The time has finally come, Hotaro made dinner for everyone else and they all were resting on the couch with a full stomach while the boy was washing the dishes. The girls looked at each other and only one thought was going on in their minds.
'How am I supposed to sleep on my own after that movie?'
"You know," Hinami said getting their attention. "Since I am already here, we can have a sleepover here. I always did that when I watched movies with Hotaro here. What do you say?"
"What's a sleepover?" Hana asked tilting her head.
"Since Hana-chan doesn't know what it is then sleepover it is," Hinami announced standing up pointing her finger at Akari. "There is no way to deny the request and I have already planned everything in my mind. We have some futons in the house, enough for all four of us. We can lay them right here in the living room. All it will take is just s-"
"Wait, all four of us? Are you even counting…him?" Akari said standing up. She never really had much experience with boys herself, not even having one in her room. She did have a boyfriend but they have been dating for only about a week now. "I don't think I would be comfortable sleeping near a boy."
"Then we will just stick you two at the far ends and stuff me and Hana-chan in middle, beside…" Hinami said and the two looked at Hana who tilted her head not knowing what is going on. "Hana-chan, is it okay if you don't sleep with Hotaro today and just with u-"
"NO!" the girl shouted closing Hinami's mouth. Soon, Hana realized and covered her mouth. "I-It's just that, oni-chan will feel scared all alone so I need to be with him, yeah, that's it."
"And there you have it," Hinami said to Akari who lets out a sigh and started rubbing her arm.
Hotaro, on the other hand, was enjoying the little chore he was doing. To him, washing the dishes was rather peaceful for some reason. He kept washing every single corner of each of them and made sure to check for any missed spot over and over. To him, if you can see your face on the plate, it's clean. Though he never saw his face in them.
"Hotaro, where are the futons?" a voice came from behind him.
"Hmm, they should be in the storeroom on the first floor," he said and then suddenly stopped thinking over the question. "Wait but why do you…need…them? And she is already out of the kitchen."
His eyes fell on Hana who was peeking from behind the table trying to be sneaky and Hotaro decided to walk up next to the table and stand behind Hana. She did not notice him being there and peeked up again looking for him but he was out of her peripheral. She looked confused and turned around seeing the figure of Hotaro standing behind her with his hands folded before him.
She gave him a grin followed by an awkward laugh.
"So, why was I being spied on? Did I do anything?" Hotaro asked Hana and she started fiddling with her fingers.
"Um…well…Hinami-nee-chan said that we are having a sleepover and I don't know what we do in that," she said and lowered her head.
"That's it?" Hotaro asked and she nodded her head. "Well, in a sleepover, you have your friends come and stay at your house for a night. You have a lot of fun during that like watching something together, talking about stuff, and even playing a lot of games."
As Hotaro started speaking, Hana looked at him with stars in her eyes. She started getting fascinated by the idea of sleepovers. Her imagination went onto her having many friends and then they coming over to her house and them having fun.
'So Hinami is again having a sleepover here. Well, I already expected something like that.'
"Onii-chan, how do you know so much about sleepovers?" Hana asked out of curiosity.
"I and Hinami had so many sleepovers at each other's house that both of us have lost count of it," Hotaro said while nodding his head. "Hana, how about you go and brush your teeth and then help Hinami. I will be there soon."
"Okay," Hana said and hopped off the chair and ran down the hall to go brush her teeth.
She was so fast that she almost collided with Hinami who was picking up four futons at once and was hardly able to see anything. Akari noticed this and quickly ran towards her and took two of the futons. She looked at Hinami who did not look like the futons were really bothering her before.
They walked into the living room and then placed the futons down. Hana rolled up her sleeves and then started pushing the couches to one side without any difficulty. Akari felt like she should help her a bit and decided to move the smaller ones on one side but as she tried moving it, to her surprise the couches were a lot heavier than she expected. She could only move it by an inch and it still made no progress taking the amount of distance it had to cover across the room.
She looked back at Hinami who walked towards the small couch and then pushed it like it was made out of air. Her eyes fell on Akari who was trying to help and she gave her a little smirk.
"It takes real power to move those, leave those and bring the futons here," Hinami said and though Akari did not like it, she knew that moving the couches wasn't something she could do.
'What does she even eat to get that strength?' Akari wondered looking at Hinami.
Hinami caught Akari staring at her and grins showing off her strength to her. In one strong push, she made the couch slide on the floor and stick next to the wall. Dusting her hands, she looked back at Akari who placed the futons in their places.
"Thank you for that Akari," Hinami said patting Akari's back using her first name out of nowhere. "Hey, what's with that look, since you are going to be living here for don't know how long, I figure using your first name is better, call me Hinami too."
"O-okay," Akari said. "Say H-Hinami, how are you so strong? I mean, what do you eat to have that strength?"
"Hoh, falling for me already," Hinami said teasingly.
"Hey! It's nothing like that!" Akari retorted immediately.
"Hahaha, I'm just joking," she said and then picked up the futon and started unfolding it. "The reason behind it was first that I wanted to be strong because of crazy fantasies I had before but now it's for Hotaro."
"Fuji-kun?"
Akari stared at Hinami who had a soft yet sad smile on her face. She placed the futon down and then lets out a sigh.
