Chapter 4: Watch This

The night was quiet.

Umeko was asleep gearing up for another war at her gifted school tomorrow.

Dad was working late again.

And Tomoe had long gone.

She and I actually made a lot of progress.

She tightened up my paper, showed me where I coulda used a little more 'oomph'.

For a snarky little goofball, she was pretty decent at editing and teaching.

I think my brain was finally catching up to reality after a week of high school.

Putting in some headphones, I cranked up the tunes and revisited everything.

It was my favorite thing to do in the dark before bed.

Revisit.
Review.
Re-evaluate.
Dream.

Everything seemed like a big deal to me, even though it was small.

Call it a bad habit. Whatever.

I didn't even get halfway through my playlist when I started drifting off to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I felt well rested.

Which, honestly, is something.

Sitting up in bed, I blinked the last stubborn bit of sleep away.

I looked at the time and the date.

Saturday!

I leapt up, punching the air.

Weekends. It's a universal feeling. Every kid knows it.

One hastily rushed morning routine later, I was in the kitchen, making toast.

"Morning, Azu." Dad yawned from behind his newspaper.

"Morning, Dad. How was work?" I said, spreading a fat glob of jam on my toast.

"Long," he replied. "But not as long as it usually is. The meeting I was in ended prematurely."

I bit into my toast.

"Anything good?" I asked.

"The meeting organizer's water broke, saved us from another 2 hours of meandering and buzzwords." He laughed.

"I'll drink to that," I said chugging a glass of milk.

"Not without me you're not!" He put down his newspaper, taking big swigs of his iced coffee.

"Gah! My Sinuses! Worth it."

That's what I liked about dad.

Easy going, as long as you did the dishes or cleaned your room or took care of something after yourself.

Hey, Azu." I gotta pick up something today from a repair place, wanna come along?"

I hesistated. A new VN just got a massive DLC expansion...

"Oh, come on Azu, breathe some fresh air with me? You can't stay in one place forever."

He gave me a headpat.

That usually means, in the nicest way possible, that you'd better agree.

And so I did.

He started up the the maxi-scooter and tossed me my helmet.

"We're taking the scooter?"

"You bet! It'll be fun!" He said, slinging a tote bag over his shoulder.

I sighed but I couldn't help myself from grinning.

It always is.

We rode down through the city streets.

There were still plenty of cars on the roads for a Saturday, even though we were only on the west side; there were still plenty of pedestrians and cyclists and commuters.

Everybody's got a place to be it seems.

And then we arrived.

A storefront in a little nook cramped between a ramen restaurant and a plinko parlor.

The place said something along the line of antiques and repairs. Family owned.

It looked lived in, which surprised me.

"How old is it, Dad?"

"Old."

"How old?"

"Older than you and your sister combined, see for yourself. Go look at stuff for a while."

"Uh, Ok." I nodded. "Do you want anything, Dad?"

"No thanks. I'm picking up something."

I stepped inside the shop and glanced around.

So many trinkets, ancient and shiny. The shelves were covered in them.

There were hardly any customers.

"Anything I can help you with?" A boy appeared out of the corner of my eye.

"No, thanks I'm just browsing around for—" I turned to see him.

"Ishikura! Hey? What're you doing here?" Sugihara asked in astonishment.

"My dad had something to pick up from here... Do you work here?" I asked.

"Huh? Uh, yeah, my dad and uncle own this place," he smiled. "How've you been lately?"

"I been good... uh... you too, right?" I stammered.

Come on brain. Keep it together!

He nodded.

Then he gave me a look.

"Hey, I never really get to show anyone my age the sort of stuff I work on, wanna see?"

Would I!?

Gosh, is he really gonna show me what he's been tinkering with all this time?

"Um, sure."

I must've sounded weird as hell because he chuckled.

"Okay, cool. Hang on."

I watched him walk away and come back a few minutes later with a few cardboard cartons.

"Here ya go!" He thrust two cartons into my hands.

"Thanks... What is it?"

"It's the old watch I was working on when you bumped into me the other day."

"Oh right! Gosh I'm sorry. I didn't—"

"It's fine, really. I'm happy with the way it turned out, though. The watch face was all scratched up and the gears had gotten stuck..."

His eyes shone in admiration as he stared at the work in progress in my hands.

So this is the real Sugihara, huh?

"It's beautiful," I breathed. I looked back into his sparkling dark brown eyes.

They were the same as the ones I kept replaying in my head.

I felt hot.

"Yeah, um, well, thank you," he blushed. He handed me the box again.

"Aye, Yuta, the Mugishima order isn't gonna fix itself!" A gruff voice called out.

"Pleasure to see you again, Ishikura."

"Call me Azusa," I said, smiling.

"In that case, call me Yuta." He said giving me a thumbs up. "Don't be a stranger at school, okay?" 

He hurried away to a room in the back.

After he left I couldn't stop the warmth I felt in my cheeks.

Yuta.

"Azu! I got what I came here for, you ready to go yet?" Dad called out.

"Coming! Thanks Dad!"

As quickly as we zoomed in, we took off.

On the ride home I thought about all the stuff I coulda said to Sugihara.

I wanted to talk to him more.

Did I though?

I've been in things like this before.

I mean caring too much, being too forward...

I pushed those thoughts aside.

They can wait.

That VN isn't going to read itself.