CHAPTER THREE
"What do you mean she's depressed? She was fine a week ago!! What the heck did you do, Raiko!" Mitsuka's voice croaned over the reciever of the phone. My brother sighed, looking around to make sure I wasn't home.
"I don't know! She came home the day after your wedding and she was upset! She's been like that for a week now. Can you see if your brother knows? They're close, I saw her with him and Yuuta earlier that day! Maybe he knows?" Raiko argued. He was genuinly worried about his sister. He'd never ever seen her like this. Never.
"I'll call you back." She growled, and both of the lines were hung up.
"Oh, Imouto...please be okay.." Raiko murmured, plopping onto the couch to await Mitsuka's call. He put his head in his hands and let his worried invade his thoughts.
"Hey! Imouto, give him the phone again! I'm not finished with him yet!" Mitsuka growled into the reciever. Hajime had gotten onto the phone, and instantly after she asked him about Aimika, he'd said he didn't know, that he hadn't talked to her in a week, and he wasn't planning on it ever again either, and handed the phone to their other sister, apparently walking off.
"He left the house, Mitsu-chan! He's been like an irritated robot all week! He's constantly scowling, and barking out replies, and he's not normal! Yuuta's called a million times, and Mizuki just hangs up on him after saying 'don't mention her!'. What's going on?!" Her sister's worried voice answered.
"That's what I want to know. Apparently, it has something to do with Aimika, because Raiko called me to see if Hajime knew why she'd been walking around like a sad, depressed frozen robot for a week! What happened?" Mitsuka's voice went soft at the end, as she and her sister hung up. Mitsuka dialed Yuuta's number, he had to know.
"Hello?" Hajime answered the phone irately. He'd been like that all week, and it wasn't letting up.
"HAJIME MIZUKI." Mitsuka's voice growled. He almost dropped the phone in shock, but growled.
"WHAT?!"
"Who the HECK do you think you are! Aimika's been a frozen-shell of a girl for a WEEK, because you won't talk to her!! And WHY?! BECAUSE SHE WON'T CALL YOU HAJIME?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Did you ever stop to think she did it to save herself for future reasons?! Or are you too stuck up thinking it was because she hated you, or because it really was to annoy you. I KNOW FOR A FACT IT'S NOT TO ANNOY YOU. You can't even tell she's lying!! She's TRYING to save herself pain in the future!!" Mitsuka's voice screamed.
"WHAT PAIN?! What lies?! It was TRUTH." Hajime snapped and started screaming too.
"The PAIN of thinking she'll LOOSE YOU!!" Mitsuka screamed.
"Loose me?! Why would she have lost me!?" He growled.
"Maybe because she's afraid if she tells you about how she feels about you, that you won't ever be one of her best friends again?! That you will tell her not to talk to you?! That she'll eventually have to call you MIZUKI anyway!? Did you even THINK about THOSE reasons?!" she snapped.
"What FEELINGS? I WOULDN'T EVER TELL HER NOT TO TALK TO ME!! I WANT her to call me Hajime, NOT Mizuki!" He hissed.
"THAT SHE'S INLOVE WITH YOU." Mitsuka screamed, "She thought you'd never return her feelings, and that one day she'd slip and tell you, and you wouldn't feel the same, and it would never be the same and you wouldn't talk to her, and you'll make her call you 'Mizuki' instead of Hajime anway! She doesn't want to get TOO familiar name-wise to save herself from having to LEARN to call you MIZUKI!!"
"She..loves me? But...I thought...? So...that's why she always called me... She lied to...And I just... And she..." He let out a very loud curse word and said, "I have a girl to find." and hung up. Mitsuka looked up to the sky.
"Kami-sama, please let it work out!"
Yuki held her hand tight in reassurrance, but praying just as she did.
I sneezed as I walked through the familiar market place. I rubbed my nose tenderly, it hurt a bit from the violence of the sneeze. I sighed, and stopped though, and continued on my robotic movement through-out the place, until I reached a familiar park. I sat under a familiar Sakura tree, and looked up at the sky sadly.
Oh Kami-sama...Why did I have to call him Mizuki...now he doesn't want anything to do with me. My heart and my stomach..they're frozen..I can't feel the pain...is that why they froze? To save myself the pain, and leave me completely numb and robotic? I think I would rather feel the pain. At least then I'd know this isn't just some nightmare. I wish he would just come and say he forgave me. Or...just someone would come and hit me with a tennis ball, and make me fall in a coma 'till I'm Eighty or something. Why was I so stupid?--
I glanced up at the tree my back was against the trunk of, and saw the engraved carvings from years ago. H.+A.B.f.f. My eyes stung with salty tears as I recalled the day when Mizuki and I were five and we carved that into the tree so we'd never stop being friends. We called it 'our tree', and no matter who tried, never let anyone carve anything else on it, cut it down, anything.
I guess those days are all over now, huh? I let a lone tear trail down my cheek, and curled my jean-clad pants to my chest, and burried my face in them.
A few minutes later I woke from my depressed subconscious thoughts, thinking to hear a familiar voice calling my name. Mizuki's voice. No. It's just my heart, willing me to hear it. He hates me now... But no matter how much I told my heart to shut up, I kept hearing it. But I kept ignoring it, yelling in my head for my heart to stop making me hear that. It hurt, couldn't it tell?
But I felt something shaking me, and I peaked over my knees, to come face to face with deep blue eyes of regret and sadness. Mizuki's eyes...no. Hajime's eyes.
