A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Eighteen: Part Four

The boy named Keitaru Hanabusa wandered outside, through the array of blossoming cherry trees. The cool breeze blew into his face, and the clouds covered the sun. The sky was blanketed in gray.

His hands were stuffed into his pockets.

He didn’t know exactly where he was going or what he was planning to do for that lunch period. He would have gone into the cafeteria. He had to admit that he was a little hungry.

But he knew that the red-headed girl would be in the cafeteria. And after all the things she had said to him that morning, he didn’t want to see her.

What he had said in response to her request was definitely something cold. How could he have said such a cruel thing to her?

He hated himself at that moment. He wanted the girl to know that he didn’t mean to word his thoughts the way he did, but his regret probably didn’t show through his face.

But she had been somewhat correct. He also had to remember that everything he did for the girl was because he owed her a debt.

If anything he did meant more than that, things would get very dangerous indeed.

He wished that she had understood. He couldn’t think of her in a way any more than someone he owed a debt to.

She was so clumsy and informal and loud. Why was he considering the possibilities of how he might think of her as more than a stranger?

But if he told her that everything he has done for her was because he owed her a debt, that situation would definitely make her very angry or upset. He’d get smacked in the face again. He’d probably be knocked unconscious.

Those things weren’t the biggest things he was worried about.

He didn’t want to make her upset. He would rather make her smile, like how he did the night before when he had picked her up from her job.

He had been smiling with her that night.

He didn’t want to see her as upset as she was that morning. He didn’t know what to say after her as she hurried back up the hallway to her classroom. He knew that he just wanted her to turn around and look at him.

He didn’t know how to run after someone when they left him. If he knew how to do this, he wouldn’t carry as many regrets as he did now.

Even if he did run after her, what was he going to say? Was he going to say that he was sorry?

How could he say sorry for something that’s already true?

His lips slightly curled. He had to listen to her request. He had to stop whatever he was doing to her that occurred purely because of his debt to her.

He had to think. He had allowed her to live in his home. He paid for her tuition to attend the prestigious school. He gave her rides to her job.

Would he really have to take all of these things away from her?

If she didn’t have anyone to take her to work, she would have to walk to and from the restaurant by herself, which was already dangerous as it was.

He had already paid for her tuition for school. She would have to come to school until the next tuition was due. And if she wasn’t unrolled out of the school by then, she would have to pay the next tuition herself. She would have to re-enroll to her old school, and catching up with all the classes she already had there would surely be difficult.

If he kicked her out of his home, where would she go? Would she return to her old apartment?

It seemed cruel to let her live in such an environment and then place her back to the poor condition she was in before. How could he do such things to someone?

But if she requested these things, he would have to do them for her. He owed her a debt.

 

She surely was strange. It seemed like the last thing on her mind was her debt being paid back.

She just seemed upset because the things he did seemed to only be out of his debt.

 

He knew that his thoughts told him he didn’t want to take anything away from the girl. It was true that he met her out of what she had done for him, and that he forced himself to think of her only as a stranger, but it was against his own wishes to kick her out of the house.

At this moment, he had suddenly gotten an idea.

The reason why he didn’t want to take anything away from the girl was because he truly did not want to. The debt wasn’t included in this. This is what he wanted.

He had to tell her. She had to know.

He had no intentions of kicking her out. This was for her sake, anyway.

He turned around, facing the path he came down. He caught the cafeteria’s tall building and he headed towards it. Once he did, he heard the loud chimes of the school bell.

He caught the guards that stood on either side of the doors of this building lean forward to open the doors. The students inside graciously filed out of the building with chatters scattering about them.

He slipped through the crowd of people, which wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, since he was the only person going in the opposite direction. He was thankful that everyone was walking slow enough for him to dodge them without causing such a scene.

When he walked into the cafeteria, almost everyone had already gone outside. There were several of students still scattered across the room, but there was few enough for him to be able to tell the faces of every person.

He hoped the girl was one of these several students. He needed to find her.

But when he did catch sight of her, he did not expect her to be with someone else. He saw the boy from before—the boy he had walked with along with the girl that morning before class started. That boy stood before the girl, and they were talking.

Keitaru didn’t have a clue of what they were saying to each other. He began walking towards them.

He wanted her to know. It didn’t matter who else was listening.

But once he saw the boy take the girl’s hand, he froze in place.

He found himself taking a few steps backwards. Suddenly, all his efforts became hesitant.

When the boy released the girl’s hands, the girl began to smile.

Keitaru immediately turned back around and filed out the door along with everyone else. He didn’t turn back around.

If that boy could make her smile better than he could, it was alright.

It seemed that she already had someone else. If he kicked her out, she wouldn’t be as miserable as he thought she was going to be.

She isn’t alone. She has someone else. She has that boy.

He was sure that that boy would never make her how upset Keitaru had made her that morning.

New thoughts began to enter her head.

He should have expected this.

Someone else was always in front of him. Someone else always beat him to the person he cared about.

What could he do about it?