The Price For Immortality

Make or Break (Part 1)

Hoji finds himself looking through Wakiya's stuff the next morning. He tells himself that it's justified. He thinks to himself that Wakiya isn't there to care. He's dead, and it's something that happens after death. People look through the dead person's belongings, in search of a will, in search of anything that could relate to the cause of the death. They do this especially in the case of murder, or suicide. Hoji sighs, deep down he knows that it's wrong. Wakiya still has the right to privacy, even after death. Nobody else knows about Wakiya's death aside from him and his friend group. There isn't a reason to look through Wakiya's stuff yet, but Hoji can't stop himself. He tries to stop. He doesn't have a search warrant; he's not a police officer. He's not even related to Wakiya in any way.

Hoji then tells himself this. If anyone had to go through his stuff, Wakiya would be glad that it's Hoji. Hoji wouldn't judge him for anything he had. Hoji would be his friend until the end, no matter what he found. Hoji would never abandon him, or look at him any differently, just because of an embarrassing piece of paper he saw in one of Wakiya's drawers. Hoji is Wakiya's friend, and will be, until the end of time.

He starts with the closet. He finds all of Wakiya's clothing, and shoes. He finds a few launchers that Wakiya tried before. He finds posters for the Beyblade tournaments. He finds a calendar from last year, where Wakiya had written all of the tournament dates. He finds Wakiya's old training schedule, from before he started putting it in his phone. It's almost nostalgic, looking through all of these things. This training schedule was back when Hoji and Wakiya first met. This was the launcher that Wakiya had used to teach Hoji how to Blade. Hoji starts smiling at everything.

Then, Hoji starts looking through the desk drawers. He finds a drawer that's full of nothing but writing utensils. He finds a drawer where Wakiya had stuffed all of his school assignments from last year. He finds a drawer filled with launcher grips and spare Beyblade parts. He finds a drawer that's completely empty. He finds a drawer full of protein bars. He chuckles. Wakiya and his obsession with protein bars. Hoji never understood it. Wakiya was always crazy about protein, going on and on about how he needs foods with a lot of it. Hoji thought it was nothing more than Wakiya wanting to get beefed up. Protein combined with exercise will grow your muscles. But then what was his deal with protein bars? Why bars? He never drank protein shakes. It was always the protein bars.

Maybe Wakiya just hated the taste of protein shakes. Hoji shakes his head. That isn't important right now, at all.

Then, Hoji looks under the bed.

The first thing he notices is a lot of cobwebs. Nobody's looked under there, or cleaned under there, in probably years. There's a lot of books under there, which strikes Hoji as odd. Wakiya is always up and moving: the idea of him reading at all is surprising. Maybe Wakiya had hidden hobbies, just like everyone else. He had guilty pleasures, some that even Hoji didn't know about. He keeps digging around. Papers of all sorts, mostly school assignments and things of that nature. More protein bar wrappers.

Then, Hoji finds something sort of odd. It's a crumpled up piece of paper. On it is Wakiya's handwriting, which reads:

Dad still has it all. It's in a box in the basement. He won't get rid of it. It's killing me.

Hoji reads it over and over. In the basement, huh? Hoji starts to wonder what's down there that's 'killing' Wakiya.

Killing. That's an unfortunate choice of words.

Hoji crumples it back up and throws it to the side. There's no point in him looking. The only thing that's driving him to do so is his curiosity. If it's 'killing' Wakiya, then it must be something embarrassing that he doesn't want anyone seeing. It's not Hoji's business.