Nostalgia: Chapter 1

Chapter 1


I look up from my desk as the teacher calls my name. What did he ask about? It was the end of the day and math wasn’t exactly my mind’s top priority. Everybody’s staring… This is really bad. I’m about to open my mouth to ask him to repeat the question- something that will no doubt be embarrassing- when I notice everyone had shifted their attention behind me. I turn around, already sure of what happened, and as I expected it was Takahiro. The strawberry blond-haired idiot was folding several pages of his spiral notebook into airplanes and sending them flying across the room. He did this remarkably fast; however, it doesn’t seem the teacher was quite so impressed.
“Fukui, what on Earth are you doing?” he said in an irritated tone of voice. Takahiro gave off a goofy grin as an answer.  Rolling his eyes, the teacher continued teaching, apparently forgetting the fact that he asked me to answer the question. I flash Takahiro a little smile as thanks as he snickers mischievously. This definitely wasn’t the first time he saved me in this kind of situation; I’d say I owe him, but I’m constantly keeping him out of physical danger.
I’ve known Takahiro for as long as I can remember. Our families knew each other from quite a ways back, so we were practically raised like brothers. In that time, I’ve constantly had to keep him from getting himself killed; between fights and the roads around our houses, he’s practically drawn to danger.
When the bell rings, Takahiro and I get up and walk out together. He turns to me playfully, mocking the teacher’s tone of voice. “You weren’t letting your mind wonder, were you Daisuke?” I let out a little sigh, patting his shoulder a little.
“You may’ve saved me back there, but you shouldn’t get too cocky…” I suddenly remember something. “Aren’t you coming to stay the weekend?” his father left when we was really young and his mom’s constantly going on business trips, so Takahiro lives at our house on a regular basis.
He answers with a little nod. “I need to stop by my place to get my bags, so I’ll meet you there.” With that we separated down the hall. He only lives about a block away from our school, so he usually walks while I drive home. I notice a familiar pang of worry as I walk to my car, but I try to ignore it. He’s so full of energy and raring to go, so he’s always up for a fight… Even though he’s a strong guy, I always worry that he’ll hurt himself. I shake of this feeling when I step into my car, knowing that it’ll just impede my driving if I let it linger.
When I arrive home I hang my bag on a chair and sit on my bed. Though I would never admit this to him, I always get excited whenever he comes to stay the weekend. We don’t have many hobbies in common- he loves video games, I love reading and relaxing- but we always have fun just talking for hours. Sometimes I’ll watch him play his games and, on rare occasions, I’ll talk him into just sitting outside with me. Since I don’t want to sit around and wait for him to show up, I decide to go find Mimi, my cat. As usual, she’s sprawled out on the floor, batting at my curtains.
After about half an hour of killing time, I hear my door click open. As expected, Takahiro was on the other side with a beaming smile. I let out a little laugh at how excited he looks and stand up, motioning him to come inside. He goes directly to the spare bed- one we moved in here specifically because he stays here so often- and puts his bag down. As I follow him, I see something that makes me furrow my brow. He has a rather large bandage across his cheek, and he seems to have a bit of bruising.
“What happened to you?” I inquire. I’m trying to remain calm, but the wavering in my voice gives away my extreme worry.
He looks confused for a moment before it dawns on him and he brings his hand to the bandage. “Oh, this… It’s nothing…” His expression is troubled, which worries me even more. Usually when he gets into a fight, he’s ready to tell his battle story. By his hesitation I can tell something’s up.
“I can tell something happened… Spill it.” I instinctively inch closer, trying to get a better look at his wounds. I’ve found that I instinctively want to take care of him, which bewilders even me. He sighs and fidgets uncomfortably before finally answering.
“Mr. Yamada called my mom about earlier today…” He averted his gaze away from me, now looking even more uncomfortable. Mr. Yamada’s our math teacher… What does he have to do with his injured face? … I tense up when I realize what he means.
