"-"
Silence. He returned as if someone had shouted his name. In this case, someone had shouted, but the last thing he wanted was that silence.
Before Daiki could answer me, before he could explain himself, I dropped the bag of flowers, screaming at the top of my lungs, as loud as I could, not caring what came next. As if I'd gone crazy.
Both Kichiro and Daiki were stunned, both having been frightened by the scream, one more than the other.
For my part, my expression was a picture. I was angry, furious, enraged, but at the same time, it all seemed so absurd to me.
It's like in class. They're against me, even though they're my friends. They say they understand me, that this, that, they talk so much, but all they've done since I arrived is yell at me. Who do you think you are? You conceited bastard. A shitty Don Juan. A bastard. Shameless.
I began to speak in an ironic, almost mocking tone, while I had a smile on my face, accompanied by that unpleasant expression that comes with anger.
"Come on. Tell me. How should I feel? Should I be sad? Should I be depressed? Should I be frustrated? Or maybe I should just let it all go and focus on what I still have? You're the one who claims to know how I feel, the one who understands how I feel, right?"
All that mockery vanished every time he screamed.
"…THEN TELL ME!"
I took a step forward, getting even closer to Daiki, my gaze completely fixed on his.
The brightness in my eyes was now clear, steady; a faint red hue shone in them.
"…Riku, I didn't mean-"
"Ahhhhhhhh! Okay! That's not what you meant!… So what do you want?"
"…First, calm down-"
"How do you expect me to calm down if you were the first one to start barking like a dog?"
Quicker than thunder, my mood changed from sarcasm to hate. It wasn't like Daiki's anger before; it was much worse, a feeling so dark it hurts just to feel it.
"… Lost-"
"I don't care."
"… !"
I didn't give him any time to speak, and I could tell Daiki was starting to get annoyed by it. He was doing it on purpose, since at that moment, I was the only one who could speak, who had the right to do so.
"Do you think just because you get on your knees I'm going to change my mind? Who do you think you are, telling me what I should and shouldn't do, when you're angrier and more unhinged than anyone? Don't you find that pathetic? You'd better shut the fuck up and get out of here."
I invited Daiki to leave, and with that, Kichiro would follow him, as if he didn't want to leave his back, his beautiful shield.
To both of our surprise, Kichiro intervened, having heard what I said. He leaned closer to Daiki, standing next to him, speaking in a low voice. Not because he wanted to hide anything from me, but because of the nerves and fear he felt at that moment.
"…Daiki, I really think it would be better if we left him alone…"
"…I still have to talk to him…"
Daiki, completely ignoring both what I said and what Kichiro said to him, remained where he was. Apparently, all that effort to calm down and, now, maintain his composure went down the drain in no time. Just a couple of provocations were enough to ignite his flame.
"And what do you have to say to me? If you're going to talk before you think, you better go eat shit before you spit it out of your mouth."
"…"
Daiki's face began to show that anger within him, the flame inside him reaching the same level as before.
"…The only thing that bothers me is not that you stay locked in your room…"
"Yes? Do you have any more complaints? And what about?"
In a sarcastic tone, I teased Daiki. It's what I've been doing since I first raised my voice.
"… I still understand why you wanted to ignore us. And even if you have a reason to do so, that doesn't mean it's right…"
"…Go on with it… Will you just shut up already-?"
This time, it was me who was interrupted.
"…But there are so many things about you that piss me off that I can't let you shut me up."
It wouldn't have bothered me so much if he had just interrupted me. While his words were unpleasant to me, his expression was something on another level.
It wasn't hate, that uncomfortable black color. It was disgust, pure disappointment in a specific person. What color could that emotion even be? It was something so specific it could easily create a new color.
Although it bothered me, and indeed angered me quite a bit, it also worried me. It terrified me. Seeing his eyes stare at me like that… The red glow in my eyes began to flicker, struggling to stay, but giving way to the intense emotion his gaze provoked in me.
Luckily, I was able to distract myself with a gap in everything he'd said since he calmed down. A gap in which I could pour more hatred.
"…And you have the balls to tell me that I haven't left my house, if you weren't there when I went to class?"
Two things struck Daiki when he heard me say that. First, the fact that he'd heard me say that I had indeed decided to leave home, that I had chosen to go to class, before I'd even spoken to them.
The second thing was the worst: the fact that he didn't show up that day.
One might think it wasn't the rest of the week either, but who knows when he found out about all that.
Knowing that he didn't show up that day was proof enough that all that talk about having to go out and talk to them was just nonsense, and he knew it better than anyone.
"…I went the rest of the days… I didn't go that day because I felt sick…"
"Oh, really? So tell me…"
She had the perfect idea, the perfect way to make him see how pathetic he was, and how bad a liar he was.
"What day did I go to class?"
Daiki had a brief reaction upon hearing my question, but then tried to cover up those nerves and worries with pride and confidence.
"…You went on Friday… I… felt sick, and I couldn't go to class…"
"Ahhh… What a coincidence that you got a fever just the day I go…"
Daiki relaxed, and by relaxed I mean he gained enough confidence to try to act superior to me, fueled by his anger.
One thing I didn't understand was why Daiki was more of an asshole than I thought.
"Come on, Kichiro told you yesterday that I went to class."
Kichiro, again, became excited upon hearing his name, but he tried to walk away from the conversation the moment I tried to bring him into it.
"…And what does it matter what day you went? Stop fooling around and for God's sake, figure out what you're really thinking."
"Daiki, you're not going to get anywhere if you keep going like this."
I completely cut the conversation short with an insult that had nothing to do with it.
"…?! You're the one who keeps screaming and behaving like a hiccup-"
"You could have done something."
