The next day, I woke up feeling tired, grumpy and hungry mainly because I didn't eat anything at all yesterday. Natsue, Himeno-neechan's stepmother, was trying to act like a good wife and mother again and decided that it might be a good idea to cook dinner, since it's the job of most mothers. Nobody complained because she claimed that she was a good cook. Everything was fine going to be fine… at least that's what we thought when until the kitchen suddenly exploded. Himeno-neechan, Mawata-neechan, Mayune, Shin, Hajime and I hurried to the kitchen. "MOM!" Himeno-neechan, Mayune and Mawata-neechan shouted simultaneously, rushing to their mother. "Don't worry about me, I'm okay. Sorry about that." Natsue assured her daughters. "So that means we have to worry about dinner then?" I asked, looking at the kitchen. Hajime was putting out some small fires and it was safe to say that the kitchen had been successfully destroyed. "That's not a problem. We'll just order in." Mawata-neechan said in her usual calm voice.
So we ordered in pizza but before the food arrived, I was so tired that I slept at the living room while waiting and when the food did arrive, nobody seemed to notice that I was missing from the dining table until they had completely finished the food. I guess I can't blame Goh, Kei, Sasame, Takako and Hayate because they were working and they might think I was at my friend's house or something, but the others? What about them? And here I thought that someone would actually care about me and wake me up. Someone must have been nice enough to carry me to my room, though, because when I woke up I found myself in my bed, wondering why I was there instead of downstairs eating pizza until it suddenly hit me that I must have slept through all of it. Frowning, I got out of bed and went downstairs. "Hey, what's the matter?" Sasame asked, looking at the frown that was stuck on my face. I wasn't in the mood to talk; I was in the mood to scream my head off at somebody for letting me go to bed hungry.
Sasame must have known what I was thinking about because he quickly shut up. It's a good thing he did because if he continued on talking to me, I would have exploded. I ignored him and went on walking to wherever I was heading to, which turned out to be Himeno-neechan's room. "What's the matter, Mannen? You don't look so good." Out of all the people in the house, I didn't expect her to say that. If she remembered about the little incident yesterday, she was doing a pretty good job of hiding it. "Isn't it obvious? I'm starving!" I pointed out, making it look so obvious that Himeno-neechan looked stupid not to realize that. Her smile disappeared from her face. I thought she was angry at me but I knew that she wasn't when she looked at me with concern in her eyes. "Oh, yeah… you didn't eat anything yesterday, did you? I'm really sorry about that." She apologized. At last somebody said sorry to me. Not that I expected them too, but it was quite a nice feeling to have someone apologize to you, especially if you don't have to force them to.
"It's okay. Do you have anything for me to eat?" I asked, but I already know what the answer will be. "No, my mom burnt the refrigerator yesterday, remember? Well, how about I give you some money and you go to a restaurant to have breakfast?" Himeno-neechan suggested, trying hard to make up for what she did yesterday. I quickly agreed to her suggestion, thinking that finally I could have a walk around town alone, without Hajime and Shin tagging along. "But you can't go off on your own. Why don't you go with Hajime and Shin? It's a good idea, don't you think?" She glanced at me, expecting me to say yes, but I didn't. I barely had the time to refuse before she said, "Well, since you didn't say anything, that's a yes then." She put a few dollars in my hand and rushed me out of the room, trying to stop me from arguing. All the adults are the same. They think kids can't do anything on their own when actually they can, if they're given a chance. I looked at the money in my hands. She gave me quite a lot of money, more than enough for three people to eat. I was planning on returning the money when I thought of something. It's not like I was the one who asked for it. I guess I'll just buy myself a present…
"Hey, can I have those?" an excited Shin asked, pointing at the fried chicken that was on the menu. "Sure, Shin. But would you please STOP kicking my leg when you're asking for something?" I asked, using my left leg to kick both of his legs away. Hajime giggled silently. I guess I could understand why they were being so happy. They rarely go out with me nowadays since I spend most of my time finishing homework at the last minute. We used to hang out a lot when we were living in Leafunia. I ordered the food and while waiting, we chatted for a while. "I'm surprised that you're not full yet. You did eat my share of the pizza, after all." I said. I still hadn't forgiven them for forgetting about me last night, and I kept reminding them about that, just to amuse myself by seeing them shifting uncomfortably in their seats. "Mannen, stop that! Alright, so I'm very, very sorry about what happened last night! Now would you please talk about something else?" Hajime said, desperate for me to change the subject. I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was obvious that they felt really bad, but that just made the urge to talk about that stronger.
