Silence is Golden

Silver Lining

  Akihiko wasn't sure if Aikawa understood the meaning of 'no.' Because obviously, he was not going to work on his manuscript an no she was not going to convince him to do so anytime soon.

  "Sensei, please! All you have to do is complete the manuscript and then you can finish your time off!" Akihiko huffed into the phone for yet another time, tapping his pen repeatedly in an irritated manner against the table.  Even if he were to die, it seems, she would still come looking for his manuscripts, even if she had to bust down the gates of hell to reach them. 

  "Look, I told you I'll have it done by next Wednesday." He said for the hundredth time. "I'm not even going to touch a single key on my laptop until I know Misaki is aright."

  "But Sensei! Wednesday is too la--" Akihiko ended the call. Tossing his phone on the table, he half expected to hear Misaki complain to him about how he should get his work done or how hanging up on her was rude. When he looked over to him, however, he was still reading peacefully sitting by the windows.  The crude sound of his phone buzzing against the wood brought his attention back to the table where he snatched up his phone and answered it.

  "Alright, I understand!" He halfway shouted at the phone, too fed up with Aikawa's petty attempts to get him to do his work. Top that with all of this worry and stress and Akihiko felt like he could kill someone. "I'll finish the damn manuscript, so you can stop calling!" Of course he wasn't going to, but if it'd shut her up...

  "What the hell? Could you not  scream in my ear, that would be nice." Akihiko frowned at the lack of a woman's voice on the other line. 

  "Who is this?" The other person scoffed.

  "Of course. Didn't even check the damn caller ID before you answered..." Akihiko could recognize that sassy tone from anywhere.

  "Hiroki?" He said, not having expected a call from his childhood friend. 

  "Who else would it be? The last time I checked, you didn't have any other friends." Akihiko smiled at the familiar bite in Kamijou's words. He knew that the other didn't intentionally fill his speech with malice, and that's what made it all amusing. Hiroki was just naturally an asshole.

  "Of course." Akihiko just agreed with him like he normally did, despite the fact that the statement was clearly false. He did have Takahiro as a friend, so Hiroki wasn't the only one. Unless you're not supposed to count an ex-love interest as a friend, then it would actually be true... "What did you need?"

  "It's about the kid staying with you." 

  "Misaki?" Akihiko asked tentatively, wondering why Hiroki would call to specifically talk about him.

  "Yeah. He takes my class so I heard about what happened a couple months ago from the school, since a certain someone feels the need to neglect calling his friends about, oh I don't know, your near death!" Hiroki growled at him, but Akihiko was unfazed.

  "Anyway, Nowaki works at the hospital that did his evaluation and I just remembered him mention that his whatever scans were finished being looked over. I could ask him to talk to you about it now if you don't feel like waiting for the follow up." Akihiko was surprised at his friends generosity. "And don't think I'm doing this for free. I expect a favor in the near future." Hiroki's frown could almost be heard through the phone.

  "Yeah, alright." Akihiko let out a breath as he began to get a but anxious. "I'll listen."

  "Fine," Akihiko heard a muffled shout of Nowaki, get in here! Before Hiroki came back on the line. "And Akihiko?"