“Did she do this to you…?” he quietly looks at his feet before nodding a little. He looks… practically defeated. This upsets me a lot more than it should, and I ball my hands into fists. She never was the nicest woman, but now she’s gone too far. Fearing my anger will get the best of me, I throw myself onto the bed next to his bag, silently telling her off. He moves his bag out of the way and sits next to me, still not meeting my gaze.
“It’s okay… Really…” he pleads with me. I know he doesn’t like being fussed over like this, but the look on his face is too pitiful to act like nothing happened. In a sort of compromise, I silently lean on him like he does to me when I’m upset; it may not be much, but it always makes me feel a little better to know he’s there for me. We sit like this in silence for a moment before his lips curl into a small smile. We start talking about anything we can think of, trying to get our minds in a good state. This continues for at least an hour before mom calls us for dinner.
As we make our way to the table, Takahiro tries to not look eager. They don’t have home-cooked meals at his house often, mostly just canned stuff. We sit down at the table and start eating, and I can’t help but watch Takahiro out of the corner of my eye. He chats enthusiastically with my parents as he eats, obviously happy to be staying here. When we finished eating, I talk Takahiro into going for a walk with me. Outside, it’s sunny and warm: A perfect evening for this.
Though I dislike physical activities most of the time, walking at my own pace on nights like these is nice. Suddenly, Takahiro takes off running, apparently tired of moving at a slow pace. I don’t like being left behind like this, and he knows that… Is he planning something? I just watch him as he races down the sidewalk, and to my surprise he stops when he gets to a turn. He turns around to face me again, letting out a little laugh. I’m sure he can see by my face that I’m not pleased by this.
He quickly runs back and, instead of stopping, trips and almost knocks me over. I somehow regain balance and glare at him.
“Sorry…” He flashes me a bashful smile, apparently embarrassed by his crash-landing. I sigh, rubbing my arm. It was my only defense against the full force of this six-foot lug… I’m sure it’s bruised now. I try not to stay mad at him, he’s only human, but… it still irritates me.
“You’re too rough, you know,” is all that’ll I can think to reply with.
“You’re too soft,” he retorts, but soon gives me a little smile as if to take back his last comment. I let myself smile a little before stealing the skull cap off of his head, revealing his strawberry blond hair. He lets out a small sound in protest, reaching for it. As I hold it out of his reach, I glance at his hair. It’s extremely frizzy and messy, probably from the static under his hat. I giggle to myself.
“I almost forgot what your hair looked like,” I teased. I place my hand on his forehead, and he pouts in response.
“Give it back…” His voice was starting to get the same whine it used to get when we were kids, and I finally give in. I hand him his hat and he pulls it back on, combing through his hair a little. I notice a few stray hairs and- without thinking- tuck them behind his ear. He shoots me a bewildered look. I shrug a little, not entirely sure why I did it in the first place. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it feels extremely tense on the rest of the walk, and I find myself watching my feet. I didn’t expect him to react like that… Yet again, I guess he didn’t expect me to do that.
When we get home, the tension slowly fades as he shoots me another smile. “Wanna play video games?” He knows I’m not a fan of actually playing them, but I nod anyway. He did go on a walk with me without a fuss; I might as well do something he wants to do.
“Just go easy on me, you know I’m terrible at them,” I reply with a smile. His eyes noticeably light up, and I feel a slight warmth deep inside me. I try to ignore it as we walk back to my room, very confused by this feeling. I watch him as he takes his gaming system out of his bag, plugs it into my TV and- despite how many times he’s done this- looks at all the wires in a dumbfounded way. I’m already taking the cord from him and plugging it into its proper port before he can open his mouth for help, and I hear him giggle a little.
“Thanks, Dai…” he’s beaming as usual as he plugs the controllers in and starts the game up. We both sit on the ground a few feet away from the TV as the title screen shows. Though I honestly didn’t have much of a clue what was going on throughout the time we played, being able to laugh about this fact made the hours we played time well spent.
When it started getting late, we decided to go to bed; however, we still quietly chattered away even after the lights were off. After a while of this, my words turned into choppy, nonsensical sentences until finally I fell asleep.