will I ever be enough? (sk8 the infinity story)

chap. 5 - 1,353 words

4:06 pm. Thursday.

I've decided to just stand here and wait for a moment. I noticed what they were talking about.

They were talking about me. It wasn't anything bad. The topic was just me. How I was as a brother, a friend, what's been happening, and stuff like that.

"So, is Reki a good babysitter?" Langa started the conversation back up.
"Best I've ever seen." Koyomi said without hesitation. Which made me smile. "He involves himself in whatever we're doing, unless we don't want him to. He doesn't push limits, he respects boundaries, is happy to do anything, and he is really trying his best." Koyomi smiled as she talked.

There was a pause before the conversation picked up again.

This time Koyomi started it, "I think he's been trying too hard with no break. I mean, he just fell today. No prior indication, it was fast and scary. Thank you for coming when I called."
Langa, embarrassed, laughed a bit. "I'll always come over whenever."

"Anything else that we didn't already go over?" Langa asked, looking over at the couch.
"Yea..uhh.." Koyomi was obviously nervous about asked Langa about whatever she's going to say.
Langa looked back almost immediately to show he was listening.
"Maybe I'll ask his boss about it instead. Just in case." Koyomi smiled and waved the topic off.

Ah, it was probably about my depression. I haven't told anyone other than Oka and my close family. Cherry and Joe probably realized after our talk on Sunday. Not sure if Langa figured it out or not.

Langa was about to reach the couch so I have to run back to the bathroom and act like I wasn't just eavesdropping.

Just a minute later, Langa walked over.
"There you are! We were just looking for you." Langa walks up a bit closer, so he can whisper.
"Oh really? Wait, what are you doing here?" I asked. Gotta act clueless cause I did not hear anything they said.
"Oh um. You don't remember? You fell from a tree so Koyomi called me."
"Oh. Are the girls okay?" I assumed Koyomi was okay because she was walking around, but the twins were asleep. It should be about their nap time, it looks to be late afternoon.

"Yes, everyone is safe. Are you okay?" Langa held eye contact, which made me look away.

"Yea, it's not problem. Uh.." But before I could come up with something to say, Langa stopped me. "Reki, please tell me the truth. I know something is going on. I'm hear for you, I promise." He put his hand up, in our handshake circle. I could only smile at him and hold my side of our handshake.

"What time is it?" I started our new conversation.
"Uh, around 4:30 now. Why?" Langa answered softy while looking at his watch.
"The girls should be woken up now, so they are still able to be tired for bed."

I started to walk to the couch. Langa didn't follow..so I stopped.
"You coming?" I asked him, but he didn't turn his head towards me.
"Langa?" Still no answer. I walked closer to him, and went to tap him on the shoulder. However before I could do that, he started speaking suddenly.
"You'd tell me if something was bothering you, would you?"

My hand fell back to my side.
"Of course I would. You're my best friend, I want to tell you everything."
He mumbled something under his breathe that I couldn't catch, but then he just turned and started walking towards the couch.

Is he angry with me?
Did I mess something up?
I'm such an idiot.
Why couldn't I just reach out for him?
Such a bother.

"Reki?" Langa's voice rung through my head for a couple seconds.
"Yea?" I looked back to the kitchen, where he was with Koyomi.
"Do the twins like scrabbled eggs? I can make some." He already had an apron on.
"Yes they do! They would enjoy that every much, I hope!" I smiled at the both of them as I turned to wake up the twins.

"Nanaka, Chihiro. Wake up time!" I said kinda quietly while patting their heads.
They stirred for a briefly before loudly stretching their arms up.
"Hi brother.." Chihiro yawned out.
"Reki!" Nanaka bounced up to give me a hug.

"Would you two like some eggs?" I softly asked. That question got both of them awake.
"Yes! Yes!" Nanaka cheered as Chihiro moved for me to hold her.
I lifted Chihiro and Nanaka wanted to walk next to us.

We walked to the kitchen, next to Koyomi.
"Do you girls want to go play in your room with me?" Koyomi patted them on their heads.
"Let's go!" Nanaka ran to her room to get her favorite toys.
I put Chihiro down so she could run, but she still looked exhausted. She just walked next to Koyomi to her room.

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6:46 pm.

We're all watching tv now. We've already eaten dinner, thanks to Langa's astonishing cooking, and played a lot. Mom should be home in about an hour and 15 minutes. The twins can stay up till she gets here. Though, they're getting tired already. Koyomi is already asleep on the side of the chair. Luckily, the twins are sitting on top of me and not near Koyomi. Langa looks so awkward, he's just sitting there while my legs are over him.

Chihiro already fell asleep, Nanaka is on the brink of falling asleep. I handed him the remote, in case he wanted to change the channel. He looked at me timid eyes, he looked worried.
"Could we talk later, please?" He mumbled.
"Of course we can, you let me know what time you'd like to." I did a pity smile back of him. I've never been good at comforting people.

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8:18 pm.

Mom finally came home. Langa's spending the night because he said he wanted to ask me something before we actually got ready.
"Can we talk now?" Langa asked, barely above a whisper.
"Mhm!" I sat up so he could see I was attentive.

He paused for a couple moments, choosing the right words to say.
"Are you hiding stuff from me?" He asked, not looking up. His eyes flashed with panic as he tried to re-word what he asked. "I mean if you are it's okay! You don't have to tell me everything! I just want to make sure you know that I'm here for you! I don't want things to end up like last time."

"I'm not, I promise." I mean technically I'm not hiding it from him. It's just not able to be seen and hasn't been brought up.
"Okay, I trust you. How's your health? Mental health, I mean." He seemed a bit more confident in asking questions.
"It's been more or less, to say." What a stupidly vague answer.
"Hm, do you think we could go to 'S' tonight? It's completely fine if not!" Langa asked like that was the question he wanted to ask. Maybe I'm overthinking it.
"What day is tomorrow, again?" I looked off to the distance of the window.
"It's a Friday. 'S' starts at 11:30 tonight and goes till 1 a.m. tomorrow." Langa answered, hope could be heard in his voice.

Friday, huh?

I looked over to see Langa's eager face. I couldn't say no to him.
"Mhm! We can go!" I smiled with dread.

And with that we went to sleep for about 2 hours.

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10:47 pm.

Langa and I are now walking to the restaurant to meet up with everyone. I'm getting kind of worried. I haven't seen that eerie bird in a while. And Friday at 12:08 a.m. in only a couple hours away.

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11:27 pm.

We're almost to 'S' now, thanks to Shadow's car. People are piled at the fence, waiting to get in. We end up sitting in the car until the crowd goes down, with was like 5 minutes.
We finally got in, and guess who we see standing on the stage..