"To tell you the truth," Aiko muttered, "the purpose of our coming to Tokyo is not only to see Ryou-kun. Originally, my brother… Isshin Yoshida started this in order to take Ryou-kun back to Kyoto. But when he saw him walking around with his new friends… I guess his plans changed. My brother couldn't foresee how Ryou-kun could have made any friends at all, and he thought the statements in his chat messages were questionable."
"Your brother didn't trust Ryou-kun in this way?"
"There's a visceral reason for that," Aiko replied adamantly, rolling her eyes afterward. "We'll get to that later. I just think Ryou-kun won't get away with talking to you, but there's no way he can dare. Sure, he's cowardly, but it shows his sincerity. In reality, Ryou-kun isn't that confident, and also... He has a trait of unreasonably taking the words of those closest to him at face value."
"Ryou-kun is strangled by regret for yesterday…?"
"Of course, he doesn't think you're nothing! He has become inseparable from you, though he used to say how much he disliked Tokyo when he moved here. He may not have been able to track you down himself, and it was you who found him, but I'm sure that in any case Ryou-kun is immensely grateful to you for being around him!"
The value of friendship for Ryou Hayashi was placed above everything else, and he could only consider as friends those who were sincere with him and accompanied him through difficult times. The tendency to defend what he held dear was what he called a value. Having clarified her friend's philosophy, Akiko unhesitatingly pulled out her phone and called a person who had become important to her. On the first attempt, the call was automatically cancelled, for the caller was busy with another call. A short time later, Akiko called that caller again, and a woman's sound came from the other side of the receiver:
"Hello? Akiko-chan, please forgive me. I was on the phone with someone else."
"Listen, Yumiko-chan," Akiko turned and put the sound on speakerphone. "Keep your phone on."
With her hands down, Akiko asked Aiko if her friend could listen to the conversation, to which Aiko did not refuse, adding that it would be much better if as many of Ryou's friends here could listen to the conversation as possible.
"Yumiko-chan, we are now in the playground in the yards on the south side of the school. Aiko-chan, we can begin."
Nodding, Aiko gained confidence and pulled a calm look.
"I've known Ryou-kun for a little over five years," she said. "First of all, I had a love affair with him at one non-long time. My brother, Isshin Yoshida, personally gathered his friends around him, and lo and behold, our friendship did not expire over time, but learning that Ryou-kun personally wanted to leave Kyoto left his friends in shock. Now convinced that Ryou-kun was having fun in his new environment, my brother no longer pursued the goal of bringing him back to Tokyo. Brother was worried about Ryou-kun for a reason. I... shouldn't tell anyone about this, but hiding it from you is useless."
As soon as Aiko started to tell the truth, Yumiko's breath took over, and the pink-haired girl could hardly contain her emotions. Her words were a blow whose truth the girls could not have guessed before.
"Ryou-kun, he… Until Isshin picked him up by our group five years ago, he literally didn't communicate with anyone but his older sister. For all thirteen years Ryou-kun had no contact with his peers. At first, he seemed like a withdrawn child, and he had to get used to us over the next few months.
"A few months?" said Akiko. "Come to think of it, that's a long time."
"Until the moment Isshin became his best friend, I didn't suspect anything. My brother told me that Ryou-kun had developed mental weakness and a fear of society since childhood for terrible reasons."
"What is she saying…" Yumiko's voice shook. Aiko, on the other hand, pressed a thin hand to her heart.
"So now my brother wants Ryou-kun to finally be able to determine what he should choose. We've always protected him, and it's grown into something special: it's like Ryou-kun has turned into a kitten who has nothing to do but obey his masters and stand behind their backs. Isshin doesn't want it to go on any longer, and Ryou-kun should solve his own case himself."
"So it is with your support that Ryou-kun is who he is now…" Akiko lowered her eyelashes as she saw Aiko respond with a slight nod.
"So, please talk to him! It would be the best gift for me and my brother."
