Sora ni koete – Beyond the sky
Chapter 3 – Different pairings
Meanwhile the others started practise I sat down on the bench and waited for Akihiko to wake up again. He used to always fall unconscious when meeting someone new for the first time. He had this kind of problem since I first met him myself, there he had fallen unconscious as well, scaring all the kids in the neighbourhood. All except for me, at first I laughed at him, but soon I got curious about why he'd always lose consciousness, so I kept on meeting him and noticed that that problem wouldn't occur with people he already knew. I guess it was just because he was extremely shy. Which is surprising, considering how famous his mother Tooru Iwaizumi is.
After a few minutes he seemed to open his eyes again.
"Yo, Akihiko." I said to him while holding my face above his head.
"M-morning Konoe, where am I?" he answered confused.
"Morning? Akihiko please, it's after school and we're supposed to have practise now, so get up!" I said as I pulled him from his shoulders.
"Oh, okay." he got up after that.
"Seriously though, you should stop doing that." I told him while I got up from the bench.
"It's not like I want that to happen."
"I know. Did you try to get a check-up from a doctor or something?"
"No? Why should I? It's not like they would be able to help me and-"
"Well you never know."
"I'll think about it." he said after hesitating for a second.
"Anyway, want to get to know our two new team mates?" I asked finally.
"Uhm… only if you help me, Konoe." he said shyly.
"Akihiko, how old are you?"
"I'm 17."
"Idiot." I said while softly punching him on his chest and after that we both started laughing. Only a few seconds later Nobu-senpai called us to join practise already and we did as he said.
And even though Akihiko's problem still remains, it got less and less frequent one could say. Being something like his childhood friend, I know him for quite some time already and I can tell the differences; I spent almost all of my free time with him after all.
As soon as the professor stopped talking I immediately stood up and started putting everything into my bag and quickly left the lecture room. Akira had called me during the day. To be precisely he talked to me through Sora's phone and convinced me to buy lunch for Hana, but I managed to convince him to something as well; we'd meet up today and he'd come to my house. And after hearing that I had been excited for the rest of the day and now that the last lecture had finished I was ready to go pick him up from school.
"Where do you think you're running to and leaving me behind, huh?" a voice called out to me as soon as I reached my car. It was Hana's voice.
"I… uhm… I'll go pick up Akira and then-"
"I don't care at all what you want to do. But you took me to university this morning and now you will take me back home." she said without even asking.
"But, as I said, I'll go pick up Akira at his school. That's a huge detour and-"
"Daiki. Take. Me. Home." this girl was such a handful to deal with.
"Okay, fine then! Get in the car already, I don't wanna be late." I said while opening the doors.
"Thank you, friend." she said while grinning.
"You're welcome, devil."
"What did you say?"
"N-nothing." I shut up and started the engine.
"Sooo? How was your day?" I asked her while driving.
"Is this again that small talk crap? Do you really need to do that every time?" she grumped.
"N-no, I just thought it'd be nice to talk about something while driving." I tried to begin some kind of conversation with Miss Grumpy herself.
"How about focusing on driving?"
"I am, I am very competent at multitasking."
"You? Multitasking? Since when?"
"Since always?" I replied, but she only raised one of her eyebrows, indicating me that we both knew that wasn't true.
"Okay! Since Akira forced me to." I started pouting.
"Daaaw, pouty Daiki is pouting." she said as she poked my left cheek.
"Could you not?" I pushed her hand away from my face.
"But it's so soft and wobbly." she started poking again.
"Hana!"
"Jeez, Daiki, you should go to the gym more often, your cheeks may even be too wobbly."
"First of all, cheeks have to be soft and wobbly. Secondly, my body is very well-conditioned."
"You sure? Even Nobu being like two heads smaller than you has more muscles."
"Muscles don't have anything to do with well-conditioned bodies and at any rate, why are you judging me? The me who's so nice as to drive you home, even though it's a huge detour and I only want to meet up with Akira and-"
"Look, a cat! Punch!" she said and punched my shoulder.
"Ouch! Hana, what are you doing?!" it hurt more than I had imagined.
