, Atsuko.
It wasn't like the girl to call more than twice in a given time period. Three times, max.
Something was wrong.
"Oi, Kouta! Instead of whimpering like a helpless brat, get your car ready," she commanded, dialing buttons on her phone as it reached her voicemail.
"U-um, hello? Chiyako-baa-chan?"
That was not Atsuko.
"Sorry, I'm calling from Ko-chan's phone. She has a serious fever and..."
"Oh, musume-"
"OI!" the old woman shouted at Kouta, furrowing her thinned brows as Hinata's voice relayed over the phone, "Get your car. Your daughter is sick."
Atsuko, loosely draped in an oversized white shirt and a loose pair of shorts, leaned against the corner of the corridor between her room and her living room, where she saw Hinata and her father seated rather seriously.
To say the least, she was confused. Her living room was actually filled with people.
"A-a—," the father's voice shook in disbelief, "A-CHAAAAAAAAN!"
Pouncing on his own daughter, the older Koizumi embraced the girl, squeezing her currently fragile figure in his worry-sick arms. She didn't have the strength to pry him off, nor did she have the energy to argue with her immature father. Remaining in his fatherly hold, Atsuko felt like the stuffed animal of an uncontrollably hyper five year-old.
"Look at you!" he said, grabbing her by her heated face and pinching her cheeks, "you're seventeen and all grown up! But you'll always be Papa's precious little girl."
He rubbed the side of his face along hers, exclaiming, "Oh darling daughter, how did I even survive without you!"
Kouta constricted his daughter in his loving embrace, shaking her side to side as he hugged her tightly. Hinata had never seen an old man exude so much energy.
Sitting uncomfortably on the sidelines, the boy watched as the man he feared just seconds ago completely transformed into the world's most fearsome, yakuza-like cuddle-monster.
It was strange, though.
Watching a father shower his daughter with a love that only parents could give, Hinata observed the pair as if reading a scene from a manga. He clutched the cloth of his pants.
Locked in some corner of his mind were the feelings of nostalgia and jealousy that began to bubble out. As happy as he was for his feverish friend, he also missed it for himself. He missed the "unneeded" parental affection, the "unnecessary" attention, and the—
"Shintani-san?"
"Eh?"
The commotion seemed to calm. The father that had previously smothered his daughter with a universe of the "utmost tenderness" was now sulking in a dark corner, his complaints about parental love muffled by soft weeping. Atsuko had left the man to his self-pity and was instead approaching him, kneeling to meet his level. Hinata, still caught in surprise, realized that the girl's gait was wobbly and that her usually cool, collected eyes were half-glazed and half-shut, almost as if she were lingering on the border between conscious and unconscious.
For a moment, while she kneeled there, she simply stared. She'd walked toward him on impulse. For one, he was awkwardly sitting in her living room, a place she never thought she'd see him. For another, he hadn't made a sound since she came in. Not that she expected a wild roar from him, but for all the weeks she'd come to know him, silence had never seemed like a frequented word in his vocabulary. She took it as her cue to once again fulfill the role of "Friend" and "Confidant." Trying not to care for him, to emotionally dispose of him, was like trying to abandon a young puppy. Atsuko was cold, but not that cold. Her true excuse was that she...she couldn't deny his innocence and naivety. That she coveted the purity of his heart and as her one good deed for society, she would protect it. Of course she would never admit it all aloud but in secrecy, she alone knew. At this point, no degree of tsundere-typical self-denial would have saved her from her entanglement with The Boy Next Door-esque Shintani Hinata.
All such concerns, however, ultimately amounted to zilch. She could think these thoughts one moment, and lose them all the next if she didn't act immediately. Recovering from a fever, she couldn't focus.
So now that she'd actually sat before him, her mind was on something else.
Hinata, also puzzled by her actions, opened his mouth to ask, but was cut off.
