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As Aqua Hoshino sat in a chair, he reflected, reflected a lot. The movie had released, his father would be given punishment. Ruby would focus on idol work again. Mem-Cho would be right with along with her. Akane could stop worrying. Arima could shine in her acting once again.
What now?
Emotional pain, physical pain, he was tired of it both.
He had affected too many people already. Too many. Naive, that was what he was.
A naive scumbag. Did he seriously expect that all of them, Arima, Akane, Ruby, they'd be fine even if he suddenly...
What was he going to do?
Tell all of them that he manipulated, used and deceived them for years?
And then suddenly... people have emotions, no matter how much he doesn't think about it, they care about him.
They care about him. Some of them even love him.
Love... love..? Shit.
Ruby knew who he was now. He knew that it was his fault that she liked him this way. Him trying to comfort a dying girl? Bullshit. He was a narcisisst. Plain and straight. Ruby wasn't the only one too. Arima, how would she react? She's had the longest crush on him, he knew that.
Someone so important in her life, decides to just...
I don't know anymore.
"Ah-kun."
Kana whispered into a nigh-emotionless Aquamarine Hoshino who had been sitting down for hours. She stared at him bluntly after he didn't respond for the first time.
"Ah-kun.."
She waited for another response, eventually giving up and subsequently yelling "AQUA!" and rattling around his body to get a response out of him. "..What?"
"Jeez, your like a corpse y'know?" Kana bluntly proclaimed to a now-annoyed looking Aqua Hoshino. "Thanks for the input." Aqua grabbed his phone out of his pocket, and subsequently started ignoring her. Kana stared at him with the most non-serious death stare one can receive.
"Ah-kun." Aqua moved his gaze towards her. "Tell me what you want Arima." After that response, Kana begrudgingly said "Your the one who texted me 'wanna go out to eat' in lowercase!"
Oh, right.
"I forgot," Kana was on the verge of shoving a knife into this guy's arm. "let me change."
As Arima Kana awkwardly sat down on the couch waiting for Aqua to finish already, she thought, why so sudden? I mean, uh, she wasn't complaining. But, why? Was it because his schedule was finally free after the 15-year-lie had finished all of its screenings, but with her? She was, she was, she was... well, she didn't know what she felt but one of them was probably excitement or confusion.
Aqua had finally come out of his room, and simply said "Let's go."
In hindsight, Kana didn't know what she was thinking when they were going on a date. Because, y'know, they're really popular right now. So of course, she couldn't wear some nice clothes or whatnot, but instead a hoodie with a cap and glasses. Come to think of it, she looked super shady right now!
Well, I guess Aqua looked a bit (actually, a lot) more shady than her, but it was still embarassing as hell. After a couple minutes of walking down the streets of Tokyo, Kana finally asked "Hey, ah-kun, where are we going?" In which her response was utter-silence by Aqua.
She stopped, and grabbed Aqua's hand. "..Aqua, did you at all plan for us to go anywhere?" Once again, Aqua responded with a non-chalant expression and shrug.
The two then had a lover's feud on the side of the road.
"..!"
After around 30 minutes of bickering and walking, the two just went inside some ramen restaurant on the side of the road. "..." The awkward silence and tension the two had was so thick that it could be cut with a knife. Kana raised her arm, and pinched Aqua's cheek, the latter responding with a deadfaced expression.
"Aqua." Kana stared. "Present." And Aqua responded with a stare.
The girl sighed and started speaking again. "I wanted to go on a nice dat- day out with you, and you take me to a ramen restaurant..." Aqua shrugged. "I wanted to eat."
"You make me want to hate you."
After some time, the pair got their orders, and the silence turned into silent eating. Which in all retrospect, was either better or worse in Kana's mind. Still though, Aqua had to have something, anything right??
He had nothing.
The two walked out of the restaurant, and started walking in a random direction. "Aqua.. please tell me were gonna do something..." Aqua pointed to a vendor shop. "Wanna get something?" Kana, for the first in this dat- outing, felt some sort of excitement apart from when she first got that text from Aqua.
As the got to the vendor, Aqua didn't really pick anything. "I'll just pay, I'm not interested." Kana, once again, sighed, and looked for something to buy. A necklance caught her eye and- "Too expensive." Aqua bluntly said out loud and looked at her. In response, Kana pinched his ear.
She groaned, and scanned anything else that she could buy.
Her eyes locked to a pair of bracelets.
The vendor saw her curiosity, and started his 'businessman talk'
"Oh, young lady! It seems that your attracted to this pair I see. Well, let me tell you the story of these bracelets!"
Kana groaned, and immediately regretted her decision.
"Long ago, during the Tokugawa period, there was a boy who hated everything around him," The vendor really tried to convery the 'awesomeness' of these bracelets.
Both Aqua and Kana kinda blurred out during most of it. But, one part intrigued Aqua specifically.
"..and the boy met someone who could drive away the stress, the hate, the uselessness in him. He felt truly happy when he was with this girl. And so..." Aqua blurred out the parts he didn't care about.
"..but yet, the girl felt alone. Alone without help. This boy relieved that, but it would all fome back when the boy was gone, so the two..." Kana noticed the bracelets seemed to shine a bit. They weren't low quality at the very least.
"As the boy crafted the bracelets, he gave one of them to the girl, so even if he was gone, she'd never be alone. As the two finally had true love, disaster struck and..." Aqua noticed that Kana seemed to be intriuged in the story now, why?
"..through it all, even if the girl never felt the boy's warthm ever again, she would never be alone."
As the man finished his story, Kana finally felt relieved to leave, but when she was about to, Aqua grabbed her hand. "Do you wanna buy something or not?" Aqua said to her, she responded by grumbling.
Kana just looked away wanting Aqua to hurry up.
"..."
As the pair left the Vendor's side-street thing, and stood awkwardly outside of it., Kana wondered, what did Aqua buy? "Hey, Ah-kun, what'd you buy?" Aqua showed her the bracelets, and Kana let out a groan. "Euhhh... Aqua, don't tell me you fell for the story trap!" He shrugged. "It has a diamond and ruby imbeded in it." Kana paused. "What? Are you sure? It's probably just fake anyway." Aqua put his on while giving the other to Kana. "It was cheap." Kana stared at him, but nevertheless, took the bracelet and put it on.
The pair walked through the streets of Tokyo, at ease.
Examining the beauty of the city during the night, still bustling with people. Bright virtual billboards, foreigners doing vlogs, the city never really slept.
To be honest though, the two stood out like a sore thumb. Two hooded figures with a mask and sunglasses on, they looked shady as hell.
Kana was sweating profusely, she did not want to be the center of attention like this. Looking up at Aqua, he kinda just, ignored the stares.
She wished that she had the same amount of gaul as that guy.
As the two had finally reached the Hoshino household-
Oh.
I see someone. Someome I already saw earlier, a lot of times. Bickering on the street, the ramen shop, the vendor. It's my fault. Around her, I felt at ease, lowered my guard.
Shit.
I'm tired of this.
Emotional pain, physical pain.
...
What if I died?
There wouls be neither,
right?
Aquamarine Hoshino pulled Kana as close to him as he could, and hugged her as tightly as possible.
A sharp feeling echoed throughout the side of his body.
Is she saying something?
Aqua collapsed, pulling Kana down onto the floor with him.
Shit.