[Gift fic] Quiet Days
Title: Quiet Days
Pairing/Characters: Ohkura/Ryo (subtle Yoko/Uchi)
Rating: G
Warnings: AU
Notes: I’d like to extend my eternal gratitude to takoyaki_ball for her superb betaing! Also ky_rin for the same ^^
Summary: Ohkura tried, but it turned out it was impossible not to choose an alliance. It is high school after all.
The school bell is ringing in the students for a new year of hard work, crushes, heartbreak and general hormonal drama. I’m one of those students - have been for two weeks already, and this is my first year as a high school student.
Maybe I should have been scared, but I couldn’t really say I was. I’ve not been nervous, not in the least, but somehow I am finding myself clutching my bag and searching the sea of foreign faces for a familiar one that should have been here. I hadn’t been alone arriving, not initially, because Uchi Hiroki and I had promised to stay by each other’s sides forever (I suppose you’re gagging by this point, but we were just kids then, so bear with me). We had, at one point, even agreed on entering the same college; eventually climbing the ladder at the same company after graduation.
Despite all this; it hadn’t taken Uchi more than half a week to disappear and acquire a new group of friends. Friends who actually do scare me quite a bit. Some of them are second years, one even a third year and quite obviously a delinquent with his long blonde hair and unruly clothes.
Yokoyama Kimitaka and his little gang, walking the corridors as if they own them. Even daring to talk back to the teachers whenever they’re confronted. What Uchi sees in them is a mystery to me, and I can’t help but feel just a tiny bit betrayed.
Uchi and I hadn’t been lucky enough to end up in the same class. Just the thought that we wouldn’t hadn’t even crossed my mind until we both stood there with our mouths hanging open, listening to the classes being called up. I’m in class A, Uchi in class C.
Of course, I’m polite to all my new classmates, but I never really thought I’d have to make friendly with them. Apparently Uchi had thought otherwise.
May is already arriving and is proving to be impossibly hot for the season. Wherever I look there are loosened ties and hiked up skirts, it should be a happy time, but for some reason I’m unable to come out of my solitude. Uchi is still hanging around his new acquaintances, and as far as I can see from where I sit mooning over my lunch they’re getting on pretty well. He’s smiling his wide, charming smile, telling a story that apparently needs a lot of random arm waving, but it makes them all laugh so it has to be funny.
Scowling over at their table, I watch them as they frolic around. Masuda and Kato are two names I learned early on and place on the correct faces; they are in class C together with Uchi. But there is also a Nishikido from second year, and never to forget, Yokoyama. He sits a bit apart from them, intent on his own food, no tie and the top buttons of his shirt undone. His hair is long and bleached blonde, bangs obscuring parts of his face and falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to mind it much.
He gives of a sense of rebellion to me. There can’t be much good in a guy who hangs around a group of first and second years. Where are his own classmates, I wonder?
I’ve had enough with both the food and the staring, so I get up from my table, but freeze as Yokoyama suddenly looks up from his intent consumption of food and catches my gaze. His eyes narrows and he tilts his head just slightly in a questioning way. What he wants to know I have no idea, and neither do I want to find out.
Bowing my head curtly I gather my bento box and chopsticks, turn around fast enough for my chair to nearly tip over and hasten away. Confrontations have never been my strong suit. I have a feeling that “I was staring because you’re taking away my best friend” will egg on a fight more than comfort him of my peaceful intentions.
Early June and I have somehow managed to find a routine that does not include Uchi, enabling me to pretend I don’t miss him. Of course, it's in the small moments when I see something incredibly funny and turn around to point it out to him, finding he’s not there, that I feel like sitting right down on the street and bawling my eyes out. I cannot imagine how he can’t be missing me the same, but his new friends must be giving him something I never could. To be honest, I feel like a lovesick girl.
Watching my sneakers as I walk home with a bag of groceries, the shadows are growing longer with the setting sun. It’s still hot and my school uniform clings to my back with perspiration. Blessing every breeze that blows my way, I labour onwards with the heavy weight of both my books and the groceries my mother has ordered me to acquire for dinner. Apparently we're having guests this evening, associates from my father’s job, and she is getting nervous for what to prepare. It never fails to turn into a warzone at home whenever this happens, and just thinking about it I can feel my footsteps halter. Why can’t they just eat out like normal people?
Loud voices drift towards me on the shallow breeze, and looking up I see a small group of what has to be high school kids hanging around at the local playground. I pay them no mind as I am unable to recognize them. People with nothing better to do than chasing kids away from the swings really don’t interest me all that much.
Not until one of the foreign voices rises above the din and yells my name.
‘Ohkura!’ it yells, and I swirl around, nearly dropping the bag of groceries in my surprise. Squinting across the street I try to discern the figures partially shaded by the trees, and eventually I recognize the skinny and awkward frame of Uchi, leaning against one of the swing posts. I'm confused for a moment because I know the voice I'd heard was not Uchi’s, but then a figure rises from the swings and waves for me to come over, and I finally recognize it as Yokoyama.
For a few short moments I’m indecisive between walking away pretending I hadn’t heard, or just throwing away the groceries and run like hell. Eventually the reasonable voice in my head, the one that had gotten me elected as class representative, tells me that I can’t just ignore a senpai. Not even a delinquent one. Perhaps especially not a delinquent one.
Walking over, Yokoyama sits down on the swings again and kicks off, keeping a slow rhythm. They are only three; Yokoyama, who’s looking me up and down, Uchi, who’s smiling but looking everywhere else but at the spot of the world that I occupy, and Nishikido, squatting on the ground with his hair ruffled in every direction and not seeming to care one way or another.
I bow to the both of them to be polite, and open my mouth to excuse myself so I can leave, but Yokoyama interrupts me before I can get a word out.
‘You’re Uchi’s friend right?’ he asks, and stares at my nose. I twitch it unconsciously.
