CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

Fujio, being very noble, ran out of his house with her phone in hand. He ran out the gate and saw Hikari walking slowly down the street to the left of his house. He rushed past the Brown walls of his compound, and past a couple more similar homes, and trying to catch up to her.

He was too nervous to call out her name. Ever since he was little, yelling out people’s names in public just felt weird. He managed to catch up to her, and very sheepishly handed her the phone.

As he walked back, he was a little shook, it had probably been months since the last time he ran so much. The last he could think of was the previous school sports festival, which was a memory he hated.

At the time he was reading a sports manga, and because of that, he had hyped himself up for the relay race, which was the event he was participating in. As soon as he was handed the baton he started sprinting as hard as he could.

It felt crazy to do something so intense in public. He couldn’t feel or hear anything in that moment. It felt like he was on top of a skyscraper, but that only lasted for a minute. He made it to the next person and tried to hand it to them, only to realize he didn’t have it in his hand. His skyscraper collapsed.

Remembering this memory sent shivers down Fujio’s spine. As he continued walking home, he remembered how he wanted to talk to his mom. He decided that he wanted to stay outside for a bit instead, so he took a trip down to the local konbini.

He strolled down the street with his hands in his pockets and took a right turn. This road had everything on it. Fujio glanced at the kids playing at the playground, quickly shuffled past the kids from his school playing basketball, and tried to smile (unsuccessfully) at the old lady who sat outside her house every day.

He made his way to the end of the street where the konbini was. He took a deep breath and prepared himself.

“Ok, I'm gonna try to greet the cashier!” He thought, and then he walked inside.

The store was very cluttered; the left end was empty shelves. The cashier area had piles of junk in it, and there were always some products on the ground in each aisle. The lights in the back never worked, so the store always felt gloomy.

“Welcome!” The cashier shouted. He was a fat old man, with only the final strands of his hair left. Fujio thought he knew him by now, but he wasn’t sure.

“Welcome Back!”

“...”

“...”

Fujio rushed away into the aisle in front of him. He tried to calm himself down, but then realized he was in the undergarment section. He scurried back out and finally made it to the snack's aisle.

“What THE **** AM I DOING!” Fujio shouted at himself in his head but looked as if nothing bothered him.

“YOU IDIOT! How do you even say something like that? I thought that was a dumb thing that only happened in manga...”

Fujio realized that he couldn’t change anything about his situation and decided to just act like nothing happened. He walked back up to the counter with a packet of biscuits and a bottle of water.

He managed to make it out without another awkward moment. He felt like the entire world was staring at him, so he quickly walked back home. On the walk back he started thinking about Hikari, and why she had been at his house the first time.

That’s when it clicked. She had probably gone there to offer her tutoring, and his mom decided to hire her.

“This also explains how she knew my name...” Fujio thought. This idea had been floating in his mind since the previous day but now it was confirmed. He felt proud for figuring this out and almost let out a smile but felt weird doing that randomly in public.

He also thought it weird to be tutored by someone in his class, but at this point he couldn’t fight his mom; besides, he did kind of enjoy spending time with her. If only he could be more comfortable around her.

Fujio made it home and decided to go to his room. After practicing piano for a little while, he went to sleep.