"Morning Mahiru!"

Mahiru heard a familiar voice ahead of him, and as he lifted his head to see Sakuya standing at the entrance of the school building, he waved enthusiastically. The adrenaline from that evening was still strong in his system, and if anything, he wanted badly, right at this moment, to just throw everything behind and go play with his newfound bandmates.

His joker of a friend threw an arm around his shoulders as soon as he was in range, dragging him along to the shoe lockers.
"Damn, it's so early in the morning and you already have this much energy."
Sakuya stared at Mahiru, as if the brunette had just grown two heads.
"I'm actually hearing that from you? You, who prattles on about always being in high spirits?"

Mahiru unlatched his taller friend's arm from himself and chuckled as he opened his locker to change into his indoor shoes. "Mm-- yeah, you have a point. Don't even know."
"You're suppressing your excitement aren't you?"
"Wha--?"

"Oh? Did I actually hit correctly?" Sakuya started to change into his indoor shoes as well, greeting another classmate who entered the building at that moment. "What, you got a girlfriend or something? Damn... if the others hear about this, they are going to lose it, man. Hell, even I'm surprised!"

The brunette sighed, frowning at his friend for drawing baseless conclusions. His shoe locker was shut with a soft click, and he walked past Sakuya to get to the stairs. The latter followed soon after, trailing behind and squinting at the shorter male's back as suspiciously as a cop might eye a shady figure in the train station, and as they reached the second floor, Mahiru turned around slightly to look at him, his thumb hooked over his bag strap.

"It's nothing at all, really. My uncle kinda just brought some good news over the phone last night."
Mahiru had no idea why he lied.

It just slipped.

What the hell was he doing?

Sakuya stared down at him for a few seconds, then, as if having bought the excuse, smiled in his trademark toothy grin that would reassure everyone for some reason, sometimes for reasons they didn't even know they were fretting over. He was that kind of friend; he was refreshing and honest, and although he could get annoying with his yelling and overreactions, his love for rumors was childishly entertaining. He aggressively ruffled Mahiru's hair, something he began to do as they got more familiar with each other.
"If you're this happy about it, then it must've been good. Well, let's go. One of the few times I'm early to class. I would want everyone to know about it."

Mahiru watched his back disappear up the next set of stairs and pushed the uneasy feeling he knew stemmed from his utterance of mistruth, to the back of his mind, and followed.

That afternoon, Mahiru disappeared before his friends could fetch him for their every-afternoon-hangout on the way home. He never usually went ahead, or somewhere else, without informing them first, but as Sakuya relayed Mahiru's "good news" story, Koyuki and Ryuusei's concerns seemed to shift away from their shoulders and up into the air where they dissipated.

"Hm, it's been a while since I've seen him excited over a phone call." Koyuki shrugged, following behind his two other friends, who seemed to agree with the notion.

"Probably got a pretty aunt or something. Damn, invite us to the wedding too, Mahiru!" Sakuya added jokingly, to which the shorter blonde elbowed him in the stomach.

"What?!"
"You're stupid as ever, aren't you, Sakuya? Are you that... in need of a girlfriend or something?"
"Hey, I don't need one. A ladies' man should stay single else someone gets killed, you know?"

Ryuusei pretended to choke, clinging to Koyuki and clawing at his arms seemingly for water, or any sort of hydration to wash away the awful notion of their green-haired friend being a "ladies' man", a normal afternoon banter that happened among these close friends as they walked home with the sun setting on their tail.

"Hey, Tetsu, when should we go to Kuro's again?"
"You tried texting him?"

The two bandmates sat on a bench, Mahiru's guitar leaning on the edge of the seat along with Tetsu's bass. They both had popsicles in their hands, the incoming haze of summer indefinitely extracting a natural reaction from the human body to lean towards colder things.

"Yeah, kinda did ask him but he didn't reply." then he frowned. "I mean, he did disappear on me for nearly a year but I thought we re-established that connection since we formed this band."

The blonde took a bite out of his popsicle, shifting his arm that had settled on the bench's backrest as it began to get pins and needles. He laid his arm on his lap and leaned forward, eyeing the somewhat peaceful bustle of people infront of him that had always been that way, and hopefully, always will be.

"Weren't you calling him back then?"
"Yeah, but..." Mahiru sighed. "Well, whatever, he's probably just sleeping away. Let's go, Tetsu!"

Upon having his name mentioned, the tall highschooler lifted his bass and followed suit, towards a lesser-known soundproof studio that even students like them could afford on the get-go. Their previous practice session with all three of them went a little too well, so much so that they noticed something quite off with their playing today.

As the two highschoolers tucked their things away and walked off into the night, they discussed a few things over cans of cold soda and both hidden and blatant excitement.

"Well, of course we were probably just a bit disoriented by the absence of the rhythm, so it's all good. The gig we're planning to sign up for isn't exactly happening so soon, so we got a lot of time to polish whatever's wrong."

Tetsu nodded.

"With Kuro, of course!"

The rest of the journey was taken in comfortable silence as the two teenagers slowly consumed the contents of their soda cans. They soon reached the intersection where they had to part ways, and they exchanged casual farewells before turning their backs towards each other.

"I'm home."

Mahiru called out as he unlocked the door at the entranceway, stepping on the backs of his shoes to instantly strip them off rather than untying the laces first. He left them on their respective spot and proceeded to organize his belongings the way he did every afternoon.

The silent house was more than enough for one student to live in, the large couch at the center of the room facing the television as empty as ever. Mahiru was never really the kind of person to sit idly and watch variety shows all night instead of doing his homework, so it was clearly not as worn as the pan he always uses to cook breakfast. Looking at it from the doorway to the kitchen, it did seem pretty old by now.

"Guess I'll have to buy a new one soon."

He stepped out into the living room once again and decided to vacuum the room before his evening shower. As the machine interrupted the silence, Mahiru remembered when his uncle would do this as he slept, serving as a sort of an alarm clock for him in the morning during the already-few times he was home. Such days from his childhood made him feel secure and quite happy, knowing his new parent was there with him, and that he wouldn't have had to wake up to a silent, dark apartment with no other signs of life besides himself.

He then frowned, remembering the conversation he had with Sakuya from this morning.

Why had he lied about this entire thing? Why exactly did he reflexively hide from his long-time friends the fact that he was currently engaging himself in a hobby he'd had ever since that concert in the mall? Koyuki and Ryuusei, maybe he wouldn't share it to them immediately since he wanted to be better at this craft before letting them know, and that it was admittedly still sort of embarrassing, but from Sakuya, who technically got him through this entire ordeal by teaching him what he needed to know as a beginner on the guitar? He certainly couldn't quite comprehend.

Cleaner than it had been, Mahiru left the living room and worked on his dinner. Having taken out the roux from the cabinet and checked the rest of the ingredients he needed for curry, he nodded to himself and went on to take his evening shower. As the water washed the day's traces away from his skin, his phone in the kitchen counter lit up, notifying he absent owner of a message from Kuro, himself.

christ, really sorry for abandoning this book for so long. i'll try to update more often ヽ(´ー｀)ノ