Decision of The Plastic Smile

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—