Chapter Text
Hirose places a cup in the sink and turns on the faucet. He stares as the water fills the cup, not registering when it starts to overflow. His body moves on autopilot as his mind wanders off. This is how his sister finds him when she walks in the kitchen and sees her little brother standing by the sink in deep thought.
“Aiki, what are you doing?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
Hirose quickly turns the faucet off and picks up his cup of water. He tilts some of it out and grabs a kitchen towel to dry the outside of the cup. Saho watches him with her lips pressed together firmly.
“Is everything okay, Aiki?”
“Yes, I’m fine, sis.”
“Oh, well, okay.”
Saho continues to do what she planned on doing coming here. She walks straight over towards the refrigerator and opens it up to take out a small treat, her favorite pudding. Hirose still stands in the kitchen holding his cup of water, getting lost in his thoughts again.
“Sis?”
“Yes, Aiki?”
“...You’ve dat-I mean, you have friends you are close with, right?”
“Of course! I have tons of best friends, although if I have to name who my best best friend is then that would be kind of difficult. I’d have to think about it for a minute because–”
“Sis, no, that’s not what I’m asking. I was only wondering if…you’ve ever felt like your best friend was keeping a secret from you…or something.”
Saho blinks and stares over at her little brother, “Aiki?...Are you sure everything is okay?”
Hirose takes a deep breath. He has two choices here. He can continue to ponder about this small problem he’s found himself with alone, like he’s been doing for the past few days, or he can make the decision to ask his sister for advice. Both choices seem bad, but which of them are the lesser of two evils though?
“I…I have a friend…who I am close with,” Hirose says, definitely not wanting his sister to know that he’s in a relationship. He also doesn’t want her to know that it’s Nakamura, so he purposely keeps it vague. “We’re really close friends, but lately I’ve been feeling that there is something off with them. I don’t know how to explain it. It happened suddenly and out of nowhere I feel like and they haven’t told me what it is.”
“Oh, well that can be worrying. Have you tried asking your friend?”
“I have, but they always smile and tell me that nothing is wrong. I don’t believe that’s true though.”
“Hmm, if that’s what your instincts are telling you, and if you’ve been friends for a long time with this person, then you’re probably right.”
“So what should I do? I don’t want to force him-I mean, them to tell me, but I don’t like how they are keeping it all to themselves. I want them to trust me, to rely on me. I thought they did, but now I just feel so…useless.”
Hirose thought that everything was fine with Nakamura. No, not fine, better than fine; things are going great with his boyfriend. They have been happily dating for a month now and are going strong. This is usually around the time where Hirose’s ex’s would break up with him, but Nakamura is still with him and seems so happy to be. The two of them walk to and from school every day, go out on dates on the weekends, are constantly calling and texting each other, acting like a lovey dovey couple straight out of a romance movie.
Hirose doesn’t know when things started to change though.
Something happened with Nakamura where instead of smiling all the time he started looking like he was in pain when he thought no one was looking. Hirose, who constantly has his eyes on his boyfriend, noticed though, but whenever he would bring it up or ask him what’s wrong Nakamura would always shake his head and laugh while saying it was nothing. It hurt knowing that his boyfriend was keeping something from him, especially if Hirose was the reason why he was in pain. He promised himself to never make Nakamura cry again and he wanted to keep that promise.
“Well, have you tried telling them that?”
“Huh?”
Saho walks over to Hirose and places a hand on his shoulder, “Aiki, if I noticed something was bothering you and I asked you if you were okay in passing, would you tell me what was wrong? Or would you say you were fine to not worry or bother me?”
“I…”
“It would probably be I’m fine, sis, hehehe. But Aiki, if I sat you down and told you that I have been noticing that something has been bothering you lately and I’m concerned for you because I care and love you, would you tell me then? If I said that I’m your big sister, I’m here for you, or Aiki, you can rely on me, I’ll help you no matter what you’re going through, that would be a little different, right? Because I would be telling you how much I love you and how much I care for you. Perhaps this friend of yours doesn’t want to worry you, or doesn’t quite realize yet how strong your friendship is to burden you with their problems, but if you sincerely tell them that you want to help, they might listen.”
“Oh…I guess you’re right…” Hirose mumbles out softly.
He would always ask Nakamura, but maybe he wasn’t being sincere enough whenever he did. Hirose would notice and ask him if he was okay, and then his boyfriend would say yes, and that would be the end of it. He never pushed for more, he never insisted, he never said anything that his sister just told him. If he speaks with Nakamura in private though and tells him how much he’s worried and how he wants to help, wouldn’t that be way different? If he has a heart-to-heart conversation with his boyfriend and speaks his feelings clearly, something that Hirose has had trouble doing before in the past, wouldn’t Nakamura understand his concern more and want to tell him?
“Thank you, sis. I’ll try it your way tomorrow.”
“You’re welcome, Aiki. You can always come to me whenever you need advice, or help, or anything at all.”
“Yes, I know. You’re the best. Excuse me.”
Hirose runs back to his room, needing to write down exactly what he wants to say and practice it since he doesn’t have the best track record of making speeches. Saho smiles happily to herself as she watches him leave.
“He called me the best, hehehe. I have the cutest little brother in the world.”