Circle of Friends: Chapter 10
Nino looked around the field as he sat quietly. He loves baseball and it had always been like that. But that day, as he watched the few people standing just few meters ahead of him, stern look on their faces, he suddenly felt sick. He wasn’t nervous, he was rarely nervous about anything, because he always knows that he could do things that he loves perfectly. But still, to put too much…no, all the hope… on one thing such as baseball just made him felt sick he just wanted to throw up.
“So… it has come to this, huh?”
Nino looked to his left just slightly before he looked straight again, pretending to ignore. “We’re not talking to each other, remember?” he said evenly, before he looked down to the glove he was holding.
“They look pretty harmless to me, that bespectacled guy looks friendly even …” Sho continued, ignoring Nino’s statement.
Nino didn’t say anything in return, which made Sho to look at him from the corner of his eyes. “It’s not about them you know” he said as he too looked down to the glove Nino was holding. “This is all about you… and I think you’ll do great they’ll be amaze”
At those words, Nino couldn’t help himself and smiled thinly, but he made sure hunched himself low so that Sho couldn’t catch the glimpse of his face. Always good with words…Nino stood up and started walking towards the field, no longer wanting to throw up, but still uneasy.
“NINO!! NINO!! You’ll- You’ll be great!!! It’s OK!!” said Ohno’s voice from the class’s window overlooking the field. Nino looked up and immediately saw him waving frantically from above. Never good with words, but he doesn’t have to be.
He waved frantically back and he laughed in sudden relief, feeling as though the rest of his weight that ever rested in his shoulders lifted.
At the sight of his two friends showing closeness together while ignoring him made Sho sigh heavily, feeling sick of himself and his obliviousness.
It has come to this, huh?
Nino suddenly turned to him. “How do you know I have an evaluation today?” he asked, not actually looking at him, but deeply absorbed in the ball he was holding.
Sho shook his head a little “I didn’t know this is your big day… I just saw you few seconds ago”
“How does that feel?” Nino asked, finally looking at him with a cold and deep stare.
“Pathetic”
****
Jun kept a serious face as he walked towards his class. He hated it already, the way they work and the way they kept on dragging things. They discussed about not so important stuff into small details, leaving all the important stuff hanging until the next meeting. If it wasn’t for the fact that he really wanted to make it work, he wouldn’t have bear with it.
“Do you want to eat some bread, Matsujun?”
Jun stopped in his track, and looked at the person who had just called him. He immediately smiled.
“Why are you alone? Where’s Nino?” Jun asked, he lifted a chair and put it near Ohno’s desk for him to sit. “And what’s with the bread party?” Jun said while he stared at the two breads on Ohno’s desk, even though Ohno was already digging into one.
“It’s…bread eating spree…” Ohno said he picked up one on the desk and handed it to Jun.
“Yet, you don’t sound too ecstatic about it” Jun said as he took the bread from Ohno and opened the plastic wrapper. At some point he felt nostalgic, they had stopped eating lunch together ever since the semester started; in fact he didn’t even bother to eat lunch at all. But at the sight of Ohno eating lunch alone was more intriguing than pleasing…because…well, Nino is an important human being too, even though he didn’t care much about him…Really.
“Where’s Nino?” He asked again. “He can definitely use some bread…”
“The baseball team …they have an evaluation today…if he do this right he might get the chance to do baseball professionally… you don’t know?” Ohno said before he shoved the bread in to his mouth and he munched it slowly. “Ah…” he said as he stared at the bread.
Jun didn’t answer immediately as he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He looked over to the class’s window overlooking the field. It felt strange, because there was supposed to be nothing they didn’t know about each other. Since years ago there had always been celebrations for their big day.Let it be big days such as stage plays or big sport games to things such as first date, first kiss or first…year of stop peeing on the futon for good… there had always been celebrations without missing any. Therefore, to know that Nino had his big day uncelebrated he felt inconsiderate, it was cruel in fact, knowing that if it was anything to celebrate Nino had always been one of them that gives the most effort.
“I didn’t know” he said at last as he stared at the bread, feeling some strange coldness started to swarm up in him. ‘He…might have just forgotten about you’ he heard Ohno mumbled. Jun looked at Ohno and he wanted to say it…I know better. But he was distracted by Ohno’s expression, he looked nearly sick. Jun frowned at him. “What’s wrong? It looks like you’re already full… how many bread did you eat?”
“This…is my… forth” he said, feeling as though his throat was getting dry. Ohno only chewed for a few times before he forcefully swallowed. “I…think I’m going to throw up…”
“Ohno-kun, are you trying to choke yourself?” Jun asked as he tapped Ohno’s back. “I’ll go and buy you some water” and he stood up. He wanted to storm outside again when something rather odd caught his attention.