Again, a comment that had nothing to do with what we were talking about. It had nothing to do with it, but my lack of emotion in saying that, the little emotion I showed being pure hatred, gave off a very bad feeling.
For better or worse, it didn't take long for Daiki to understand what I meant, but before he could object.
" It's your fault. You could have done more, and yet you haven't. You're a fucking disgrace. Standing there, doing the bare minimum so I wouldn't hate you. It disgusts me. It makes my stomach turn."
"What the fuck are you talking about?! W-what does this have to do with what we're discussing?!"
Daiki was more confused than angry at that moment, knowing perfectly well what I meant, but ignoring what I was saying, as if they were the words of a madman.
"And you claim to be his friend? And you dare say you like him? You say a lot, but you do little. People who only know how to talk are fucking disgusting, you know?"
My mind was completely blank, I was barely thinking about what I was saying, but what I was saying came from my heart, from my soul. It was genuinely what I felt, at that moment, and perhaps long before.
"…Don't take it out on me like that… We both know that no one in this has the-"
"IT'S YOUR FAULT!"
I couldn't take it anymore.
"…DON'T CRY THAT SHIT AT ME LIKE THAT!"
"Crying?! Isn't that what you've been doing all these weeks?! Crying like a fucking kid because the girl you wanted to sleep with has-!"
"And what the fuck have you been doing then?! Did you have a fucking party or something?! Because you seem really happy even after what happened!"
"You couldn't even begin to come close to what I've been feeling in a million years, you fucking retard! Do you think that by saying a few words and being a fool you could have the right to fuck her?! I bet that's all you were thinking about when you looked at her face, if you didn't happen to be staring at her chest someday!"
"Only someone as degenerate as you could think something like that! So filthy that they wouldn't want you in a pigsty! Unlike you, I was genuinely interested in her, and I didn't bother her every day like you always do when we're dating!"
"You could barely convince her to go out! If you don't even know her on the street, how do you think you're going to have the slightest chance of meeting her in private?!"
"WELL IF YOU KNEW HER SO PRIVATELY, YOU SHOULD HAVE HELPED HER AND NOT LET HER QUIT!"
This time, those two screaming monkeys had lost the sanity that made them human. Everything changed the moment Daiki screamed louder than usual.
His words alone were serious enough to shake me, something that made me even more furious, but something that made me take a brief pause, especially from shock, was seeing him cry.
As he screamed, Daiki began to cry, still holding that rage in his voice, which was slowly drowned out by his own tears.
"I know full well I couldn't have done anything! I know full well I would never have gotten to know her well enough, no matter how much I hung out with her! She only went out if we were all there. How could I ever have a private moment with her?!"
"-"
"I know I wasn't that important to her! That I was just her brother's friend, the one she hung out with from time to time, and that he joked about marrying her! It's a deplorable position, I know! But…!"
Her crying intensified, forcing Daiki to pause from time to time while speaking, revealing feelings that, if none of this had happened, would always have been taken as a joke.
"…I really liked Amaya!"
He made a proclamation to the two people standing there, both the one next to him and the one against him.
"Maybe at first it was just because of how she looked, because she was older than me… but then… when I spent time at recess with you and her… I… realized…"
Daiki held both hands to his chest, while he alternated between looking at me and the ground, unable to control himself.
"I realized I really liked her! It wasn't just her body, or anything physical. The way she acted, her interests, her humor, everything she cared about, everything good or bad—I liked everything about her!"
His gaze began to look more and more desperate, his face showing pain, pain for every word he said, and for every thing he could never do.
"And… yet… I've never been able to do anything for her… not even notice that she was so bad… nor make you notice that she was so bad!"
Her legs were shaking. Her voice was trembling. Needless to say, a part of her was trembling; it was more as if her entire being was in a state of crisis.
"You always said it was just temporary, that it was a tantrum, or because of her class! You always came up with some excuse or reason for how she felt! That she's like that, that she'll get over it...! If only I'd heard you say any of those things... Acting like she was going to be okay…"
The sobs that interrupted his confession grew increasingly drastic, increasingly severe. They attacked his voice and eyes more and more forcefully, mercilessly.
"Do you know how bad it felt not knowing if he was really her friend or not? She acted so distant most of the time, but then when she went out she seemed so happy... I didn't know what to think... I didn't know!"
"I always wanted… I always wanted to propose. It was like, my dream… it was really something I wanted to do… But I always thought… that he would never take me seriously… that he would laugh at me… that he would just write it off as a joke… But would that be worse than him actually rejecting me?"
By this point, Daiki wasn't talking to anyone. His hands on his chest tightened every time, still clutching his shirt beneath his light jacket.
It was like watching a baby cry, someone begging for their life, the most natural example of desperation and sadness.
"If she had taken it seriously and rejected me, would I have been able to smile in front of her like I always did? Would I have been able to see her face at least once more?"
I could hear his teeth grinding against each other over and over again, due to his jaw shaking so much.
He was bent over, but he hadn't collapsed to the floor. Even though his legs were shaking, he remained standing, letting out everything he needed to say.
"…So what if she had accepted me? Surely… It would have been because of how desperate she felt… She wouldn't have cared who I was… But… if… if I could have helped her like that… I would have done it… even if she didn't care about me…"
"But I know that was impossible. If I had agreed out of desperation, I would never have been able to help her… I would never… have been able to… know her better… even if… we both… took advantage of each other… if we had done anything… even if I had slept with her…"
Daiki straightened his spine, though unable to look me in the face.
"…I couldn't have done anything for her… because I wasn't that close to her…"
Her words, so long drowned in tears, regained a shred of that rage they had lost due to the pain of the truth.
"…that's why…if you…"
If I…
"…If you had done something…!"
I know…
"IF YOU WERE NOT SO CONceited AND IGNORANT, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!"
I know…
But those words never came out of my mouth…