Violet Eyes

Chapter 5

My mom decided that I wasn't allowed to go back over to the boys' house that night, so I was stuck in my room as everyone but Shinsou left. I wasn't too upset over it, I'd just wait for her to fall asleep and then head over. 

But that also meant that I had to deal with Shinsou, one-on-one.

I was still over by the window, sat on the same box, Shinsou was on his bed, scrolling through his phone. I had lit up another cigarette after the others had gone, so I took a drag as I watched him. He was pretending not to care about the silence, but he only fidgeted that much when he was wildly uncomfortable. 

"You're having trouble sleeping?" I asked, not turning my head towards him. It was easier to talk to him when I couldn't see him lately. 

"When am I not?" was the sarcastic question I was rewarded with. 

I snuffed out my cigarette on the window sill, an adamant frown on my lips. "I'm sorry... about that night. I should have never let you do it," I confessed quietly. 

I heard him sigh, a soft thud on his bed which I assumed was his phone getting tossed. "Iz, come here." I reluctantly listened, allowing my feet to take me to the foot of his bed, where I halted. "I'm not gonna bite, ya know," he said with a small laugh. 

I rolled my eyes at him, sitting at the end of his bed with my arms crossed. "Okay, I'm here. Now what?" 

"Now," Shinsou said as he pushed himself to sit up. He turned his body so he was fully facing me, our knees lightly touching. "I tell you a little secret. You didn't let me do shit. Everything I did that night, I did because I wanted to. You couldn't have stopped me, so none of the guilt bullshit." 

"I could have stopped you if I actually tried," I grumbled, shifting a little in my spot. 

He rolled his eyes at me. "It's adorable that you think so." 

He knew exactly how to push my buttons. After being my best friend for years, he knew I hated being belittled and always rose to the challenge. In a moment of sassy weakness, I bit out, "So, you're saying that if I would have fallen to pieces, sobs and all, saying that I couldn't risk losing you, you still would have gone?" 

It made him pause, and just for a second, I thought I had won. "Did you send me in there because you could risk losing me?" 

"No!" I nearly shouted as soon as he asked. "No, not at all. You were just... you were the only one I trusted to make it back out." Was that a big confession? To me, that felt like a huge confession. 

He nodded once, accepting the answer. "And I did, so stop beating yourself up over it." 

We fell into silence, both of us absorbed in our own thoughts. My own were drifting through everything that had happened since I moved there. One memory stood out though. 

"Shinsou?" I asked, forcing him back to reality. "Why did you never tell me that you could play guitar?" 

A loud and sudden laugh escaped him at the question. "I can't believe that's what you're hung up on." 

"Well, I've been best friends with you for years and never had any idea, so yes, that is what I'm hung up on," I said back, once again too sassy for my own good. 

He took a breath, his laughter dying away. "My dad got me into music when I was a kid. As I got older, he started to tell me that I needed to use it as an outlet for everything, instead of drugs and shit. After he died, I kind of just abandoned it." 

"Oh," I mumbled. I hadn't expected an answer like that. I thought it was because he was embarrassed or something, not something so... deep. 

"Yeah," he breathed. "Now that I'm doing all the shit he told me not to, it feels wrong to play anything, like I'm disrespecting his memory or something."