Hisies... it's only been two days since my last update... has anyone seen me so punctual before?
Anyhoo, we kick off again. This chapter is gonna kick off the tone of the rest of this arc, so I hope you like it.
When I got home, I was just about ready to call it. As easy as it was to see Prez off with a smile, being at home just reminded me of how things wouldn't be the same as they were today, or yesterday, or all those days that had passed without me even noticing. I would miss him more than I could even tell him.
In the end, I took my bath early and just died on my bed, because I was that demotivated.
"Nee-chan!" Chitose walked in, "What's up with you?"
"Just… lamenting how short life is…" I sighed, "and how people come and go in your life…"
"That's not like you at all…" he sighed, jumping on the bed next to me, "Do you want to talk about anything?"
"Nooo…" I sighed.
I didn't really want to talk about it… Prez is moving away, and after the talk today, I'm probably going to miss him even more… Part of me was even wondering if I decided to wait till now, when he was completely unattainable, to have a crush on him…
Gosh, that was not a nice thought… I rolled over so my overheated face was completely down on the blanket.
Could it be that I'm a masochist… all those random confessions… Katsuragi… now this guy, who's both gay and moving away… it really seems like that. I groaned loudly. Now was definitely time for a distraction.
"Just tell me about your school or something…" I spoke… well, tried to speak. Considering the mouthful of blanket and the request for me to repeat what I said from my younger brother, that clearly didn't work. I pushed myself up on my arms.
"Just tell me about school…" I repeated, before shoving my head back into the blanket.
"Uh… alright… During lunch today, two boys got over a fight over who was supposed to throw from the sidelines, because the ball clipped his ear before leaving… the teachers had to come break that up because most of the soccer team got involved and there wasn't any referee… Umm… for some brilliant reason, our teacher decided to teach multiplication with three and four digit numbers in the last period of the day, so we have to our Summer Homework on it…"
I pulled myself up again at that thought… Summer Homework would pull my mind off stuff…
"Of course, it makes no sense, so I'm going to need to as-"
"Chitose, why not let Nee-chan teach you how to do this?"
"No way!" he crossed his arms, "you suck at explaining and holidays haven't even begun!" However, I had no plan of letting him go, so fifteen minutes later, I had stolen a low table and some cushions from the sitting room, and a bottle of orange juice from the fridge, as well as somehow convinced my brother that it was for our own good that we should begin now.
"Nee-chan, can you explain this to me?" he pushed his math book toward me. It was that multiplication of large numbers section.
"Alright, multiply all of the top numbers with the first number of the second row…" he followed my instruction, "then draw a smiley face there…"
"Are you out of your mind, Nee-chan!? There is nothing to smile about during maths…"
"Just do it, Idiot…" he sighed but dutifully put one down, "now multiply the top row with the second number, this time beginning right next to the smiley…" He did as instructed, before eagerly waiting for my next instruction.
"Now put two smileys, in the same line as the units and the tens column…"
"I'm sorry, the what?" I rolled my eyes.
"There and there…" I pointed. Apparently they only used that terminology while I was studying… else, my brother is a bigger idiot than I thought…
"So you continue with that train, just adding an extra smiley for every level you go up… then, you add them all up… A smiley is equal to zero… and there you go."
I moved my hand with a flourish, showing him the completed answer…
"That was surprisingly easy…" he nodded, looking at the sum, "though I'll just put 0s instead of smileys…"
"What, too good for smileys," I teased.
"Those lazy bums I call friends will want to see this… I will pass on them seeing those and making fun of me…" I laughed.
"You're a good kid," I ruffled his hair, "man, I miss this easy shit…"
Yeah, BODMAS, long multiplication and multiplication tables… I could finish this in one night.
"I'll tell Ka-chan that you said 'shit'…"
"So did you, Jerk…" I slapped him upside because my hand was already there…
Threats were pretty ordinary in our house… There was just a single taboo that no matter how angry you are with your sibling, you can never tattle about, nor threaten to tattle about… Come to think of it, it's that season again…
"So how was your report card?" I asked. As expected, he fell like a house of cards…
"Just… don't mention it to Ka-chan…" I nodded understandingly, "also, can you please stop rubbing my hair?"
What, I was still doing that? Damn you, Prez! Even if I don't actively think about him, my muscle memory was still fresh, it appears.
From my right, I heard my phone vibrate on the table, so I quickly reached over to get it. It was an email from Miyako.
"Hey… does Fuyuhara always wear long sleeves?" my eyebrow rose as that.
What a weird question… and what a weird thing to notice… from what I could remember, he does.
I just assumed it was an odd quirk of his.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does… What of it?" I replied and put the phone down, but the content of the message bothered me… what did his preference in sleeves have to do with anything?
