Year 1-9: The New Year´s Eve Party

Riku was reading a book in the club room. Shu, Hayato and Sani were on their phones, looking at apartments. The third years wanted to share an apartment after graduation. Shu had started living with Hayato after what had happened with his family. He seemed a lot happier than before too. But it wasn´t just Shu who seemed happier, Nozomi and Sani seemed closer than ever since the fireworks festival. Riku managed to ask her about it when they put away their books. “So what´s going on between you and Sani-san?”
She blushed. “I confessed to him.” A big smile was on her face.
“I see, that´s all?” Riku couldn´t help but smile too.
“We might have become… close.”
“Like dating close?” Riku looked at her now beet red face.
“Kind of like that.”
Riku had barely gotten back to his chair when the door was swung open. The twins came inside. After being defended by Shu they had been coming to the club every so often. They handed everyone a small red envelope. Riku immediately thought of the worst, they wouldn´t do something stupid again, would they?
The card inside had a Champagne bottle with fireworks for a cover and Invitation to a New Year’s party was written inside.
The twins smiled, struck a pose and exclaimed: “We hereby invite you all to a party on New Year´s eve! With shrine visit on January first.”
Riku looked at them amused. “Why are you inviting us?” He was sure he knew the answer but he wanted them to say it out loud.
“It´s supposed to be an apology.” Yuki began.
“We have been getting on all of your nerves for a while so we thought this might be a good chance to say Sorry.” Yuri continued.
“And to potentially become friends.” Yuki said so fast and quiet it was almost inaudible.

Well new Year´s eve came fast. Riku was walking with Satsuki again. She, like always, looked pretty. She wore a long white dress with black waist belt. Her hair was in a high ponytail adorned with tiny gold hairpins. Riku looked down at himself; he was wearing a pair of black pants and a shirt with some golden accents, Hitomi had given his this shirt so he felt obligated to wear it at some point. At first he thought he looked stupid but now he felt happy, he and Satsuki were in partner look. She seemed quite amused by it too; it was her who had mentioned this fact as soon as she had seen him after all.

Yuki and Yuris house was big, Riku had been there a few times in middle school but he never got used to seeing it.
“Our dad isn´t home today.” Yuri explained while leading Riku and Satsuki to the living room.
“Where is he?” Satsuki asked.
“I think at a party from his publisher.”
As they walked past the kitchen Riku saw Shu and Hayato preparing the food. “I´ll go help them.” Riku ran towards them.
“I didn´t know you could cook.” He said surprised.
Hayato smiled. “Well now you know I can, though it would be a lot easier if I didn´t have my boyfriend hanging on my back.”
“I´m not moving.” Shu said, tightening his grip around Hayatos waist.
“Is there anything someone who can´t cook could help out with?”
Hayato was looking around. “You could heat up the stuff the others brought.” He pointed at a mountain of food containers.
Riku placed his own on the mountain. Hitomi had made some Onigiri, not much but she was really good at making them. He also had carried the containers Satsuki had brought; cookies, cake and cupcakes. Looking through everything Riku also decided to dress up the dishes.
“Mind if I help?” Satsuki came around the corner.
“No of course not.”

Getting the massive amounts of food ready didn´t take that long with four people working on them. They had everything from the desserts Satsuki had baked, the Nigerian dishes from Sani’s mother and the massive bowls of ramen that Hayato had just made. Looking at everything in front of him, Riku knew he would gain a few pounds and he didn´t mind, the food was delicious.
After they were finished Yuki jumped up, ran upstairs and came back with a bottle covered in glitter. “Let´s play truth or dare!”

