Shuu was feeling rather pissy and he couldn't put a finger on why. When at school, he had to focus extra hard just to keep up appearances, but he lost his concentration too easily. His mind was fragmented, reflecting thoughts like a prism reflects light, absorbing some rays and bouncing off others. The other students sensed something because they gave him a bit of space. Maybe if he'd had a real friend, they would have tried to figure out what was wrong, by everyone else just kept distant and watched him, whispering and waiting for him to go back to normal.
One guy asked him if he was having a party this week.
Shuu almost snapped at him What's the point if she's not going to be there?  but he forced himself to smile and just say that he wasn't sure if he'd have to house to himself or not.
Part of it, Shuu thought, was due to his mother's extended absence. Shuu was closer to her than his father, mainly because she wasn't obsessed with molding Shuu into what she thought a successful person looked like. She was warm and kind, the only person Shuu had ever known to make him genuinely laugh and feel something, anything at all. At one time, his father was sort of like that; he'd cherished Shuu as his pride and joy, as his son rather than a future heir. But after Shuu had turned 13 and come of age, his father had grown more distant, trying to force Shuu into becoming a man and growing up prematurely.
Shuu missed the father that would pick him up and swing him around in his arms, but part of him now wondered if his father had only done that as a business tool to show investors that he was a good man with a loving family.
Now everything was falling apart. His mother was still in France, and he was stuck here. His father was rarely home, and when he was, he was up all night working late and leaving early.
Shuu felt alone. He'd never bothered to make close friends because his father had told him early on that those children would be of no importance to his financial future, and since then, he'd seen them as shallow. He'd despised them but seen them as somehow necessary.
Shuu realized for the first time that he'd disliked them simply because they'd had the opportunity to have a childhood, to be kids and to not be playing adult by wearing a three piece suit that was too big for him with cuff links he didn't know how to use. He'd been missing something all those years.
And he'd seen in that girl's eyes that she'd lost it too. That was why he wanted to see her again, to talk to her. He didn't know what he'd say or what she'd say or what he'd figure out, but he wanted to know if she wished she could have it back, whatever it was.
Shuu debated whether or not to throw another party. Odds were that she wouldn't come if she'd missed the last one. Maybe she was avoiding him. But how could he see her again if he didn't throw a party? He didn't know where she lived, what school she went to...He still didn't even know her name.
He sighed. He'd have to invite all the usual rabble then, if only in hopes of dragging her in as well.
Shuu stood up from him desk. If she didn't come this week, he resolved, then he would stop throwing parties and forget that he'd ever met her. Forget her haunting eyes and her silky black hair. Forget the way she trembled at his nearness.
He clenched his jaw and tried to convince himself that he would be glad if she didn't show so he could put it all behind him.
But something inside him wanted to see her eyes again, if just once more, because he was suddenly convinced that she was the only person he could truly smile for, the only person that could possibly understand his ugly self.