‘Yeah…’ I murmur hesitantly, ‘I suppose so…?’ The sentence ends in a half questioning way, and I look at Uchi from the corner of my eye, as if seeking confirmation from him, but he doesn’t answer.
‘He talks about you,’ nods Nishikido from where he’s sitting on the ground, drawing a random pattern in the sand with a twig. Uchi is squirming where he stands, seeming to be incredibly embarrassed about it all.
‘Okay,’ I nod, hefting the bag, as it’s starting to get heavy. ‘I sort of have to go now, though, my mother needs these groceries.’
Yokoyama just stares at me; his eyes a peculiar light brown, seeming to see right through me.
‘Yeah, you should go,’ concedes Uchi, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He’s still in his school uniform, as is Nishikido, but looking at Yokoyama I realize he is wearing what appears to be a blue jumpsuit with the top part undone and hanging around his waist, accompanied by heavy boots. The sort of clothing they wear at construction sites, for example. He must have noticed me staring for he brush at a dirtied spot on the leg self-consciously and gives a little shrug.
‘I’m going to work now,’ he says as nonchalantly as he can and gets up from the swings. I’ve always been tall and broadly built for my age, but Yokoyama is at a height with me and even if he could have looked me right in the eyes, he doesn’t.
Seeing his senpai get up and walk away, Nishikido also leaves his spot on the ground, his youthful face scrunched up as he eyes me in a thoughtful manner. When his black eyes locks on mine and his brow furrows, he looks like a thunderstorm waiting to happen, I can’t help my heart from contracting in a decidedly excited way. I feel fixed to the spot, not knowing quite where to look.
The moment lasts not even a second before he turns and walks after Yokoyama, his feet leaving a pattern of footsteps in the dried sand.
The very next day I’m minding my own business, hurrying from the classroom to the student council for extracurricular activities when a row of people in front of me halts my progress. Looking up from the notes I’m leafing through, I nearly yelp as I stare right into Yokoyama’s pale face. He’s looking at a spot above my right shoulder and I have to quench the desire to turn around and follow his gaze.
Behind Yokoyama I easily spot Uchi, seeming less awkward to have me around than he had the evening before. His other two classmates are by his side, but Nishikido is nowhere to be seen. I try to tell myself I’m not disappointed.
‘You can eat lunch with us tomorrow if you want to,’ says Yokoyama, the right side of his mouth going upwards into a sneer, though I think he means it as a smile. Shame washes over me together with the elation. I shouldn’t feel so grateful to be accepted into a gang lead by a delinquent with nothing better to do than play with swings on random playgrounds, and who has part time work, on top of that. He’s obviously not very good news. But brushing all that aside, I find myself bowing my head in thanks and accepting the offer willingly, perhaps a bit too willingly.
Who knew, maybe Nishikido will be back tomorrow, from wherever he is at the moment.
The weeks pass in a blur, and it feels awkward to suddenly be accepted when I had spent the entire beginning of the school year more or less alone. Masuda and Kato are both bright and well mannered boys, but they seem to have their own thing going on, not minding the others much. The same goes for Uchi and Nishikido, which leaves Yokoyama pretty much in solitude for most of the time. He seems reluctant to engage in any of their activities.
That is why it’s difficult to hide my astonishment when he one lunch taps my shoulder, leans over close and whispers in my ear:
‘Do you want to go out and eat afterwards?’
I’m so dumbfounded by the proposition that I can’t do much but stare at him for the longest time. The grains of rice that have spilled out of his bento must be really interesting, because his concentration on them is acute.
‘Sure,’ I finally manage to press past my shock. ‘T-that would be nice. Where to?’
He shrugs and puts down the chopsticks that he has been using to push the rice around on the table with. ‘I know of a good place by the station,’ he says, ‘soba place. Good. Cheap.’
I nod and grin. I love soba.
A few hours later and he hadn’t been lying, Yokoyama. The soba is amazingly good and very affordable for two high school students. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about the place before.
It’s located in a little nook in the corner of the station, right next to a manga bookstore and across the street from a phoneshop. I guess no one really bothers to look past the shiny commercials and colourful carton boxes long enough to notice “Cook’s special Soba 310yen!” scribbled with yellow chalk on a blackboard.
But Yokoyama knows of it, and now we stand in comfortable silence enjoying our delicious food, watching what little of the world we can through the tiny window, partially obscured by shades.
Yokoyama has a habit of being silent. I have only seen him fool around with Nishikido once or twice, so I don't really find our silence all that peculiar. With any other senpai, especially someone from third year, the situation would have felt quite ominous.
It must be this comfortable silence that makes me so acutely aware of his little movements, warning me well ahead when something starts to happen. He tenses up, juts out his jaw and puts down his chopsticks rather clumsily. Looking up I see four boys, somehow seeming familiar, hanging by the door into the soba shop and chatting loudly. Their uniforms reveal that they’re from the same school as us, and once I’ve gotten over the initial shock I am finally able to recognize them as third years. Yokoyama’s classmates, I'm guessing.
Looking back at him, he has already shoved the soba away and is picking up his schoolbag, throwing it carelessly over the shoulder, nearly hitting the man standing behind him.
Yokoyama's hurry is stalled as the tallest senior in the group yells out.
‘Hey Yoko, why do-’ begins the tall one who is sporting a purple Nike bag, but he seems to change his mind and shuts his mouth again in mid-sentence. I feel like I'm watching a tennis match, my attention divided between the group and Yokoyama.
‘We better be going,’ says Yokoyama as casually as he can, brushing past me and moving out the door partially blocked by the four youths. The boys move out of his way in a hurry, as if he’s a rabid dog ready to bite.
More than a little confused I follow after him, bowing my head to avoid eye-contact with any of them.
