A Moment Too Soon (Yaoi boyxboy)

Yuuichi

Elisa scooped more ice cream into her mouth. Each of them had gotten a little bowl, but I just went for a plain vanilla cone. We all sat around the table, just messing around and talking. I liked Elisa's friends. They seemed like genuinely nice people so far. I licked my ice cream while I listened to them talk about how few days we had left of summer. Then Aiden turned to me.

"So what grade are you going into?" He asked me.

"11th." I said. His eyes widened a little as he spoke.

"Ah, you're in our grade then."

"I already told you that." Elisa laughed.

"I forget easily." He shrugged.

"Are you ready for school and everything?" Cheyenne said next.

"Yeah. I got everything straightened out within a couple days after I got here." I explained. They nodded.

"All that was left was to show him around our little town." Elisa smiled. The others nodded smiling with her. Suddenly, Aiden's phone buzzed. He pulled it out and looked at the message he received only briefly. I watched as he let out a little sigh and stood up.

"Sorry guys. My mom says I've gotta head home to watch my little sister for a while. She has errands to run." He explained. We all said goodbye,but decided to stay in the shop until we had finished our ice cream. After he left it was mostly Elisa and Cheyenne who talked. I was little distracted though. My thoughts kept wandering back to their friend, Nowaki.

For some reason I kept seeing his exhausted face replay in my mind over and over. It seemed like they didn't really want to discuss it earlier, but I was still curious about him. I suddenly caught the edge of his name in their conversation and I listened in a little bit more. I tried not to look like I wanted information, and stayed pressed back against my chair.

"I just really hope that he comes to school next week..." Cheyenne said. Elisa nodded, but then sighed.

"Then again...what would it matter if nothing changes?" She said.

"Well, at least he'd have enough motivation to show up. I think that if he stopped coming it would mean things were really bad." Cheyenne tossed her paper bowl into the garbage next to the table as Elisa spoke.

"That's true. I just don't know though...He looked pretty bad today." She sighed again and Cheyenne shrugged as she stood up. Elisa and I did the same.

"I'm sure Nowaki will eventually come around." When we got to the door, Cheyenne told us that she was going to head home as well. We waved goodbye, and then Elisa turned to me and took a breath before she spoke.

"So...are you ready to head home?" She asked. I nodded and we began to walk. It was pretty quiet at first. We just continued down the sidewalk through the bright sun, listening to the birds and our footsteps along the concrete. The silence was broken by Elisa, though. "Don't think badly of Nowaki, alright Yuuichi?" I wasn't sure where her statement had come from, but I responded anyways.

"I don't." I promised. There was another pause. I thought she would say more, but it looked like I would have to pry to get it from her. "...if you don't mind me asking...what happened?" Elisa glanced over at me with a hesitant look on her face, but then she looked away, staring straight ahead as she spoke.

"Well...I guess I'll start with Kida." She said.

"Kida?" I said. She nodded sadly, but continued.

"A kid who used to go to our high school...he wasn't exactly he most social person, though. In fact...he didn't have any friends really. He got picked on a lot too...a lot." She explained.

"Oh...poor kid..." I paused before continuing. "But what does he have to do with your friend?" I asked. She nodded.

"See, Nowaki suddenly started hanging out with him one day. None of us knew why, but he did. It was probably really nice for Kida to finally have a friend though..." She sounded like this was the first time she had thought about it. "Anyways, they both got pretty close. They spent a lot of time together, and Nowaki ended up spending every day with him."

"Was that a bad thing?" I asked. She shook her head.

"No...they were great friends..but before the school year ended, Kida killed himself." She didn't glance over at me when she said it. She just kept looking forward.

"What? Just all of a sudden?" I blurted.

"No. Remember what I said? He got bullied. People were horrible to him, and he spent every day dealing with it." She told me again.

"But...You said Nowaki and him became friends. Wouldn't that-" I was cut off as she shook her head.

"I don't think it was possible for him to get help, Yuuichi. He'd been like that for a long, long time...anyways, it really shook Nowaki up. After he found out what happened, he started avoiding pretty much everyone. He ate lunch alone up on the rooftop where him and Kida sat, stopped participating in class, and even began skipping days before the school year ended." She told me. That explained their conversation earlier about how he hadn't been answering their attempts to reach him.

"That's...that's terrible..." I felt a pang of sadness for Nowaki in my chest. Even though I hardly knew him, now that I knew the story, his pained expression seemed a million times worse.