365 Days

13

"Do you understand this?" Langa asked, tugging at Reki's sleeve. Reki leaned over to Langa's desk, looking at Langa's schoolwork. "No." Reki said blatantly, quickly going back to drawing in his notebook. Langa gave him a fazed look, blinking.

"But you're finished." Langa said, pointing at Reki's notebook. "So? Doesn't mean I understand it." Reki shrugged, keeping his eyes on his secluded notebook. As Langa pointed at the book, he leaned over more to get a better look at the doodles—which was a variety—and found himself taken aback by the amount of drawings on the paper. He knew Reki liked to draw, but Langa never stopped being surprised at them. Reki saw Langa peeking over at his notebook and closed the notebook, moving it to the side, hiding it.

"But isn't science your best subject?" Langa asked, crossing his arms on his desk and leaning on them, looking at Reki from his desk. Reki mimicked his motions, being on the same level as he talked with Langa. "I guess... but if I give you the wrong information, you'll fail because of me." Reki shrugged and Langa sighed, staying in his comfortable spot.

"Hasegawa-san, you've got a visitor." A boy said from the front of the classroom. Langa looked up from his seat and saw Itsuki approaching him and Reki. As Langa sat up straight and greeted her properly, Reki lifted his head, veering his focus back to his doodles. "Hello." Langa waved, giving her a soft smile and she bowed her head slightly in response.

"What bring you here?" Langa asked as she took a sat down in the empty seat in front of Reki. "Are you transferring into this class?" He ponder aloud to her and she chuckled shaking her head. Reki chewed on his tongue keeping himself from saying anything.

"Don't do anything stupid, Reki." He thought to himself.

"No, I just wanted to come see you." She shrugged and Langa raised his eyebrows in surprise. It wasn't that Langa didn't want to see her, it was just odd from someone else other than his mother and Reki to want to see him for no reason, but it was nice. "Oh... well, I'm not done with schoolwork yet, so I can't talk right now." Langa said, awkwardly rejecting her. Reki bounced his leg as he continued to listen to the strained conversation.

"But he can hang out later." Reki answered for Langa, making Itsuki look to Reki, smiling. "Oh, you can?" She exclaimed, with a hopeful shimmer in her eyes. Langa smiled at her excitement, covering his mouth to hold back his giggle. "I guess so, but I do have an a last extra shift at work today..." Langa trailed out his sentence, thinking. At last, he finally popped up with an idea, turning to his torso towards Reki.

"Why don't you take her somewhere and I'll meet you guys there when I'm done with work." Langa suggested and Reki's stomach dropped to the what seemed like the core of the earth as he plastered the most realistic fake smile he could manage on his face and nodded in agreement. "Sure, I can do that—if she's okay with it." He said as he turned to Itsuki, begging to the universe to make her say no. Unfortunately, the universe hates him.

-

Reki waited at the front of the school, feeling the anxiety of spending more than an hour with Langa's not-girlfriend crawling up into the roots of his hair down to the soles of his shoes. As he impatiently waited, his phone buzzed and he opened it to see a notification from the last person he wanted to talk to.

Shiro: Hey.

He sighed as he typed out a new text to send to him.

Reki: What do you want?

Shiro: Can you be a little nicer to me? You promised you would.

Reki scoffed as he read Shiro's texts, aggressively typing out his response.

Reki: For starters, I saved your life, but don't think we're best buds. Second, I promised I would meet you, nothing more. Don't start getting hopeful.