YAMAGUCHI TADASHI

"yamaguchi, press the doorbell."
"no, you do it."
"no, yamaguchi. you."
"you first."
"then you'll press it, too?"
"yes."

i heaved out a deep sigh, crossing my arms on my chest.

"that doesn't make sense, tsukki. they will think we're playing with them. besides, i was the one who gathered information about her parents, you know." i shake my head in disbelief, staring right into his eyes.

"argh, fine. i'll press it." he gives in, pouting.

with this kind of action coming from him, i mentally giggled. he never acted like this before. maybe aiko tamed the infamous "saltyshima".

with him pressing the doorbell, both of us gave a nod towards each other, ready to face her parents.

we waited minutes and minutes, until a lady in her mid 40s came out of the house.

"my, my. honey! we have visitors!" she yells happily, a wide grin plastered on her face and when i saw that grin, it reminded me so much of our female friend.

"good afternoon, boys! come in, come in." she excitedly says while opening the gate, granting us permission to enter their home.

"pardon the intrusion, yamada-san." tsukki and i say in unison, bowing.

"don't worry about it! you're tsukishima-kun and yamaguchi-kun, correct?" she asks, causing us to nod.

"my daughter hasn't been home for a few days. i think you'll have to explain what has been happening if you two want to leave this residence alive." a scary voice says behind my back, making me jump and cling onto tsukki's arm.

man, that scared me.

"calm down, honey. i don't think that's the only thing they want to discuss with us." aiko's mother smiles faintly, escorting us to the couch for us to sit on.

as tsukki and i sat on the soft couch, aiko's father placed a tray of snacks and four cups of tea on the table, sitting on the other couch in front of us.

"any minute now, dear. i'd love to hear what you have in mind." her mother says, sipping on her tea.

with tsukki sighing, i started off.

"we had a training camp by the past few days and our friend, your daughter, seemed to be in a bad shape. she's safe and resting in a hospital, for now. we would like to know how we're gonna fix this." i explain, showing them aiko's cracked pen.

"that troublemaker. i told her not to exhaust herself and look at her, disobeying her father. what a brat." her father scoffs, leaving both tsukki and i bewildered.

did she exhaust herself without us knowing? she seemed fine for the whole week to me.

"aiko cracks her pen accidentally whenever she doesn't teleport back home after a few days. this only happened today after a few years, though." she explains, earning a sigh from the father.

"though it does seem like aiko slept well with your group, her on switch is still activated because the pen is not closed. therefore, she's mentally awake the whole week. that's what exhausted her." the father explains.

tsukki and i stared at each other, then onto the pen with frowns plastered on our faces.

right, why didn't we get to think about that? how stupid.

"there is only one solution for the cracked pen, but it can only be done by her current owner, though the owner must have special feelings towards her." her mother says, looking over my blonde friend.

"tsukishima-kun, bring our daughter back."