Breaking Point

The next day, Yasu and Hajime went to the courtyard, where Souta would be waiting for them… at least he was supposed to. “Don’t tell me…” Hajime started in a small voice, which was then followed by Yasu.

“That son of a b*tch didn’t come today, argh!” Yasu clenched his fists in indignity. It was normal for Souta to be absent some days of the week… most of the week really, so it was sometime the custom for the two of them without him on such days. “I guess I can’t expect much from him, huh?” Said Yasu.

The two sat down and ate, with small silence between them, they talked and all, but it wasn’t the same as when the three were present. While Yasu ate, an acquaintance of Hajime’s from a grade below approached them and made small talk with Hajime, Yasu only focused on his meal without paying much attention.

He sometimes couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, he didn’t know how social people were able to have a decent conversation with others who burst in the middle of their meal.

From a distance, Yasu saw Hatsue walking pass with another girl, he didn’t really know her name but he knew that she was from Souta’s class too. He didn’t pay much attention to it, if anything it was a kind of familiar sight since Hatsue used to pass by the place they ate on various occasions, granted she gives walks around the school as she speaks to her friend.

“Yasu, quick question… How do I get the values for the x-axis…?”

“Again… all you need to do is divide your intercept by four, five times, okay?” With no patience, Yasu proceeded to explain basic methods to Hajime, who wasn’t good at math.

Is this guy really trying to pursue medicine…? Poor guy… Yasu thought inwardly. He didn’t want to belittle him… but he sincerely thought Hajime was a complete idiot contrary to the importance he held for good grades. And yet… he always had better grades than Yasu, which he didn’t complain about,

Other than math in general and physics which he would get to have in his curriculum next year, Yasu didn’t really care about other assignments, as long as he passed he was okay with it.

“Yasu, can you help me real quick?” Hastue, who was behind him, both of the backs of the chairs facing each other, asked. “…sure.” Yasu grabbed the paper handed to him with a sigh. This doesn’t happen all the time naturally, there are times when even Yasu can’t figure out a topic himself and has to ask for help every time. Nevertheless, he held back unlike his friends who didn’t.

“…It’s really cold in here…” He muttered, shaking due to his classroom’s air conditioner, “I wish I could change seats.” He said as he looked around, the class had roughly twenty-five chairs in a classroom and there were around twenty-two people in his class, so there were at least three vacant lots. However…

“…Why? They’re all beside me, why?!” All vacant spots were exactly adjacent to him. “What are you screaming about?” Asked Hajime.

“About the injustices of life.”

“H-huh…?”

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For the first time in a long time, Yasu wasn’t able to bring his mother’s hand-made lunch with him, which made him join a line in their school’s cafeteria. In the meantime, as he waited for it to advance he only lost himself in thoughts seeing each student get their order and leave through the door.

In front of him, a group of students from a lower grade seemed to be making idle chatter too. The group was kind of big so it went to the point that Yasu felt uncomfortable to be in that position, however, he didn’t have a choice, since he didn’t want to make line all over again if he decided to change to the second lane available.

Please wrap it up already.

The line moved little by little, a few minutes later he managed to get his food, he took it and went to his usual spot in the courtyard. After walking a bit and as he sat down, he took a bite of his food and stared at the field. Hajime had something to do so he wasn’t here, this was a meal time with only Yasu and his thoughts, which he found nice from time to time.

“The breeze from the tree feels nice. I could say it compensates for the food of the school… it ain’t that great really.” He talked to himself.

He actually talks to himself a lot.

He didn’t know why.

But it felt fun.

Just like those angel-devil discussions on animated movies.

He was childish.

And it felt fun.

Yasu, finishing eating his food, got up from his seat and walked to nowhere in particular, he had a watch with him indicating that there was a little over eight minutes until the end of his break, enough for him to walk a few laps around the school.

He went around the facilities, all edifications he had become accustomed to, he passed by the main office, the elementary, middle school classes, and went back to the highschool division just in time as the bell rang.

“Looks like it’s time. Next class should be English, I presume.” He said as he fixed his dropping bag over his shoulder and walked a little faster-paced.

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Youth only happened once, at least in Yasu’s beliefs. While many people enjoyed this period of their lives by going out with friends or simply spending time with their special someone, Yasu came back home, opened the door to his room, tossed the bag on his bed and booted up his computer.

He only had three friends, and apart from Hajime who was like a social butterfly, Souta wasn’t that adamant to leave the conformities of his own house, which Yasu understood because he felt the same.

That is a reason as to why Yasu and Souta got along so well, the two didn’t share a common game of interest, their genres were really apart, nevertheless they both listened to the other rambling about their favorite games.

While Souta was more into visual novels strictly focusing on the story rather than the gameplay, Yasu enjoyed gacha games focusing on both story (sometimes) and gameplay.

“I’m getting bored now, I should look for another one to play.” Reaching the endgame was boring, he no longer had any story to read and the gameplay was getting stale for him… building characters was also a pain.

He played for a while and then worked on his homework, laid out in front of him were his study materials, his calculus notebook and a cup of coffee, a pink cup of coffee.

Many people disliked reheated coffee, however Yasu didn’t really care as he really loved coffee. The downside lied that when reheating, the mug itself also heated up so Yasu tends to get slightly burned after the fact. But the pink mug was the only one that didn’t completely absorb the heat, so it turned into his favorite.

Luckily enough, no one used this mug, not even his younger sister so it felt like a godsend.

As he finished his duties, he ate dinner in his room and played games for another hour or so, then he called it off for the day and headed to sleep as his house went into complete dormancy.

For some, Yasu’s daily life was boring, lacking of thrill even, but for him who had no social battery this was the best for him. A life where he didn’t have to worry about other people, where he only had a small circle of friends and in a place where he could celebrate in happiness.

This was a life he took for granted and that soon enough, will change all because of his fear of being alone.