It’s Sunday, and even if I know that I should be getting out of bed to study for the mid-terms coming up, I just can’t find the energy nor the will to do so. My head is filled with not only thoughts about Yokoyama and his peculiar situation, but also Nishikido, Uchi, and the four other boys we met at the soba shop.
As I think back, at least two of them had seemed like the sort of delinquents I expected Yokoyama to hang with. One with a shaven head and another with crude piercings in his ears.
Rolling over I stare at my alarm clock as it slowly approaches noon, and a part of me is absolutely horrified that I’m letting my day go to waste. Another is just fine where it is.
I must have dozed off, because I’m suddenly awoken by my mobile vibrating, moving around and blinking on the bed side table. Picking it up, I peer at the screen, but I'm unable to recognize the number. It’s not one I already have in my call register, so I’m hesitant about answering.
‘Hello, this is Ohkura speaking’ I say, trying to stifle a yawn.
‘This is Nishikido,’ answers a slightly impatient voice, and in no time at all am I sitting bolt upright in my bed, wide awake. ‘I was just wondering if you’d talked to Yokoyama lately.’
‘I- err…yeah...we were out eating soba a few days ago.’
When I think about it, I hadn’t really seen Yokoyama at all since then.
It’s suddenly grown quiet on the other end, though I hear muffled sounds of Nishikido rummaging around with something. A sudden loud crash of heavy objects falling to the floor makes him grumble, and a louder bang still accompanied by foul language tells me he’s just lost his patience.
‘I can’t seem to get a hang of him,’ growls Nishikido into the phone and the hair on my neck stand on end, ‘none of us can.’
‘Oh…’ I say, unable to think of anything more intelligent. I don’t really know what to do in this situation.
‘Could you meet me down by the Westward Bridge… in like- half an hour?’
It’s half an hour later, and I'm now standing on the bridge, fidgeting nervously and wishing we could have met somewhere with shade. I'd forgotten my cap in my hurry to leave, and have to shield my eyes using both of my hands as I’m watching a slim figure move across the bridge. Nishikido isn’t wearing anything more than a loose pair of yellow capris and some rather fashionable sunglasses. He’s already quite tanned, and with his ruffled black hair his entire appearance comes off as exceedingly dark.
Peering down on my own green khaki clad legs they’re nearly white in contrast to his, and I can’t really remember having had any time out in the sun so far this summer. For some reason it is making me embarrassed.
Nishikido gives me a rushed but somewhat polite greeting, hurrying off again without really explaining to me why we are meeting on a bridge and what it has to do with Yokoyama. I'm trudging behind him down the heated pavement, toward an even hotter bus stop, eventually boarding a sweltering, sauna like bus.
‘Where are we going?’ I finally ask, leaning forward to peer out the window. I don’t really recognize the area we're travelling through. I moved together with my family to Tokyo not all that many years ago from Osaka, and I had never really bothered getting to know more than the district around my own neighbourhood.
‘We’re going to see if Yokoyama is holed up in his apartment,’ explained Nishikido while rapidly texting someone on his mobile. ‘He isn’t answering, but he might still be home.’
‘His apartment?’ I ask, eyes widening. ‘You mean he lives alone?’
‘Yeah…’ murmurs Nishikido, too busy with what he’s doing to really pay any attention to our conversation.
The afternoon brings with it an unbearable heat, and I'm leaning back to look up at the tall building we’re standing in front of. Its grey with small balconies poking out, some decorated with flowers, others with clothes hung out to dry. Screams of children either playing or crying can be heard together with shouts from their mothers. It’s a very typical apartment block, and I don’t know why I'm disappointed. Maybe I imagined Yokoyama living in a more respectable place, but not everyone can afford living in a house in Tokyo like my family.
Tearing my gaze away from the dizzying heights, I watch as Nishikido stands with his thumb firmly on Yokoyama’s doorbell, continuously ringing. We stand like this for what seems like ages, but it's probably just for a few minutes before Nishikido gives up, punching the brick wall.
‘Are you sure this is okay?’ I ask, fidgeting. There is absolutely no shade at all on this side of the building, and it feels as if I am going to boil. ‘It’s so hot… and he's a senpai. We shouldn’t be bothering him.’
‘Never mind that,’ mutters Nishikido, peering over the rim of his sunglasses to read the family names on the doorbell plate. ‘I can’t just leave him alone.’
It takes me aback, Nishikido’s vehement interest in Yokoyama and his wellbeing. From seeing them interact, or their lack of contact strictly speaking, it's made me assume they aren’t very good friends at all, merely that they tolerated each other. But now that I stand here, feeling like my head is burning in the sun and watching Nishikido press the doorbell to what has to be Yokoyama’s next door neighbor, I realize things might go just a little deeper.
I tell myself it’s not jealousy I'm feeling.
‘Um, yeah… hi. This is Nishikido Ryo-‘
Nishikido is leaning in, talking into the speaker. Apparently the neighbour must have answered.
‘No, you don’t know me. I’m looking for someone-‘
I can’t hear from where I am standing. Nothing more than some static, but the darkening look on Nishikido’s face tells me the conversation isn’t going too well.
‘Can’t you just tell me if you have seen him coming or going for the past few days?’
He is nearly yelling, but remembers his manners just in time to add the honorifics. Shaking his head, Nishikido leaves the door and walks over to me. He's smiling but I don’t think it’s a good sign.
‘They say they haven’t seen anything,’ he tells me and as I’m looking up, I can see myself reflected in his sunglasses. I resist the urge to put my hair in place and instead I simply just nod.
I don’t know why they are so scared for him, whether there is a history I don’t know about or not. Obviously there is, but I can’t really fathom whether it is as serious as they, at least Nishikido, wants it to be. I’m thinking of the four guys we met at the station, and Yokoyama’s peculiar reaction to them. I wonder whether or not I should mention this to Nishikido.
We’re walking across the sorry excuse of a park the neighbourhood has (a tree, some sand and a grafittied bench with a bent foot), and I decide it's better if I do.