Oblivious to all sounds but her own fleeting thoughts, she politely bowed and apologized, "Sorry for inconveniencing you like this. I'm not really sure what happened but—"
"K-Ko-chan, it's okay! Really, it's okay—"
"Maybe I could get Father to drop you off at home, or—"
"I could just walk home. It's really no big deal—"
"No, I do not have the patience to take any responsibility for your injuries or potential death if you are harassed at this time of the night—"
"W-wha—?"
"If you aren't dropped off, you could stay in the living roo—"
"NO!" interrupted the father, who decided to depart from his dark, pity corner, "Absolutely not."
Fiery, Kouta could have punched a hole through five stacked walls of plaster. A boy? Really, a boy? Had she no shame? Dignity? No, it was Atsuko. Of course she had pride and dignity.
She was just too kind.
Oh daughter, you have been so sheltered from the evil indecencies of this world!
Kouta had read the reports and articles: "Pregnant 13 year-old Searches Desperately for Father! Family Ready to Sue!", "16 Year-Old Raped, Murdered and Dumped in Creek by So-Called 'Boyfriend'!"
On the plane rides when he browsed the news, he'd cringe at every gruesome detail, pleading that somewhere out there, his daughter wouldn't fall victim to some deranged, insane molester. He'd contemplate the possible impossibilities then think of the sweet six year-old that once begged for hugs, kisses, and bedtime stories.
Atsuko, however, much less perceived her actions as kindness than as "repayment of debt." An act of true pride. She was caught in a moment of weakness and Hinata was there to help. She was not so shameless as to accept and not return.
"Father..." she trailed tiredly, mumbling something about a headache to herself, "Just drop him off."
"A-chan, A-chan! That is not the issue, here. This boy, has he done anything to you? It's okay to tell me; I'm your father. Please, no sec-"
"J-just get the ca—"
"Why are you so cold to your father?" the grown man broke down again, on the verge of tears for the millionth time that night.
Hinata wasn't sure exactly what to say. Getting killed in the Koizumi-on-Koizumi crossfire wasn't exactly a risk he was willing to take.
"—then we'd have to wait for Atsushi to come back from dropping off Nakahara-san-"
"—Nakahara? Chiyako-baa-san was here?"
"You think I'd let a boy who I'd never even seen stay alone with my sickly daughter? You couldn't have thought that he changed your clothes—"
"Okay, okay! I understand. Let's just wait for Nobuhiko-san to return, then."
"...Fine."
Suddenly silent, the three kneeled on the floor in an awkward triangle. Atsuko now looked slightly more awake, her glazed eyes faintly flickering with annoyance. Hinata gulped, averting his gaze to the carpet at his knees as a blazing glare from his right attempted to pry open the windows to his soul. Kouta, struggling, was then hit in what he thought was the worst time possible in the history of mankind with an emergency.
From his bowels.
I watched as Father hunched over, sweating profusely with one hand over his gut. For a moment, I wondered if anything was actually wrong. Then I recalled that it was Father I was thinking about.
My head was beginning to clear. I could feel it.
My thoughts weren't blending and blurring together as often and I could actually retain a moment of peace in my mind. My eyes, however, were starting to droop. If it weren't for the fact that Father was acting like an inane baboon, I probably would have gone back to bed.
"A-A-chan. I'm going to use your restroom," he said turning to me, strained and struggling. I stared back and nodded, unsure why he was making it so clear. He snapped his head back to Shintani ferociously, warning, "Don't do anything while I'm gone."
Father had always had a bit of a daughter-complex.
Just a bit.
I stared at his empty place on the carpet as he trudged off in a hurry, then realized that I was in a room with one other person.
Remorse brewed within. Remorse mixed with puzzlement.
I couldn't bring myself to look directly at him this whole time. Only at his knees or at the floor. I wasn't sure how long he'd been here, and I wasn't sure how he passed the time if I'd stayed in my apartment.
What happened?
My head ached when I tried to remember anything beyond that afternoon. Funny, I couldn't remember how I got to my room but I could still feel the soft bristles of his chestnut-shaded hair along the sides of my face. The feeling of being carried down a slope, my weight pressed against a back that somehow withstood gravity. The feeling of my skin on his uniform, his green Seika blazer. The smell of cakes and bread, and all things even remotely sweet. The stupid tune he hummed as we progressed home.
