Seito Shouichi, also known as Destirling Shouichi, arrived at the school at 8.10 hours. He urgently sprinted to his classroom. The boy had never been late once, but yesterday, he spent hours talking to his girlfriend over trivial stuff, more like listening to her babbling on and on, along with too many matches of mobile games with his tall friend, Aoyama Shinji.
The misdeeds often led to catastrophic consequences, as he pictured what Shinji would have preached to him.
"Damn you, Shinji. You kept saying we couldn't quit on the losing streak." Shouichi wholeheartedly blamed his friend in all-out resentment, "Before we realised, it was already 4 AM." The gloomy boy once again had dark circles around his eyebags like a raccoon.
"I'd just sneak on the backdoor, hopefully, Takeshi-sensei doesn't see me!" He decided to slowly slide the classroom's door, making as little creaking noise as he could. Then Shouichi was crouching and keeping his head low like a cockroach.
"Hi! Seito-san. Step from the front, please!" His stern voice startled the boy, "Woah? Dang it! Nothing can escape his sharp eyesight." Shouichi stood up straight and awkwardly walked toward the short thin teacher. He couldn't help but shamefully ignore prying glares from his classmates.
"I'm sorry for being late!" "Congrats on being ranked 1!"
Takeshi-sensei and Shouichi were speaking at the same time.
"Haaa!?" He looked at the teacher, baffled and unblinking.
"As for your tardiness, I wouldn't mind it this time, Seito-san." The teacher patted his lower back firmly with admiration.
"Please give him a big round of applause guys, we, the class 2-1 have to do our utmost responsibility to be ahead of the other class, academic-wise." He turned to announce to the class.
The big round of applause from the classmates echoed through the classroom.
"I should feel a bit happy about this but I somewhat feel bad. I can't explain it." Shouichi pondered with discontent in his heart.
"Alright, maybe he's not getting used to it yet. Go take your seat, Seito-san." Takeshi-sensei pointed toward the crowd. Shouichi's head was in a mess from the sleepless night so it was difficult for him to grasp the recent turn of events effectively.
"Hi, bigshot." Shinji greeted him quietly as Shouichi took the seat.
"Heyyyyyyy, Shinji~." Shouichi returned but was shocked abruptly by his friend's face as he was expecting to see a substantial amount of gloominess and dark circles around the eyes.
"What the freak?" Shouichi exclaimed but quickly covered his mouth. Shinji appeared to be as dazzling and radiant as ever. As if the silver-haired friend didn't need his 8 hours at all.
"Congrats. Hehehe." Shinji giggled gleefully while Shouichi sulked in his deprivation of slumberness.
***
The time passed awfully slowly when people struggled in a torturing moment such as this, but Shouichi managed to stoically raw-dogged it the entire episode. The final school bell marked the end of his suffering. His brain stopped 'braining' a while ago.
"Shouichi! Hey! Shouichi!" His consciousness slowly regained as he saw Shinji's blissful face, it appeared his friend had been calling him several times since forever.
"Bruh! Are you deaf?" Shinji jested. Eventually, Shouichi could comprehend Shinji's words now.
"Hmm? What do you want?" Shouichi grumpily replied, hunching forward.
"I'm craving Boba! Let's go to Momo's Maid and Tea Bliss!" His hand slapped firmly on Shouichi's shoulder, waking him up.
"Shinji, can't you go alone?" Shouichi pleaded, seriousness in his eyes.
"Come on, bro! You just need some sugar in the system! Trust!" He insisted the same way he did last night, 'Trust', he said.
Shouichi exhaled deeply and stood up, feeling his body wobbly for a little. "Guess, it's been a while since we last visited Momo's store."
"Yes! That's more like it!" Shinji beamed, showing his full teeth at his zombified friend.
A sudden thought crossed his mind, Shouichi looked around the classroom, there was a handful of students loitering around. "Where's Ayane?"
"I dunno, haven't talked to her much," Shinji replied flatly with a shrug.
***
The dazzling duo casually strolled down the school grounds. It seemed like the attention followed everywhere they went, heads turned and directed to them in palpable motions. It took a bit of time to get used to self-awareness, but Shouichi managed to completely shove it into the deepest part of his consciousness, as long as his mind agreed to it, nothing mattered.
"So… I haven't seen the scoreboard yet," Shouichi opened up as he walked, hands in his pockets.
"Really? The board was literally in front of our classroom. Where have you been the entire day?" Shinji asked sarcastically, taunting him with his smugness.
"Of course! I as my body was in the school, but my brain was like turned off." Shouichi explained and gestured as if he could remove his brain from his skull.
"Why did you ask?" Shinji probed out of curiosity.
"I've been worried about Ayane..." Shouichi admitted, his voice tinged with unease. A subtle frown crossed his face as he grappled with the unsettling feeling in his gut. "Call it a premonition or whatever."
"Don't worry about it! She's probably okay." Shinji quickly tapped on his phone before panning the screen at his dark-haired friend.
"Destirling(Seito) Shouichi 99%"
"Morimura Ayane 98%"
"Aoyama Shinji 93%" The photo of the mid-term's scoreboard was shown.
"What!? So we are the top 3 of the second year?" Shouichi was amazed by his friends. Especially, Shinji to be top 3 as the man himself seemed to be a frivolous kind of guy, and not academic try-hard.
"Yep!" His silver-haired friend eagerly nodded. "I couldn't care less about my score though." He said with a dismissive shrug.
"Huh?" Shouichi looked at his friend's face.