Nodding, he carefully kicks at a rock but ends up sending it away together with heaps of sand. I can feel it on my tongue and in my throat, but I decide not to complain.
‘Who are they?’ I ask, feeling now that we’re at a place where I can talk more freely with him. Nishikido never was one to showcase his seniority to me before and I feel at ease.
‘His friends-’ answers Nishikido simply, before halting on his way to brush me off with those simple words. ‘Well, they were. You know? Like- something happened. Nothing big, not really. I don’t know why it’s like this.’
I’m walking a few steps behind him, and even if I’m trying to keep my attention on his stumbling words, I can’t help my eyes from travelling down his bare back and end on the boxers peeking out from above the capris.
‘At least one of them seemed like he wanted to talk,’ I say musingly, thinking about the one with the purple bag. He had seemed friendly enough, to me, with bright eyes and a ready smile.
‘Murakami,’ nods Nishikido, as if it explains everything. ‘You’re right! We should talk to them!’
With those words he turns and heads for the parking lots and beyond them; even more apartment blocks. I’m confused to say the least, but have been so ever since I woke up that morning, and I figure it is best just to go along with it.
Hours have passed and we sit with them at an ice cream bar eating shaved ice. All four of them have showed up somewhat to my surprise, and now we’re crowding around a table only meant for two. Everything else is full.
Nishikido is brushing my arm every time he takes a spoonful of blue ice and as he shoves it in his mouth, I wonder distractedly why he doesn’t just use his other.
I find that I’ve been misjudging these guys just like I misjudged Yokoyama. Even if they have the look of delinquents, they really do not behave like it. The small but surprisingly built boy wearing a blue armless hoodie, baggy shorts and a shaven head smiles brightly at me, calling me Tadayoshi-kun right off the bat.
At first I’m indecisive whether the petite guy with the red arm warmers really is a male or if he might very well be a female. But his crude humour and mannerism makes that question hang unsolved as I go ahead and wonder whether he is at all right in the head.
Not that he is the strangest of the four, not by a mile. For the one with the migraine inducing orange beanie is having me tearing up with laughter as he attempts one failing joke after another.
Nishikido seems on good terms with them and when he tells them about the missing Yokoyama and his worries, they all fall silent and serious.
‘That doesn’t seem like Yoko at all,’ says Murakami, and Shibutani nods vigorously by his side. None of them had heard from Yokoyama, or at all seen him since the Thursday they bumped into him and me at the Soba place. Nishikido says that Uchi is currently at his work, asking there, but they had only mentioned something about him having taken a few days off, and that is all they know.
But as we sit there in the shade eating ice the story finally unfolds bit by bit. Or, to be absolutely correct, Yasuda tells it all accompanied by inputs from Maruyama, corrections from Murakami and sound effects from Shibutani.
I had been quite mistaken about Yokoyama. He is not a third year. He was supposed to be, but had failed his second year and was forced to retake it. The disappointment had been heavy on him, and for a good while he had contemplated quitting school altogether to start working.
‘”I’m not good for anything else, anyway”’ quotes Murakami, irritation quite apparent as he rolls his r’s heavily.
‘He’s an idiot,’ chimes in Yasuda, ‘but he always means well.’
‘I think he feels inferior to us, now,’ says Shibutani as a sort of conclusion. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to us at all.’
The sun is already setting and I'm surprised to find myself still in the company of Nishikido. We’re walking along the banks, watching the garbage float on the grey-tinted water and a group of kids playing together with a huge dog. They seem careless of the pollution as they fall into the shallow water, laughing loudly and pushing each other around.
‘Hey, thanks for coming out with me today,’ says Nishikido eventually, his smile big but somehow quite shy. He has taken off his sunglasses now that the sun is behind us, and his dark eyes are shining.
‘Not a problem,’ I answer, perhaps a bit sourly. I can feel my neck having gotten badly sunburned and my stomach is growling angrily at me due to lack of food.
‘I figured since Yokoyama thought you were a nice enough guy to hang out with, you had to be really cool,’ continued Nishikido, pulling at his capris as we walked. ‘He was quite right.’
I don’t think the sudden burning sensation on my face is thanks to the sun, and I feel dizzy with heat overwhelming me. Looking down on him from the corner of my eye, he is gazing at me in much the same manner. We both turn our heads in the opposite directions when we discover the other is looking, and I can’t help but stifle a shy giggle.
Again his hand brushes by mine; it's the sort of soft touch that I had previously interpreted as carelessness at the ice cream bar. As I reached out a finger, I felt his warm hand suddenly envelop mine.
Monday morning and still no signs of Yokoyama. But be that as it may, what worries me more is the sudden absence of Uchi on top of it all. Nishikido and I exchange worried glances over lunch, but we don’t mention it aloud. Neither Matsuda nor Kato really know anything of what is going on. They don’t ask any questions and so there is nothing for us to answer.
It’s evening, and I'm being pulled out of my intense study of the latest Shounen Jump magazine by my phone ringing.
‘You’re spea-‘ I begin but is interrupted by a victorious shout in the other end.
‘Nishikido here!’ he yells, ‘I have found them! I have found them! They are in Osaka.’
My jaw very nearly hit the floor in astonishment.
‘What are they doing there?’ I ask in bewilderment, my shock nearly killing the rabid butterflies going wild in my stomach upon hearing Nishikido’s voice.
‘Seems like Yoko just left for Osaka. His grandfather fell ill quite unexpectedly and he had to leave in a hurry. Uchi figured as much and went after him to see if everything was alright.’
‘But why? Why would Hiroki do such a thing?’ I ask even if I am the only person who should have been able to guess. But even if I have known Uchi my entire life I’m beyond surprised by the extent he is willing to go for someone he has hardly known for two months.
It is quiet in the other end for a while as Nishikido lets the question hang in the air, I just listen to him breathe.