"-an? Ko-chan?"
My eyes shot open and my eyeballs felt cold and exposed.
I hadn't realized that my eyes had even shut.
Gulping, I looked around to the source of his voice.
Our eyes finally met.
I could feel myself rock slightly. Back and forth, back and forth, as if my spine couldn't withstand the pressure of the atmosphere above.
What time is it?
It seemed like the clock of the world had stopped in my thoughts.
"Ko-chan," he repeated, this time placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Un," was the plain response.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah."
Did I want to ask?
"Maybe you should lie down. You looked like you were about to fall," he half-chuckled. His worry was evident.
"Um," I stumbled, ignoring his comment, "What...happened earlier?"
He blinked and looked back blankly.
"Hmm, oh," he remembered with a grin, "I came back from my retest and-"
A shot of black. Then Shintani's face.
I began to wobble again as he removed his hand from my shoulder.
"—got an 89, so I ran over and showed you and Chiyako-obaa. By the way, you have to get better so that when you come to school after I show off my test score to Misa-chan, then even Misa-chan will see you in a new light! But anyway—"
Right, Ayuzawa.
Perhaps it was the fever that made me cringe then. Was it still that trace of remorse? Hearing her name, why did I even feel anything at all?
"After I got to the shop, it seemed like you didn't, um, feel very well. Chiyako-obaa was closing the shop early too, so then we left and I walked you home—"
It must be the fever.
Another screen of black.
My eyes...
Then Shintani with one finger up as he continued his list of events.
"—ah, but then you completely crashed," he tried to joke, "and I freaked out an—"
Back and forth, back and forth.
The images began to swirl together like a whirlpool of faces and scenes and places and things that I kept mixing up.
"Misa-chan."
Why was that lingering in the back of my mind?
"—d so I tried to help you through your fever, a...O-Oi!
Black.
"Are you okay?"
No.
"K-ko-chan!"
No, I'm not.
"Hang in there!"
It was as if my spine had snapped before gravity decided to take a lifetime's revenge on me. In my mind, it felt like forever.
Crashing, spinning. An infinite spiral.
But a soft collision.
Ah, déjà vu.
One void of pain and coldness.
A little hard, but otherwise soft. Warm.
Shintani's voice seemed really close.
Where am I, on the couch?
I could hear him. Faintly feel his breath and smell those cakes again. Those stupid deserts.
Feels like his blazer.
"BOY, WHY IS MY DAUGHTER ON YOUR LAP?"
Ah...I see.
"Ko-chan!"
Some part of me was disgusted by the idea. On a boy's lap? On Shintani's lap? It was putrid, shameless, and indecent.
And yet...
'Ko-chan,' huh?
...the other part that stood away, waiting behind the doors of a realm I couldn't yet enter...
Has quite the ring to it.
...wanted to stay like this, even if only for a millisecond longer.
A/N:
I have no words I could possibly say to excuse myself. So I won't say anything, really. (Embarrassed). Does anyone still read this? (Awkward...)
In any case, I've realized that even though I give general thanks every time I post a new chapter, which (as you guys have seen) isn't often, I never gave personal thanks. I think it'd be weird to PM each and every reviewer I've had in the past year and a half as of right now. But I'll message each and every one from here on out! It'll keep me away from more hiatuses...maybe. For now, though, I've dedicated a post to you guys: (I can't really link it here...but it's at emijou . livejournal . com. This'd be easier if just let me hyperlink...sigh)
Other than this, I don't have much to say. I've spent the past few weeks editing the older chapters of this fic, so although the basic plot hasn't changed, some scenes are vastly different. I would recommend re-reading chapters 2 through 5 (basically the whole thing), but it's up to you.
Reviews are always welcomed with open arms! (Open arms that could potentially grab you, hold you down, and force you to review! ...Potentially.)
- Emiko