"You know too don't you? The guy can hardly help himself with anything. So it took it upon me to do something for him. For the longest time, I had always been on the receiving end of his help so I decided to pay him back somehow," Hinami said and went over to the next futon. "If you think about it, Hotaro is the perfect target of bullying, so thin, looks like he only has his face in the books, physically weak and he doesn't fight back most of the time. The same happened to him in middle school for some time but I stopped all of it. I thought I did something good but now that I am no longer in the same high school as him, I can't do shit."
Hinami gripped the end of the futon harder and wiped a single tear falling down her eyes.
"Hotaro never meant harm to anyone and yet…and yet…things like this happen to him," she said and looked up at Akari and her look made Akari stiffen. "Just because Hotaro told me to apologize to you doesn't mean I forgive you for what you have done. If not for him, I wonder what I woul-"
Knock Knock
Hinami was interrupted by the sound of knocking on the door frame of the room. They looked at Hotaro standing there with Hinami beside him. Akari and Hinami looked at each other and then quickly started spreading the futons and Hana and Hotaro also joined them.
When finally done with that, the other three went to brush their teeth and Hinami just used her spare brush kept in Hotaro's bathroom. Hotaro informed Hinami's mother about her staying over and she came by to send Hinami's nightclothes even though Hinami was okay with wearing Hotaro's.
They all were now sitting down on their futons with Hotaro on the rightmost side and Akari on the leftmost. Next to Akari was Hinami and then Hana was sitting next to Hotaro.
"It's still not too late so how about we talk about something?" Hinami suggested and since no one was against the idea, she started. "So Hotaro back i-"
"Wait, why am I the topic for talking right now?" Hotaro asked interrupting Hinami. "Talk about something else."
"No, I want to hear more about Onii-chan," Hana said stopping Hotaro from speaking further.
"You heard her," Hinami said with a smirk on her face. "So, back in middle school, believe it or not, Hotaro was very famous among the girls."
"Really?" Akari and Hana asked together for completely different reasons.
"Yeah, girls used to confess to him all the time. I got so many girls even asking me to hand him their love letters since they were too shy to say anything to them but Hotaro rejected every single one of them," Hinami said and stopped abruptly. "So…why did he reject every girl? Any ideas?"
At her question, the girls went into thinking. While Hana had no idea what all this really meant, Akari actually thought about it a bit. Taking different scenarios into consideration and also taking the personality of Hotaro she had seen till now, only one made sense.
"Because he didn't know them well?" Akari said to Hinami.
"Is that right Hotaro?" Hinami said and they all looked at Hotaro and he just shook his head.
"Then what's the answer?" Hana asked Hinami tugging her pajama.
"Honestly speaking, even I don't know the answer. I have been asking him for so long but he never told me. At one point I thought he was into boys but he confirmed he wasn't. I thought if I ask here, we will have more brains to think, and maybe someone figures it out," she said rubbing the back of her head and everyone stared at her blankly. "What?"
"We are going to sleep," Hotaro blankly said and the rest agreed to him excluding Hinami.
Akari went and turned off the light and everyone gat in their respective futons. Hana got comfortable in her futon and since it was a new experience to her, she also twist and turned a bit in it trying to feel it out. Hotaro looked at her till she finally fell asleep. He then realized it wasn't only him who was waiting for the little girl to fall asleep. Hinami had a soft smile on her face staring at Hana and Akari just looked at the girl.
"She looks so peaceful and cute while sleeping," Hinami said and lightly poked Hana's cheek which made her grumble a little. "Seeing her like this makes me glad those assholes send her to you even because of completely different reasons."
"Yeah…I can say that too. I don't really care about those too anymore," Hotaro said and bit his lip. "Just did they have to do the same with Hana? She did nothing wrong at all."
"Are you saying you did something wrong? Was any of this your fault?" Hinami spoke up staring right into Hotaro's eyes.
He tried looking back or answering her but just couldn't. His lips trembled to say something and were kept sealed under his will to not utter another word. He clenched his fist and just looked the other way. He knew he couldn't answer that question, the same question he had been asked so many times. The same question he asked himself so many times.
Was it all his fault?
Hotaro has no clue at all. All he knew was that his parents are not with him and probably don't even care about him. Something he should have realized way before. Then maybe it wouldn't have hurt him as it still does.
"It's not your fault, none of this is," to both of their surprises, these words were said by Akari who sat up looking at them. "I still don't know everything about the situation but I know that none of this is your fault Fuji-kun. I mean, I feel bad now and it's not out of pity, trust me. I feel bad for starting all this bullying and all a-"
"Hajime-san," Hotaro's voice cut her and she looked at the boy with a faint smile on his face. "Thank you, for thinking that. It makes me happy."
"I-I see," Akari said and then decided to go to sleep.
Hinami wanted to say something but she didn't in this situation. Due to Hotaro's words of gratidue. She wanted to stop Akari from saying that at all. Hearing something like that said from her made her frustrated. It felt irritating to her that the person because of which Hotaro's condition is so bad in his school is just blankly saying sorry but the most frustrating part was that…
Hotaro forgave her.
And she has no idea why.
'How can you just do that Hotaro?'
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