21th of July and it’s the first day of summer vacation.
Pairing/Characters: Ohkura/Ryo (subtle Yoko/Uchi)
Rating: G
Warnings: AU
Notes: I’d like to extend my eternal gratitude to takoyaki_ball for her superb betaing! Also ky_rin for the same ^^
Summary: Ohkura tried, but it turned out it was impossible not to choose an alliance. It is high school after all.
The school bell is ringing in the students for a new year of hard work, crushes, heartbreak and general hormonal drama. I’m one of those students - have been for two weeks already, and this is my first year as a high school student.
Maybe I should have been scared, but I couldn’t really say I was. I’ve not been nervous, not in the least, but somehow I am finding myself clutching my bag and searching the sea of foreign faces for a familiar one that should have been here. I hadn’t been alone arriving, not initially, because Uchi Hiroki and I had promised to stay by each other’s sides forever (I suppose you’re gagging by this point, but we were just kids then, so bear with me). We had, at one point, even agreed on entering the same college; eventually climbing the ladder at the same company after graduation.
Despite all this; it hadn’t taken Uchi more than half a week to disappear and acquire a new group of friends. Friends who actually do scare me quite a bit. Some of them are second years, one even a third year and quite obviously a delinquent with his long blonde hair and unruly clothes.
Yokoyama Kimitaka and his little gang, walking the corridors as if they own them. Even daring to talk back to the teachers whenever they’re confronted. What Uchi sees in them is a mystery to me, and I can’t help but feel just a tiny bit betrayed.
Uchi and I hadn’t been lucky enough to end up in the same class. Just the thought that we wouldn’t hadn’t even crossed my mind until we both stood there with our mouths hanging open, listening to the classes being called up. I’m in class A, Uchi in class C.
Of course, I’m polite to all my new classmates, but I never really thought I’d have to make friendly with them. Apparently Uchi had thought otherwise.
May is already arriving and is proving to be impossibly hot for the season. Wherever I look there are loosened ties and hiked up skirts, it should be a happy time, but for some reason I’m unable to come out of my solitude. Uchi is still hanging around his new acquaintances, and as far as I can see from where I sit mooning over my lunch they’re getting on pretty well. He’s smiling his wide, charming smile, telling a story that apparently needs a lot of random arm waving, but it makes them all laugh so it has to be funny.
Scowling over at their table, I watch them as they frolic around. Masuda and Kato are two names I learned early on and place on the correct faces; they are in class C together with Uchi. But there is also a Nishikido from second year, and never to forget, Yokoyama. He sits a bit apart from them, intent on his own food, no tie and the top buttons of his shirt undone. His hair is long and bleached blonde, bangs obscuring parts of his face and falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to mind it much.
He gives of a sense of rebellion to me. There can’t be much good in a guy who hangs around a group of first and second years. Where are his own classmates, I wonder?
I’ve had enough with both the food and the staring, so I get up from my table, but freeze as Yokoyama suddenly looks up from his intent consumption of food and catches my gaze. His eyes narrows and he tilts his head just slightly in a questioning way. What he wants to know I have no idea, and neither do I want to find out.
Bowing my head curtly I gather my bento box and chopsticks, turn around fast enough for my chair to nearly tip over and hasten away. Confrontations have never been my strong suit. I have a feeling that “I was staring because you’re taking away my best friend” will egg on a fight more than comfort him of my peaceful intentions.
Early June and I have somehow managed to find a routine that does not include Uchi, enabling me to pretend I don’t miss him. Of course, it's in the small moments when I see something incredibly funny and turn around to point it out to him, finding he’s not there, that I feel like sitting right down on the street and bawling my eyes out. I cannot imagine how he can’t be missing me the same, but his new friends must be giving him something I never could. To be honest, I feel like a lovesick girl.
Watching my sneakers as I walk home with a bag of groceries, the shadows are growing longer with the setting sun. It’s still hot and my school uniform clings to my back with perspiration. Blessing every breeze that blows my way, I labour onwards with the heavy weight of both my books and the groceries my mother has ordered me to acquire for dinner. Apparently we're having guests this evening, associates from my father’s job, and she is getting nervous for what to prepare. It never fails to turn into a warzone at home whenever this happens, and just thinking about it I can feel my footsteps halter. Why can’t they just eat out like normal people?
Loud voices drift towards me on the shallow breeze, and looking up I see a small group of what has to be high school kids hanging around at the local playground. I pay them no mind as I am unable to recognize them. People with nothing better to do than chasing kids away from the swings really don’t interest me all that much.
Not until one of the foreign voices rises above the din and yells my name.
‘Ohkura!’ it yells, and I swirl around, nearly dropping the bag of groceries in my surprise. Squinting across the street I try to discern the figures partially shaded by the trees, and eventually I recognize the skinny and awkward frame of Uchi, leaning against one of the swing posts. I'm confused for a moment because I know the voice I'd heard was not Uchi’s, but then a figure rises from the swings and waves for me to come over, and I finally recognize it as Yokoyama.
For a few short moments I’m indecisive between walking away pretending I hadn’t heard, or just throwing away the groceries and run like hell. Eventually the reasonable voice in my head, the one that had gotten me elected as class representative, tells me that I can’t just ignore a senpai. Not even a delinquent one. Perhaps especially not a delinquent one.
Walking over, Yokoyama sits down on the swings again and kicks off, keeping a slow rhythm. They are only three; Yokoyama, who’s looking me up and down, Uchi, who’s smiling but looking everywhere else but at the spot of the world that I occupy, and Nishikido, squatting on the ground with his hair ruffled in every direction and not seeming to care one way or another.
I bow to the both of them to be polite, and open my mouth to excuse myself so I can leave, but Yokoyama interrupts me before I can get a word out.
‘You’re Uchi’s friend right?’ he asks, and stares at my nose. I twitch it unconsciously.