"Aiko-chan?" the pink-haired woman was upset. "You shouldn't bow!"
"I have no choice but to ask you to talk to Ryou-kun!"
Her words brought down such a surge of excitement on Akiko that her ears scattered in an instant to the ringing rustle of the leaves of the green trees that lined the courtyard, and the breeze blowing on her pretty face muffled the girl's excitement. The warm tones of the crimson glow tested the girls' senses, trying to calm the shock that had fallen upon them. The sun continued to slowly wan, hiding behind an unknown horizon.
Hearing intense footsteps beside her, Aiko raised her head and met her eyes with a girl with dark brown hair and frank brown eyes, who looked back and forth charmingly at her and at Akiko, who was surprised.
Saying hello to her loudly, Aiko confusedly added: "Since you look older than me, and I turned seventeen a few months ago, I ask you not to bow!"
Yumiko, chuckling, replied that she would be eighteen very soon, and was not much older than Aiko. She looked healthier, if you recall her condition this afternoon.
"What do you mean?" Aiko's head snapped up. "I thought it was just me and Iruma-kun and Isshin who were the youngest among the enormous seniors, like Ryou-kun."
"Oh, how I understand you…" Yumiko added, also upset about this. She remembered Glenn and Yamada's height, which made her shudder sharply. "We have plenty of closet-sized guys like that at school. Especially since the tallest young man in school is considered our good friend."
"Really…? How tall can an eighteen year old at school be considered the tallest boy in the whole school!"
"He told me he was 185 centimeters tall!"
Yumiko surprisingly quickly became friends with the girl from Kyoto, and thanks to her, the former heated atmosphere was replaced by a softer one. Yumiko reasoned that Glenn was three centimeters taller than Ryou, fifteen centimeters taller than her, and Akiko was a full head taller. Nevertheless, Akiko could not help feeling alienated. At the silence, she called out to her:
"Would you like, Yumiko-chan, to meet Ryou-kun…?"
Upon hearing her, Yumiko forgot herself in sentimental thoughts. Pulling herself together, she added: "We should do that," she paused briefly. "But we'll all talk to him, together. If that's how we can give Ryou-kun confidence, I'd be willing to move mountains."
"Yes," Akiko's eyes quivered, barely holding back the bitter tears. Lifting her thumb, she barely smiled a faithful smile. "We will do this. For the sake of friends, so that Glenn-kun's efforts won't go to waste."
Yumiko didn't quite understand the meaning of her words, which made the pink-haired woman ask her to ignore it. Expressing their gratitude to the overjoyed Aiko, they brought her, emotional, to tears. While the two lovely girls comforted her, Aiko wondered if this was the outcome Isshin wanted, that Ryou wouldn't return to Kyoto, because he finally admitted to a new relationship, feeling that someone needed someone in a completely different city.
Ryou's domestic, boring leisure time, lying on the couch for more than an hour and staring pensively at the ceiling, was interrupted by the annoying ringing of the street intercom. As he approached the door and peered through the surveillance camera, he was surprised: three teenagers outside were silently waiting for the entryway to open.
Opening the door for them, Ryou waited at the front door of his apartment while the members of the literary club took the elevator up. Meanwhile, behind the panoramic window, the light of the bitter sun was just fading, being replaced by the twilight of the evening pore. The guy immediately opened the door for them as soon as Akiko made one knock. In front of them was a high-tech, post-modern apartment with an unusually beautiful view from a panoramic window the size of an entire wall. It was everyone's dream home.
"What did you come to see me for?" Ryou said as they undressed their shoes.
"Came to investigate your condition," Akiko answered immediately, admired by the brown-eyed girl dressed in a light-colored shirt with a red skirt.
Looking up and down his house, the teenagers finally gathered in the hall room and sat down on the couches. Ryou realized that playtime was over, and his friends had come to see him for a reason.
"Ryou-kun…" Akiko muttered, bringing a smile to Yumiko and Tomoyuki's lips. "Talk to us. About everything that's bothering you."