chapter seven

concrete jungle

It's quite hard to put the experience of an Oya High barbecue-cookout-keg party into words. I think I've been doing okay so far.

After Midori completely wiped Fujio out in beer pong, the full-timers went back to doing keg stands. As the only sane ( and mostly sober ones ) Tsukasa and I stayed by the picnic table, laughing at everybody else over the loud music, shouting and the alarming smell of something on fire that shouldn't be, the sour, smokey scent filling the air.

Don't tell Seki, but I was starting to enjoy myself with the full-timers. Fujio knew how to make people laugh, and Shibaman was a bit of a crackhead. Nakagoshi was hyperactive, drunk and full of energy.

And Tsukasa managed to keep me grounded. Talking to him was easy, weaving in and out of conversations about books, travel, Hope Hills, Oya, and my personal favourite, hilarious stories that embarrassed Yasushi.

When I was talking to Tsukasa, there were no worries about if he thought I was strange, or uninteresting, And I loved hearing him talk. Something about Tsukasa Takajo's voice made me relax, made me feel at home.

"Guys, guys, guys!" Kiyoshi shouted over the noise. "You know how if you beat the shit out of a part-timer, you automatically move up in the ranks?"

Tsukasa snorted, choking on his beer. "I do not like the sounds of this."

Kiyoshi spun around, facing a group of full timers who were clustered around Murayama and Midori.

A tall guy in sunglasses was chugging from a solo cup while standing on one foot, balancing on a wooden bench while the rest of the group laughed at him, Midori's high-pitched trill louder than all of the men combined.

"Nakabayashi!" Kiyoshi called out, startling the man in glasses so much so that he fell of the bench, two other guys springing up to catch him.

"What the fuck do you want?" Glasses called back

"A fight."

"Call me when you're sober!"

Kiyoshi wouldn't let up "When I say I wanna fight, I wanna fight now!"

Fujio snickered, reaching into the pocket of his uniform pants. "Has anybody seen my phone? this is gonna be great."

Kiyoshi wasted no time, running full stop at Nakabayashi, who merely stood there, continuing the drink from his plastic cup. Kiyoshi wound his arm back for a strike-

Only to over extend, drunkenly tripping over hsi own feet and crashing headfirst into a pile of broken up drywall.

The full-timers hooted and hollered, and I managed to crack a small grin.

"You guys are dumbasses." I said, finally laughing after watching Toya and Shibaman trying to trip each other before Tsuji cracked their skulls together. "How you make it out of this place alive every day is beyond me."

Tsukasa shrugged. "Most of the time, I'm hiding on the roof so they can't find me."

"And then this jackass throws people off the roof!" Junji complained, kicking Yasushi in the shin. "Like me. I'm gonna get you for that."

"Yeah, yeah. You've been saying that for almost a year now, Junji." Yasushi taunted. "Whatever happened to striking first?"

The party started to wind down after that. One of the part-timers was the designated driver, and he looked less than pleased to be shuttling people back and forth around Oya. The most drunk were told to leave first, Kiyoshi and Nakaoka included. The music got quieter, Midori taking over as the people who were left started to chat idly amongst themselves and pack up the barbecue. Tsuji had fallen asleep, lying face down on the picnic table while a snickering Toya drew a handlebar mustache in bright blue sharpie marker on the older boy's face. Our little group had migrated to the corner, resting against the high school walls as we kept the conversation going.

The music had mellowed out, Midori and Murayama dancing together to a soft J-Pop song, laughing as thy spun each other around in the messy courtyard.

I want that. Someone I can laugh with, dance with.

But what are the odds that's going to happen any time soon?

All at once, the night seemed to become too much for me. I was midway through an anecdote about an American punk concert I had gone to when I visited my dad in his summer time-share in Glasgow, Scotland last summer (Rise Against are incredible live, I 10/10 recommend) when someone first pointed out the tears falling from my eyes.

"Sakura, are you alright?" Nakagoshi had asked.

Alarmed, my hands flung to my eyes. With a quivering bottom lip, I noticed the tears spilling from my eyes. Ashamed and eager to hide, I got up and ran, wiping at the tears with the sleeve of my jacket and not looking back.

In that moment, all I wanted was to be as far away from Oya KohKoh as possible.

Once I found myself outside the school limits, I collapsed onto the one bench that wasn't covered in colorful- and often vulgar- graffiti. And then I cried, head in hands, loud sobs that racked my body. I had been doing so well. Why was I so sensitive?

I felt the bench creak underneath me, the addition of weight, another person joining me.

Yasushi's hand rubbing soft circles on my back was grounding, it brought me back down to earth.

