My Everything

Chapter 5

Club activities; they were compulsory in our school’s curriculum. I suppose that they are just to make the school look active and create a higher standard from the outside. Our school was no doubt the most elite in the area, maybe in the whole prefecture. From the gothic styled buildings build with vintage red bricks and scaled by climbing ivy, the many expansive gardens ranging from traditional English to Japanese styles, and the futuristic interiors adorned with the newest technologies; just with appearance it didn’t look like merely a high school. Only one other school in the prefecture could possibly even compare to the grandiose plot that was the school, our rival +_______+. But it wasn’t only the looks that put us on top. The school was filled with the children of the most elite and high class families of the whole of Japan. The presence of the richest and most high class families in Japan attracted more elite families to send their children, resulting in the population of our school. Of course, there were the exceptions, usually the children of the yakuza (only of the leaders of course, who do not follow the street thug stereotype all people have at all). The top of the crop was what made up the members of the club that I was going to meet.

The large greenhouse, affectionately known as “Paradise”, was our meeting place. It was built especially for us last year. This construction, while it may be in any other school, was not surprising; the children of the most influential and richest families in Japan were in this club. It did not take a genius to work out the source of the majority of the school’s funding. Although it was still relatively new, it had a vintage and aged aura to it. The high glass ceiling held together with intricate ashen metal lines, the lazily turning vintage fans that allowed further air circulation in form of a slight breeze and of course the bountiful green leafy plants that never seemed to wilt characterised our club room. We did not do much. Akira held one of her favourite tea parties, baking various sweets and pastries in the thoroughly supplied kitchen built especially for her. And we just sat around the white antique coffee table and talked waiting for Akira to announce that day’s menu.

Coming from the meadow in the clearing, I arrived a bit late; it wasn’t like I was in a hurry anyway. When I arrived everyone would be there, no doubt Akira proudly presenting her afternoon tea while swatting Tadashi over the head to prevent him from inhaling all the food she had prepared in a matter of minutes. Tadashi would be sporting a swollen face from his attempts for an early ‘tasting’, as he calls it. Ryuu the tall quiet yet charismatic animal lover would have some new animal draped over him affectionally. And then of course not too far away would be the twins, both prodigal children born to a couple of musical geniuses. They would be fighting the animal for Ryuu’s attention and affection, and pulling disappointed expressions and glaring at the innocent animal. And then there would be her.

Usually she was surrounded by another mountainous pile of books, erecting walls around her nearly rendering her invisible. It was as if she built a house for herself and live in her own world for a while that was full of competition and the need to become number one. Sometimes I wonder how one person could contain so much energy and effort, especially one so small and delicate as Hikari. But then again, Akira could have seized her yet again. Hikari was supposedly ‘her angel’. Sure there was nothing for me to be jealous about, since they are best of friends but sometimes maybe a little I did feel it. I envied how she could so easily be so close to her. And the special bond they seemed to share that was beyond the fragile line that connected Hikari with me. I wish I could so easily go up to her. I wish that I could go and hold her whenever I wanted. I wish I could talk about nonsensical things with her every other day. I wish our relationship was so easy without complications and happy. But if it was so, we would have just been best friends and I definitely did not want to be that guy friends that watches over when she goes with other guys. That was too painful to think about.

These angry and jealous filled thoughts filled my mind. I woke myself by trying not to think about them, after all I was her rival now wasn’t I: the opposite to a best friend. But I still yearned the closeness that I was void of with her.

I continued to amuse my self with the images that I predicted that I would be seeing in a couple of minutes while I slowly strolled towards the huge glass structure in front of me. Right now it was me that was with Hikari in some way. And there was no one as of yet that came to endanger that. I would have to be satisfied with that. I could see in front of me the image of all my friends sitting around the coffee table in their usual poses and amused myself with how ordinary this not very ordinary situation seemed to us.

Wearing my characteristic nonchalant facial expression I pushed the glass doors that led into the green house, expecting the usual.

I wasn’t surprised.

A small smile appeared on my lips as I proceeded to greet my friends and my Hikari.