Boys For Hire!!

Chapter 18: Akihiko and Hakiko

I wake up the next morning with a heavy head, contemplating why I should even get up.

Shintaro...

I mull over the name that should mean nothing to me, yet meant the world to me all the same. Yet there are other names I should be worrying about right now.

"Yoyoyo rise and shine!" I hear an annoyingly chirpy voice in my ear. I roll around and see a pair of bright eyes in front of me.

"What is it Ichi...?" I groan into my lavender pillow, eyelids heavy.

"Okay, good news and bad news! Which do you want first." Ichirou grins at me, holding his hands out like a scale. I open my eyes another millimetre.

"Good news first, thanks." I drawl unenthusiastically, but Ichirou continues with is bombardment of good will and extremely high spirits.

"Good news is, Akihiko is cooking breakfast cuz' your mother was called early to work." I nod into the pillow. My mother works as an accountant at a banking firm, so she's often called off early in the morning while I'm asleep. She works so hard... One day I want to be like her.

I sigh.  "What's the bad news?"

Ichirou grimaces and chuckles awkwardly. "Bad news - Akihiko can't cook." This time it doesn't take a millimetre per minute. My eyes are wide open and before I know it I've flung the sheets and Ichirou off my bed and am pulling my navy jumper over me. I throw open my door with a loud 'ka-chick' and take off downstairs where the scent of smoke grows heavier.

"Akihiko!! What the heck!?" I yell when I see the sight of the kitchen. It looks like a five year old came into the house, pulled all of the pots and pans out then threw them all over the counter tops. The fridge door is wide open and theirs bits of plastic wrapping all over the floor.

I look over to Katsumi, who's staring into the sink with astonishment. "How can you burn water...?" He whispers. I pull him away from the sink and he gratefully walks  out from the kitchen door.

I quickly rush over to the stove where Akihiko is and turn it off. I hurriedly take the pan and whatever charred remains are on it and douse it in tap water before scraping it into the rubbish bin. "You should've asked me before cooking Akihiko, you could've killed us all." I joke with him, but it seems like he took it more sinisterly.

"That's rich, coming from you." He spits. Looking up at him, I stare, half scared and half curious. But I ignore it, and take five waffles out of the white kitchen cabinet by the fridge.

"I don't know what's your problem, Akihiko," I whisper harshly to him, as I plunk the waffles into the toaster, setting the timer for 1 and a half minutes. "but just stop." I whip around and glare at him from the side. "What happened between Hakiko and I is in the past. It's not like you can change it with that sour attitude of yours." It seems like I hit a chord.

When I try to walk past Akihiko, he grabs my arm roughly and glares at me. "Your really a bitch, you know that?"

I counter him with my own glare. "Your really a douchebag, you know that?" I shake him off, and walk out of the kitchen to greet the other boys at the dining table.

***

"Okay, so who thought this was a good idea?" I look towards the four boys at my sides, who are already dressed in their swimming trunks with towels wrapped around their shoulders. I groan menacingly at the squelch of flip flops and fwishing sound of water.

"It's good to get out once and a while you know, swimming's good for you." Hotaka smiles at me from under his long fringe. "Plus, the entry free to the pool is half price on weekends."

"Your a bunch of cheap skates you know that?" I moan regretfully as Katsumi pulls me through the sliding doors and into the pool reception hall. The scent of chlorine hits my nose and begins to make me nauseous, I don't even seem to be bothered by the loving stares the girls working at the counter give the boys next to me.  Or the glares that follow me after none the less.

"Lets go, lets go, lets go!! I haven't been to the pool in foreverrrrr!" Katsumi squeals excitedly dragging me along with him. When we walk down the the lower floor where the pools are, my ears are hit with a familiar voice. Or voices. I let Katsumi go and watch him enter the pool safely, before turning around to look towards the spa area. I swear the voices came from over here...

I look closer and see my thoughts to be correct. Two identical looking boys lounging in a pool, each one sitting on either side of a nervous looking girl between them. I hadn't seen them for so long, so I began to stare more noticeably.

"Your not a very good stalker, you know that?" I jump at the voice behind be and see that it's just Hotaka.

"I..." I huff, crossing my arms over my black midriff. "I haven't seen them in a long time... I just forgot what they look like."

"Is it really that hard to remember? Remember the looks of one and you know the other." Hotaka tsks at the two boys and walks back to where Akihiko and Ichirou are sitting by the café next to the pool.

"Oi!" I'm startled by a sound behind me and whip around to look back into the spa area.

"Holy shit, Naoyuki look." Naozumi points to me and my heart skips a beat. No, no way am I doing this again.

I whip around and run towards the boys who are sitting by the café, much to the disdain of the life guards who are telling me to slow down. Before I can reach the, I feel the air below be rush upwards, and everything goes black.

***

"Your an idiot." Is the first words I wake up to hear.

I rub the back of my head which is throbbing in pain, and sit up slowly, blinking the wetness out of my eyes.

"Your lucky you didn't break you back." I look around me. It seems like the boys took me home straight afterwards, because all I can see in my good old room. I turn to Akihiko, who's reading a book while sitting next to my bed on one of the dining chairs.

"Did you carry me up here?" He stays silent, the only noise coming from him is the sound of the pages in the book being flipped. I huff, plopping back down onto my bed. I watch as Akihiko keeps turning the pages in his book, licking his finger with each one he turns. Suddenly I'm struck with a sudden sadness.

"Hakiko used to do that too." He finally stops turning the pages and looks up at me. "Chiseki, he would say, if you lick your finger before turning a page, they say you'll never get a paper cut." He perks up as if about to say something, but I interrupt him. "He said that his brother told him that, that you told him that." I wrap myself further in the sheets, leaning again the wall my bed sits against. "He admired you a lot you know-"

"Are you doing this intentionally?" He spits at me, cutting off my sentence. "Do you enjoy hurting me?" I sigh sadly at the sight of him all broken up. Akihiko's eyes are puffy and red, and he's gripping onto his book for dear life. Sorry Hakiko, but he deserves to know...

I swallow nervously. "Do you want to know... What happened the day that your brother died?"