"It's just for my old man, you know." Shinji glanced over the distance, there was a hint of sorrow in his lavender-purple eyes. "The Aoyama family will lose faces if I do poorly at school…" He continued, his face clearly saddened now. This was the first time that Shinji actually lost his carefree facade and engaged in a deep conversation with Shouichi.
"Aey, cheer up, bro!" Shouichi lightly tapped on his friend's shoulder. "Just let me know if you need anything. Not that I'd be a big help, though."
"Thanks, sorry for being a spoiled sport." Shinji quickly gathered himself.
***
Once the duo reached the entrance of the school, the familiar face greeted them with a vibrant smile.
"Hi! Emi-chan!" Shouichi greeted their club manager. The tall and slender girl with an oversized chest waved at them energetically. The girl wore her usual ponytail, her hair a rich shade of brown. The previous image of the chubby girl was totally erased and replaced by her now-alluring appearance.
"Woah, who is the cutie?" Classic Shinji jokingly wrapped his arm around the girl's shoulders.
"Senpai, not at the school!" She objected softly, prying herself away from him, "I don't want people to get the wrong idea." The girl gave her reason, her tone cold.
"I couldn't care less what people think." Shinji returned his thought.
"You don't know what people are talking about you, Shinji-senpai?" Emi told him in a serious tone as her brown eyes stared at Shinji intensely.
"What did they say?" Shouichi asked incredulously while turning to his friend.
"You are a casanova! A womaniser! A rizzler!" Emi slipped out louder than she intended, abruptly her hands covering her mouth in regret after realising she should not be saying those harsh words to him.
"Hahahahaha. Am I?" Shinji burst out laughing, unbothered. His smirk never faltered as the rumours seemingly couldn't affect him one bit. Or he simply didn't care about things like that.
"Umm… Emi-chan, you aren't here to just tell us that, right?" Shouichi asked, changing the subject and avoiding the tension in the air.
"Oh! Sorry, I've been waiting for my brother." She twirled the strand of her bang. "And also, since you are here, I wanted to inform you officially that the club activity will commence next week." She explained monotonically. Emi was back in business.
"Understood! Can't wait for the club practice." Shouichi replied with enthusiasm, nudging his friend with his elbow.
"Right! Hahaha," Shinji blurted, slightly startled by his touch, "So we are going to the bubble tea shop. Wanna come with?" Shinji invited her nonchalantly.
"I'd had to decline, Shinji-senpai." She replied without a thought, her voice unusually cold.
"See ya then, Emi-chan." Shouichi and Shinji bid her farewell before parting with the girl.
***
"Welcome to Maid & Tea Bliss!" The blonde-haired maid came out to greet them, her voice brimmed with energy and cuteness.
"Momo-chan. May I please get the matcha with red bean?" Shouichi placed his order. "And the green tea with big pearls for me please," Shinji added.
"Understood, masters!" The beautiful maid responded and tapping on her cashier. Shinji took out his card to pay. Then the girl gracefully disappeared into the back of the store to prepare the drinks.
"Congrats for your success on the mid-term. Rank 1 master and Rank 3 master." Momo jokingly complimented the duo, wearing her sweet, service smile.
"Hahaha, Thanks." They both modestly accepted it.
"Here are your drinks, masters." Momo placed the drinks on the tray, fluid in her motions. "Please visit Maid & Tea Bliss again, dear patrons." She bowed gracefully.
Shinji and Shouichi managed to find themselves an empty bench around the buzzing shopping district.
"This is the best green tea ever. Momo never disappointed me." Shinji told his friend after slurping on his drink. The tall boy was manspreading widely with his long legs like a delinquent.
"Hahaha, true. I didn't drink matcha red bean before, but I'm addicted to this now." Shouichi nodded, sharing the same sentiment.
"Thanks for joining me, bro." Shinji turned to look at his friend briefly.
"It's no sweat," Shouichi responded, casually watching passing pedestrians. Old and young, women and men.
"Say… Don't you think Emi has been cold toward me recently?" Shinji eventually opened up; his voice laced with genuine worriedness.
"Oh! So that's what it's about!" It was Shouichi's turn to wrap his arm around Shinji's shoulder in consolation.
"Yeah… She never said no to me before." Shinji continued to sulk.
"Well, if you did listen to her words, you might find the answer." Shouichi imitated the sassy quote which Shinji usually did but it came out horribly wrong.
"Hahaha, and I thought mine was terrible." Shinji began to lighten up. And the two shared a brief, lighthearted chuckle.
***
At 5.15 hours, the graphite-black-haired boy arrived at his home. It had been a tiring day, and he wanted to rush to his bed and sleep. When Shouichi opened the door, he saw Yoko's work shoes neatly placed in the entryway area. It reminded Shouichi that Yoko would be home every Tuesday.
"I'm home, mom!" He announced but no one replied. "Maybe she is napping? Odds..." He wondered.
Shouichi carried his exhausted body to his room on the second floor. When he arrived in front of his room, strangely enough, he found his door already opened slightly.
"Huh? Weird, did I forget to close it this morning?" That was his initial thought. "I was in a rush anyway," He dismissed it and entered. But this time, Shouichi ensured that his door was fully closed and locked.
The boy threw himself on the bed, face-down. "I miss you sooo much, bed-san!" He embraced his pillow firmly; he could smell a faint flowery aroma. It was melting his exhaustion away.
Before his eyes were about to drift, he felt the presence of another being in his room. He couldn't discern if it was the sound, the smell, or anything. But he was sure of it that he wasn't alone.
Suddenly, the dark-long-haired girl ghastly poked her pale face from a double-door closet. Her hair creepily covered a large portion of her face.
"AARRRRRH!" Shouichi screamed at the top of his lungs.