Chapter 10

"Hmm?"

Kaito picked up a jacket that was laying across one of the chairs in the dining room and looked at it curiously. It was too small to be his, that was for sure, and the only other person who had been in his apartment recently was Meiko. He figured she must've left it here by mistake after her visit last night. Kaito glanced over at the clock on the wall and saw that it was a little past ten at night. Since it wasn't really that late, he decided he could just stop by Meiko's house real quick and give it back to her. Meiko might need it, what with the cooler weather and all.

Putting on a light coat of his own, Kaito headed out into the city. He hadn't been out this late in a while, and the light coming from the street lamps cast odd shadows that made familiar objects look strange and foreign. Although some people might've found walking by yourself at night disturbing, Kaito actually thought it was kind of relaxing. There weren't as many people out at night, and it was much quieter than it was in the daytime. Lately, Kaito had been having less tolerance for people, which he supposed was justified in a way. Really, the only people he liked right now were Miku, Meiko, and (although he was a little hesitant to admit this) SeeU. If he actually saw Rin more than once every month or so, he supposed he wouldn't mind her presence either.

Thinking about this made Kaito realize he didn't really have any guy friends, and he scoffed a bit in dry amusement as he walked. For some reason, he'd never been really close to any guys growing up. Sure, he'd been friends with multiple male classmates before, but the only friend that ever stuck with him for more than a year was Meiko. It was certainly nice having Meiko around, but every now and then even Kaito wanted a male friend to hang out with. Maybe he was just bad at making friends and, by some miracle, had managed to get Meiko at some point. Who knows.

Kaito soon found himself at Meiko's doorstep, and his wishful thoughts vanished from his mind. He may have been blunt, but he certainly wasn't an honest person by any means, yet even he had to admit that he didn't need any more friends than the ones he had. Both Meiko and, yes, SeeU were good to him, and Kaito guessed that he was here now returning a jacket that he probably could've waited until tomorrow to give back for that very reason. Kaito raised his hand and knocked on the door three times before stepping back to wait for an answer. A few seconds passed without a response, so he knocked three times once more. Again, he was met with silence. Frowning slightly to himself, Kaito decided to try turning the knob to see if the door was open. Sure enough, it swung open without any resistance. Kaito stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind him, feeling a sense of concern start to well up inside of him.

"Meiko?" Kaito called as he began to wander around his friend's house.

There was only silence for a few seconds in response, before a loud crash that sounded like glass shattering echoed throughout the halls. Kaito jumped, startled from the loud noise, then ran toward the source of the sound as a whole new sense of worry bubbled up. Oh god, Meiko, please be alright! he thought to himself, feeling both anxious and panicked at the same time. Finally, he arrived at Meiko's bedroom, where he thought the sound had originated from. Without a moment's hesitation, he threw open the door and stepped inside. The room was very dark, but he could make out the distinct figure of Meiko passed out on the bed and shards of what appeared to be glass of some kind on the floor, glinting with light from the hallway.

"Meiko!" Kaito yelled as he hurried over to her side.

He shook the brunette rather forcefully, until she finally responded by giving a pretty irritated sounding groan. Kaito sighed in relief and leaned back, careful not to make any contact with the glass. Meiko mumbled something while squirming around a bit (was she trying to get up? It was hard to tell), but Kaito couldn't quite make out what it was supposed to be.

"What? Speak up, I can't hear you. And what happened here, anyway?" Kaito said, furrowing his brows in confusion.

"I said, what the hell are you doing here?" Meiko replied curtly as she finally managed to sit up, though she seemed to be... slurring her words?

"What?!" Kaito exclaimed in surprise. "I was worried sick thinking you were dead and that's your response?! What kind of-" He suddenly stopped talking mid-sentence as he noticed something.

Along with Meiko's newfound speech impendiment, her face was also oddly red, and she had a sort of dazed expression on. Also, upon closer inspection, the glass shards all over the ground appeared as if they had come from some sort of beer bottle.

"Wait a minute..." Kaito started slowly, staring at Meiko as a look of realization dawned on his face. "Don't tell me you're drunk."

"So what if I am?" Meiko slurred while giving him a sharp glare. "What's it to you?"

"Jesus Christ, Meiko... I can't believe this..." Kaito put his face in his hands and shook his head in disbelief.

Meiko wasn't normally a heavy drinker, she hadn't been since the end of her alcoholic period in high school, so this was very unusual for her. In fact, ever since her rehabilitation, she had even despised the idea of getting drunk. Sure, a few light drinks here and there was fine by her standards, but getting completely wasted like this? It repulsed her. Something was seriously wrong with Meiko if she had gone back to her old drinking habits. Kaito looked up at her again, locking his blue eyes with her brown ones, and tried to see if he could find any clue to her sudden change of behavior there. All he saw was his own puzzled reflection.

"I thought you hated getting drunk," Kaito pointed out, hoping to get some answers from her.

Meiko shrugged nonchalantly. "Drinking is drinking. Doesn't matter if it's a lot or a little, right?"

She reached over to grab a new bottle from the desk, but Kaito quickly snatched it away from her with an irritated expression.

