• our fading futures • akitoya • REWRITE BEGINNING SOON

• harmful truth •

'TWS: mention of hospitalisation'

{POV: An}

{After school, before the death of Saki Tenma.}

My heart was all full of emotion. I was practically gliding up the stairs to my locker as I thought of Kohane. She was so cute, and now she was all mine! I'd been like this all day.
I'd had to spend lunch with Akito, who was grumpy as per usual, like I didn't expect anything less. He complained less when Toya was around. It was a shame he had to do something or other.
Basically, all that lunch I was ranting about Kohane and Akito was complaining. But still, a reaction lingered from while we were talking...
{Lunch time}
"Kohane blushed soooo much when I asked her out! Her whole face was bright red! She was super adorable!" I said, continuing my rant. It had been 5 minutes, more or less since we had decided to sit down and eat together. "I don't know why I'm hanging out with you. Stop talking about her." He huffed, but his words seemed a little sad.
"You seem sad. What's wrong? You know you can tell me about anything." I said, stopping the flow of words from my mouth. "Nothing." He murmured. He still seemed sad. "Akito, you know we're practically siblings. You can tell me anything." I said, looking at him with my smile fading from my face.
He looked back at me and said nothing. "Come on, who's it about?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "Ena? Tsukasa? Rui? Or could it be Toya?" He stayed relatively blank for all those names, except for a slight furrow of his eyebrows at his sister's name.
"Promise this is gonna be our secret." He said in a grumble. "Cause I know you won't shut up about it." I nod. "Course." I smile. "Sooo? What is it?" I tilt my head.
"I think I might be bisexual or whatever." Akito says with a sigh. My jaw drops wide open. "You- what? You're like, the straightest guy I know!" I say, slightly panicking. "Yeah. There was a kid from my year six class, you probably don't know him, but it turns out I liked him. I saw him recently with my sister and... Yeah. That's when it hit me." He said, his face slightly red.
I'm still shellshocked from this news. "You're not joking?" I say, double checking. "No." He murmurs. He seemed embarrassed. "Well, I guess now we can change our name to Vivid Gay Squad..." I laughed, and saw Akito chuckle slightly. "I guess so." He said.
"I'm hungry." He added on, going back to eat. I rewinded that conversation in my head. It was odd he flinched when he said his sister's name... "How's Ena?" I asked. He raised his back slightly, but then went back to eating. "Pretty good." He said. He still seemed a small bit sad. I decided I'd talk to him about it later, and started eating too.
{After school}
As I made my way down the stairs, I spotted Akito. "Yo!" I yelled, turning a few heads. I ran over to him, who looked disgusted. "Don't yell in the middle of the school, idiot!" He whispered in my ear grumpily. I shot a smirk at him.
Toya caught up with both of us outside. "I'm very sorry I couldn't be there at lunch." Akito shrugged. "No biggie, I guess." He said, with a slight smile. I guess I would have annoyed him half to death at lunch. He should be grateful Toya's here.
"Hurry up, we need to go see Kohane!" I complained, walking towards the school gates. Thoughts of her filled my head. Her blonde hair, her eyes... Toya noticed me blushing and said, "You two are really blushing more than usual today."
"Am I?" Akito asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Mhm. Didn't you realise yourself?" Toya said, placing one hand on his hip. "I-I might be coming down with a fever." Akito mumbled. I took note of that. He was acting increasingly suspicious.
We walked out of school, and to the bus stop we meet Kohane at. I ran over to her and scooped her up in a big hug. "Hey, Kohane! I missed you sooo much!" I said, feeling the warmth of her body against me. "Hello, An-chan!" She said with a smile. I felt my heart melting. "You're such a cutie, you know?" I smiled. "Ah, An-" She said with a large blush.
Suddenly, I realised the other two were standing behind us. "Congratulations, Kohane." Toya smiled. "She finally asked you." I turned to him. "You guys were planning this the whole time?" Kohane nodded, with a blush. "Yeah... We thought you and Shinonome-kun shared secrets between you, so we decided to share some of our own. Aoyagi-kun helped me a lot to start hinting I liked you."
My eyes drifted to him, the faintest of smiles on his lips. "I read a few books and told her about the content. Nothing too outstanding." He said in his usual solemn manner. "I haven't got to thanking you properly. Thanks a lot!" Kohane smiled. Toya's smile grew. "It's no big deal. I'm just glad you're happy." He said, tilting his head slightly.
"Let's get going. I've had enough of this sappy stuff." Akito complained, unsurprisingly. I smirked. "You jealous or something?" Akito looked practically shocked. "I-why would I be jealous? Don't accuse me of stuff like that!" He grumbled. His face did go slightly red though. I decided to consult Toya about this later.
We began our walk to Vivid Street, and to Rad Weekend. I wiped my shoes on the store mat, even though it was sunny outside. "Hey, Dad!" I yelled. My dad was behind the counter, serving a couple who looked like jazz musicians.
