BLUE HAWAII sugawara koushi

one. THE PERILS OF SMALL TOWN WITHDRAWAL

  

          LOVE IS A FICKLE THING. It is the light that illuminates the eyes of a pair of star-crossed lovers, it is the boulder that crushes your heart leaving bruises and bloodstains behind you. Love is not kind, and yet it is romanticized to no foreseeable end.

Aoki Daniel knows this, he knows the torments of young love in the way that he watches people around him. He pays attention to the people that surround him and populate his life with their meaningless problems. Somehow watching them go around and around in circles about the same pointless thing give him a sort of thrill, like he can play God.

If God were to be a 170 centimeter boy with invisible asphalt in his lungs cordoning his right to breathe freely.

Traditionally, people don't mind him, they never paid too much attention to the pastor's boy. In fact, most of his classmates were on good terms with the reigning class president. He's a good listener and they're good at coming up with small town problems that reflect their immense egocentricity. And here they are in Japanese Literature, talking about love, like it's a novelty rather than a curse.

          Today, Daniel's been more vacant than usual. His long hair has begun to show its black roots just as the rest of them return from their rightful two months spent doing everything entirely unproductive. The mid-afternoon sun fries them in their little classroom with the windows open and the fans whirring away diligently. Daniel knows that his earbuds were bound to get taken away if he slipped them in as the triad of loud classmates to his left quickly formed a group.

It's okay, Daniel will just take the leftovers, it's what he usually does.

         He takes an inventory of the people already clustered together and gushing about love like it's blood from an exit wound. It's revolting to hear how long they can go on and on about something they've hardly ever felt. His gaze falls on a boy with neat silver hair and milky white skin, nearly effervescent in the sunlit classroom. He's the only person left without a group much less a partner. Daniel considers it for a moment as he hands out another stack of assignments, usually the cute ones partner out before they're swept away in the gentle tide that is Daniel Aoki.

A quick glance to his classmate's nametag reveals his surname as Sugawara. Daniel fingers through another stack of assignments as he bites down on his chapped lip gently. "Sugawara-san, will you work with me?" Daniel asks as easily as he's asking to borrow a pencil. He doesn't really have a nervous complex about asking people for things, they were always willing to give to a sweet boy like Daniel.

          The other boy looks up from his math assignment in apprehension. "Excuse me?"

          "The poetry analysis project, do you want to work with me?" Daniel repeats patiently, like he has all the time in the world while Sugawara looks relatively perplexed that he's getting confronted. Especially from Aoki Daniel, one of the most popular boys in their school with some wild rumors circling him like vultures. A languid smile like the last remnants of the summer's heat roll over Daniel's face, Koushi's cute. Daniel smirks, it's his usual smile pockmarked with snark and filled with dimples and lilting laughs. It's a reliable smile, never betraying his intentions.

The sitting boy agrees without reluctance and with an eye smile that warms Daniel's soul. Sometimes when people smile at you they look so goddamn fake. It's how he feels when he looks into a mirror on one of his bad days when he feels too blue to care about the world. The blond haired boy finishes handing the rest of the assignments back hastily.

          It's blatantly obvious just as they're selecting poems from three eras of literature that Sugawara Koushi has his eyes on everything. His focus must be extreme to keep track of everything from overarching theme of presentation to plot nuances and general tone. Daniel can feel himself nodding off—the sort of sensation where his soul vacations away from his body and he sort of feels like a stranger writhing himself. He's cute, fitting neatly into the scholarly type and falling just shy of being labelled a nerd due to his quite athletic physique.