‘Yeah…’ I murmur hesitantly, ‘I suppose so…?’ The sentence ends in a half questioning way, and I look at Uchi from the corner of my eye, as if seeking confirmation from him, but he doesn’t answer.
‘He talks about you,’ nods Nishikido from where he’s sitting on the ground, drawing a random pattern in the sand with a twig. Uchi is squirming where he stands, seeming to be incredibly embarrassed about it all.
‘Okay,’ I nod, hefting the bag, as it’s starting to get heavy. ‘I sort of have to go now, though, my mother needs these groceries.’
Yokoyama just stares at me; his eyes a peculiar light brown, seeming to see right through me.
‘Yeah, you should go,’ concedes Uchi, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He’s still in his school uniform, as is Nishikido, but looking at Yokoyama I realize he is wearing what appears to be a blue jumpsuit with the top part undone and hanging around his waist, accompanied by heavy boots. The sort of clothing they wear at construction sites, for example. He must have noticed me staring for he brush at a dirtied spot on the leg self-consciously and gives a little shrug.
‘I’m going to work now,’ he says as nonchalantly as he can and gets up from the swings. I’ve always been tall and broadly built for my age, but Yokoyama is at a height with me and even if he could have looked me right in the eyes, he doesn’t.
Seeing his senpai get up and walk away, Nishikido also leaves his spot on the ground, his youthful face scrunched up as he eyes me in a thoughtful manner. When his black eyes locks on mine and his brow furrows, he looks like a thunderstorm waiting to happen, I can’t help my heart from contracting in a decidedly excited way. I feel fixed to the spot, not knowing quite where to look.
The moment lasts not even a second before he turns and walks after Yokoyama, his feet leaving a pattern of footsteps in the dried sand.
The very next day I’m minding my own business, hurrying from the classroom to the student council for extracurricular activities when a row of people in front of me halts my progress. Looking up from the notes I’m leafing through, I nearly yelp as I stare right into Yokoyama’s pale face. He’s looking at a spot above my right shoulder and I have to quench the desire to turn around and follow his gaze.
Behind Yokoyama I easily spot Uchi, seeming less awkward to have me around than he had the evening before. His other two classmates are by his side, but Nishikido is nowhere to be seen. I try to tell myself I’m not disappointed.
‘You can eat lunch with us tomorrow if you want to,’ says Yokoyama, the right side of his mouth going upwards into a sneer, though I think he means it as a smile. Shame washes over me together with the elation. I shouldn’t feel so grateful to be accepted into a gang lead by a delinquent with nothing better to do than play with swings on random playgrounds, and who has part time work, on top of that. He’s obviously not very good news. But brushing all that aside, I find myself bowing my head in thanks and accepting the offer willingly, perhaps a bit too willingly.
Who knew, maybe Nishikido will be back tomorrow, from wherever he is at the moment.
The weeks pass in a blur, and it feels awkward to suddenly be accepted when I had spent the entire beginning of the school year more or less alone. Masuda and Kato are both bright and well mannered boys, but they seem to have their own thing going on, not minding the others much. The same goes for Uchi and Nishikido, which leaves Yokoyama pretty much in solitude for most of the time. He seems reluctant to engage in any of their activities.
That is why it’s difficult to hide my astonishment when he one lunch taps my shoulder, leans over close and whispers in my ear:
‘Do you want to go out and eat afterwards?’
I’m so dumbfounded by the proposition that I can’t do much but stare at him for the longest time. The grains of rice that have spilled out of his bento must be really interesting, because his concentration on them is acute.
‘Sure,’ I finally manage to press past my shock. ‘T-that would be nice. Where to?’
He shrugs and puts down the chopsticks that he has been using to push the rice around on the table with. ‘I know of a good place by the station,’ he says, ‘soba place. Good. Cheap.’
I nod and grin. I love soba.
A few hours later and he hadn’t been lying, Yokoyama. The soba is amazingly good and very affordable for two high school students. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about the place before.
It’s located in a little nook in the corner of the station, right next to a manga bookstore and across the street from a phoneshop. I guess no one really bothers to look past the shiny commercials and colourful carton boxes long enough to notice “Cook’s special Soba 310yen!” scribbled with yellow chalk on a blackboard.
But Yokoyama knows of it, and now we stand in comfortable silence enjoying our delicious food, watching what little of the world we can through the tiny window, partially obscured by shades.
Yokoyama has a habit of being silent. I have only seen him fool around with Nishikido once or twice, so I don't really find our silence all that peculiar. With any other senpai, especially someone from third year, the situation would have felt quite ominous.
It must be this comfortable silence that makes me so acutely aware of his little movements, warning me well ahead when something starts to happen. He tenses up, juts out his jaw and puts down his chopsticks rather clumsily. Looking up I see four boys, somehow seeming familiar, hanging by the door into the soba shop and chatting loudly. Their uniforms reveal that they’re from the same school as us, and once I’ve gotten over the initial shock I am finally able to recognize them as third years. Yokoyama’s classmates, I'm guessing.
Looking back at him, he has already shoved the soba away and is picking up his schoolbag, throwing it carelessly over the shoulder, nearly hitting the man standing behind him.
Yokoyama's hurry is stalled as the tallest senior in the group yells out.
‘Hey Yoko, why do-’ begins the tall one who is sporting a purple Nike bag, but he seems to change his mind and shuts his mouth again in mid-sentence. I feel like I'm watching a tennis match, my attention divided between the group and Yokoyama.
‘We better be going,’ says Yokoyama as casually as he can, brushing past me and moving out the door partially blocked by the four youths. The boys move out of his way in a hurry, as if he’s a rabid dog ready to bite.
More than a little confused I follow after him, bowing my head to avoid eye-contact with any of them.
It’s Sunday, and even if I know that I should be getting out of bed to study for the mid-terms coming up, I just can’t find the energy nor the will to do so. My head is filled with not only thoughts about Yokoyama and his peculiar situation, but also Nishikido, Uchi, and the four other boys we met at the soba shop.
