Chapter Five

Passive Amity

While Azusa slowly began to notice her attraction to Yui was above what she would call 'friendship', it did not make her want to tell anyone about it. It, in fact, made her want to do the opposite. She wanted to keep it to herself in hopes of keeping their friendship and keeping her feelings from getting hurt. Azusa had failed to think of the possibility that Yui might have those very same feelings towards her.

So she kept it to herself, her glances towards Yui became shorter; their conversations strained and cut off and, eventually, she asked Yui to stop calling her so often. Azusa had felt the need to talk to Jun and Ui more often; she tried to force herself to stop being so selfish around her, she did not want these sudden urges to ask everyone to leave so that they would be together, she didn't want such a strong attraction to Yui. It left her feeling insecure in her own thoughts and made her doubt herself again and again. She told herself that she did not want to be helplessly in love with her best friend.

Yui, on the other hand, took this the wrong way. She saw Azusa's hesitation towards her as a sign that she no longer liked her. The thought often crossed her mind that Azusa had, somehow, found out about Yui's love for her, she thought Azusa shied away from her touch because she was afraid of her. Yui didn't want Azusa to feel that way, though what could she do? What could she do when she had so readily assumed that Azusa had not known, or that she had liked her back, even just a little?

Yui thought endlessly of ways she could regain Azusa's affection, though coming at a blank every time, she settled on the fact that her love for Azusa was not welcome to her. As unrequited as she thought it was, she couldn't stop her feelings towards her.

While Ui had no hope of knowing the cause of Yui's restlessness, she worried excessively. She watched her out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out her sister's problem. Ui didn't pity Yui, she had never once felt sorry for Yui, she was always so happy, but something made her anxious about the way she plodded around the house with no real intention of doing anything. Whenever Ui asked her a question, the best answer she received would be a half-hearted 'yes' or 'no'. Sometimes she had to talk to Ui to stop her fretting, though she wouldn't talk for long.

She wasn't sad, she constantly told herself, just thinking... just thinking, she would repeat over and over in her head. Thinking in this way felt alien to Yui, she had always looked on the sunny side of life, the side in which she would always be the optimist, the chirpy girl with a bright smile on her face. Azusa, for the first time, had made her feel awkward in her own skin. She had a sudden worry about her appearance, an unconscious flick of her hand to flatten the straying strands of hair floating around her face, a shuffle of her feet to appear taller.

Yui decided that she would go about as normal; Azusa may have not even meant to make her feel like this, she thought, it wasn't like her to do something like that. Looking back on it, Yui worried herself, she had caught herself overreacting and she didn't like it one bit. She walked lazily to her bedroom and slumped on her bed, fiddling with her hair, she hummed a song to herself. Images of Azusa floated into her head and she smiled, falling asleep while she was submerged in whimsical memories.

"-see her anymore, why is that?" Azusa's ears buzzed as she blinked at the TV screen. She heard a quiet voice and looked around; her mother was talking to her, an apprehensive look on her face. She must have been daydreaming, she thought.

"Sorry mum, what was that?" Azusa mumbled. Sitting upright and adjusting her shirt, she fumbled with a button which hung lose.

"I was talking about your friend, Yui. You hardly talk about her lately. You haven't upset each other, have you?" Azusa hesitated. Had they? She wondered whether Yui had only liked her out of courtesy, because she was a member of Houkago Tea Time. She then eradicated those thoughts from her mind, she was thinking badly of Yui, Azusa sighed and smiled to her mother.

"Of course not, don't worry about that kind of thing, mum. Yui and I will always be friends." Her smile seemed to have worked as her mother didn't persist. Azusa walked up to her room and sat down at her desk. She stared at her homework for a minute, and then left it. She couldn't do anything with all these thoughts in her head, she thought.

She flipped open her phone and flicked through her contact list and stopped on Yui. Her hand quivered slightly and she dialled, lying back on her bed and she listened to the ring intently, as if it was a lifeline.

Yui's phone vibrated on the end of her bed. Azusa's name flashed violently as a rushed ringtone gradually increased in sound, Yui shuffled in her sleep and kicked her phone off of the bed. Once it stopped, another call started soon after. The sound cut off in the middle and her phone remained silent for the rest of the night.

Yui woke up in a frantic search for her phone, blundering around the room, tripping over music sheets and manga volumes; she eventually found it after turfing out half of her clothes from under her bed. She fumbled on the menu, and saw two missed calls from Azusa. She stared at the screen and left the house two minutes after hurriedly shoving on clothes.

Texting while running, Yui admitted, was hard. She somehow managed to send a halfway presentable text to Azusa and double checked on the contact to which she was sending it to. She has no time to pour over her choice of words and left it as it was.

I'm so sorry I missed your calls. I'm running to your house right now. Is there something wrong?
-Yui

She hit send, and looked up just in time to dart out of the way of a crossing post. She swiftly checked for oncoming traffic, and rushed across the road. Her shoes, poorly chosen, were in danger of falling off at any moment, though Yui had not noticed. She kept her eyes fixed on the road, path, and her phone, making sure she didn't run out on the road, bustle into somebody, or miss a reply from Azusa. Her heart erratically pounded in her chest, as she turned another corner.

Azusa's house was in sight, and she came to a sudden halt. What was she going to say to Azusa? She looked down at her phone and thought that Azusa's call might have been out of boredom, or that she just wanted to talk to Yui at that time. She had jumped to conclusions and ran out of her house at full speed without a thought in her mind. She caught her breath and carried on walking. She might as well carry on, she thought.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket a few steps away from Azusa's neighbour.

Don't worry about it, it wasn't anything important. You'd best go home, I'm not feeling too good, and mum's taking care of me. Please don't do things like that again. It's a bother for both of us.
-Azusa

Yui read through the text several times before turning around and silently walking home. She walked past Ui and headed straight for her bedroom; she locked her door, and sat down on her bed. She brought a hand to her cheeks and felt a steady stream of tears falling down her cheek. She turned off her phone and put it on her bedside table; she stared at it for a moment before throwing herself under her duvet covers. She curled her knees to her front, and felt her chest heaving and her breath ragged. She tired her hardest to stop the tears brimming over her eyes, she buried her head in her duvet, her eyes stung and she squeezed them shut. A new line of silent tears came over her, she shivered and, letting the silence overwhelm her, she fell asleep clutching her guitar, murmuring Azusa's favourite songs.