a Song for Autumn

07 : Sudden realization

Haru's POV

——————————— ○・8:45 A.M.

I woke up early in the morning, The sounds of the morning birds chirping, the Mist and sunshine went inside the room, "Lovely" I whispered to myself, I went to our kitchen seeing the food was already prepared. Without knowing, Riku already left me. It took some time for me to eat but I feel like not eating at this time. I went back to my room and jumped back into the bed. I then drown on my thoughts on what happened last night.

——————————— ○・[ T i m e s k i p ]

Riku's POV.

——————————— ○・9:45 A.M.

I'm on my way to Aki's house to get her and drive her to the campus. While driving, I saw a Elderly woman knocking furiously at her door. I called Aki to let her know someone's knocking. It took some time for Aki to answer her phone, she then opened the door and answered the elderly woman who's frustration seems to reach up to the point she cannot handle it any longer. She then shouted at Aki which made me get out of my car and let myself handle the situation. It took some time to cool her frustrated mind off. "Madam what's the problem? All about you seemed to be angry about it?" I asked politely "I'm sorry to spill this, but your friend seemed not to pay her bills!, everytime I come here she doesn't even show herself!" She said and smirked at me. Disgusting.

"How much is it?" I asked her. "R-riku, It doesn't matter I can pay it—" The woman stopped her and spilled "Girl, you haven't paid me for 7 months! How could you do this?! " She screamed as loud as she could so that she could gain people's attention as much as she could so that she could make a scene. "Madam this is getting out of hand—" she cut me off "I don't care just make her pay me, or else I'd make charge of her actions that would make it worse than I'm just asking for." The crowd around us started to record what's going on. "I'll pay it for her." I said voluntarily, "How sweet of you, young boy." She said with a fake smile and left the scene like nothing didn't even happened. She looked back at us and came back. She gave me her card Info and said "I'll expect you to pay me later." she then again walked away from the scene.

"Riku.. you don't have to do this for me." Aki pouted when the landlady left. "Then what? What would you do to pay for your debt? How would you pay for 231 thousand yen? Aki think!" I shouted at her. Aki looked me in my eyes, her eyes were already full of tears. "Aki," I sighed. "Okay.. I'm sorry, it's just, why? Why haven't you paid for your rent that long?" She looked down and sobbed. "I have been paying my tuition since seven months ago. I lost my scholarship.." She continued to cry. "What?! Why didn't you tell me? I could've helped and we could've contacted---"

"Who? My irresponsible parents? They're already divorced and have different families now! I even told them I have a scholarship so they don't care about me! You think I have a face to face them now? Riku--- I'm sorry, I want to be alone for now. I still have to pack my things." She pushed me lightly and went into her apartment. I followed her inside and wow, it was a whole mess unlike how I first went here. Her table was full of bills, the kitchen sink was full of dishes and the kitchen counters had empty cans of beer and bags of different kinds of chips, her self-portrait that was on the wall was already broken and is now on the floor with splattered black and red paint all over. "Aki what.. What happened here?" I held her hand and faced her towards me.

She suddenly broke down. Even worse, not only tears were streaming down her face, her make up was ruined and her sweat mixed with her tears. She looked like a whole mess. "I thought I could make it alone. I thought I won't ever need my parents, or anyone. But look, you're here right now, you can see I'm such a mess, a failure. I would never make it in life. I don't wanna look like this infront of my parents, Riku. They already left me because they said I am a failure and I wanted to prove them wrong but look," She pointed at herself and her apartment. "I am not only a failure, I'm a huge mess right now." Aki faked a laugh.