As the school bell rang, the usual busy and
tiring weekdays had come to its end, and Saturday was finally coming in 9
hours. Without even bothered to turn around, he could glance from the tail of
his eye that everyone looked excited about the thought of going home.
Stark Kruger, anyhow, kind of wishing he
were able to have a grasp of such enthusiasm despite his current circumstances.
“Hey, Stark!” A voice called out to him. It
was his classmate, Shiraishi Takumi. “Wanna grab a bite?”
Dispersed from his reverie, the blond head swayed
to the black-haired male on his right side. “Oh? Sure.” He answered as they
walked out of the classroom. “How if we rent a studio after having that early
dinner as well?”
“Nah, man. I’m on the verge of being
strapped.” Takumi waved his hand vigorously.
“Besides, I have an errand to run, so it’s kind of impossible to go home
late.”
“Aw. That’s too bad.” Stark chuckled. “It would
have been my treat, you know?” said him, purposely teasing the bespectacled
boy.
“Then, treat me a deluxe burger and coke
instead.” Takumi grinned wider than a devil could. “No excuses!”
Stark laughed it off as he ran ahead. “As
if!” said him between the chortles and heavy stride of Takumi’s feet.
=∞=
“You have my thanks for actually treating
me, but … are you sure you’ll only have that small fries?” asked the
bespectacled boy as both of them had seated themselves on a vacant table at
certain fast-food restaurant. The blond juvenile only shrugged, thus he began
taking his first bite.
“I’m not that hungry to begin with, so it’s
fine.”
“That sounds like you …” Takumi scorned
before devouring his deluxe burger. It was only a matter of seconds for him to
swallow as he could eventually talk again. “But considering that Bianna-san
might cook something for you, then I understand.”
A complete silence befell on the males for
quite a while in advance of Takumi’s concerned utterance. “Stark … are you even
listening?”
“Huh? Ah …” Stark put a finger on the tip
of his lips. “I think I bit my tongue.” said him, nonchalantly continued to
finish his fries off.
Takumi frowned at such low cost response
one usually did when they hid something. “You know, you can’t cover it forever,
Stark …”
“Hm? Which to cover?” asked the blond male
while he was still chewing.
“Your uneasiness, seriously …” Takumi took
a sip of his coke. “Thought I never noticed? Just how long have we been
friends?”
Stark curved a thin smile after having a
hard time of swallowing. “Not as longer as my friendship with Hikaru, of
course.”
“There you go again.”
His smile faltered. “Sorry …”
Takumi’s pair of hazel orbs closed down as
he sighed. “I actually don’t think that way, but I can’t deny that you’ve
gradually changed …” he halted amidst the sentence to give him a straight look
in the eyes. “You know what I mean, right?”
“Yeah.” Stark’s lips started to curl up a
bit though his eyes never met the bespectacled ones. Takumi had rather expected
this, to be honest, and he wondered why he barely got tired of seeing it; that
plastic smile plastered on Stark wet weekend face.
Nevertheless, he had to break the chain,
even just the slightest amount of it.
“Say, have you ever actually wanted her in
your life?”
It was just Stark who felt the oxygen
betrayed his lungs for a moment. His fingers anxiously grab anything near them
to get himself together. “W-Which her are
you referring to? You confuse me.”
“Any her
that first pops into your head.” Takumi replied, briefly and clearly.
“Huh … that’s weird …” It looked obvious
whom Stark had just dismissed from his notion. “I never think in a bad way … of
wanting her in my life, I mean.” The blond juvenile did not even realize he was
letting a brief chuckle out. “Isn’t it good that she came looking for me? Well
… she is nice, a ladylike person, one that every man could have dreamt of—“
“—Excluding you, right?” Takumi calmly interrupted.
The blond head started a quite pissed-off
chortle. “Takumi, I wonder since when you’ve been this annoying.”
“You’re
so troublesome.” Takumi countered while adjusting his glasses. “If you can make
a good judgment of Bianna-san, there’s no need to feel uneasy whenever we talk
about her, or anything else in general.”
It was now Stark’s turn to frown. He
thought it was only natural to compliment his future spouse. “What’s so big
about it? You make it sound as if I’ve never behaved well around her.”
“I doubt you have, though …”The ravenette
murmured indifferently while he was circling the straw on his coke cup. “You’ve
only been taking her for granted, or so I believe. A fake smile each day cannot
fool a woman’s heart, especially when she is four years ahead of you.”