It started out harmless, a few questions about embarrassing moments, favorite bands and a few dares; Shu ended up in a bunny costume, which Hayato didn´t seem to mind, Sani had to put on a clown wig and Nozomi had to dance in front of everyone. Riku didn´t think it could get worse, he was very wrong in his assessment.
It began with a simple question for him: “Why did you stop being friends with the twins?” Shu asked.
“They were in our middle schools newspaper club. After my mom had died they thought it would be a good idea to write an article about it.” Riku didn´t like remembering that moment, everyone at school started to treat him differently, like they couldn´t say anything around him without hurting him, then the bullying began; at first it were just a few jokes about his father, it ended in everyone telling him every reason they could think of why his dad didn´t want him. He changed schools shortly after.
The twins shared a look. “We didn´t know it would end like that.” Yuri tried to defend herself.
“It wasn´t your place to tell everyone what had happened in the first place.” Riku started to sound hurt.
“We were just trying to be good friends.” Yuki tied to calm Riku down.
“You could have talked to me, defended me and maybe not tell the whole school.” Riku felt the annoyance he always felt when talking to them. He liked spending time with the twins, but they never had taken responsibility for anything, until now.
Yuki came to him. “I´m really sorry, we shouldn´t have done that.” At least he sounded genuine.
“We didn´t know it would hurt you so much.” Yuri hugged Riku. “We´ll be better friends from now on, I promise.”
“Who said I wanted to be friends with you again?” Riku said a bit more mean than he meant. He could see the hurt on both of the twins faces. “I mean, just imagine I had paraded your secrets around. You´d think that way too.”
Yuki nodded. “You´re right, thanks for being a better person than us.” He couldn´t hide the pain in his voice.
“Ok, how about we start from scratch?” Shu intervened. “Yuki, Yuri do you want to join our club?”
Riku stared at him in disbelieve. Had he forgotten everything that happened because of them?
“We´ll forget everything that happened, you did apologize after all. So Ri-Ri you could give them a second chance too.”
“I gave them way more than a second chance. Before they wrote the article about me I had to defend them because they revealed the basketball captains, two rugby club members, at least ten different student and even the principal’s secrets!” Riku didn´t realize just how much the twins past actions had hurt him.
“We were just trying to make friends.” Yuri mumbled.
“By literally stalking someone?” Riku now started to get loud.
“You know we´re bad at starting conversations. We just wanted some information to start a conversation with them.” Yuki sounded like he was holding back tears, he´d always been someone to react with tears when he got overly emotional. Nozomi apparently felt bad for him, she put her hand on Rikus shoulder.
“Now take a deep breath, we can talk about this without yelling.” Her voice was soothing, but it didn´t keep Riku from being mad.
“How would you feel if I hadn´t kept my mouth shut about your leukemia!” The instant he had said that he already regretted it, now he was no better than the twins.
Nozomi stood up, walked back to her seat and didn´t look anyone, especially Riku, in the eyes.
Riku felt bad, like he had just stabbed Nozomi in the back. He stood up. “I´ll go home.”
“Wait!” Satsuki took his arm. “Don´t go, let´s talk this through.”
“How?”
Satsuki pulled him back on his seat. “Let´s just not have secrets anymore. We´ll lay it all out on the table. Then we promise to not tell anyone outside the club and we´ll keep that promise. This club was supposed to be a safe place for its members. I don´t want it to end in all of us getting hurt.” She seemed to have convinced everyone, it probably helped she was on the brink of crying and nobody liked to see her cry.
“I´ll begin.” She said reluctantly. It took her a few seconds to gather the courage. “I´m trans.”
Riku stared at her. “What?”
“I was born a boy, but it never felt right. Being a girl is what feels right to me.” She looked at Riku, as if to see what he thought.
“Same.” Yuki said. “Just the other way around.”
Now Rikus anger had completely subsided. Yuki never told anyone, it had taken him almost a year to tell Riku. “Is that why you approached Satsuki-san at the cultural festival?”
Yuki nodded. “I thought it would be nice to be friends with someone who shares my experiences.”
“I´m next.” Yuri now came forward. “I like girls.” She tried to sound confident, she only half failed. Again Riku was surprised; Yuri hated the idea of anyone finding it out.
“Well you already know about my dad.” Sani said half laughing.
“Not only am I gay and depressed, I cut myself.” Shu said, he sounded like that was the first time he uttered those words.
“Same. Well the gay part. My boyfriend struggles a lot though. I still love him.” Hayato smiled. Shu gave him a kiss.
“I wrote some erotic novels.” Riku said. He couldn´t keep his secret if everyone was so open.
Nozomi still looked upset. “I have cancer, again.” She sounded sad.
Satsuki ran towards her. “Are you ok?”
“How am I supposed to be ok when I could die this time?” Nozomi yelled with tears on her face.
“Nozomi, we talked about this, my mom and I could get tested…” Sani began.
“What would that do? The chance is so slim.”
Riku didn´t know if it would help but he ran to his bag grabbed something and handed it to Nozomi. “Sani-san told me your birthday way January first…” Riku looked at the clock. “… and it´s not quite that yet but here. I don´t know if you´ll like it though.”
Nozomi seemed taken aback. She took the little parcel out of Rikus hands and opened it, still sobbing. Thankfully she was so surprised she stopped crying. “What´s that?” She asked.
“You said you wanted to be the first to read my manuscript if I started to write again. So here it is.” He felt a bit embarrassed but Nozomi smiled. “You really started writing again?” She now started to sound happier.
He nodded. “So you have to do everything you can to not die, I´ll need you to read the other manuscripts too.”
Nozomi stared at the bundle of paper. “What´s it about?”
“You´ll have to read it to find out, but let me tell you it´s nothing like my other books.” He had finally had the courage to begin writing the fantasy novel he was halfheartedly working on for years.

Some more time went by in relative silence until everyone seemed to have calmed down. The twins tried to apologize to Riku again, but he just told them: “We wanted to start a new, right?”
They played some more truth or dare until midnight, celebrated the New Year and Nozomis birthday then fell asleep on the living room floor.

The next day the shrine visit thankfully was calmer than the night before. Everyone had made wishes for the Year; Riku thought they all seemed a lot closer now. But there was something he wanted to do. He asked Satsuki to go somewhere more quiet.
“Would you like to go on a date with me? Like a proper date, with no one intervening, just the two of us.” He felt his face burning up.
“You still want to go on a date with me after having heard my secret?” She seemed both confused and happy.
Riku nodded. “I don´t know how you being trans has anything with me having feelings for you, but yes.”
She smiled the biggest smile he had ever seen on her face. “Then sure, let´s go on a date. But how do you want to prevent the others getting in the way like last time?”
“So that was a date!” Riku mumbled he could hear Satsuki giggle. “Well I´ll tell them where we´re going and if I see one of them there I´ll do something to them, don´t know what yet but I´ll come up with something.”
Satsuki started laughing. “Sounds good.”
“I have one more question: You meant what you said at the fireworks festival in this way, right?”
She nodded. “I did, but man it took you a while to react. I was about to lose hope.”
“Why would someone like you even like someone like me?”
“Someone like me?” She sounded confused.
“You´re nice and kind and pretty and always there for others and…”
“Ok I got it.” She came closer. “I like you because you´re Riku.” She whispered in his ear.
“Are you two done yet?” Nozomi called out to them.
“We´re done!” Satsuki ran towards her.
Riku just stared into nothingness for a while then he managed to snap out of it. “Wait what´s that even supposed to mean?”
“You´ll find out!” Satsuki laughed as he came running towards her.