The Other Half On The Second Floor

Chapter Twenty-One

We arrived at a white house with a dark rooftop that had the last name Sakurajima engraved on a plaque outside. Hisa parks the car and we grab the two bags and bring them inside. The door creaks as it slowly opens, no one welcomes us. No one besides us was home. Hisa lives alone now after his mother passed away and his older brother now in college, only coming home during the holidays for his younger brother. He never once complained about his lifestyle, and instead enjoyed that he even had a roof over his head and that he had money and support to get by.

We set the bags on the dinner table and Hisa grabs the Dorayaki out as well as a variety of other snacks and we head to the second floor where his room was located. I set myself on the white bed and allow myself to slowly sink it, while Hisa throws himself as if he'd been exhausted. I open the bag of my favorite snack and offer one to my friend who'd already been munching on a little of everything. "So.." he says between bites, "you want to talk about what happened?"

I swallow the bit of Dorayaki and inhale slowly. "I guess" I told him from start to end what had happened. Feeling worse by the minute reliving what had occurred in just a day.

By the time I finished, Hisa only picked at the bag that once held the snacks that by now were in his stomach waiting to be digested. "Oh."

"Oh?" I repeat, surprised that the one word was his only response to my entire day of chaos.

"Kaito, why did it bother you so much that Eiichi was around this Akiyama guy so much?"

I quickly stop myself from putting the last of the filled good into my mouth when hearing those words, I look down at it and pause for a moment. "I don't...know."

"Yes, you do. You just won't admit it to yourself."

"That's not-"

"K-man. I've known you since we were in middle school, I know you better than almost anyone. It's written on your face that you realize why things went the way they did and why you said what you said."

I fiddled my fingers slightly and hesitated to answer. "But I don't know why I acted the way I did.. it just... bothered me."

He exhales sharply, "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it's because you're afraid after what happened last time?"

"What? Of course not."

"Really? Then you didn't feel nervous when Eiichi was alone with Akiyama? And how close they were suddenly getting?"

I bite my lip at the feeling of guilt, "Maybe, but why? I never care when he's around others at school. Plus I'm over what happened."

"Are you though? You let her get close to a certain someone and ended up with a broken heart. Now you're bringing what happened to your current relationship with Eiichi, and that obviously didn't turn out well"

This had been the first time I'd heard Hisa speak so solemnly. What he said made sense and I could see a part of me wanted to deny what he was saying. "But what if he ended up liking Akiyama more than me and.. he realized I wasn't good enough for him?"

"Did he ever say any of that?"

I set the uneaten snack down and recall the memory of us walking home the day Eiichi asked me to accompany them to the amusement park. "He said Akiyama was his closure" I practically whispered. "I messed up.. Hisa I need to go."

A gentle smile forms across Hisa's tan face, "What are you waiting for?" I get up rapidly and rush over to Eiichi's home.