Stumbling Over Love | ✓

Chapter 55

_Chapter 55~ Friend and Foe_

          His neon pink hair was nowhere to be found. Mousy brown tufts stuck out from the sides of his head, contrasting his pale and thin complexion from beneath his breathing mask and also the idling IV bag from the posterior side of his bed. Brown strands identical to the male I'd always known. Even boney and thin, Mamoru Koshiro definitely shared similarities with Miyabi Koshiro.

            A heavy silence hung in the air for a long period of time. Ryu beside me, Aki lingering by the entrance with a frown pinned onto his face; no means of words could describe the melancholy sifting within the room as we stared at the vivid truth before us.

            Ryu had taken my hand. Despite usually being overwhelmed by butterflies as a result, this time was different. I wanted to give him a reassuring squeeze, especially if the story of what I'd heard had been true. Though, with my state of mind in the torrent that it was, I found it difficult to. The reason he had always been so scared for my well-being; why he'd pushed his past behind him and attempted to channel it out by staying within his isolated barrier—all the efforts of him moving on from that and gaining hope had just come crashing down in less than a year. By people like Daichi, Miyabi and I....

"Nearly three years," Aki murmured after what seemed like forever. "And yet he still has no signs of waking up."

             "Who's been..." The words left my mouth before I could consider them.

"His dad usually stops by," Aki replied, traces of woe breaching his once impassive features. "But I talked to the receptionist. Besides us two and occasionally Raidon, apparently his other family member—which we now know as Miyabi—frequently visits him, too."

           "Why were you out right now, Miyabi?" I found myself asking.

           "Me?" Miyabi hummed. "Oh, I had plans."

           "Plans?" I asked with a quirked brow.

"I came back from seeing my brother," he responded.

The weight in my chest only inclined. As much as I wanted to thwart the formulating idea from my mind about Miyabi, I couldn't find it in me too.

That cheerful dork I'd always known; Daichi... They were involved in Ryu and Aki's past? Miyabi held a grudge against Ryu for his brother's state? I couldn't see it. Not from him, anyway. Were appearances really that deceiving?

"You were so stubborn about it in the beginning but throughout everything you started to loosen up about the most important thing: that Akelius Academy is a school of delinquents. That the students attending aren't so misunderstood and nice; that we all ended up there for a reason. Some, worse than others, but still a reason. It was hard to get you to loosen up, but I'm glad you let down your walls. You don't understand how grateful both Koshiro and I are for allowing this all to play out better than we would've thought."

"Miyabi's been a delinquent leader all throughout middle school at Heilin Middle," Aki went on, surfacing whatever information he had gathered from the day before. "Mamoru attended there for his first year, too, but switched to Hyou when he was in his second year. It doesn't add up yet, but this has to be a reason why he never brought him up around us. Oh, and that 'Sugiyama' guy also attended Heilin."

            Ryu's features scrunched up at his words. Aki scuffed his feet as a result.

            "Aniki," he eventually forced out, faint-hearted, "sorry... about what I said back then. About Koshiro's situation being your fault...."