“Why are you eating the same kind of bread too?!!” He asked, almost bursting with irritation when he saw the ‘lunch’ Hana was holding. Then he realized in Ohno’s bag, there were two other breads of the same kind… he quickly summed it up and there were nine breads in total… Nine! Why NINE?! Why couldn’t they just make it into a perfect number of ten?!!
“Well…actually…” Hana said after she swallowed.
But then she realized that just behind Jun, Ohno was shaking his head desperately…
Eh…?
Hana blinked at him before she looked at Jun again.
“The bread machine kind of… exploded…so…”
****
Aiba climbed the stairs with a light and fast pace. He had no idea why he was still climbing the stairs. He wouldn’t be able to do anything even if he really wanted to and he realized that. But weather it was plain stupidity or stubbornness; he wanted to go and see anyway…
“I really don’t understand you…”
Aiba looked up to the voice as he abruptly stopped in his track. His bright expressions suddenly faltered.
“You still want to go and disturb him? What can you do for him anyway?”
Aiba stopped climbing and leaned himself to the wall as the guy climbed down the stairs and stood just beside him, almost breathing at his face. “I will not disturb him. But Sho-kun can be too absorbed with things you know… he might forget to eat.” Aiba said, as he gripped tighter to the bento he was holding. “I’m worried…” he said, and even though he had no will to do it at all, still, he managed a smile at that person.
Nakahara shook his head and made a sigh. “He’ll be fine with us” he said, before he put his hand at Aiba’s shoulder and started to push him to go back downstairs. “Just leave us alone for awhile, will you?”
“Can you make sure he eats?” Aiba asked calmly as he shoved it to Nakahara.
Nakahara looked down to the bento that Aiba handed to him. “I’m sure he’s rich enough to feed himself and he doesn’t need this embarrassing looking bento.” He said, before he smiled stiffly. “Oh, well… I guess it wouldn’t hurt. In fact Takuya and I might just enjoy the sight of what’s inside anyway, right?”
Aiba didn’t reply and he could only stare. He couldn’t even think of a word to say… or nice words to say to be precise. “Ok” he muttered at last; before he started to climb downstairs again as they went separate ways. However, even before he was far enough, he heard a recognizable sound of something been thrown into the trash. Aiba made a frown, he could almost feel heat started to mount up in his body and annoying sickness in his throat he wanted to gag.
He hated the feeling of hatred.
Aiba pulled out his cell phone.
To: Sho-kun
I think you should stay away from Nakahara and Takuya…they are trying to stop me from seeing you during lunch … and…what’s with forbidding you from eating my bento?!! My bento is your favorite food supply isn’t it?!! Isn’t it?!! YES, I KNOW IT IS!!!
Aiba stopped typing and stared …frowns were still visible on his forehead. “Yeah… I thought I might need it” That voice rang in his head and it stopped him from pressing any button to send.
‘Delete’
To: Sho-kun
Do your best!!!! Just do your best OK?!! Really, do your BEST!!!
From: Aiba-kun
****
Sho stared at his notebook again and shook his head.
“So how is it?” Takuya asked as he looked over at Sho’s book. “Well, English is not really that hard you know… you just need to practice some more…”
Sho smiled to himself, somehow Aiba’s broken English started to play in his head like a broken record. Then Nino’s English which was quite excellent… and the other two…he just had no memory of it.
“We can practice together if you want” he offered, smiling slightly.
Sho looked up at him. Takuya was half English and half Japanese, whereas Nakahara was raised in Switzerland before his family moved back to Japan two years ago. Sho didn’t have to test their ability to know that they were excellent.
“We should hang out” Takuya said, smiling at him.
“We should?” Sho asked, rising his eyebrows at him.
“Yeah, three of us would look great”
Sho frowned at those words before he gave him a fleet smile and went back to his notebook.
‘Three of us would look great’ sounds a bit weird doesn’t it?
But as he stared at his notebook, he realized he was quite in an awful situation. He picked up the nearest Dictionary and flipped it, just staring at thousands and thousands of words.
Hanging out with these boys… how awful could it be? We can talk about soccer and education… and…soccer… and how to make strategies…which means soccer…
“So where do you guys usually hang out?” Sho asked finally.
****
All of a sudden it felt like the time was slipping by like water in his hands, he tried to grip it but it slip through even faster as he tried. The days went by unnoticed, and even before he could grasp of what was happening he was walking back alone from school the third time in a row, with heaviness in his footsteps. He was alone almost every day; there were always ‘things’ that Nakahara or Takuya would come up with and all those ‘things’ would almost always give reasons to drag Sho with them.
“Did you guys see Takuya-kun, Nakahara-kun and Sho-kun? It’s like they are close nowadays…”
“Oh, that’s nice…because all three of them are in the same league, right? Rich, good at soccer and they are smart…”
“But Aiba-kun…”
“Hmm…is he ok with that?”
