gureshin - the lavenders that grow on your porch

the gang's all here

[guren's pov]

"You guys suck at this game," Mito says, her eyes glued to the screen as we watch her character get awarded the winner.

"You're just not human," Norito replies, setting down his controller.

We're all sat around the television playing a video game called 'The Game of Life'.

What do kids say these days, again?

Oh right, 'the gang's all here'.

The concept of "The Game of Life" was simple. All the players had to do was to choose a character and try to do said character's jobs. The winner would be whoever ended up with the most money or happiest life.

I happened to be a kindergarten teacher who recently got fired from his job, divorced, and in debt with loan sharks.

Not the best life, if I'm being honest.

"I mean, how does a housewife end up becoming a millionaire?" Norito was saying. 

I laid my controller on the floor as Mito started lecturing Norito about how anyone, no matter what job or gender, can become a millionaire if they try and work hard enough. Her voice became background noise and soon, I was immersed in my thoughts.

In fact, I was so immersed that I didn't realize (until it was too late) someone had approached me from behind.

I jumped up from the spot where I was sitting on when someone showered what seemed like millions of origami stars onto my head. 

"What the hell?" I spluttered, whirling around, showering more stars onto the floor. I glared at the perpetrator and my hostile gaze was met with cool, blue eyes that seemed to be smiling.

"Whenever a lucky star is made, a falling star is saved!" Shinya said, holding a large jar that seemed to be the container that stored all the origami stars that were now scattered on the floor. 

"That does not even remotely make sense," I mutter, running my hands through my hair, attempting to take out any stray paper stars. Five more paper stars fell into my palm and I threw them at Shinya, hitting him in the face.

Shinya flinches and squeezes his eyes shut, but that annoying (lmao) grin still remained on his face, "You're so mean!"

I huff in mock annoyance and gesture to the stars scattered across the floor, "Your mess. You clean it up." 

"Hey, you touched them too, so you have to clean up," Shinya protested. 

"It doesn't work like that," I say. I stretch a little and walk past him, purposely brushing my foot against the carpet so some of the stars scatter underneath the couch.

"You're so mean," Shinya repeats. I flick my hand at him, trying to be nonchalant about it, but my hand was too close to him that I end up flicking him in the face.

Shinya laughs again, rubbing his face. The laughter gets transmitted to me, and before I know it, my shoulders are shaking and tears were forming in my eyes. 

This went on for about a minute or so. I don't understand why - looking back, it wasn't funny at all. Perhaps we were laughing about how we 'argued' about something so small? Or maybe it was the delayed laughter that should have come up when Shinya poured the jar of stars onto me. Who knows.

I calm down, but Shinya's still laughing a little. I'm looking at him, waiting for him to calm down, and I suddenly realize I was smiling. This small realization made me smile even more.

I gaze around the room. Mito, who was probably tired from playing all those video games with us, had fell asleep, her head slowly drooping to the left, descending onto Norito's shoulder. Norito hadn't noticed yet (or was pretending not to), and was looking at his phone. I didn't know what he was looking at, and I'm not sure I wanted to.