Chapter Text
The sun was setting over Elmore on a breezy late autumn day. All of the trees dotted around the town were browning or losing their leaves, preparing for the approaching winter season. Some Halloween decorations were still up, & there were a handful of rotting pumpkins decaying in the streets & on people's front lawns. Tobias Wilson & Masami Yoshida were making their way home from high school on a Friday afternoon, hand in hand. Masami's parents weren't home for the weekend so the pair figured they'd do their homework together in the living room of the Yoshida mansion & then hang out afterwards.
Masami got her keys out of her bag & opened the front door. The Yoshida mansion was incredibly extravagant, full of unnecessary items purchased purely to show off their wealth, & was arguably going a little overboard with the marble walls & flooring. Both teenagers took off their shoes as they entered & stored them in a little shoe cubby near the door, then headed straight for the living room with their backpacks.
"So, how much did you understand in Math today?" Tobias asked.
"I understood it all just fine," replied Masami, "why? Was it too confusing for you?"
Tobias glanced to the side, feeling a little embarrassed, "yeah."
Masami rolled her eyes, "I'll help you through it then."
Around an hour passed before they begun to slow down & started finishing up.
"You know, you really need to step up your game, Tobi. You're flunking like half of your classes, how do you expect to graduate?" Masami asked in an annoyed tone, but with a hint of concern.
"I don't know. I'll get a sports scholarship or something, I'm awesome at football," Tobias replied.
Masami raised an eyebrow, "I don't mean to come across as a nagging girlfriend, but I feel like you're not taking anything seriously. We need to start applying for college in the next few months & you've got almost nothing to show in your applications."
"But I am taking it seriously, Masami," Tobias claimed, "I just suck."
"Okay, whatever. You have one question left. I'm not gonna walk you through it this time, try to figure it out on your own."
So Tobias tried his very best to figure out the final maths question on his page. He was pretty confident that his working was wrong, but he truly did do his best.
Once all of their school supplies had been tucked away neatly back into their bags, the couple sat on the floor in silence for a moment. Then, uncomfortably, Tobias asked, "hey so.. what do you wanna do now?"
"I don't know. I could ask Bennett to make us some food?" Masami suggested.
"Nah, I'm not in the mood for anything fancy."
"Well, do you want me to order some chicken nuggets then?"
Tobias shrugged, "yeah sure."
Masami quickly opened Elmore Food Express on her phone & ordered dinner for the two of them.
"Hey.. Masami?" Tobias started.
"What's up?"
"What are you applying for? Like for college I mean."
Masami looked up at him, "I'm going to apply to multiple schools, I've got a few I'm interested in. There's one in New York that I'm really interested in, there's another in Nevada that looks promising. I considered one in Japan but I don't think I want to apply there. I'm not fluent in Japanese yet which is something I'm kind of embarrassed about."
Tobias turned away slightly before he asked, "are there any in.. Elmore?"
Masami frowned sympathetically, seeing the genuinely unsure expression on her boyfriend's face. "There's.. so much life outside of this town. I don't think we're meant to stay in one place for all our lives."
"I get it.." Tobias's expression began to shift towards a more crushed look.
"Tobi, it's not that I don't want to be around you, I don't want to leave you like that, but I do want to broaden my horizons, & I don't think it's fair to expect me to stay here. You understand more than anyone that this town doesn't have anything left to offer people like us."
"But what if I don't graduate? What if I don't get to go somewhere else? What if I'm stuck here forever?"
"You won't be."
"How can you be sure? You said it yourself not even half an hour ago. I might not graduate, I'm flunking all of my classes."
Masami took him by the hands, "Tobias, listen. I said that to get you to take it seriously. Your life isn't over. There's plenty more to discover, & even if you do end up having to resit this year, you'll be okay. Plus, your family is rich, if you really don't want to sit through another year, you can get one of your parents to buy your way through your education."
"That's not the point, Masami."
The doorbell rang. Of course, Masami, got up from the floor to answer it. Larry had arrived with their food. For a very short while, Tobias sat awkwardly by himself on the Yoshidas' living room floor, gently pulling at the rug with one hand while the other rested on the cold marble floor. Nothing in his life as it was in that moment felt correct. Masami returned to the living room & gave Tobias his food before sitting down herself. She once again opted to sit on the floor alongside him, rather than on the nice comfortable couch behind him.
"Movie?" She asked.
"Sure, what've you got?" Tobias asked.
"Right now our TV signal is acting up so we can only watch DVDs. I've got a stack of Gudio Shiburi movies right there, we can pick from that."
Tobias crawled forwards & rummaged through the stack, "I guess this one looks interesting. Are they all in Japanese?"
