[12.a] Diary.
“Tadaima,” soft greeting of ‘I’m back’ was heard in the empty hall, not as if Jin was expecting any reply in return anyway. It was more like a habit of his.
“Oka… e… ri,” came the soft reply.
Jin was sure he would get a whiplash from the sudden movement of his head as he turned towards the source of the voice. Moreover, it came from the second floor of the house.
“I- I didn’t expect to see you. I mean… I thought you were not around. Wait! That sounded weird. I mean… yeah, tadaima.”
Jin was stuttering badly, one thing that he was sure he had never done before. He had always considered himself as very ‘light-tongued’ if there was even such a word. He could woo girls easily all because of his gifted ability in talking. Or was it his face? Normally girls would just drool over him even without him saying a word, right? Okay then, maybe it was because of his face.
“…Okaerinasai,” Kazuya answered as he gripped the railing tightly. He was still trying his best to slow down the pacing of his breath. Running up three steps at a time proved to be not a good exercise for him because right now he was having problems breathing. Although, that effect could have been the effect of getting the fright of his life on hearing the voice of the owner of the diary he had been reading.
“…You’re ok?” Jin asked as he walked over to the stairs. He had finally noticed that the younger boy seemed to be gasping for breath.
Kazuya took a long draught of fresh air before nodding his head. His breathing had turned to normal again, only the butterflies in his stomach were still lingering around. “Pretty much.”
“You look like you’ve seen ghost,” Jin commented lightly. Kazuya had a fair translucent skin, not tan like most boys so it was hard to actually differentiate whether the boy was pale out of shock or was simply being… well… pale like always.
A fine eyebrow arched up and that instance Jin felt like he was the dumbest person in the whole wide world for saying that. “Huh?… of course not.”
“Lame joke,” he said quickly, a little relieved as the boy standing on the top fleets of stairs nodded. “Sorry,” he added softly, not even sure, if Kazuya could hear him, seeing that the boy had already turned his back on him.
He was just about to get into his own room when the sudden ringing of his phone made him abruptly stop.
“Moshi-moshi. Ahh…”
~&&~
11th November, Sunday.
Hello there…
Let's see… gah, I don’t even know what to write. Plus, I’m shaking right now. My writings are all crooked.
Okay… I should calm down… Kamenashi Kazuya is not the sort to freak out like this. I am the collected one, the one who always calm and in control of any and every situation. The one who became the pillar of strength for everyone else. The one who always knows what to say and what to do in any situation. Okay, I guess I’m calmer now.
Ok… I’ve finally sat face to face with Akanishi at the dinner table. And it was all because of Maki and Yamashita-kun who were there with us. It was awkward to say the least. Both of us scrambled away from our seats in less than 5 minutes time.
It’s weird, very weird. I couldn’t help but blush when I was facing him. In the back of my mind, it was as if the last memories with him were tattooed onto my skull. No matter how hard I tried to push them away, they kind of ‘stuck’ there… I kept remembering his warm embrace, the way the strong hands wrapped around me, and his soothing voice, the calming aura of him, and his smell. It was so comfortable and… it was a wonderful feeling to be embraced by him. It was as if… it was the most natural thing to do in this world.
It almost feels like I’m with him again…
“AAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!”
“What the fuck am I writing here!!!”
Kazuya threw himself onto his fluffy bed, hand flung over his eyes. His mind was full of questions. Each racing with answers that he himself didn’t even know were possible and wasn't even sure if it were the right answers to those questions. His thoughts were overlapping, confusing him more than ever. He turned to his side, burying his face into the pillow, trying his best to sleep, hoping it would solve everything, hoping the darkness would pull him into its oblivion. Most of all, wishing the wall he had built around his heart stayed strong and rendered him numb like he had originally been for the past years.
Things had been going awry lately for him. His own life had been going a tad different from the usual, and he had finally realized that all the changes had been the effect of having a stranger in his own house.
A stranger named Akanishi Jin.
The stranger who nevertheless was making him having foreign emotion stirring deep within his heart. The one emotion that he knew, yet tried his best to dispel, and never ever wanted to feel again.
~&&~
Date: 11th November
Day: Sunday… very gloomy Sunday.
I’ve just got back from Nishikido Ryo’s house. Pi had advised me to ask help from him since I’m interested in getting a job. And Pi was right. Ryo did get me a job with a friend of his. I was thinking maybe it would be with Hiroki, since Hiroki is well… nice to work with, plus he kind of putting me high on his list since I had became the obvious reason to why they got together. But, nope. I’m sure Hiroki will never ever get to work with any other person in this world. As long as he’s with Ryo, no way he can. Ryo is too protective of that girly boy. Ahh well… we can never question what love can do, right?
Oh right, Nishikido friend's name is Yasuda Shota. Talking about Nishikido… I had noticed one thing. I often call him Nishikido instead of Ryo-chan like Pi does. I don’t know why. It’s just that… maybe it's because he is indeed older than I am and our relationship now is pure business instead of friend-like. Or maybe because he had been scary right from the first moment I met him and he was the one who asked me to call him ‘Nishikido sempai’ and that notion stuck to me until now.
Anyway… I ran into Kazuya earlier. Heh, it’s nice to call him Kazuya… though I never actually called him Kazuya right in his face. Back to my story, I meant, when I got back home earlier, he was in front of his room on the top fleets of stairs. And he greeted me with an ‘okaerinasai’. I’m not sure whether it’s just me or what, but he did seem a little breathless and pale. Not my job to question him, though. We exchanged a few more sentences and he was gone. I guess it’s not as awkward as earlier, but still in the ‘awkward’ category. Maybe I should buy him cheesecake again. It feels really weird acting like this…
“AAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!”