"Hey, An. How was school?" He said in his usual laid back manner of speaking. "The usual." I said. My class felt empty ever since... that. "But no homework today, surprisingly." My dad smiled. "That's always good, huh? You can slack off for a bit." I scowled jokingly at him. "I wouldn't call it slacking off, I'd call it... Recuperation. And, I want to spend more time with Kohane now that we're dating!" I was silently thankful that my dad supported us. Someone like Toya's dad would disown him or something. He kind of had already, though. Poor kid.
"The usual?" Dad asked us. We all nodded. We walked over to our usual diner style booth, assuming our usual positions. Then, we got into business. "Our next event is at a small live house, right? RELAXX, right?" Kohane asked. "Yeah, so there isn't that much to stress about. We don't have much big performances either." I shrugged, looking at her cute face.
I resisted the urge to squeeze her into a little Kohane-ball. "We should change the set list up a little." Akito suggested. He was nice-ish when he was talking about something he was passionate about, like music, or when he was talking to Toya, for some reason. Toya... That reminds me.
"Hey, Toya. I wanna talk about songs with you if that's fine. Maybe outside?" I said, trying not to be suspicious. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly. "Sure?" He said. That was such a bad lie...
He got up out of his seat, and I did too. We walked behind the restrooms to the outside dining area. "Alright. I have a few things to tell you about your singing partner." He nodded. "As in what?" Toya asked. "Uhh, I don't know how to say this gently, but he might like... As in, love, like you." I said, feeling slightly guilty.
"You're saying you think he has a crush on me?" He murmured. "Come to think of it, he was acting really... odd at recess. He said he had a fever, but his face went from pale to red and to pale again. I don't think that's a fever symptom." I shrugged. "I'm no doctor, but that's totally him blushing."
Toya sighed. "I need to be 100 percent sure, though. And I don't know if I like him back or not right now." I nodded. "If you need help with anything, I can drop a few hints to help find his real feelings, like you helped Kohane do. A favour for a favour." I smiled, and his face stayed blank. "It's been a long day... We should go back inside. It's getting cold." He said, opening the door for me.
Us two sat back down, and we glanced at each other knowingly. Our drinks were ready, and we sipped them, while they were still hot. We were reconsidering our song list, when we were interrupted by a ring. "That's my phone... Oh, it's Nene. Maybe she needed help with some homework." Toya stood up and distanced himself from the group. "Hello, Nene. How are you?" He said calmly. "What's wrong?" He said after a brief pause. "Saki? She... Are you lying?" Another pause. Toya looked like he'd seen a ghost. "No, I'll be right there." His eyes glossed over slightly. He put down the phone. "I-I have to go. Right now, urgent. I'll text you later." He said, grabbing his school bag and swinging it on his back, then running out the door.
"Toya looked afraid... Maybe we should go after him?" Kohane suggested. "Yeah! We should, come on!" Akito yelled. "Akito, you know whatever happens there is Toya's business. We can't just butt into it." I said. Akito looked angrily at me. "So?" He said. "He's already suffering through a lot. I want to be there for him this time. Otherwise I won't be a good friend."
I sighed. "You're already a good friend. Just message him. He might not want you around." I said. He furrowed his eyebrows into his famous scary face, but stayed silent. Kohane snuggled into me. I smiled sadly at her. "Whatever he's going through, we'll support him." I said, looking back at Akito. He said nothing and just looked at the table. "Let's continue looking at the schedule." I said with a smile. Kohane nodded. "Sounds great." She said. I snuggled into her a bit more. "I like cuddling with you. You're warm." Kohane commented. I looked at her with a smile. "I love you." I said, with my heart overfilling and my love for her spilling everywhere.
Akito glared at me grumpily for a few seconds, then went to guiltily looking at the table, staring into his drink which he'd seemingly taken a few sips of then not had anything else.
Kohane had to leave early because her family had a party, so it was just me,  my dad and Akito.
"Maybe we try messaging him?" I suggested, trying to get him away from his despair. "I have. No response." He murmured sadly.
"It's just so hard to see him suffer. He's there for me and now I can't be there for him." His eyes had glossed over slightly.
I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows. "Tell him how you feel, then." He looked at me. "About what?" He said. "About what you just said, idiot." I said snappily. "Hell no! That's embarrassing." He yelled.
"I'm leaving. I can't last any longer here with you." He said, grabbing his bag too and walking out the door. But before he closed the door, I saw him flinch. Odd, I thought to myself.
I cleaned up our table and realised that neither of the Worrisome Duo had finished their drinks. I shrugged it off. After I cleaned up and my dad switched the shop sign to 'Closed', I took a look outside.
"Funny. I could swear the skies were just blue." I murmured, looking upwards. "It's gonna rain soon, An. You'd best come in." My dad yelled. I took one last look at the sky, and ran inside. My dad was right, it did rain. And it bucketed down, seemingly sympathetically.

‹Word count: 2001›
(Authors note: There should be a new chapter coming out weekly! Thank you all for the support)