“So what?” Stark exhaled an annoyed sigh. “That
has nothing to do with you.”
Hearing such counter, Takumi’s hazel orbs
pierced through the juvenile’s sapphires. “After you called me up that night,
crying for how everything was dilemmatic, and you could never replace Hikaru
with anyone?” He crossed his arms before his chest and scoffed. “You’re
welcome.”
Stark looked away to the fancy wallpapers on
his left. “Don’t bring up something that happened last season …”
“… Said the one who always makes a fuss of
something from two years ago.”
“Seriously … you’re so annoying today.” Stark
had it enough. All of these talks made his gut churn to the point he eventually
got up from the chair and slung his backpack. However, Stark’s intention of not
going home at this hour was as clear as crystal that Takumi saw it through him.
“Don’t do something reckless …” The
bespectacled boy was as blunt as ever. “It’s going to rain in Shinjuku.”
“I won’t go there.” said the juvenile as he strode away from their table.
“Wherever you go, stop being reckless.”
Takumi did not listen to his excuse. Little did he know, he had just let his
friend, whose mind summoned the emergence of some clouds to cover it up, whose
corner of the heart whispered under consciousness in such a painful way that
killed him slowly, wandered in uncertainty.
‘You,
too, stop taking me for granted …’
was the last that left unsaid from Stark, before the blond head walked out in
haste.
=∞=
As if he was keeping a promise, Stark did
not dare going to Shinjuku, where his old house and Hikaru’s tombstone located.
It would cause another chaotic argument with his nosy yet caring best friend if
he were ill after being caught in the rain that was assumed to pour down there.
Next time, however, he would surely make
his way to see her again.
His gaze locked to the pedestrian area
stained by people’s footsteps instead of seeking for some nice views, as it was
better to keep an eye of what he was going to step on rather than looking up to
his own expectation, when Hikaru’s genuine presence was still walking by his
side, with their fingers sometimes interweaved.
The glazed sapphires made his vision blur,
and Stark immediately clasped them altogether before tears stream down his
face. Walking closer to the shop walls, afraid of bumping into someone else. Desperately
trying to stand tall despite those judging eyes, thus running as the sentiment
hit its peak.
Going past the junction where he first lost
her for the umpteenth time.
Before he knew it, the sky had turned
violet with the flashy shade of orange in the west, and his legs had given up
the same time his lungs craved for more oxygen. Stark coughed violently under a
street sign, scaring a stray dog that jerked away. The juvenile tried to pull
himself together since he was getting near to his apartment where Bianna had probably
waited for his arrival.
Yet it was either fortunate or unfortunate,
as the said woman had not been anywhere of his sight when he settled there.
“I’m home …” Stark mumbled, expecting
nobody’s reply. He switched the light in the living room on and went straight to
the room he shared with her. The only thing he had taken off his body was the
shoes, therefore he let the sweat-drenched uniform accompany his quick nap.
=∞=
“…
see, that’s how it works.”
A pair of sapphire eyes welcomed by the dim
room shot a blank stare for seconds before its owner was completely aware of
his surroundings.
“Is that so? Fufu … thanks a bunch!”
A woman’s voice rang the bell. So, Bianna
had come home as well—
“You can rely on me, hahaha …”
“—?!” Stark jerked upwards and got alarmed.
Why was there a male’s deep voice all of a sudden? What time was it now?
What were they doing there? How did they
sound so happy?
Three pairs of confused eyes met each other
as Stark awkwardly stood in the doorway with messy clothes and bed hair, let
alone his drowsy countenance. Bianna was the first one to greet him, fetching
the blond juvenile to the reality.
“Stark, you’ve woken up!” Her voice jingled
merrily. “I have strawberry shortcakes in the fridge if you’d like some.”
However, his focus was divided, and he could
not help but staring at the bachelor who comfortably leaned on the couch as if
that man was an uninvited intruder.
“Hello.” He waved his big palm slightly and
smiled; unbeknownst to him, Stark did not happen to like the curled up lips,
but the juvenile showed a kind gesture anyway.
“Hi.” Stark replied briefly with a thin
smile adorned his mien, before striding quickly to obtain his strawberry
shortcake. It left the stranger dumfounded as a result.