"You were doing really well." 'Sushi remarked. "You really had me going."

"Fuck off." I managed to crack a grin

"No, seriously, you really looked like you were enjoying yourself."

I managed to smile, sniffling as responded. "Yeah, I kinda was."

I sat up straighter, wiping at my eyes as Yasushi passed me my phone. Out of everybody, he probably understood what happened inside my head the least, but he did his best and I loved him for it.

"You ready to head home?"

I laughed, accidentally causing another onslaught of tears. "Let's get out of here." 

We were about to get up and leave when the sound of footsteps crunching over garbage and broken sheets of drywall made me pause.  Midori Yamada was heading towards us, her Vans running shoes covered in drywall dust and a series of strands loose from her braids.

 "Which one of those idiots was it? I'll throw them off a roof if I have to." Midori proclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just give me the words, and I'll kick 'em into next week for you."

I laughed, feeling more emotional than ever at the fact that this woman I didn't even know was so ready to jump to my defense. "Nobody made me cry, thanks for the offer though. It's just an anxious reaction to social situations. My cue to leave."

Midori nodded, seeming to understand. "You did well, kiddo. I think the guys like you."

"They better fucking not." Yasushi scowled. "Not in the way I'm thinking of."

Midori just laughed, reaching over to ruffle my hair. I resisted the urge to cringe at the motherly action, realizing why all the boys at Oya must have loved her.

"Make sure she gets home safely, Nishikawa. I'll tell Seki where you guys have gone."

"Yes, mom." Yasushi whined sarcastically, before wrapping his arm around my shoulders, which was awkward enough given the height distance. "See you in the morning, Midori."

The walk home to Hope Hills was quiet, the two of us either walking in comfortable silence, or exchanging remarks about the drunken behavior of Yasushi's peers at the cookout. I found something about nights in the S.W.O.R.D district to be relaxing: the stars clearly visible in the sky, the way the moon shone over the river running through Oya, the soft, cool breeze that wrapped me in its wake like a hug as we headed home.

"Listen, I can't stay with you tonight." Yasushi said timidly as we stopped in front of the doorway to my apartment. "My mom drunkenly texted me while we were walking back, she's in bad shape."  'Sushi knew that ever since Kidra, I hated being alone in the apartment, so he did what eh could, whenever he could. But I knew that his mom and Sei would come first.

"It's fine, really. She's your mom. Go make sure she's okay."

The apartment felt cold and empty, a feeling I had become accustomed to since dad had left and mom picked up more shifts. I triple-locked the door behind me, locks only my mom could open, one physical, the other two electronic through an app on our phones. 

Seki could only open the physical lock. I didn't trust him enough for the other two yet.

I really should have taken a shower, opting out due to the pure exhaustion I felt, all of my energy gone from before. I undressed, changing into a matching button down set in baby blue silk, a present from my stepmother last Christmas.

Sometimes it was hard not to be mad at my dad, for his far better life in Tokyo: the nice house, the beautiful wife. The twins, born just over two years ago. The family trips, the last of which has graciously just been me and him while his new wife stayed at home with the kids, a shield from all of the strangeness of his new life as we tried to reconnect with each other. None of it seemed fair while mom and I were still stuck in the Murder Tower, unable to even leave Hope Hills like the Orochi's had after the insurance payout from their father's death and the subsequent lawsuit.

Life was a complicated thing, I had long ago learned, and I was going to have to learn how to live with it if I wanted to survive somehow.

I was ready to tuck myself into bed, the warm cocoon of blankets that I was willing to submit to in the name of a good night's well-deserved rest. Untangling the grey Amazonbasics phone charger that lay beneath my side table, I reached to plug my phone in when a notification stopped me in my tracks.

Instagram: tsukasa.takajo_ has requested to follow you.

I couldn't stop my heart from swelling with joy as I pressed accept, immediately requesting to follow him back.

It could easily have been the start of something great, I told myself as I fell asleep that night,

NOTES

so the other night i saw billy talent and rise against in concert, and not only was it the best night of my life, it gave me some great inspiration ( read: a chapter devoted to sakura and tsukasa moving in to a tiny apartment together in Tokyo with a cat while they go to school, with the song 'swing life away' by rise against playing as they spend their first night lving together ) but also may have given me covid so now i'm stuck at home with nothing but time and ideas . . .  could be either a blessing or a curse

Not sure if i love the way this chapter ended, but I was out of ideas.

also there is a gorgeous new cover for ALL of my high and low books by nvptxne so everybody please go tell her how incredible her graphic design skills are : )