"I wish you all a wonderful summer vacation!"
With that, school ended for summer vacation and people ran to their friends to discuss their plans for the summer.
"Let's go to the arcade tomorrow!", Sota said to his 5 group of friends.
"I'm so down! My parents increased my allowance because of summer break so I have enough money to blow my chances!"
"Your so lucky Sota, you don't have to consider spending money."
Sota was from a kind-of rich family and his parents sent him to live by himself when high school started. They lived fairly far away, but Sota always had contact with them so he didn't miss them much.
"Even if my family was in this position, I would never take advantage of my parent's hard-earned money."
And Sota meant it. He felt guilty about spending his parent's money as if it was from trees….well it technically is considering that money is made from paper and t-… You get the point.
"What a good kid! I am honoured to be your friend.", chided his best friend, Jiro.
"Shut up!" Sota punched him in the stomach.
"I am not very honoured."
After bickering around on their way home, they finally separated and went on their own paths.
Sota and Jiro both lived in the same direction so they both talked until they came to Sota's apartment.
"Well I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yep! See you man."
Sota headed to the elevator and Jiro waved at him as the elevator door closed.
'Jiro's book! I forgot'
He had previously asked him for his notebook to take down the summer homework and had forgotten to give it back.
Sota spammed the Elevator door button and it opened after a few seconds.
Looking around, Jiro was nowhere to be found.
He looked out to the street but there was no sign of him.
The street was a straight one and there was no to less traffic, so he could see him if he was walking back home.
'He couldn't have walked home this quick. It had only been a mere minute.'
"Maybe he went to a store or something?", he said brushing it off and reassuring himself.
==================================
Sota woke up in high spirits. They were going to go to the arcade today and most probably, going to spend the whole day having fun.
He texted to the group the time they should meet up and went to take a shower.
Humming a tune, he came out of the shower after several minutes and checked for any messages.
There were 5 messages from 5 people.
'Nice!'
His expression dropped as he read the messages.
"Sorry bro. My parents suddenly wanted to visit our grandparent's house today so I wouldn't be coming."
"Same here. They planned a trip to Hawaii for the whole summer vacation. I am so bummed."
All the others said their own situations at hand.
'MY PERFECT SUMMER.' Sota withered and fell down to his knees.
He had suddenly lost his appetite because of the sudden abomination that just dropped on his head.
Sota clenched his fist.
'No I refuse! I am going to make this summer enjoyable by myself. I don't need those idiots to go with me.'
Sota wasn't actually mad at them. He had appreciated them at least letting him know of there plans, rather than keeping him waiting.
The arcade was crowded more than usual. It seemed that everybody had the same idea to spend the first day of summer vacation in the arcade.
His eyes fell on a guy who was trying to win a game a Pac-Man. Something about looking at someone play was always found entertaining to Sota.
He almost went and said "Skill issues!" to a stranger but prevented himself from doing so.
"Skill issues!"
Sota froze. 'I didn't just say that to a stranger.'
The guy looked kind of pissed at the comment.
Sota was ready to apologize when he saw the girl next to him.
'The voice was feminine to be my voice.'
"What did you just say? You're saying that you could play better than me?"
The girl had golden-white hair which reached down to her waist. Her red eyes held a level of confidence in them.
Without a smug look, the girl sat down and entered a coin.
5 minutes later, she was at the 25th level, which was 15 levels to where the boy was.
The boy, impatient and frustrated, pushed the girl down who had been focusing on the game.
Sota was about to step in when the girl retaliated by kneeing his crouch.
"Scram!"
With that, the boy limped away, in pain.
"That was cool."
The girl raised an eyebrow as her eyes fell for the first time on her admirer.
"So you're the chosen one."
"Sorry?"
She pointed at him, a look of seriousness on her face.
"Your life will be full of surprises and not all will be pleasant."
He sighed. "Yeah, I think it already is. I was supposed to meet my friends at the arcade but they all had plans suddenly."
"Hm…."
"Your good at Mario Cart?", she asked.
"I'm....decent."
"Loser has to buy the winner drinks"
They headed to the games and started.
Sota disliked the idea of competition. It was an unnecessarily big load on Sota's back which made him hold back.
This was always the case in exams. The fact there was a number ranking your grade, made him stressed out, inevitably decreasing his score.
He looked forward and saw his competitor biting her lip, concentrating on the game.
'Cute'
He shook his head and looked back at the screen, to find him falling into a trap.
(5 minutes later)
Sota lost horribly, finishing 30 seconds after the girl.
"Your pretty good….um?"
"Shoko Umi."
Introducing himself as Sota, he made his way to the vending machine to buy her a drink.
Sota was unsocial as the next stranger and had difficulty communicating with her.
"You live close by?"
"I can't say stuff like that to strangers."
"Oh"
This was not going smoothly for Sota.
"You visit the arcade often?"
"Not always."
Not only was he bad at interacting with people, but Shoko wasn't giving him much space to form a conversation.
"You're really bad at communicating. Get a life!"
With that statement, Shoko went away in her own direction and disappeared among the crowd.
'I'm bad at communicating? You weren't giving me space.'
Provoked by this, he left the arcade. The uneasy feeling that remained in his stomach made him want to punch something.
'Well, it's no use being infuriated at that. I probably wouldn't see her again'
He couldn't be more wrong.
===============================
Weeks passed and every day his friends gave reasons that obstructed their meetup.
"Our flight was delayed, so we elected to stay here with our grandparents for the whole summer."
"We got a special summer offer in Hawaii which let us stay for the whole summer vacation. I'm sorry Sota :( "
He decided to call them, but none of them took the call.
"Oh sorry I didn't see your call."
"I have bad reception here"
"My battery died."
Sota admitted to himself that he was a bit hurt. His friends had abandoned him and gone on their own journeys.
He understood that they had their own personal situations, so he chose to be reticent, refraining from asking them.
On the bright side, Sota thought that he had enough time to finish summer homework, which was a lot. He sat down, writing down the answers, avoiding succumbing to his hurtful thoughts.
It was not a summer that Sota would be proud of.
Summer vacation ended as fast as it started and it was already the first day of school.
He quickly dressed up and went to Jiro's usual meeting place where they met up to go to school.
"Good morning, J-… huh?"
Jiro was nowhere to be seen.
Sota checked the time to see if he had come too early or late.
"7:00 AM right on the dot. Maybe he forgot?"
They had texted each other yesterday night. It was not a logical reason since Jiro wasn't an old grandma in his 90s who had dementia.
'I'm overthinking it too much. Maybe his dad dropped him off.'
Letting go of the uneasiness in his stomach, he ran to the school.
"Jiro!"
Sota shouted at him and slid his arm around his neck.
"You enjoyed the summer, Jiro? I was pretty pissed because you guys left me like that."
Jiro had a face of pure confusion and took a step back from Sota.
"Who are you calling Jiro and do I know you?"
Sota gave him a friendly nudge on his shoulder.
"I know we used to play that game as kids, but aren't we too old for that?", said Sota remaining as amicable as ever.
"What are you talking about? My name is Yuuta and as far as my memory serves, I haven't been friends with you nor talked to you."