Chapter 5 of 11

Chapter 5

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“I’m home.”

“Welcome home!”

Shouri walked through the door and dragged his tired body into the living room. He found his father Katsuhiro in the kitchen, grilling fish. As Shouri was a good cook, normally he would rush over and offer to help, but he wasn’t in the mood for it today.

“You’re late today, did you stop by at Kazusa’s?”

Shouri glanced at the clock and saw that he returned thirty minutes later than usual. He sighed, threw his backpack into a corner and collapsed into a chair.

“Well, I’m alone now.” He replied in a quiet voice, as Katsuhiro looked at Shouri with a surprised look on his face, before smiling as he placed his knife down. He washed his hands and sat across from Shouri, face painted with wisdom.

“What’s wrong? You look down…”

Shouri didn’t say anything, but his father could see through his fake smile that something was wrong.

“Did you get rejected by a girl? Poor guy… There’re oth-”

“No! That’s not it!” If anything, Shouri was the one who rejected her. Moreover, even that incident had been pushed to a back corner of his mind now. Something like that would never have depressed Shouri.

“Then what? Tell Dad, you shouldn’t be so miserable by yourself.”

Shouri sighed, but couldn’t resist the gentle voice and sugar-coated words of his father. After some gentle admonitions and a pat on the head, Shouri began to talk about what had happened on the way home in a whisper.

He told him about how Kazusa had suddenly suffered a seizure, how he managed to treat him, about how futile he felt because of his hesitancy to act. Katsuhiro listened calmly and occasionally nodded in approval.

“Then the doctor came and Kazusa was driven, and I walked home like normal.” Shorui intentionally left out the fact that he cried out of relief when Kazusa woke up.

“I was really scared… I knew Kazusa was physically weak, but something like that? Are the seizures common? Living with an illness like that is…” Shouri sighed. Tears welled in his fatigue-plagued eyes, before he closed them and submitted himself to a myriad of cognitions. What would have happened to Kazusa if it wasn’t for Shouri saving him? He would have died. Kazusa dying, alone, with no one to comfort him… He didn’t even want to imagine it.

“It’s kind of like Kazusa was going to die just like that. It was scary.”

It wasn’t just death that Shouri was afraid of, he couldn’t forget the look on Kazusa’s face at that moment. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered it, the enticing figure that Shouri had never seen before. Even though after the emotions came a tremendous wave of guilt, he did indeed think Kazusa was beautiful at that moment. Maybe it was the dampened eyelashes, or the hair sparkling with sweat, but Shouri hated himself from feeling that way.

“I’m tired, let me rest…”

“You’re normally really energetic, that’s a surprise.” Katsuhiro laughed and ruffled Shouri’s hair. “You see, Kazu-kun might seem weak, but on the inside, he’s a macho man.”

“Stop, you’ll ruin his image!” Shouri groaned. The term ‘macho man’ did not fit Kazusa at all by any stretch of his imagination. However, what Katsuhiro was saying wasn’t wrong. Although Kazusa was fragile on the inside, he was extremely strong on the inside. Rather, he was mentally vigilant.

“If he looks like he’s in trouble, help him out alright?”

Shouri nodded. At his father’s words, Shouri’s heart felt somewhat lighter.

Edited by Whistle

TN: Ahh Short-ish chapter this week, sorry about that!

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