Must Have Been The Wind

Taichi Kamiya had been looking forward to sleep in this day.

He had nothing like a meet-up planned, he didn't have classes today, he didn't have any urgent errands to do. So he was more than happy to welcome the sweet embrace of slumber while the AC was on in this surprisingly hot morning. Just a perfect and lazy Friday morning in May to sleep in until the afternoon, just what every college student wanted and needed after surviving midterm exam after midterm exam.

Or at least that's what he was planning.

Just five before eight in the morning, a sound of glass shattering on the wall from the apartment above him startled him from his slumber. To the point he had tumbled out of bed.

"Fuck." Taichi muttered irritably. He got up and sat on his bed, waiting for another sound. After a minute or so, he heard nothing else. Must have been dreaming that sound. Shrugging sleepily, Taichi was readying himself to go back to sleep. Or at least that's what he would have done, if he hadn't heard a sound that made his heart go 'thunk'.

The sound of a girl crying from above. Oh, not just any girl, though. He knew that voice well enough.

"Sora?" Taichi asked to no-one in particular, instantly standing up. Okay, that did it for him. He was no longer sleepy. Not when something was happening to his friend. Deciding that sleeping in could wait another time, Taichi immediately turned off his AC, but not before slightly shivering as a cool breeze from it blasted into his body, bare-chested and covered only in a pair of orange boxers with images of monkeys stealing (ironically) underwear imprinted on it.

That's what I get for wearing only my boxers to bed, Taichi snarked internally.

Putting on a clean pair of jeans, a short-sleeved red hoodie, and his Converse sneakers, Taichi immediately headed out, apartment keys rattling in his jean pocket as he anxiously hurried his pace to the elevator, pushing the button to his destination : the fifth floor.

The cocoa-haired boy had wasted zero time to reach room 520 and certainly didn't waste a single iota to knock on the door in his panic. Come on, Sora...please be okay.

To his relief, the door clicked and he was greeted by the sight of those warm crimson-colored eyes that he knew and loved (wait, did I just say love?)...except they looked like they had been socketed red, like she had been crying.

It was then Taichi took a good look at Sora. Her reddish orange hair that she had began growing out recently was tied in a slight braid to the side. She was dressed in a hoodie that Taichi swore she wore a couple of days when it was raining, in this warm morning, black shorts reaching to her knees, and white flip-flops. The hoodie was zipped up to her chin.

"Hi, Taichi!" Sora called out, a smile on her face, but there was something about it that looked forced, as if she was trying with all her fiber to keep some type of normalcy in the environment. "What a pleasant surprise..." She lifted her hand for one second but then quickly put it down as if she had caught herself doing something wrong, the way someone does when they decide to not get the item at the store.

"Sora...I..." For a second, Taichi's voice faltered, betraying what he wanted to say. Don't be a coward. Ask her. What if she's...just ask her, Tai. "I heard something, like glass shattering from, I think, your apartment and I...also heard crying."

"Glass shattering?" Sora repeated, her face becoming pale slightly as she glanced away from Taichi's direction.

Taichi replied gently, "Look, I want to know what the fuck is going on. You're my friend, and..."