Out of all the stars in the sky, you still shine the brightest... (akikasa)

Chapter 8

(Tsukasa pov)

We were heading out to the arcade where we knew our friends would be, none of us said much since there wasn't really anything to talk about other than the very interesting conversation i had with his sister.

"Im sorry for that, Ena is constantly playing a game to see how bad she can make me look in front of my friends"

In front of my friends...
A friend huh...
Im his "friend"...
Pretty sure he doesn't mean it does he?

Friend...

Why am i so happy over hearing this?

Heh... Im his "friend"...

"Ah, its alright, your sister is funny", i chuckled.

"So what exactly do you plan on doing once we're there?", i asked, other than spying on them we didn't really have a plan on what to do once we were there.

"Ok so my main goal is to find out who this "<3" person is..."

"For what?"

"Huh?"

"What will you do once you find out who toya actually likes?, i mean we know it's not you, so what's the point in doing that?"

"I... I'm not sure..."

Akito looked at the ground now looking a little upset. Seems like he didn't think through his plan very well...

"You know... i find it weird he hasn't told you...", i changed the subject.

"You're his best friend so I thought he would have told you first..."

"Yeah... same..."

"Actually, i think its still a good idea to find out who this mysterious person is, i find it weird that he randomly starts ghosting you and he hides who this random person is..."

"What if they are manipulating him??", I suggested.

I've got to admit that i mainly wanted to figure out who toya was talking to because of the sole fact that neither akito and i knew despite being two of toya's closest friends.

The manipulation thing was kind of a stretch but the possibility of that happening was truly concerning, specially noting how naive toya can be sometimes...

Or maybe were just nosy, bored, and in the mood for spying on our friends because we are upset for being left out of their plans.

After a while of walking and overthinking stuff we entered the arcade and started looking around in case of them already being here.

"Do you see them??", i heard him ask.

"Nope, i dont see any familiar faces"

"So we just wait ?"

"I mean we're already here, we might as well play around a bit while we wait", i smiled.

"Ok"

And so we headed towards the games as we waited for the people we were spying on.

We split out and started playing games on our own, honestly it has been such a long time since the last time i had been on an arcade, i had forgotten how fun it actually was. I kinda get why toya likes hanging out here so often.

"Hey tenma wanna play?", akito asked while pointing at some fighting game.

"Sure why not, but to make it more interesting... how about loser buys the winner a snack?"

"Deal"

And so we started playing.

I was having fun with him, i couldn't even describe how. I regret not trying to befriend him earlier, Akito is actually not as bad as I thought, despite being mean towards me most of the time, he's been actually pretty nice...