Takemura Itsuki

“Damn, the dark spots beneath your eyes are increasing,” Haruto commented as he observed my narrowed dark uninterested eyes. “For how many days were you playing games?”

“Just seventy hours in total last week, pal,” I replied and turned towards my right.

‘SEVENTY HOURS?!” He was stunned. “For real?!” He added as he saw me walking away in the corridor. Some students were still walking out of the corridors with their exam-boards, question papers, and heavy thick pouches full of colors and pens and all that stuff inside. I turned my head backward and looked at the shocked statue of Haruto still looking at me with his wide open mouth and eyes. “R-Really?”

I smirked, and in my same uninterested voice, replied, “I broke all records.”

He closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, opened his eyes, and looked at me. He walked towards me and stood in front of me. With my head just by the height of his nose, I had to tilt my head up to look at him with my uninterested eyes. “Grow up. Playing games is what kids do.”

“And those kids on YouTube are now earning in millions while you and your dad are just warming their asses on the plastic chair with a crack in its right leg.”

He facepalmed and shook his head, conveying he’d had enough. “Itsuki…”

“Yeah?” I said with my uninterested eyes and my smiling mouth.

“I’m bigger than you in my height, and in brains too, so—”

“But not in dick size, so shut the heck up.” I smiled at him, and he just looked at me with his narrowed uninterested eyes full of anger like he’s gonna eat me.

He stood silent in front of me for a few seconds, looking into my eyes with his open expressionless dead eyes. “I-I…” He murmured. He then closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He sighed, and then bent his back frontwards in defeat. “No one can beat you, Itsuki.”

I then turned frontward towards the walking crowd and started walking in between those students who were discussing their papers, with Haruto following me, staring at me as he walked behind me. Haruto then ran two steps forward towards me and came to my left. He turned at me and said, “By the way, can I come to your house?”

“Why?”

“Well, I just wanna hang out,” He replied. “You know, it’s been days that I’ve played any game because of exams and all, so I just wanna loosen myself up now that they’re over.”

“What’d you play?”

“Dunno. Just a battle royale multiplayer game, if you have one.”

I turned my head at him now. “I got a western game named Valorant, but it’s in English.”

“Fine by me. Just teach me how to play while we walk.”

“You’ll learn yourself when you’d start playing.”

“Nah, you know, I’m what you all term as a ‘noob’, so…”

“I’ll sit beside you when you play, anyways. And it’s just a game, don’t worry.”

He moved his hands behind his head and shrugged. “Well, what will I worry about in a game?”

“Maybe about your humiliation, man,” I said with a smile.

“THE—” He twisted his right hand, like saying ‘what’ and looked at me with a smile, “The heck you mean?”

“You know what,” I said in a low voice. “We all know how shit you play.”

“S-So, I-I wholeheartedly—” He stuttered as his cheeks turned pink in embarrassment. “I-I wholeheartedly a-a-accept tha-that I—”

“YOU WHOLEHEARTEDLY ACCEPT THAT YOU LOVE WHOM?!” I shouted in between the whole crowd of students walking. The sound of every chatter and every footstep walking stopped at once and all of them had turned their heads and eyes towards the center of the heat—us.

With the pinkness in his cheeks rising, he turned his head right and left and front and back, and then took a breath, and shouted on top of his lungs, “I WAS SAYING THAT I WHOLEHEARTEDLY LOVE THE HAMBURGER MY MOM MAKES!”

“What I did was purely childish, but I bet that what he said afterward was puuurely more childish than anything else anyone else could have said.”

All of the students stood in silence and looked at us who were just changing the storms every now and then with each of our dialogues. I looked at him, his head tilted upwards in embarrassment, and then chuckled a little, “Pfft!”

“HAHAHASBSAJSHAHHAHA!” The whole corridor was laughing as they continued walking. I looked at a girl who was smiling as she looked at me, like controlling her laughter, and then walked away.

***

“HHAHAHSGDESHAA!” Haruto was still laughing and I was smiling too as we walked through the clear fields on our left when some children were kicking a football and then running behind it.

“Just stop laughing now, man,” I said with a smile beneath my dark spots.

“Y-Yeah, yeah,” He said between his laughs. He took in a deep breath as he smiled, and then he turned at me looking at the children playing in the plain field with short green lush all around as we walked through the narrow street with small and narrow one or two-storey houses on our right. A small blow of wind walked through us from our front and then grass moved a little as the sunshine softly nourished them and I watched it all with my eyes. I then turned my head a little up at the face of Haruto, who was glaring at my face. Then, I turned my head towards the field again. “It’s the only plain region of the whole village. Remember the days we used to play here too?”

Haruto turned his head at the fields too. “Can never forget.” He looked at a small well in between the field, where some jackets and some bags and other stuff were kept. The rusty well had green patches on its body and some grass and vegetation growing all around it.

“Some things really made it unforgettable.”