“What’s with him?” He whispered a query. Bianna
stole a glance at the unamused juvenile though she could hardly get a clearer
sight of his actual expression.
“Well, I wonder …”
=∞=
The door clasped tightly as the clock ticked
to 11. Saturday was an hour to go, which was good because she could finally
have her day-off and Stark would have his as well.
To think of it, he was nowhere to be seen since
he headed to grab a bite of the strawberry shortcake, yet she found the
juvenile had seated himself on the couch in a blink of eye. He played with the
TV remote, still with that sulky atmosphere. Bianna was too curious to the point
she let her guard down and talked to him.
“How was the cake?” She commenced. “I tried
a new shop near my office, it had just open—“
“—Who was that guy?”
“Eh?” She blinked in confusion. Awareness
level stayed in zero. Whilst the juvenile gazed at her, feeling annoyed.
“Don’t eh
me.” grunted him. “He is way more mature, yet he seems to know nothing about
the standard policy of paying a visit. What time do you think it is?”
“Ah … I’m sorry we got carried away …” The
woman sighed. “But really, it was all about work. Nothing else.”
“I thought you had already finished your
work at your office?”
“No, Stark. I went home earlier today.” She
put up a gentle but wary smile. It was the first time Stark had ever sounded
like a completely different person, and she wondered how to behave correctly
when he was in a bad mood.
“You can work somewhere else … no, it’s
worse if you were out late with him …”
The woman could only catch a bit of his
faint mumble, then innocently replied with something that ignited the fire. “I
knew, right? We had no choice but to finish it here, so … yeah …” She chuckled.
“Choice …?”
His voice was as sharp as an unsheathed
blade that Bianna stopped moving all over.
“You’ve always had your choice!”
That was unexpected when he suddenly
snapped at her, and for a moment, Bianna failed to get a grasp of his brash
utterance.
“Stark, I—“
“—You can always pick anyone to your
desire!” He interrupted with all of his might despite being utterly out of
topic. “You can go out with them, play with them … you can make your own
choice, but I can’t! Don’t you realize that we’re only one-sided?!” The
juvenile furiously ran his hands on his blond hair, pulled them altogether as
if he was drawing out his depression, his anxiety, all of his feelings that had
been buried too deep.
“I didn’t even know what to do. My love …
the girl that I loved had died! My parents thought I would never fall in love
with somebody else, so they introduced you to me, and guess what? I can never
neglect them! I know nothing, I just get along, I’m just dragged!”
Thus, he broke down into tears. His
good-obedient-little-guy mask had fallen, or this one was never his true color
as well. Stark felt as if he could never be complete again, not after Hikaru’s
death which left him a big traumatic scar deep down beneath his heart.
And Bianna was dumfounded at such sight of
her dearest breaking into pieces.
“Why do you stay here? Why don’t you leave
me alone …?” He sobbed into his open palms. “Can’t you see … how pathetic I
am?”
Nobody could prevent him from being that
kind of man. No one would ...
“I just want to love you.”
… Except her remark, which he did never
expect it to be voiced, but she said it anyway.
“—!” The juvenile’s spine jolted as a
response to the sudden movement of Bianna, who was now embracing him. Their
height was eight centimeters away, but her warmth had already overwhelmed his completely
trembling figure.
Why did she keep doing that, even though
she knew he would react differently, and her effort might have wasted in vain?
“I’m sorry for what you had gone through …”
However, Bianna’s tenderness never faltered
as it always cracked the ice within him.
“I’m sorry that you have to fake your smile
every day, I’m sorry you have to feel pathetic all this time, but I love you …”
The woman tightened her arms around his waist and began rubbing his back to
calm the crying boy. “You don’t have to fall for me, but I loved you, I love
you, I’m gonna love you …”
Stark could feel how her gentle smile shone
at the back of his eyes, and his own brines that melted along with his defense
mechanism.
“… And you’ve always been my choice, Stark.
No one else would replace you.”
It was just as if he heard his own voice, a
long time ago in a different set of world. He could see the sparkling garnet
demanding another certainty of his promise, of the refusal to find somebody
else as a replacement for her well-being.
“But I … I’ve promised her …” The boy
swallowed his tears. “What should I do … Bianna … I don’t wanna hurt you …”
What a long-lasting smile she always
provided, despite the circumstances never bored to sting her heart.
“Another year of waiting would never hurt, dear …
and I mean it.”
—end—
