Ripped Love Letters / Isagi Yoichi

III

He's sound asleep, thinking of nothing; when the bell rings and he slowly wakes.

He hears students rustling with their bags and chairs sliding, it's time for my next class, he frowns. He slowly lifts his head, fixing his static-full hair with his fingers.

The teacher eyes him, almost knowingly, then waves, "See you tomorrow, Isagi!"

Isagi forms a smile on his face, a fake smile, "See you!"

As soon as he's out of eye-shot from his teacher, he rolls his eyes and mocks the man's words. He gets weird stares from the people around him, but pays no mind to it. There's a sea of students in the hall, and you'd think they can't look anywhere else but him.

Someone steps on his shoes, he doesn't feel it-- or maybe chooses to ignore it. He turns the locked knob on his locker, entering a series of numbers he was forced to memorize his first year.

The door opens the third time he tries it (third time a charm, right?), it's flimsy metal clanking as it hits the locker next to it. He hung his jacket vest on the rusting metal hook, it was way too hot for a sweater. He's about to shut the door when he sees it, the thing he's been looking for.

This time, it's a creamy orange shade with pink writing screaming, 'Open me!'

Since he caught the door with his fingers just before it slammed closed, his fingers stung-- "Ow." He whispers to no one.

A boy to his left hears his small whimper of pain and cringes with him. "You alright, Isagi?"

Isagi swings his head to his left, "Oh! Yeah, don't worry about me." He stumbles with his words, and gives a skittish smile.

He nods, and turns his head back to his own locker slowly. Isagi purses his lips, deciding to shove the letter in his khaki pants pocket instead of opening it on the spot.

"How'd..." Isagi trails off, sensing the red haired boy next to him face his direction. "How'd you know my name?" He says in a voice barely audible with the chatter of students walking by.

He doesn't know why he said it, maybe to start conversation-- or to seem polite. Maybe it's because he feels seen, and is curious as to why.

The boy gapes, his face covered in shock. "Huh?!"

Isagi's eyes widened, had he done something wrong? "Isagi, c'mon! We're assigned partners for the history project!"

He runs his hand over his head, "I'm Kazuya Tadaaki! Mr. Nakano told us today, literally thirty minutes ago!" Kazuya sighs, "Were you asleep or somethin'?"

"Uh--" Isagi smiles, "Yeah, actually."

-----

The pair of boys were sitting in the library, after agreeing to re-search for their upcoming project.

Kazuya spoke with a mouth full of food, "Do ya' just fall asleep in class when ya' want to? Or was it just a 'today' thing?" He lifted his hands to add air quotation marks over 'today'.

Isagi rolled his eyes, and looked away to anywhere besides his friend's mouth. "No, it was just a 'today' thing." He lied, copying Kazuya's hand movements, " 'Sides, class is barely useful."

"Can't argue on that with you."

A moment of silence settled in, until the crimson colored hair boy spoke up. "What was that back there? Near the lockers."

Isagi's breath cut short, and he had to hold back a coughing fit. He didn't expect him to ask.

He sighed, was he seriously about to tell a guy he had just met a secret of his? Yeah. Kazuya had a comforting way of speaking, and Isagi trusted him enough, so why not?

"There's a full story behind it, I don't want to bother you with it. Unless you wanna know."

Kazuya smirked, "Yeah! Tell me all about it." He chirped, already setting down his strawberry drink to listen.

Isagi started from the beginning, and went on. He gave small details, and tried his best not to sound so excited about it.

The story didn't last very long-- it lasted five minutes for him to explain everything. He felt time fly by, though. He had forgotten the last time he was able to speak for so long to someone, and for them to pay genuine attention to him.

He liked it, he liked it a lot.

"That's all." He finished, taking a sip of water to wash down the feeling of dry mouth. Kazuya absentmindedly smiled at Isagi's words, already knowing the whole story.