As I think back, at least two of them had seemed like the sort of delinquents I expected Yokoyama to hang with. One with a shaven head and another with crude piercings in his ears.
Rolling over I stare at my alarm clock as it slowly approaches noon, and a part of me is absolutely horrified that I’m letting my day go to waste. Another is just fine where it is.
I must have dozed off, because I’m suddenly awoken by my mobile vibrating, moving around and blinking on the bed side table. Picking it up, I peer at the screen, but I'm unable to recognize the number. It’s not one I already have in my call register, so I’m hesitant about answering.
‘Hello, this is Ohkura speaking’ I say, trying to stifle a yawn.
‘This is Nishikido,’ answers a slightly impatient voice, and in no time at all am I sitting bolt upright in my bed, wide awake. ‘I was just wondering if you’d talked to Yokoyama lately.’
‘I- err…yeah...we were out eating soba a few days ago.’
When I think about it, I hadn’t really seen Yokoyama at all since then.
It’s suddenly grown quiet on the other end, though I hear muffled sounds of Nishikido rummaging around with something. A sudden loud crash of heavy objects falling to the floor makes him grumble, and a louder bang still accompanied by foul language tells me he’s just lost his patience.
‘I can’t seem to get a hang of him,’ growls Nishikido into the phone and the hair on my neck stand on end, ‘none of us can.’
‘Oh…’ I say, unable to think of anything more intelligent. I don’t really know what to do in this situation.
‘Could you meet me down by the Westward Bridge… in like- half an hour?’
It’s half an hour later, and I'm now standing on the bridge, fidgeting nervously and wishing we could have met somewhere with shade. I'd forgotten my cap in my hurry to leave, and have to shield my eyes using both of my hands as I’m watching a slim figure move across the bridge. Nishikido isn’t wearing anything more than a loose pair of yellow capris and some rather fashionable sunglasses. He’s already quite tanned, and with his ruffled black hair his entire appearance comes off as exceedingly dark.
Peering down on my own green khaki clad legs they’re nearly white in contrast to his, and I can’t really remember having had any time out in the sun so far this summer. For some reason it is making me embarrassed.
Nishikido gives me a rushed but somewhat polite greeting, hurrying off again without really explaining to me why we are meeting on a bridge and what it has to do with Yokoyama. I'm trudging behind him down the heated pavement, toward an even hotter bus stop, eventually boarding a sweltering, sauna like bus.
‘Where are we going?’ I finally ask, leaning forward to peer out the window. I don’t really recognize the area we're travelling through. I moved together with my family to Tokyo not all that many years ago from Osaka, and I had never really bothered getting to know more than the district around my own neighbourhood.
‘We’re going to see if Yokoyama is holed up in his apartment,’ explained Nishikido while rapidly texting someone on his mobile. ‘He isn’t answering, but he might still be home.’
‘His apartment?’ I ask, eyes widening. ‘You mean he lives alone?’
‘Yeah…’ murmurs Nishikido, too busy with what he’s doing to really pay any attention to our conversation.
The afternoon brings with it an unbearable heat, and I'm leaning back to look up at the tall building we’re standing in front of. Its grey with small balconies poking out, some decorated with flowers, others with clothes hung out to dry. Screams of children either playing or crying can be heard together with shouts from their mothers. It’s a very typical apartment block, and I don’t know why I'm disappointed. Maybe I imagined Yokoyama living in a more respectable place, but not everyone can afford living in a house in Tokyo like my family.
Tearing my gaze away from the dizzying heights, I watch as Nishikido stands with his thumb firmly on Yokoyama’s doorbell, continuously ringing. We stand like this for what seems like ages, but it's probably just for a few minutes before Nishikido gives up, punching the brick wall.
‘Are you sure this is okay?’ I ask, fidgeting. There is absolutely no shade at all on this side of the building, and it feels as if I am going to boil. ‘It’s so hot… and he's a senpai. We shouldn’t be bothering him.’
‘Never mind that,’ mutters Nishikido, peering over the rim of his sunglasses to read the family names on the doorbell plate. ‘I can’t just leave him alone.’
It takes me aback, Nishikido’s vehement interest in Yokoyama and his wellbeing. From seeing them interact, or their lack of contact strictly speaking, it's made me assume they aren’t very good friends at all, merely that they tolerated each other. But now that I stand here, feeling like my head is burning in the sun and watching Nishikido press the doorbell to what has to be Yokoyama’s next door neighbor, I realize things might go just a little deeper.
I tell myself it’s not jealousy I'm feeling.
‘Um, yeah… hi. This is Nishikido Ryo-‘
Nishikido is leaning in, talking into the speaker. Apparently the neighbour must have answered.
‘No, you don’t know me. I’m looking for someone-‘
I can’t hear from where I am standing. Nothing more than some static, but the darkening look on Nishikido’s face tells me the conversation isn’t going too well.
‘Can’t you just tell me if you have seen him coming or going for the past few days?’
He is nearly yelling, but remembers his manners just in time to add the honorifics. Shaking his head, Nishikido leaves the door and walks over to me. He's smiling but I don’t think it’s a good sign.
‘They say they haven’t seen anything,’ he tells me and as I’m looking up, I can see myself reflected in his sunglasses. I resist the urge to put my hair in place and instead I simply just nod.
I don’t know why they are so scared for him, whether there is a history I don’t know about or not. Obviously there is, but I can’t really fathom whether it is as serious as they, at least Nishikido, wants it to be. I’m thinking of the four guys we met at the station, and Yokoyama’s peculiar reaction to them. I wonder whether or not I should mention this to Nishikido.
We’re walking across the sorry excuse of a park the neighbourhood has (a tree, some sand and a grafittied bench with a bent foot), and I decide it's better if I do.
