𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕣𝕦𝕚𝕥𝕪 // ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙&𝕃𝕠𝕨 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕎𝕣𝕠𝕤𝕥

4.

Next day when I wake up, there's a note from my parents, saying they'll be back soon.

I didn't sleep well again, I eat an apple, because I'm not very hungry and I'll listen to music in my room until I have to get ready for school.

I think about sending a message and even write to each of them, but I delete it before sending. I don't know if I should try to apologize, if I should try to explain, because deep down I think that would only make the situation worse.  I don't know how to make them understand that I didn't want them to feel bad about the fact that my parents think the way they do and that I couldn't see them anymore if I told the truth.

I don't know how to fix the mess I've created, so before I cry again, I decided to ask the weirdest wisest person I know for advice.

"Ahh! What a surprise!"  I hear the high-pitched voice through the phone.

"Hello, Murayama..." I say a little less excitedly than he does.

"How is Oya's 𝒞ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑢?"  Murayama still  laughs at my nickname, even though we talk little these days, he doesn't miss an opportunity to make a joke.

"I don't know if I can be called that anymore..."

He wailed dramatically. "Don't tell me you called me to complain about your life?!

Murayama don't get emotional easily

"Say, do you want to learn how to break someone's nose?" He asked, as if he was asking me if I know how to make ramen.

"No...I need another kind of advice."  Then told him everything, so many things happened that it feels like I'm telling the story of a movie.  Amazingly, Murayama listens attentively.

"It's all your fault."

I almost cry again telling the story, but what he says makes me roll my eyes.

"What if my parents took me away from my friends?! If I had to move, just because my parents decided they are a bad for me?!"

"Then you would fight for them. I'm not talking about a fight of punches and kicks, but about fight to not lose them." Murayama was serious this time, he made the same voice he did when I still training.

"How would I fight? They are my parents!"

"Okay, they're your parents and you love them. Got it." He said it like it was obvious."So you're going to let them cut you off from your friends, then send you to a college to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever.  And then they bring you a preppy guy, you marry him and live unhappily, thinking about what it would have been like if you had fought for your friends."

I keep quiet, I think about how my life would be if my friends didn't forgive me, how I would live thinking about whether they remember me, if they miss me.

"What do I do?" I whimpered.

"I don't know."

"But I called so you could tell me what to do!"

"Ah! And what am I? Counselor?!" He asked me wryly.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to do anything and everything will fall apart even more…" I say and it comes out almost as a whisper.

"You'll figure out what to do, even if it's not instantly." Murayama said returning to his serious tone. "After all, you're the same girl who climbed on top of a truck with a bunch of scary guys to try to stop your friends from getting hurt in a fight. Don't let fear hide that Haruka again."

I reflect a lot on what Murayama said when I'm at school.

I walk through the corridors thinking about what to do, when my eyes meet Doka's, she quickly descends and passes right by me, but I can see something worse than anger in her eyes, the hurt.

When I left school, my parents want to go out to eat, my father wants to drive, but my mother convinces him that it's close, so we walk.  My parents talk the entire time and I just react by laughing, or impressed depending on their expression.

I look around, thinking about how I'm going to resolve what happened, if I should maybe write an apology letter and send it off, if I should speak to them directly, if I should tell my parents first.

Interrupting my thoughts I hear my parents talking about another topic.  "Look at those boys..." My mom says just so my dad and I can hear.  I turned my head and saw four kids sitting in front of a store, one of them had a bloody lip, probably just got out of a fight. The others seem very interested in the story he has to tell, even if they seem worried about his injuries, the other three looked very attentively at the injuries of the other. I think they must be at least ten years old.

  "What will be the future for these boys?"

"Nothing, but bothering others." My dad answers my mom's question with a sneer.  My mother also scoffs.

And I remain silent, but I am sure of one thing.

In the future these boys will always be together...

And if I want the same with my friends, I have to work hard...