Chapter 15
Time went by faster than expected that week. I suspected that it had felt like that because I had not done much else than work late every single day, which meant all I had been really doing for the last couple of days were sleep, eat and work so when Friday was suddenly the next day appearing on my calender, I was both surprised and relived at the same time. It would be good to finally get some time off. I still had to work the next Sunday, though, but I would have the entire Saturday to do whatever I wanted to do so at least that was better than nothing, right?
After work, I shopped some groceries before going home to my empty apartment. It was nothing like the busy supermarket. There was people everywhere every second of the day. If Kakashi had not been so easy to spot, because of his mask, I would not have been so lucky with avoiding him in a place like that. I had noticed that Anko had picked him up after work more than just once that week, which made me wonder if they were actually serious about dating each other. It seemed like it, but I could not imagine Kakashi being in a steady relationship. Holy crap, I just caught myself wondering what it would be like to be in a relationship with him, why did thoughts like that keep popping up in my head?
I shook my head ferociously so the thought would have lost its grip on me if it had actually been a thing that clung to the outside of my head. Stop thinking about those things, Iruka! Let's have a quiet, Kakashi-less weekend, okay? I sighed because I knew a day like that would not be possible. Well, the least I could do was try.
The groceries I had bought had been placed on the shelves inside the kitchen cupboards and in the fridge in no time. I did not really have anything else to do that day, besides from cleaning since the house was eagerly awaiting for me to remove the dust it contained, but I was not really up for that. With a bump, I sat down on a chair in the kitchen, leaning over the kitchen table and placing my head on it. Who were I kidding? This was not going to be a nice a quiet weekend. My mind would not be able to stop racing over the same questions I had had since that last Friday. Instead, this was going to be a boring, lonely weekend where I would not do anything else than sleep and think, which would only make me even more scared to face Kakashi. I knew that the longer I stayed away from him, the harder it would become for me to overcome my fear of completely admitting, to myself, everything that had happened.
I looked up from my arms that had wrapped around my head, resting my chin on the table. My laptop stood only a few centimeters away from me. I never managed to pull myself together and switch it back on from standby mode and I figured it had gone out by itself by now. At least I would not have to deal with that website. It was not that that I was not still curious about some of the subject that the site took up, I just was not ready for the visual images. I did not know if I would ever be ready for them, though, since I did not know how far I was willing to go with a man and if I would ever be with one again. I just needed to get to know myself a little better and I guess the only way to do that is to try some stuff out.
Something vibrated inside my pocket so I stuck my hand inside it quickly and slid my mobile phone out of it before it stopped vibrating. It was just a message, but from an unknown number?
12 Riberaru. The party starts at 23:00 o'clock.
Hidan
I had happily forgotten that this was the night where Hidan's party took place. I had kind of promised him that I would be there, but I still was not sure whether or not to go. There were so many downsides to both staying at home and going to the party. Well, I guess there was some upsides too. Maybe I should make a list and then decide?
Quickly, I found a piece of paper and a pen, sitting back down at the dinner table. Okay, so a list is going to decide if I should go or not. This could become interesting. I usually just kept those thoughts inside my mind, but solving the problem this way would be a nice change. Maybe it would even be a better way of doing it since I constantly took the wrong choices when figuring out what to do in my mind. Like if I had not went to the party Kakashi had asked me to come to, I would never have gotten myself into this confusing mess. I chose to snuggle with that girl instead of just following my common sense, which had gotten me a black eye. Last, but not least, I would not have started to question my own sexuality if I had just went home or slept on the couch after reaching Kakashi's apartment. Getting it all down on a piece of paper seemed like a good idea, it might help me get a better view of my options and so I began writing.
Downsides and upside to staying home:
+ I won't get myself into further trouble
+ I get to relax and reflect on everything so that I won't take any drastic decisions later on
+ I won't have a hangover on my day off
+ I can sleep
I sighed loudly. That last argument was pretty lame, but I was running out of upsides. This list was going to be shorter than I had thought it would be, but maybe that was just how it was when you argued with yourself on paper - you got lazy.
For a few minutes, I just sat with my cheek resting in one palm, scribbling near the edges of the paper. I could not come up with any more upsides no matter how long I kept scribbling. But when one of my abstract drawings started looking like Kakashi, only Kami knows why, I finally moved on and wrote down the downsides to staying home.
- I'm going to be bored
- I won't get to socialize or experience anything out of the ordinary
- I will appear like a lonely loser
- I will break my promise to Hidan
- I won't get the chance to come closer to Kakashi's friends
- I won't get to spend time with Kakashi
- If I don't show up, they are probably never going to invite me again
- I will probably never figure out what this mysterious feeling I have is until I come out of my shell and start exploring things, which means I'll have to get over myself and my paranoia and just walk up to Kakashi and talk to him. If he can act like nothing ever happened, so can I
I leaned back against the back rest of the chair and stared at what I had written. There was definitely more downsides than upsides to staying home. And the last written arguments seemed stronger than than the ones above.
I scratched the side of my head and tried to figure out what to do next. I was in doubt of some of the arguments. Like the one saying that I would not get to spend time with Kakashi. It was written as an upside to going to the party, but did I really think of it as an upside, or did I? The whole reason why I had avoided him for almost a week was because I did not want to talk to him - you know the reasons - but I still wanted to spend time with him? I had not been thinking when making the list, I just wrote the first things coming to my mind so was this how I really felt? I still wanted to pursue him? This made things even harder to figure out.