Aiba sat on the bench as he finally consumed the-almost-usual emptiness that he had been feeling for days. He looked at the people passing through without knowing what to do.
But how can I say something without sounding shallow…ah, I mean, selfish?
Are you trying to form another circle of friends? Please don’t leave me behind then…
Aiba couldn’t help but had series of images playing in his head like a movie. A bad movie that he didn’t like. From few days ago he didn’t get to hang out with Sho during lunch at all, repeatedly stopped by Nakahara or Takuya near the door, or if they were using the small meeting room, it would be locked from inside. At first he thought it would be ok, he still could spend time with Sho on the way back home, but as time slipped by they began to hang out after classes too, dragging him to any bookstore, leaving Aiba with no choice but to get back home alone…which made him missed five trains already...
But that wasn’t the thing that disturbed him the most…
“Don’t you think you should stop bugging us already?”
“……”
“Don’t you think you’re an embarrassment? You can’t teach him anything! You can’t help him in any way, all you can do is disturb him… don’t you realize?! Maybe he thinks you’re an embarrassment too, he just doesn’t have the heart to tell you because that will make you even more pathetic than you already are!”
“…....”
“Just go!!”
Aiba made a small sigh. I’m an embarrassment? He never thought of it like that before. When he was with Sho other things just didn’t seem to matter anymore. What other people thinks just didn’t seem to matter, it’s what Sho thinks was the only thing that counts. The only thing…
“Sho…Sho-chan… have I ever embarrass you?”
“What? Embarrass me? You mean like wanting to pull my head off my shoulder and hide it in my bag so that no one will know I’m the one who’s walking beside you?”
“Umm…yes”
“Oh, let me see… when you accidentally wore your t-shirt inside out and took the train with me for 30 minutes…or when we were riding the bicycle and you were too busy laughing at a cute puppy and hit someone’s front door… not to mention that you broke your teeth and wasn’t able to pronounce your own name for months…was it ‘Masashi’ your name was?…or when you went hysterical over a cloud just because it shape like poop…”
“Does…that means I embarrassed you?”
“Ha-ha… You do occasionally, Masaki… Hmm…what’s with the odd question? ”
“Well, nothing…”
“You’ll be ok taking the train alone? Don’t take the one too early, you might miss it again...you should learn to become less careless, you know- ”
“…….”
Aiba kept on staring at people walking. It was the first time ever that he thought about other people that surrounds him. He didn’t consider about what other people think about him…well, not that he put that much thought into anything actually, because thinking is a very, very…very complex thing indeed. Therefore he always goes with feelings, if what he does feels good and brings happiness, that much is enough isn’t it?
Does it really matter that much?eHe was a I don’t understand…
“You…must be having a hard time, ne?”
Aiba dropped back to his senses and realized the person who was sitting next to him. He quickly was close to tears when he realized who it was. Aiba flung his hands towards that person feeling ever so grateful at the person he didn’t expect to see.
“Oh-Ohno-kun~!! Ohno-kun~” he said before he mumbled incoherently at Ohno’s shoulder. Ohno smiled sympathetically as he tapped Aiba near his knee.
“Are you going to cry again…?”
Aiba shook his head, before he lifted his head from Ohno’s shoulder “W-why are you here?” he finally asked, realizing that it was Friday.
“I’m-I’m here because… I thought Aiba-chan have lost the brightness on his face…”
“Ohno-kun…You sound like a fairy godmother…”
“No…umph…but…” Ohno scratched his head. “In…In any case, don’t you think you should tell Sho-kun how you feel? I’m sure he just doesn’t really realize what he’s doing…he can be a…little inconsiderate … but, to make you feel like this… I’m sure he doesn’t really mean to do this to you…he just have a bad sense sometimes…”
“But…what should I say?” He asked slowly, somehow hoping for a nice suitable phrase even though it felt weird to ask from Ohno any.
“Umm…’Just flunk the test for me’” Ohno said blankly.
“Ooh~ you sounded as though Nino had just possessed you…”
“Well, Nino did say that… or maybe… ‘Sho-san, can’t you see you’re being a selfish bastard for leaving Aiba-chan alone all the time?! Drop Nakahara and Takuya, you should know better, you selfish bastard!! Damn you and your entrance exam!!’”
Aiba couldn’t help but laugh as he raised his hand and almost bounced in his seat. “Ah!! Ahh!! Can I guess?!! Can I guess?!! … Jun-chan?!” He said brightly “I can’t believe I didn’t hear him say that personally… cool Jun-kun sounding like Yakuza!”
That brightness on his face…
Ohno smiled quietly in his own satisfaction.
“Do you want to go and eat Ramen?”