"See you guys.", I said, slapping my pocket to check if the keys were still there.
Pressing the knob of the door, I crashed right into it, causing the keys in my pocket to slip out.
'I should've known that it was locked.'
As they fell, the world slowed down as all of my worked up karma rained down, the keys conveniently slipping into the gutter in front of our house's entrance.
I always worried that something like that would happen, so I usually made sure to keep my keys secured in a tight space when I tried to unlock the doors.
But I was careless, my mind in chaos as Marin and Hotaru stood behind me.
It went quiet for a few seconds.
That was until that deadbeat of a senior broke out in an unnecessarily loud laughter.
She ran up to me, slamming my shoulders, sarcastically asking me if I was sure that this was my house.
Annoyed, I pushed her away and scavenged my bag for any tool that I could fish my keys out of the gutter with.
Steps closing in behind me, Marin indifferently crouched down to peep down the small holes of the iron bars. "Do you have anyone in your house right now that you could call?"
"live alone with my dad but he's out of town right now. He'll probably come back tomorrow evening.", I regrettably admitted.
So he stood up, "Come on."
"What? Where?", I stumbled behind him, while Hotaru was still using her Swiss knife, trying to fish out the keys.
'Who even uses those anymore. I doubt she can even get it out with that, the gutter is pretty deep.'
"I'll see if there are any stores nearby that sell magnets or anything.", Marin said while ruffling his hair. It was a popular habit around teenagers it seemed, ruffling hair.
It could be seen as a sign of embarrassment, but I think I know what it really means.
"Marin are you uncomfortable?", I practically whispered.
"What was that?"
I could faintly hear Hotaru also packing her stuff away and joining us at the front gate.
"What's up? Are we gonna go store scavenging for anything to help?", she asked. So she had the same idea as Marin.
She walked up next to me, pointing her finger into my side.
'Is she mad?'
Quickly retracting my body, I grabbed her hand and launched a counter attack.
"Honestly Hotaru, can't you just let her sleep at your place?", he suggested, his head slowly turning to us as he took a step backwards outside of the gate.
"What the fuck are you guys doing?"
Hotaru broke out, practically dying of laughter.
"She started it, I had no hand in that."
"What were your fingers doing in her sides then?"
"Your eyes must be playing tricks on you. It is very dark, after all."
I was slightly flustered. I didn't expect the usually sleepy and quiet guy to be so confrontational all of a sudden.
'What am I thinking, It's only been one day, so why am I getting ahead of myself?'
Slowly recovering from her laughter, Hotaru walks past me, motioning with her hands for me to follow her.
"What's up with you Marin? I didn't take you for someone who would curse so lightly.", she said as she joined him in continuing our walk.
I had no choice but to follow them.
***
The street lamps were already on as we walked through the empty streets. It was weirdly calming, the way the air had a certain fragrant smell —It was the scent of the night.
The freezing air, although it was already spring, felt nice as it cut my skin. My fingers slowly started to shiver, my knuckles drying up and cracks slowly forming.
Suddenly, Hotaru who was walking in front of us came to a stop, placing both of her hands on her hips as if she had accomplished something great.
"Alright, this is it!"
"Excuse me I forgot to ask earlier, but where are we going? We're in the middle of nowhere."
I looked over to Marin, only to realize that his eyes had gone back to the same drowsiness as always. I doubt he even thought about where we were going either.
"Well Marin said so earlier himself, didn't he? This is my house. You can sleep here, Sirius."
'When did I agree to that?'
"Isn't that great?", she continues, the grin on her face as big as it could possibly get.
Suddenly, startling me, Marin seems to wake up from his daze, "Then what am I doing, following you idiots!? My house is in the completely other direction…"
"Hey I thought you knew!"
She suddenly stopped in her sentence, swirling her finger around, "Don't you gaslight me! It was your fault for not asking in the first place."
For the first time in my life, although it was dark, cold and a sour atmosphere was stuck in the air, I found the colours around me slowly warming up. I found myself having fun.
Before I knew it, I broke down in laughter, shocking Hotaru who turned into a worried mess within a second, as if my laughing was a sign of something being wrong with me.
I guess she kind of saw it as a psychotic laugh that killers would have when they were about to murder someone.
"I'm sorry, Sirius it's my fault. -Hey Marin get over here!"
Her attempt at rectifying the situation only made me laugh even more.
***
Within the blink of an eye, I found myself sneaking around Hotaru's house, trying not to wake up her grandparents that held some seriously crazy sleeping times. 'I mean, who even sleeps at 8pm?'
She left me alone in her room as she got a blanket for me to sleep with.
I was honestly quite uncomfortable sleeping in someone else's house but it wasn't all that bad. I think it was mainly because of how outgoing Hotaru was.
Usually, I'd feel bad to bother someone in their own house, but with her, I knew that if there was something wrong, she wouldn't mind. I felt like she was the type that could forgive me for anything.
'Here I am again, getting ahead of myself.'
"Alright, here's yours.", she says as she closes the door to her room and throws the large blanket on me as I was sitting on the floor.
"If you want, you can sleep on my bed with me, you know? I don't mind. In fact, I would be honored."
She had that teasing expression on her face again. For that one moment, I wondered about what kind of reaction she would have if I teased her back for once.
"Sure. But you'll sleep on the side facing the wall, I need to be able to escape quickly if you do decide to assault me."
She plops down on her bed, as she starts kicking her feet up and down. "Where did you guys get that impression of me being some sort of molester?! Is it some sort of insider between you two juniors?"
"I don't know about Marin but I went off first impressions. Were you like that with him too? All like "You're so cute! I could eat you up!"?"
"I wasn't all that close to Marin before you came, I just remember observing his drawings a bit and talking to him about his weird obsession with that obscene art of his. Wanna know what his justification was?", she added with an excited expression on her face.
And just like that, we spent the rest of the night just talking for the sake of talking. Although it was interesting to learn more about Marin, I was too burnt out from today to pay all that much attention.
And eventually, we bunched together on the too-small-bed and drifted to sleep.
She was gracious enough to lend me some of her pajamas and even offered a change of underwear since I couldn't bring any clothes. I just played it off as her teasing me again and gratefully declined.
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[END OF CHAPTER ILLUSTRATION - Bed scene]
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