Glassy Dream

Part 6

I could barely sleep last night and kept repeating what Ayumu said to me last night. I kept thinking to myself why I couldn't say anything. I felt completely pathetic.

Then just in time, Riku came up to me and wrapped his right arm around my shoulder.

"Yo, Eiji. Ready for the game?"

"Yeah..." I rubbed my throbbing eyelid, trying to keep myself awake.

"Ah, Eiji. I don't want to do this to ya, but I need to tell you something extremely important. Apparently, right after you asked me about Ayumu, the news came out that Ayumu-."

When we reached our classroom, Riku got distracted by the large crowd that was forming around our classroom, it was almost impossible to see the inside of the classroom. Curious, I squeezed myself through the crowd until I saw what was the cause of the commotion.

A bouquet of flowers was left on Ayumu's desk.

I slowly walked up to his desk and stared at the flowers.

Riku caught up to me and tried to get my attention. "Hey, why'd you stop-"

I grabbed Riku by the collar and shouted, "How long was this going on?! How long was he getting bullied?! You saw him, didn't you?! You saw him and you didn't do anything!"

Riku squeezed my wrist and wrestled to get out of my grip. "Hey let go of me! Eiji, calm down!"

"I-" Slowly letting Riku go, I realized that I was the same. "I didn't know either. I didn't do anything either."

Blinded by anger, I snatched the flowers and threw it out the window like I was trying to pitch a baseball as far away as possible. The class erupted into panic at my sudden action and was loudly yelling at why I did that. I forced my way out of the classroom and ran as quickly as I could.

I didn't care about what they said. I didn't care about who was chasing me. They were all just assholes judging a kid they don't even know. They don't even know him, so why... why do they act like I don't know what happened to him.

Up the broken and tattered stone stairs, I made my way up to the usual meeting spot. For a second I got scared about where he disappeared to and searched around for any signs of him.

Then, with a wave of relief, I spotted that familiar black hair with red highlights sticking out of the bench's back and ran up to it. Usually I would be the first one to start the conversation, but this time it was different.

Ayumu gave a melodic sigh and tilted his head back a bit. "Don't be surprised. I'm sure you knew."

"Haha, Ayumu, what are you talking about? Stop being so weird right now. You're scaring me."

"Eiji, I'm not supposed to be here. I was supposed to leave, yet I just couldn't. I just wanted to keep staying with you." Ayumu stood up, yet he continued to stare out from the cliff.

"SHUT UP!" I felt my fist clenching so hard that I started to feel my short nails dig into my palm. I bit the edge of my lip, so the pain could help me properly focus on what I wanted to say. "How... How long?"

"How long for what?"

"How long were you like this? How long were you-"

"Dead?"

My body clenched up and I unconsciously crossed my arms as if I was trying to stop the shaking.

I pushed myself to slowly walk to the bench and as I sat down, Ayumu continued to stare out to the cliff. Even now, Ayumu looked the same as usual, but his eyes were so empty. So empty that it was almost like there was nothing but a hole in both of his eyes.