HAYATO's Revenge

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

"Ichinose-san, wait!" In the midst of desparation, Haruka grabbed Tokiya's arm tightly. Yet, due to what she felt as their skins touched, she let him go right away.

For seconds, Haruka catching her breath was the sound between them. She did not expect him to say anything since Tokiya might want to spend some time alone before she decided to be a busybody but...

To wait for her to catch her breath might take a while since Haruka was not an athletic person to begin with. At the end, Tokiya might get bored and decide to leave again.

"You must be tired," the idol might share the same thought with her when despite his emotional wreck, he turned to check her condition. "I am sorry, Nanami-san. Are you okay?"

"That's... that's what I am about to ask you, Ichinose-san," finally could stand straight, her eyes met his. It was cool, calm, collected and any adjective that described the same feeling. It looked like he just came back from a convenience store instead of declaring that he wanted to leave his band. "Are you okay, Ichinose-san?"

"I will talk into Saotome-san about my withdrawal so I should be fine."

"No, no... that's not what I meant," she said. "Why would you quit STARISH out of the blue? You belong to the band, Ichinose-san."

"Do you really think so, Nanami-san?" One of his eyebrows was lifted but for her, he did it to conceal how broken he truly felt inside. "Even when HAYATO is over there and can fit in easily?"

"But... but it's just HAYATO-kun's personality, right?" Haruka reasoned out immediately. "He is HAYATO, the one who was supposed to fit in easily. You cannot just decide on that just because you think HAYATO-kun has a better chemistry with them."

"But, they don't want me to be with them anymore," Tokiya said. "I guess a person like me cannot perform a good teamwork given how stuck-up I am."

"But, you have tried so hard, right, Ichinose-san," she said. Her soft but frustrated voice was never Tokiya's cup of tea. To make such a nice girl to feel upset with him, he must had been so mean that even the sunshine Otoya also had reached his breaking point. "All I can see from you is you always work hard. Kotobuki-san even told me that you lack sleep way too much because you take your career seriously. Now that you just want to leave everything that you have given up for, I feel sad, Ichinose-san. It broke my heart because I don't want you to suffer anymore."

Man, he had hurt those people around him when they did not even reach a year yet since their debut. What was wrong with him?

He had been so absorbed into Haruka's sudden confession and what he had done to his friends that when Ringo and Hyuga showed up and being suspicious of them...

He was still clueless and could not explain himself.

Which was one of the reasons why he and Haruka ended up in Saotome's office.

"No, it's not about that!" For the first time, Saotome was yelled at by his composer. Even Haruka's voice did not sound harsh but it did not feel pleasant at all to be literally scolded by his own employee. "We didn't do anything."

"Really? Why did you touch him like you have an unspokable feeling to him, Nanami-san? Why would you flinch like you just got electric shock from holding his arm?" Saotome said which sent Hyuga and Ringo secretly looked at each other from his sides.

We just told him that Haru-chan and Tokiya-chan looked suspicious, right? Ringo thought.

Yeah, we didn't say anything about the electric shock part. Could it be... he had watched them from the start? Hyuga mentally replied.