Stop It Shinnosuke!

Chapter 36

The breeze cooled off all the heat, if any. The sun was on it's way to set down, slowly. Hikari, along with Kazama, sat under the tree with other kids scattered far around them.

"I'm listening."

Kazama had said. And he meant it. Because he was ready to listen to Hikari. What made him change his mind from wanting to absolutely never cross paths with Hikari to sit next to him, agreeing to listen to what he had to say? If he had to say, he himself didn't know.

But as he saw Hikari apologize over and over, seeing the desperation in his eyes, he felt like they were back where they first had been.

Kazama had almost forgotten what it was like to have Hikari as a companion, spending time with him, laughing with him. They had been really good friends after all. Attached to the hip. It all became a blur after he decided to leave for good, but the blur cleared up a little when he felt like he had seen the same desperation before. When Hikari had first shown his scars to him. His words at that time never felt anything near desperate, but now that Kazama had the time to think about it, the expression in his eyes had been that of reaching out, if not desperation.

He had made sure in his mind that this was the last time he was going to offer his attention to Hikari but the first time he was going to actually listen to Hikari.

"My dad is overseas right now.", Hikari said after a much long pause, "He never is home, to be honest. My mom is also almost always busy with her work and stuff. She had always been a workaholic, being in love with her work more than anything."

Kazama could relate to half of what Hikari said, and he almost spoke out loud about how he felt the same about his own dad. But he caught himself right in time, giving Hikari the appropriate time to continue.

"I wondered, when I was little. Why did they have me? I mean, they were perfectly well off. Dad and Mom both loved their lives before I came along. It was obvious, because they did get a divorce right around when I was 5.", Hikari bit his lip, "They pretend that I wasn't the reason for it, but even a stranger would be able to tell what caused them to drift apart."

Kazama nodded carefully, only enough to not distract Hikari from what he was saying and only enough to let him know that he was listening too.

"When I grew up, started spending more time with both of them, listening to the stories of their past, I got more and more sad. How they met, what they did, how they lived. Everything up until I was born. They stopped when it was the turn to tell me all their little "one times" with me and their time as a couple together. I guessed early on that it was because they didn't actually have any good memories after I came along.", Hikari leaned back a bit, smiling bitterly, "I started to think that something was wrong with me. I mean, ever since I came to know that I might've been the prime reason for the end of their happy marriage, I couldn't help but wonder that if it wasn't for me, they would've still been together, living the life of their dreams. I couldn't stop myself from thinking what if I wasn't here. What if I just disappeared, left them alone?"

Hikari stopped to look at Kazama, who had a painful expression on his face. All of this weight he carried, and Kazama only got to know about it now? He could sense where the direction of the conversation was going, and yet he didn't want to listen to him say what he was gonna say, because it was probably something that Kazama should've known before anything bad happened between them.

"You don't have to feel bad, Kazama-kun. I'm not asking for sympathy. Or for you to feel anything like guilt.", Hikari said the last word with great care, "I am telling you this now, because I know the importance of talking. I couldn't tell you before, maybe I didn't want you to see this side of me."