"Yeah, very funny." Hajime said again as he rolled his eyes. "You can't blame me. It is your fault, isn't it?" I said, still laughing. Shin just smiled like he enjoyed seeing me happy. Hajime looked a bit relieved too, probably because I had stopped complaining about what Himeno-neechan asked me to do. I was fuming the whole time when I was on my way to the fast-food outlet. After several minutes, our food arrived. Shin and Hajime watched in amazement as I gobbled my food up. Noticing that they hadn't touched their food, I asked them what was wrong. "Huh?" Shin, at lost on what I was saying, said. "I said, why aren't you eating your food?" I asked again. "Oh… I was just looking at… never mind." He quickly said, afraid that I would be angry at him if he said that he was actually staring at me. "So, where are we going after this?" Hajime asked curiously. "You're going home." I said, wearing a very serious look on my face. Hajime frowned at me. I should have expected it, I guess. Shin might be willing to let me go off on my own, but Hajime won't. He knew that I wasn't allowed to go by myself. How can he forget? Goh reminded all three of us of it every single day without fail.
"Alright, alright. You two are coming with me, but I won't promise that I'll buy you anything." I warned them. Hajime shot me a disapproving look, but I didn't care. "It's okay. Goh gave us some money as a reward for taking care of you so we…" Shin stopped when he realized what he was saying. At first, I just looked at them with utter confusion. Slowly, it dawned on me that my so called friends had been asked to 'baby-sit' me every time I was planning on going somewhere. I was wondering how Goh seemed to know everything about what I was going to do. "I…You…How…Damn it, how could you?" I shouted. I was extremely upset with them at the time. I didn't even care when the people who were eating there peacefully stared at me. I decided that waiting for them to answer back would take too much time, so I stormed out of the place. I wasn't paying attention to what was around me, or whoever was around me, for that matter, until I bumped into someone. "Sorry." I mumbled to whoever it was. "It's okay. Hey, aren't you…?" I looked up to see Misora, the girl from yesterday. She noticed the weird expression that I was wearing on my face.
"What's the matter?" she asked. I shook my head, indicating that nothing was wrong. I was hoping that she would just leave me alone, but she didn't. "What do you want?" I asked in a strange tone. "Are you okay?" she asked again. 'I'm fine,' was what I wanted to say, but somehow my brain was working on its own. "I can't believe they did this to me!" I said that instead. In an instant, I already told her everything that was on my mind, maybe because I can't keep it to myself any longer. Misora listened quietly, which made me talk more. When I was done, I felt satisfied. After a while though, I realized that I was talking to an almost complete stranger and told her why I was so pissed off; and she hardly even knows me! I felt myself flushing into a deep shade of red. "So, where are they?" Misora asked when I suddenly stopped talking. "Who?" I asked blankly. "Hajime and Shin. You were with them, weren't you? Where did you leave them at?" It occurred to me that I had done a stupid thing when I left them at the fast-food outlet. Sure, they did something wrong, but Goh probably forced them to do that. They weren't the kind of person who'd just do anything for the sake of money.
"At the fast-food outlet. Come on." Why I asked her to come with me was a mystery to me, but she followed me anyway. When we got there, I looked at the place where Hajime, Shin and I used to be sitting, but they weren't there. "Oh no! They must have got kidnapped! What was I thinking, leaving them alone?" I said to myself. "Relax, they couldn't have gotten far. I don't think they've been kidnapped." Misora assured me. After a few minutes of searching, we finally found them loitering around the main entrance. "Mannen!" Shin, who saw me first, shouted in relief. He rushed towards me and hugged me tight. Hajime was standing behind him, mouthing something that sounds like, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it." He was looking so miserable that I forgave him, just this once. "Thanks for coming with me," I said to Misora who was smiling at me. "No problem, uh…" "Mannen." I said, introducing myself. "Nice to meet you, Mannen. I'm Misora. It's a good thing that you found them. Anyway, I have to get going. I'm already late for my piano class. See you." She waved at the three of us and ran out of the place. "So, you like her or something?" Hajime asked. "I haven't totally forgiven you, so mind your words." I replied. That made him shut up.
4