As I opened my English book, his face appeared in my mind… unlike his usual neutral, or even cheerful face, it was the face I'd only run into once or twice: only a small frown, but his own atmosphere completely unapproachable… or maybe I was just scared to speak then…
His sleeves… were they hiding his loneliness? I felt goosebumps forming up and down my neck, arms, and even my legs.
No… he can't be suicidal… he's smart, good at athletics, and good-looking. How could someone like that be like that?
The phone vibrated near my hand, making me jump and half scream.
"Nee-chan, are you alright?" Chitose asked.
"Umm… yeah," I snatched the phone off the table and hurriedly opened it.
"I think you should call him… I saw him through the window as we were leaving and he looked really sad…"
So it wasn't only me who picked that up… A new wave of shivers hit me.
Whenever he was alone, his face did look sad… was that his real face which he just hid behind his smile? Even today, he was more serious than usual… was him leaving school going to be what pushed him over…
No… no… no, that couldn't be it… he's always been happy… and even today, he didn't want me to be sad… no, he was fine… those sad eyes I'd seen meant nothing, right? right… he was perfectly okay…hewouldntdoanythinglikethatiknowthathesfineihavetomakesurethathesalright
"Chitose… Please get out…" he left with no questions, which was a relief. i quickly brought out my phone and called him.
pickuppickuppickuppickuppickup
It was no use. The automated message that he was out of range played after the seven rings that had gone through, ironically mocking me.
Wait, he gave me a house number. i sprinted downstairs and dialled the number in as fast as i could.
pickuppickuppickuppickuppickup
"Hello, Fuyuhara residence…" a lady answered.
"Hi… can i speak to Yuki, please?" she inhaled hard.
"S-sorry… there isn't anyone with that name here…" she replied. i groaned. Suddenly, a shrill beep hit my ear, quickly followed by a second one.
"Is there no Yuki Fuyuhara who lives there?"
"No, we are not interested in Life Insurance…" this was followed by two shrill beeps again. The lady on the other side must've been pressing numbers… Why?
"Uh, I'm not sellin-"
"Seriously, Sir, we are perfectly happy with our service…" suddenly it clicked as to why she was answering to a completely different conversation and the odd beeping. It was a message for me.
"Alright, I got it," i muttered, sending the two beeps back and grabbing the message book in front of me.
"Now, if you will, please put this number on your 'no call' list…" Well, that was what it sounded like. However, as she spoke, she started pressing that button again, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter… then sometimes, not at all… Still, i recorded her message in lines and dots, leaving spaces for when she'd been quiet.
Unlike this girl, who had been able to hold a perfectly sensible conversation while typing out something completely different, i was hopeless, just making weird sounds as i wrote it. Before I could even begin to think about what could be happening on the other side, the closing two beeps came again.
"Alright, i got it," i sent the beeps back before haphazardly putting down the phone. Still, as i walked deliberately to my room, I could feel the helplessness in myself disappear. I had a message I needed to translate. My phone's internet was really slow though, so I popped my head into Chitose's room.
"Can I borrow your PFP?" I asked, barging into his room.
"What was that about?" he countered. He was at his desk, continuing his work despite his previous complaints.
"Nothing you need to worry about, lil' bro. I just need to go on the internet…" his eyes hardened.
"I'm sick enough of our parents treating me like a baby, and I don't need it from you. Just tell me and I'll give it to you…" I sighed. While I didn't have the time for this, I was surprised he picked up on that with my parents.
"Look… I dunno what it is yet, but I need to translate this…" I slapped the paper in front of him.
"Cool! Is that Morse code?" he pulled it to his face, "I saw it in a game once…"
"That does make sense… so can you find a table that translates these?"
"Goddit!" he exclaimed excitedly, pulling the PFP from out of nowhere, "Can I translate it?"
"If you want to…" I smiled, plopping myself onto his unmade bed. I'd already done the hard part of picking up the message… now, it was just up to him to see if that made any sense.
Even still, this is kinda weird... did I enter some spy movie? That would have been a completely normal phone call too, had there not been those beeps.
No, I can't feel chuffed yet… I have no clue what's happening to Prez…
"Nee-chan," he said, after about three minutes, "this isn't Morse… some of them don't match, and the ones that do don't make sense together…" I breathed heavily… I messed up in taking it down.
"Is there any other Morse… like Japanese Morse?" I stood next to him watching him search.
"Oh wait, there is…" he quickly opened up the picture and started translating. My legs automatically started moving from my nerves.
"Yeah, this makes sense now…" he spun his chair around, "you're not going to like this though..."
"What is it?" I walked back to him, when he shoved the paper into my hands.
"Yuki ran away…" I muttered, but the message was clear in my brother's handwriting.
Dunn dunn dunn... action movie sequence begin...
Naw, but this will be a genre shift, for at least another few chapters... of course, Prez will be back next time, so don't bite your nails too much...
Or better yet, do any people even care for OCs? Hmm, who knows?
Anyhoo, read and review. I'll be back once I'm done the next chapter.
Ja ne