Stop It Shinnosuke!

Chapter 41

Time ticked away, numerous voices washing over Kazama's mind and yet everything seemed to be disconnected. Whatever the teacher and students were discussing slipped off his attention inconveniently. Nothing stayed on his mind, except one thing.

What the hell was going on between Shinnosuke and Hikari?

Naturally, the conclusion Kazama came to, at first, was that Hikari had been up to something, or Shinnosuke. Or both. But it didn't matter. Because the more and more his mind wandered in the sea of possibilities, the initial conclusion seemed too tame to be true.

What was it that he didn't know? It had only been 14 hours at most since they last talked, Shinnosuke and him. More like argued.

But the question stood. What happened in such a short period of time for Shinnosuke and Hikari to be talking, that too in a secluded corner of the school building that had a reputation for being breeding grounds to inappropriate activities?

Kazama hadn't felt so disconnected from reality due to overthinking before. He knew he should focus in class and whatever the hell was going on. Surprising thing was, Hikari hadn't tried to talk to Kazama in any way or form since the morning. It was weird because the last time they had interacted, Hikari had made sure to make Kazama known that he would try to talk to him, discuss things further. And now, it didn't fit how Hikari suddenly quieted down, not making any advances at all.

Seeing how Shinnosuke and Hikari sat in their seats, as if they just hadn't been talking downstairs, was just throwing Kazama off so much, along with other things. What was the need to hide it? To hide that they are interacting, like they're friends or something?

"It's not like I'll get mad at him for being friendly with Hikari or anything. He doesn't even need my opinion, that guy.", Kazama fumed inside his mind, though clearly knowing that whatever conversation those two were having didn't seem like a friendly conversation, and that they most definitely weren't trying to make friends with each other. Kazama hadn't dared to eavesdrop on them but it wouldn't take a genius to tell him that he was overthinking about Shinnosuke and Hikari being all buddy buddy.

"Then what we're they talking about?", Kazama sighed long and slow. He couldn't look at Shinnosuke, who in turn, didn't look at him. Their argument and it's after-effects were going strong, though Kazama believed Shinnosuke would soon come to talk to him.

The problem was, he didn't want that. Kazama wanted to talk it out, solve the problem. Not just patch something over it and walk ahead like nothing happened. And he respected that Shinnosuke also had the same attitude regarding confrontations too. It was just that, when Shin was ready to talk, Kazama wasn't. And when Kazama was, Shinnosuke never did. It was a vicious cycle that hardly ever broke. But when it did, it resulted in the most comfortable and open discussions Kazama could ever see himself having with anyone. But how to initiate such talks, that's where Kazama absolutely sucked. Sometimes.

And this was one of those times.

The class was almost over now, and when the time felt right, Kazama quickly excused himself to go to the washroom. He needed a break, because he felt overwhelmed. To be honest, these days, he often felt overwhelmed by the smallest of things. This was fairly big.

After he was out, he took a long stroll around the building to clear his mind, something he often did. The advantage of taking such walks just before class ended was that there were rarely any people out, all the teachers and students being busy in their classes. It almost felt like he was the only one left to roam around freely, however he wished. But today's walk didn't feel the same, and hence didn't have the same relaxing effect, leaving Kazama slightly frustrated from overthinking.