Undiscovered Love

Natsume had already invited Mizouchi and Akihiro to his house. He was now convincing Ayane to come too.

“Sorry, but I’m a little busy. You guys make the plans and if I’m free, I’ll join.”, Ayane said.

“Did something happen between you and Aki-kun?”, Natsume asked.

“No...nothing happened. It’s all normal.”, Ayane replied as her tone mellowed down.

“I smell lies...but yeah it’s better for me to not push too hard. You have your own reasons to not tell me, right?”

“Yea...”

“Just remember, don’t take Aki-kun’s words too seriously. He’s changing rapidly, so fast that even he himself cannot comprehend it. Just ignore him for a while. But you better come once we have finished deciding the plans. After all, It will be a good change of pace from the toxic school environment.”

“I’ll see...”, Ayane muttered.

---

That evening, only Mizouchi and Akihiro came over to Natsume’s house: a small, old, run-down wooden apartment in the middle of the concrete skyscrapers.

It looked so worn out, that it would break instantly if an earthquake occurred. The dark and hulking apartment seemed to be over fifty years old.

“Pfft, no offence but I wasn’t expecting you to be living here.”, Mizouchi said as he continued to be stunned by the looks of the apartment.

“Sorry, I don’t live in a posh, high-class apartment like Ayane.” Natsume said.

“You guys have gone to her house, huh?”, Mizouchi asked.

Natsume looked at him with a smug expression, “Hoho, someone’s jealous, huh?”

“Oi, just tell already...”, Mizouchi said, sounding slightly whiny.

“Haha, you take everything too seriously, Mizouchi-kun.”, Natsume said as he patted his back. “Yea we went to her house recently. We even met her dad. The old man was a scientist at NASA at one point in time, you know? Now that mad scientist is working at JAXA space agency.”

“Whoa...”, Mizouchi exclaimed.

“I know right!”

“Aki-kun, you come to Natsume’s house often, right?”, Mizouchi looked at Akihiro and asked.

“Yeah.”

“Ah, no wonder you aren’t shocked. It doesn’t fit his character.” Mizouchi said.

“Oi! I might be poor, but I’m still Japan’s next top model. I’ll be swimming in cash in a few years!”, Natsume said and they laughed.

They walked into the old wooden Japanese-styled apartment. His mom greeted and guided them to Natsume’s delightfully dingy room.

Natsume’s mother was a very beautiful and young woman. She had lost her husband when Natsume was only a few months old. Since then, she had struggled through it and finally was able to raise Natsume into the mature man he was today.

Natsume’s room was rather bare, with only a plain wooden wardrobe, a study table and a bed. Since there wasn’t much, it was a pretty neat room. They sat down on the tatami mat flooring to discuss the plans for the weekend.

“This weekend, let’s do something!”, Natsume proposed.

“Isn’t that why we are here?”, Mizouchi and Akihiro said in sync.

“Ah yes. Anyways we have quite some options: Amusement park, Rumi’s summer villa near the beach, or trekking in the mountains.”

“The beach!! But do you think Rumi would be interested in bringing us to her summer villa?”, Mizouchi asked.

Natsume smiled. It was his time to show off to the commoners in his room. “Maybe it’s just because I’m so hot. Indeed, the more aesthetically pleasing you look, the easier life is. In the end, we humans are all slaves to our primal instincts and desires. Or maybe it’s just my fault for being so hot that she couldn’t hold back her desires?”

“Bruh...what are you even talking about?” Mizouchi was confused. Akihiro, as usual, continued reading a manga in the corner, uninterested in Natsume’s narcissistic jokes.

“Oh yea, She is going to Okinawa this weekend and the summer villa will remain unused. So she asked me if we could clean her summer villa and in exchange, we could stay there and use it for ourselves. All that was probably an excuse though. She just couldn’t hold herself back after seeing Japan’s future top model.”, Natsume laughed.

“Oh that’s an amazing ide-” Mizouchi was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door.

Natsume’s mother walked in with a tray full of traditional Japanese sweets and some green tea. “Ahaha, sorry for disturbing your conversation. Here, have some sweets and tea. It’s not very often that Natsume brings his friends over. I think he’s ashamed that it’s an old and small apartment. Hahaha.”

“Ahh, no it’s okay, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. My house is western-styled so I really like these tatami mats and the sliding doors. It feels very traditional and I love it.”, Mizouchi said.

“Ahaha, you are so sweet. Natsume, look at what a good boy Mizouchi-kun is!”

“Mom, I thought you preferred bad boys?”, Natsume asked with a smirk on his face.

Mizouchi was shocked. The audacity he had to talk to his mother like that, would have shocked anyone. Akihiro was used to it, so he continued flipping through another volume of the manga.

“Your father was a good man. He was a very sweet person and was also popular amongst the girls while he was in high school. On the other hand, look at you!”, his mom replied.

“What do you mean? I have girls flocking all over me. They all want a piece of me. One even gave me her summer villa.”
“Oho, if that’s the case, how come you haven’t brought any of those girls home?”

“Even you don’t bring any guys home! And you keep saying ‘Oh I’m gonna get married again one day and run away with him.’ Haha, single woman for life...”, Natsume laughed.

“Ahem, your father, who was super popular amongst all the girls in his class, chose me in the end. At least try to be like your father. Single boy for life...”, she said.

“I look so hot, I’ll have girls falling for me in seconds.”, Natsume said smugly.

“You should thank me. After all, my beauty was passed down to you.”, she said.

“Yea yea thank you mom!”, Natsume said sarcastically.

“Ugh...you’ve always been an oddball since childhood.”, his mother said as she turned towards Mizouchi. “You know, when Natsume was really young, I once told him on Christmas that Santa only visits good children. Do you know what he replied? He started giving me a lecture on how morality is subjective and how concepts like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are not objective.”

Mizouchi burst out laughing, “That totally sounds like something Natsume would say.”

“I know right!”, his mom replied as she was pushed out by Natsume whose face was now red with embarrassment. He shut the door with a thud and sat back down with Mizouchi.

“Wow, you talk like that with your mother?”, Mizouchi asked as he was shocked by the lack of delicacy in their conversation.

“Hehe...it’s a common joke in our house. We keep competing on who will get a partner first.”, Natsume said.

“Aki-kun, how come you aren’t surprised?”, Mizouchi asked.

“I’ve seen it too many times. Plus it’s a very Natsume thing to do”, Akihiro said.

“What do you mean by ‘Natsume thing’?” Natsume laughed along with Mizouchi.

“Oh yeah, let’s get back to the topic. So me, you and Ayane are going to stay there at Rumi’s beach-facing summer villa for two days. We leave on Saturday morning using the bullet train and reach there by afternoon. Then we clean the house, have fun and by Sunday night we leave. Right?” Natsume asked.

“Yep!”Mizouchi agreed. “Ayane can come too, right? She didn’t join us today to discuss about it though.”

“Well, I think it’s a good idea to force her to come with us. A lot of things have been going on and she probably requires this change of pace. It’s a nice thing. Well, I just want her to smile again, but you have another motive, right?”, Natsume looked at Mizouchi and said.

Akihiro sat up, kept his manga to the side and looked towards Mizouchi.

Natsume took a bite of the traditional Japanese sweet as he leaned back on the wall. “It’s not only a nice thing. It’s also a very human thing to do. A little selfish...”

“What do you mean?”, Akihiro asked.

Natsume chewed on his sweet and gulped it down. He then looked at Mizouchi with fierce eyes and smiled,

“You plan on confessing to her, right?”