"No, that's not right, you even said so yourself! You're the one that always critisized me for drinking too much whenever we went to the bar together!" he nearly yelled.

"Well, who cares? We all say dumb shit sometimes, so just let it go!" Meiko spat and narrowed her eyes viciously.

"But that's not dumb! That's probably the most responsible thing anyone's ever said to me, even if I thought it was just annoying at the time!" Kaito argued.

Meiko made a "tch" sound in annoyance, but Kaito ignored her and continued speaking, trying to keep his voice level as he did.

"Meiko, please, listen to me. This isn't like you. Whatever you say, whatever you believe, deep down we both know that this is not something you'd normally do. Go ahead, look at me in contempt and loathe my very existence right now, I don't care. I've already gone past the point of caring about anything like that. Hell, I went past that point when Miku was thrown into that damn hospital. And if you're even half as smart as I think you are, then I know you know this too." Kaito paused for a moment, noting Meiko's silence, not exactly compliance, just silence, before continuing. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I need you to tell me why you're acting like this. The Meiko I know is a good person, stubborn as all hell once she makes up her mind, and has very strong ideals that she sticks to. But this Meiko in front of me... she looks empty, drained of every hopeful and vibrant part of her. I don't want that kind of Meiko, though. I want the Meiko that I became friends with all those years ago, the one who's supported me all this time, the one I hate to admit I couldn't live without..."

Kaito let out a shaky chuckle as his voice trailed off, thinking he sounded like the sappiest human being on the face of the earth. Still, he couldn't help it if all those things were true and just simply poured out from his mouth before he even knew it. He never spoke openly about his feelings to anyone, even Meiko, so it felt both strange and relieving in a sense to ramble on like this. Yet, at the same time, it left this unbearable pain in his chest that he tried very hard not to familiarate himself with.

"Damn it, Meiko... Don't you realize that if you go off and do something stupid that leaves you dead I'll be all alone?" Kaito's voice quivered as he said this, ever so softly, just loud enough to be heard.

Meiko sat there staring at him, looking less irritated and more solemn. Neither of them said anything for a good minute or two, before Meiko finally opened her mouth.

"So, at heart, you really are still the crybaby from back then, huh?" she let out a soft, slightly amused laugh.

"Huh?" Kaito looked at her in surprise before wiping at his eyes to see if her accusations were true. When he looked down, the edge of his hand was wet.

"I remember how back in middle school, you got teased a lot, and I'd always find you sitting in the corner of the playground sniffling to yourself like a little kid. Of course, I'd always go yell at whatever kid had made you cry this time, and you'd just blush in embarrassment and tell me I was being brash again," Meiko recalled fondly, now chuckling with real mirth.

Kaito couldn't help but smile faintly as well. "You really were, though. The second I told you what happened you'd run off to go chew out that day's poor victim. Sometimes I actually felt bad for them, you know?"

Meiko laughed. "Well yeah, they were always terrified by the time I finished yelling at them! Of course, I thought the looks on their faces were priceless!" She continued laughing for a few moments, before it died down into a content sigh and a smile. "Man, I was such a badass."

"Yeah, yeah," Kaito agreed in a sort of joke-mockery.

He sat down on the edge of the bed beside Meiko, and they fell silent again. The silence was only broken by a yawn that escaped Meiko's mouth after a couple of minutes had passed, and Kaito looked over at her with a faint smile.

"Come on, why don't you get some rest now? The sooner you sleep, the sooner we can deal with that hangover of yours in the morning," Kaito suggested, adding the last part jokingly.

"But I don't wanna~!" Meiko whined like a child, flopping down onto the mattress so that she was now looking up at the ceiling.

Kaito rolled his eyes and tossed the blanket over her, earning an exclamation of protest from the brunette. "Whatever, just go to sleep. If it makes you feel any better, I'll stay here too, alright?"

Meiko gave a displeased grumble, but she didn't exactly make an open protest against it. Kaito took this as a sign of compliance and laid down beside her with a soft chuckle. Despite claiming she didn't want to go to sleep, it took only mere minutes before Meiko was out like a light.

"Geez, it really is like looking after a child," Kaito muttered to himself. With a sigh, he turned his head to gaze up at the ceiling, before smiling faintly again. "Though, since it's you, it's not too hard to tolerate..."

Kaito closed his eyes, finally realizing just how tired he actually was, and soon drifted off into a pleasant sleep as well. And there the two friends lay, side by side, both indulging in their dreams that would soon slip away into a cruel yet rewarding reality.

A/N: NO, THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP OF ANY KIND, THEY'RE JUST REALLY GOOD FRIENDS, OKAY? OKAY. Anyway, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I wanna say that I'm pretty pleased with this chapter. It was a real pain to write since I kept getting stuck every few paragraphs, but in the end I think it turned out well. I planned to have something like this happen ever since I began this story, and now it has, so yay! Also, I'm really sorry for taking so long to update, it's just that this chapter was pretty difficult to write like I said and I got caught up with school work a lot of the time. So, please tell me what you think of this chapter or the story as a whole, I'd love to hear your opinion!

Have a great day/night/whatever~