“Eh?” Jin stopped typing as he looked up to his ceiling. A very certain young man had been shouting just a moment ago, yet now it was all peaceful and quiet.
Ahh! I forgot! His mom called earlier.
~&&~
“ITAI!” The young man instantly brought up his palm to rub his head.
Jin’s eyes widened as the sudden realization on what he had just done hit him like a bucket of cold water. “AHH! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock on your head. I wanted to knock on the door and suddenly you opened up-”
“…Wh-what… is there anything you want?” Rubbing his head, Kazuya groaned. His tenant surely had very hard knuckles. It hurt like hell.
“Your-your mom called earlier. She asked me to tell you she won’t be back tonight. Apparently, there’s a blizzard in town and your parents won’t be able to get back home tonight. They’re staying at a friend’s house.”
“WHAT?!”
Jin took a step back. “What do you mean 'what'?”
“Why didn’t she call me?”
“She said she already did, but you didn’t answer the house phone. And she couldn’t reach your cell phone-”
“And she decided to call you?”
“She already did, right?”
“She got your number?”
“…I’m your tenant, right?”
Kazuya groaned before brushing past Jin as he headed downstairs.
“Kamenashi-kun… where are you going?” Jin hollered from the stairs.
“Somewhere.” He was furious. 'Angry' was not even the word to express how he was feeling right now. He was actually mad at himself for why he would feel so out of control whenever he faced the older boy. And he knew he would be tongue-tied and all flustered and even blush so before all those traits appeared, he took the only option he had.
“Whe-“
“Stop asking me, could you?!” he snapped crossly as he spun on his heels and faced the figure stepping down the stairs.
“But-” Jin rested his hand on the small shoulder as he gave another attempt on asking the young man whose eyes were blazing with emotions right now.
“None of your business,” Kazuya snapped, shrugging the invading hand away.
~&&~
Shit! I should have brought my jacket with me!
Kazuya sighed as he sat on the empty bench, shivering from the harsh November wind that came tugging at his hair and slapping his cheeks. Yet, it did nothing to dispel the warmth of Jin’s hand on his shoulder from earlier. A lone thought entered his mind. He could easily picture it back in his mind. The flickering screen of the laptop, the rose beside the bed and most of all… the writings in the journal. The rationality of his mind was simply having a hard time earlier judging his own reckless action, made by his heart. He had never felt so torn in making the right decision before.
Is this… an online journal?
Eh?...he writes a journal himself?
…I shouldn’t be reading this… I…
No… no… this is wrong…
Me entering his room in the first place is already wrong…
I shouldn’t… I really shouldn’t…
I… eh? Kazuya? He wrote about me! God… he wrote about me…
I can’t… no… this is entirely wrong… but… I’m curious what he said about me…
Stop reading people’s journal!!!
But he wrote my name…
Maybe… just a bit… anything that he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? Okay, here goes nothing…
Date: 26th September
Day: It’s nighttime already. Right, I’m lame… gomen but it’s midnight already *pouts*.
…But luck was not on my side. Kazuya, yes, I finally remembered his name. Kazuya was inside the house at that time. And seeing him definitely killed my mood on ‘having fun’. Especially since he warned me on not to have mind-blowing sex in the house. Damn that kid!
Oh! I remembered something important. At the cake shop, I saw a strawberry cheesecake. And just somehow, that creamy looking cake reminded me so much of that brat…
And Kazuya read through that 'cheesecake incident post' in Jin's journal with eyes wide open.
Oh… that is… nice… I mean, I never thought he would write about me and- Wait a sec! Is that… the door? Shit, he’s back!
“Tadaima…”
“Oka… e… ri.”
As much as his heart whooped on reading the post, another part of him felt guilty over his action. He really should not have read the journal. Luckily, he had barely read past one journal entry when he heard the creaking sound of the door. Scrambling outside of Jin’s room, he rushed to his room, just in time to reach the top of the stairs before hearing the soft greeting of ‘tadaima’. He was actually glad that Jin was back just in time. He himself would not have known how much would he read and discover about Jin if the latter came back home much later.
He was actually scared. Scared of the implication of what would happen if he knew what was going on inside Jin’s mind. Jin had seemed to be the typical guy who would fawn all over girls, but then again he had proven that wrong as Kazuya had noticed that Jin no longer went out to the clubs. He had originally thought that Jin was a happy-go-lucky who lived in the rainbow-colored world. Again, he was wrong. He had seen the wounded yet understanding look from Jin when he broke down and cried last time. Moreover, he noticed how there was something wistful in the way Jin would occasionally stare at his mother. Everyone had his or her own secret, and Kazuya had always wondered what Jin’s was.
His head started to pound from all the thinking and he sneezed once. Getting up, he shuffled along the darkened alley, wrapping his arms around himself in order to attain some body heat.
Once he reached the front of his house, he instinctively slipped his hand into his pocket. “Shit! I forgot my house key! DAMN!”
Biting his lips, he thought the best thing for him to do was to knock on the window of Jin’s room and ask him to open the door for him. On the other hand, if he wanted to save his pride, he could head over to Koki’s or Maru’s house. Which also meant he had to rush back home first thing in the morning to get his school uniform. Okay, too much things to do so it was back to option number one. Pride or no pride, he could well die of coldness if he stayed outside an extra minute. He was about to walk to the side of the house when the main door creaked open and revealed smiling Jin inside, inviting him into the warmth.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
~&&~
I got cut off again. so...please proceed to next update please. Again, gomen for all the troubles...