"Yeah, sorry. We can put on subtitles though if you can't understand it. That one's a good one by the way, it's called I Can Hear The Sea."
Tobias took the disc out of its case & put it into the DVD player, then Masami went through the options with the remote & pressed play. The pair sat through the movie mostly in silence, but at one point Tobias said "y'know, the girl kinda reminds me of you", to which Masami elbowed him & replied "oh yeah? Well the main guy's best friend is like you", causing them both to laugh for a bit.
Once the movie was over, they continued to sit in silence. Masami rested her head on Tobias's shoulder & yawned. He looked down at her & her eyes turned back towards him. It was hard to tell given how darkly coloured her irises were, but her pupils seemed relatively small.
"Hey, Masami," Tobias started, "I think I oughta get going."
"What? Why?"
"Well, it's getting late & my mom will be pretty lonely, I wouldn't wanna leave her by herself."
Masami could tell he just wanted an excuse to leave, but she didn't pry, "alright. See you tomorrow."
"Bye." Tobias kissed his girlfriend on the forehead before grabbing his things & leaving.
"Do you want me to walk you home?" Masami asked.
"No, I'm good."
The front door shut, & Masami was all alone in her mansion (unless you counted Bennett, of course). If she was being completely honest, she kind of also wanted Tobias to leave, but she wasn't sure why. She supposed she just wanted some alone time.
***
After only about three minutes, Masami realised that she actually didn't want to be alone after all. While she stood up to walk to the kitchen to rest her elbows on the island counter, she pulled out her phone & called the first person she thought of: her best friend, Leslie.
"Hey Les," she said as soon as he picked up.
"Hey girl," he replied, "why the call out of the blue?"
"What? Can't a girl want to talk to her best friend?"
There was silence for a moment, "Masami, I can tell when something's bothering you, you know."
"But I barely said a word!" Masami exclaimed.
Leslie replied, "honey, you didn't have to. It's my sixth sense."
Masami rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, seriously, what's wrong?"
"It's.. Tobias," she sighed, "I think he's bored of me, or I've done something to hurt his feelings."
"Masami, the two of you have broken up & gotten back together like four times already. He's been bored of you. You can do so much better anyway," Leslie replied.
"Aren't you friends with him?" Masami asked.
"Yes.."
"Then why are you talking about him like that?"
"Oh honey, please, you should be the last person to judge me for that."
Masami paused, "yeah okay, true."
"Anyway, what's wrong, what is it exactly that makes you think he's bored of you?"
"I don't know. Lately things have been feeling really off. It's not a case of I don't think he likes me, he clearly cares about me, he's way nicer to me than to anyone else, but today especially, it didn't feel like he wanted to be around me. There was no spark when we looked into each others eyes, & I felt like he was looking for an excuse to leave considering his excuse was that he didn't wanna leave his mom alone when.. I'm also home alone this weekend without him."
"That's odd."
"I know, & to make it weirder, despite all of that, he made it abundantly clear he wanted me to be in his life forever. We were talking about college & he visibly didn't want me to leave Elmore."
"If you want my honest opinion, it sounds like he has attachment issues. He sees you as his one constant & he's afraid of things changing," Leslie suggested, "he's clearly afraid that you'll break up again when you go to college like me & Wilson did because of the long distance."
"Maybe.." Masami sighed, "we're supposed to go on a date tomorrow but with the way that he left just now, I'm not sure if that's still on."
"Tell you what. I'll be over at your house in like 20 minutes, we can invite Carmen too, & we'll have a sleepover. We can be the relationship drama/just gone through a breakup trio!" Leslie suggested.
Masami laughed, "yeah, that sounds like a plan."
The young Yoshida turned her phone off & went upstairs to quickly get changed. She put on a plain white jumper & rolled the sleeves up to her elbows, paired it with some black shorts that had rainbows on the sides with matching rainbows socks, & her favourite pair of extra fluffy slippers that made her feel like she was walking on clouds. She contemplated doing her hair, but she figured she could do that when her friends were around.
Bzzt.
Masami's phone signalled that she'd received a message. She picked it up & saw that she had a text from Carmen.
'Hey! Les said u wanted us to have a sleepover tonight?'
With a smile, Masami replied, 'yeah u can come over <3'.
Quickly, she ran back downstairs & tidied up anything that was lying around, such as the chicken nugget boxes from earlier, & the stack of Gudio Shiburi DVDs which had been knocked over.
As she looked around at her living room, Masami felt a small wave of guilt. Guilt over the fact that she realised she kind of didn't care that Tobias wasn't there, & guilt about the fact that she wished she did properly want him in her house. After all, it felt wrong without him, it just didn't feel quite right with him either.
Then the doorbell rang.