"There was a cat on the pavement, we're playing the cat game."
"Cat game?"
"Cat game."
"You just wanted an excuse to punch me, didn't you?"
"Maybe." she said with a devilish grin.
"Were you even listening to what I said?"
"Hmm? You were talking?"
"I give up." I said and focused on driving, it was hopeless effort to try to start an intelligent conversation with Hana if she didn't feel like talking, so I stopped trying.
After some minutes we finally arrived where I agreed on picking Akira up, in front of his school. He was already waiting at the entrance gates together with his sister Akane and Hana's little brother Sora. I stopped the car and opened the window on Hana's side.
"Akiraaaaa!" I called him.
"Hi Daiki, hello Hana-san." Akira said to both of us.
"Yo Akira." Hana replied.
"Ready to go?" I asked him.
"Sure. See you two tomorrow, bye." he said to Akane and Sora. And then I suddenly remembered that I had to drive Hana home, so Sora could just come along.
"Hey Sora, wanna join? I'm taking Hana home anyway, and since you're probably go-" I was interrupted by Hana; again pulling at my hair.
"Sadly there is no room for Sora anymore, so get going already." she said.
"What? Hana! Are you-" Sora wanted to say something.
"Daiki. Drive. Now." she continued pulling at my hair. I gave in.
"S-sorry Sora, but my hair is in danger." were the last words I said before I started driving away and Hana stopped pulling at my hair.
"Hana, you have a twisted personality." I said to her.
"Thank you."
"That was not a compliment." I was feeling bad for Sora, having to deal with such a sister every day. Poor Sora.
During the entire time in between of when I got picked up and Daiki drove Hana to her home, the two of them were having a discussion. I tried to ignore them and spend my time reading a book. But after Hana had finally left, Daiki asked me if I wanted to change seats and sit in front next to him.
"Akira!" he said out of nowhere as I sat down next to him. After that he hugged me.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Do I get a ki-?" he asked and without letting him end his sentence I pressed my lips on his. He seemed to not have expected it and started blushing slightly.
"Daiki? Can you start driving now? I'm getting hungry." I said as I opened my book again.
"Sure!" he seemed to be happy about the kiss.
After a few minutes of driving we arrived at his house. His house was almost like a second home to me already, I spent so much time there. And I really like Daiki's family, they're not so… loud. And everyone was nice to me from the beginning. And because Daiki had a room for himself, unlike me, it was no problem to spend the night with him.
"We're back!" Daiki said as he opened the door.
"Welcome back!" I heard Koushi-san's voice from the kitchen. As usual he was already preparing dinner.
"Akira, gimme your bag, I'll bring it to my room. You can wait on the couch if you want." Daiki said as he took my bag and then went up the stairs. I did as he suggested and walked into the living room. As I got closer I started hearing music; probably Misaki was playing on the piano.
"Good evening Misaki, what are you playing?" I asked her.
"Oh, hello Akira. Nothing special, really. Just some melodies."
"Sounds beautiful nonetheless."
"Thank you." she said with a smile. When I looked around I saw Mei sitting on the old wooden rocking chair in front of the chimney. She was that focused on reading that she didn't notice me until I was standing next to her.
"Ah! A-Akira-senpai! H-hello." she said nervously.
"You don't have to call me that here, we already know each other well enough, right?" I said smiling.
"O-okay."
"What you reading?"
"Oh, it's a novel by Natsume Souseki." she said.
"Souseki? Fascinating."
"I-is that weird?"
"Not at all, I just haven't met other people around my age, let alone younger than me, that read Souseki too. Tell me what you think about it when you're done with it, okay?" I said as I wanted to pat her head, but then I noticed she was wearing a hat.
"Are you cold?" I asked her.
"Hm? No, why?"
"That's her home-hat." Daiki who had appeared out of nowhere said while sitting down on the couch.
"I see." I said giggling and sat down next to Daiki; he instantly hugged me.
"What?" I asked him.
"Nothing, just feel like hugging you." he said while pressing his cheek on mine.
"Weirdo." I said as I flicked his forehead, he let go off me in fear.
"Ouch." he protected his forehead with his hands.