Nodding, he carefully kicks at a rock but ends up sending it away together with heaps of sand. I can feel it on my tongue and in my throat, but I decide not to complain.
‘Who are they?’ I ask, feeling now that we’re at a place where I can talk more freely with him. Nishikido never was one to showcase his seniority to me before and I feel at ease.
‘His friends-’ answers Nishikido simply, before halting on his way to brush me off with those simple words. ‘Well, they were. You know? Like- something happened. Nothing big, not really. I don’t know why it’s like this.’
I’m walking a few steps behind him, and even if I’m trying to keep my attention on his stumbling words, I can’t help my eyes from travelling down his bare back and end on the boxers peeking out from above the capris.
‘At least one of them seemed like he wanted to talk,’ I say musingly, thinking about the one with the purple bag. He had seemed friendly enough, to me, with bright eyes and a ready smile.
‘Murakami,’ nods Nishikido, as if it explains everything. ‘You’re right! We should talk to them!’
With those words he turns and heads for the parking lots and beyond them; even more apartment blocks. I’m confused to say the least, but have been so ever since I woke up that morning, and I figure it is best just to go along with it.
Hours have passed and we sit with them at an ice cream bar eating shaved ice. All four of them have showed up somewhat to my surprise, and now we’re crowding around a table only meant for two. Everything else is full.
Nishikido is brushing my arm every time he takes a spoonful of blue ice and as he shoves it in his mouth, I wonder distractedly why he doesn’t just use his other.
I find that I’ve been misjudging these guys just like I misjudged Yokoyama. Even if they have the look of delinquents, they really do not behave like it. The small but surprisingly built boy wearing a blue armless hoodie, baggy shorts and a shaven head smiles brightly at me, calling me Tadayoshi-kun right off the bat.
At first I’m indecisive whether the petite guy with the red arm warmers really is a male or if he might very well be a female. But his crude humour and mannerism makes that question hang unsolved as I go ahead and wonder whether he is at all right in the head.
Not that he is the strangest of the four, not by a mile. For the one with the migraine inducing orange beanie is having me tearing up with laughter as he attempts one failing joke after another.
Nishikido seems on good terms with them and when he tells them about the missing Yokoyama and his worries, they all fall silent and serious.
‘That doesn’t seem like Yoko at all,’ says Murakami, and Shibutani nods vigorously by his side. None of them had heard from Yokoyama, or at all seen him since the Thursday they bumped into him and me at the Soba place. Nishikido says that Uchi is currently at his work, asking there, but they had only mentioned something about him having taken a few days off, and that is all they know.
But as we sit there in the shade eating ice the story finally unfolds bit by bit. Or, to be absolutely correct, Yasuda tells it all accompanied by inputs from Maruyama, corrections from Murakami and sound effects from Shibutani.
I had been quite mistaken about Yokoyama. He is not a third year. He was supposed to be, but had failed his second year and was forced to retake it. The disappointment had been heavy on him, and for a good while he had contemplated quitting school altogether to start working.
‘”I’m not good for anything else, anyway”’ quotes Murakami, irritation quite apparent as he rolls his r’s heavily.
‘He’s an idiot,’ chimes in Yasuda, ‘but he always means well.’
‘I think he feels inferior to us, now,’ says Shibutani as a sort of conclusion. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to us at all.’
The sun is already setting and I'm surprised to find myself still in the company of Nishikido. We’re walking along the banks, watching the garbage float on the grey-tinted water and a group of kids playing together with a huge dog. They seem careless of the pollution as they fall into the shallow water, laughing loudly and pushing each other around.
‘Hey, thanks for coming out with me today,’ says Nishikido eventually, his smile big but somehow quite shy. He has taken off his sunglasses now that the sun is behind us, and his dark eyes are shining.
‘Not a problem,’ I answer, perhaps a bit sourly. I can feel my neck having gotten badly sunburned and my stomach is growling angrily at me due to lack of food.
‘I figured since Yokoyama thought you were a nice enough guy to hang out with, you had to be really cool,’ continued Nishikido, pulling at his capris as we walked. ‘He was quite right.’
I don’t think the sudden burning sensation on my face is thanks to the sun, and I feel dizzy with heat overwhelming me. Looking down on him from the corner of my eye, he is gazing at me in much the same manner. We both turn our heads in the opposite directions when we discover the other is looking, and I can’t help but stifle a shy giggle.
Again his hand brushes by mine; it's the sort of soft touch that I had previously interpreted as carelessness at the ice cream bar. As I reached out a finger, I felt his warm hand suddenly envelop mine.
Monday morning and still no signs of Yokoyama. But be that as it may, what worries me more is the sudden absence of Uchi on top of it all. Nishikido and I exchange worried glances over lunch, but we don’t mention it aloud. Neither Matsuda nor Kato really know anything of what is going on. They don’t ask any questions and so there is nothing for us to answer.
It’s evening, and I'm being pulled out of my intense study of the latest Shounen Jump magazine by my phone ringing.
‘You’re spea-‘ I begin but is interrupted by a victorious shout in the other end.
‘Nishikido here!’ he yells, ‘I have found them! I have found them! They are in Osaka.’
My jaw very nearly hit the floor in astonishment.
‘What are they doing there?’ I ask in bewilderment, my shock nearly killing the rabid butterflies going wild in my stomach upon hearing Nishikido’s voice.
‘Seems like Yoko just left for Osaka. His grandfather fell ill quite unexpectedly and he had to leave in a hurry. Uchi figured as much and went after him to see if everything was alright.’
‘But why? Why would Hiroki do such a thing?’ I ask even if I am the only person who should have been able to guess. But even if I have known Uchi my entire life I’m beyond surprised by the extent he is willing to go for someone he has hardly known for two months.
It is quiet in the other end for a while as Nishikido lets the question hang in the air, I just listen to him breathe.
21th of July and it’s the first day of summer vacation.