I wanted to go, but I wanted to stay home. I wanted to talk to Kakashi, but neither did I want to talk to him. I wanted to find out what my true feelings were towards him, but on the other hand, I would rather not. This was an impossible decision for me to make. Sometimes I wished that I had some kind of magic ball that could make my decisions for me. There were even upsides and downsides to my arguments, Kami! Though, those down- and upsides were mostly a question of putting myself out there in a position where I could get hurt or not putting myself out there so that I would be secure. It was a question of taking a chance.
This could only be solved in one way; I had to give my arguments points. The higher a score, the better an argument. So it should go from one to ten where ten was only given to the best arguments. Right, that should do it.
It did not take me long to give all the arguments on the paper points, though I had been unsure of what to give some of them. The results were as followed:
(Staying home)
Upsides: 26 points
Downsides: 41 points
I had given the individual downsides relatively low scores, but because there were so many of them, they still won. Only one upside and one downside had been given 10 points; the second upside and the last downside. My arguments had not been that strong after all then. It was hard to give point when I was not sure of how much I agreed with every single one of them. Well, at least I had not given all of them five points or something like that so I had to give myself some credit. I reached a conclusion and that was the important thing since that was what I was aiming for, right? Oh Kami, did I really have to go to that party?
No, Iruka! You can not start questioning the results. The pen has spoken!
I had to stop myself from going into another quarrel before it was too late. A decision had been made and now I had to do it. I was not going to tug my tail between my legs this time. I had to go through with it for my own sake.
"Oh man," I muttered under my breath, getting up on my feet and mooching into the bathroom to get myself ready. This had to be the first time ever where I had been this impulsive.
oOo
I did not exactly know where this Riberaru lane was located, but I was pretty sure it was somewhere outside the village. It was not a big deal, though, since I did not have any car or bicycle, I would just take the bus and I could ask the bus driver to drop me off once we were there.
The drive was short, as expected, but I was stunned to see the kind of house Hidan was supposed to live in. It was huge, which was actually and understatement. It was a big three floored, solid brick house that took up a lot of space, but the plot itself was even bigger. I had seen this house a few times before when traveling from the village to one of the bigger cities, but I had always thought that it was a government institution of some kind. It did not look like a Japanese house, though, it had this American style over it.
I had never imagined that it was private ground and I sure did not expect someone like Hidan to be living in it. Was he rich? By the look of his mansion, he had to be, but then why was he such a big sponger? This made absolutely no sense to me.
When I stepped out of the bus, the music coming from the house became louder. I was around 45 minutes late so the party was probably already in full swing. At least that was what it sounded like. I walked through the already open black gate, which was even taller than me, with astonishment and followed the gray, stone path, walking past the large amount of cars that was parked outside the white mansion.
"Holy crap," I whispered to myself as I got up close to the house and realized just how big it was.
"Pretty impressive, huh?" someone who walked up beside me said in a confident tone. I turned my head and my eyes fell on a platinum blond man in his twenties who was flashing his teeth in a wide smile.
"I had no idea that you lived in a house like this one. It's so... big?" how I put it was kind of rude and I did not know if Hidan took it as an insult or not, but I was just so overwhelmed that I had to speak my mind.
"Nah, it's my parent's house and I guess they went a little overboard when building it."
"A little?" I said, my voice going into a higher pitch than I had meant for it to do, knocking on one of the walls to feel how strong the foundation was, "This must have cost a fortune," I looked back at Hidan who just shrugged his shoulders.
"I guess so, but they aren't looking to sell so it's really not that important."
"It's really, really impressive. Were your parents inspired by America when building it?" I glanced up at the building in front of me, admiring the yellowish decorations that swirled in a beautiful pattern all around the façade of the house.
"I guess you can say that. My mother is Japanese and my father is pure American. As you can see, I get my good Japanese looks from my mother and my staggering American charm from my father," he winked at me before pushing me forward towards the door, "Enough about me, let's get inside!"
Many things went through my mind as he motioned for me to open the door. I had never noticed that Hidan did not look all that Japanese. He was a little taller than the average Japanese man and his hair was too fair. Other than that, all his greasy hair had been combed back both times I had seen him, which was not a common hair style for a Japanese guy at his age. I wondered if he was actually half albino or something since his irises were slightly reddish.
Besides from wondering about Hidan's appearance, I was desperately trying not to show my embarrassment over myself – it was not until now that I had noticed how old I had sounded when talking about his house. Seriously, I had sounded like an old man in comparison to Hidan and I did not even get that I was in the middle of making a fool out of myself when he had been all indifferent about my irrelevant questions. Suddenly, for some unknown reason, it mattered to me that Hidan did not think of me as some nerd now that I knew he was wealthy.
oOooOooOo
Lol, I was not sure if I had checked which unit of measurement they used in Japan, but luckily for me, they use the metric system, which is the system we use in Denmark and the system I have used in this story. What a great coincidence! (- unless I had checked it already? Well, no matter what, this makes it a hell of a lot easier for me :D...)
Okay, so our little Iruka is at a party yet again, but under new conditions.. How will this work out for him and will he get anything out of going, or will it be a disaster yet again?
Questions, questions... At least I updated faster this time than some of the other times :D I think I'll have some time to write again tomorrow^^ So the next chapter should be up soon.. And I'm happy to be able to say that I have finally gotten the entire storyline down so that it should not get in my way of finishing this story! - which won't happen any time soon..
That's all for now.. I appreciate comments very much and I would love to see what you think of the story.. Also, we are getting close to the 50th review = one shot for the lucky girl/guy writing that fiftieth review..
So, I'll see you all later (soon, hopefully!) Thank you for reading, you people are awesome :D!