"I'm sorry, but I wanted to read a bit." I kissed him on his cheek.
"Can I hold your hand at least?" he looked at me with big eyes.
"Sure." I said smiling and he took my hand. We stayed like that for a while until dinner was ready and after we ate, the two of us went upstairs. The first thing I did when entering Daiki's room was sit on his bed and continue reading my book. But I wouldn't be able to continue for much more time, I heard how Daiki had locked the door.
Without a warning he jumped on the bed and hugged me from behind.
"Akiraaaa…" his arms were all around me and one of his hands found its way underneath my shirt. I already knew he wouldn't stop there, so I put my book aside, turned around and faced him.
"You cannot control yourself, can you?" I asked him while coming closer to his face.
"No, you're way too adorable." he whispered and suddenly hugged me. We started kissing and we forgot about everything else around us. After we had done it, Daiki was lying on the bed, taking a nap. I then grabbed my book again and continued reading, I would have some free time for the time being.
"I'm home." I said as I opened the door.
"Welco-Sora, what happened?" Aoi asked as she just seemed to be going upstairs. I was soaking wet, it had started pouring down a few minutes before I arrived home and I didn't take my umbrella with me.
"It's pouring down, that happened." I said while waking off my wet shoes, everything I was wearing was soaking wet.
"You know those things called umbrella? I heard they're quite convenient." Aoi said sarcastically.
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Essentially, my dear Watson."
"Where's Hana?" I asked Aoi and she pointed towards the couch in the living room.
"Hana! Look at me! Do you think it was fun to walk home in the rain? Even though you could've taken me along in Daiki's car? Would it had hurt you that much? Don't you have any regrets that your little brother might catch a cold? Huh? Answer me, Hana!" I started lecturing her, but she didn't seem to bother. But then she stood up from the couch, she was apparently lying on it, and I saw that she was wearing her headphones, meaning she didn't hear anything of what I had just said.
"Oh, Sora. Why are you wet?" she asked with her headphones still on her head.
"Ahhhh!" I screamed and left the living room again and suddenly a towel flew into my direction.
"Here. I run a bath for you, get in quickly before you catch a cold, I'll be making dinner. Mom and dad went out and won't be back for dinner, so hurry." Aoi said as she walked into the kitchen. So she could actually act like a big sister sometimes, I was fascinated and shocked at the same time; nonetheless I did as she told me and went upstairs to take a bath.
Because I wanted to watch some videos while taking a bath I took my phone with me, but before I could watch anything I got a text message from Mayuri.
[Sora! Soooora! SORA!] was written in it.
[Mayuri!] I replied.
[Sora!]
[Mayuri!?]
[Soraa…]
[Seriously Mayuri, what is it?]
[Oh, right. Sorry. Are you free next Saturday?] she asked finally.
[Uhm, I guess so. Why?]
[Great, then you'll accompany Yuri and me to the amusement park.]
[I will?]
[Pleeeaaase. Yuri asked me if I wanted to go, but I don't wanna be alone with him.]
[But it'd be like a date then. And you like him anyway.]
[T-t-t-that's n-not the point here, idiot.]
[But I'd feel like the third wheel.]
[Then ask Akira and Akane to come along.]
[Really?]
[Sora please! You're my best friend, it's your duty to help me when I'm in trouble.] she writing I was her best friend made me blush for some reason. I was happy to call Akira and her my best friends, they were very important to me.
[Okay, fine. I'll ask them.]
[Yay! Thank you Sora! Oh, but don't ask them in school. And don't talk about it either. That'd be weird for Yuri. Well okay, more for myself, but you get the idea.]
[Sure. Well then, see you tomorrow.]
[Okay, byebye.] marked the end of our little conversation.
I still had time to watch some videos before Aoi would call for dinner. I was kind of looking forward to Saturday, I wasn't in an amusement park for a long time already, that'd be a fun day I thought to myself.
And then, next Saturday came faster than I thought. And there we were standing, in front of the gates of the amusement park, all four of us. Mayuri, Yuri, me and Aoi. Things don't always turn out the way you want them to, never forget that.