You and Me, Always

I awoke on the floor of Yamamoto's house. Beams of sunlight found their way into my irises causing me to blink a few times before sitting up. I looked around. I didn't recognise the walls of the house for a second or two until I realised that I must have passed out at the party. I looked over at the couch where Shoyo was laying. I smiled to myself as the morning sun hit his olive skin.

I stood up and stretched out my arms and legs before finding my phone and checking the time. It was 08:41. In the corner of my eye I noticed the door to the balcony slightly ajar. I yawned and made my way over to the door and opened it fully so I could go outside.

Outside, Yamamoto sat on a chair overlooking the city below us. I sat in the chair on the other side of the balcony. I could see Yamamoto sneaking glances at me. There was something on his mind, I inferred.

"If you want to say something, go ahead and say it," I said after he stole his seventh glance at me. He straightened his back and cleared his throat.

"I have nothing to say," he whispered, a melancholic tone to his voice.

"Very well," was my response, and nothing else was said for the next 10 or 15 minutes. He licked his lips and parted them to say something after a while.

"Don't you think life has gotten greyer? Like…the city seems slower, and life seems to have lost colour," He babbled, moving his hands around a bit to convey his point.

I glanced over and looked at his face. His usual smile was turned down and his eyebrows furrowed causing the skin in the middle to crease. It was a foreign look on his face. I turned to the city and looked at the buildings, the morning light coated them in a yellow glow. It was the most colourful I had ever seen the city. Even compared to the night, the morning city was covered in colours, the warm sky complimenting the cool greys and blues of the buildings.

I turned back to Yamamoto, "no, I see colours everywhere."

His surprise was indescribable.

"What?" he stammered, his eyes shifting back to the city, "are you sure? All I see are shadows…Kenma, why do I have a bad feeling?"

"What?"

"I don't know…I feel like something is coming, something bad…I dunno," He tripped over his words as I conveyed my concern through widened eyes and a slight gap between my lips. I looked back at the city again to see if I could catch this feeling of danger that persisted in Yamamoto's gut, but I felt nothing. I looked all over the city for some sign of danger. I looked down at the people, their clothes were different shades of browns, blacks, and blues. I felt nothing.

I hesitated before speaking again.

"I'm gonna go back inside." He only nodded as I stood up and left him.

When I walked back inside, I saw Hinata still asleep, his drool soaking the couch slightly. My lips curled into a smile once again. I walked over to him and shook him until he began to blink awake.

"Shoyo, time to get up," I cooed into his ear. He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes.

"The sun is bright," Shoyo grunted. Golden light highlighted his soft skin.

"I know, but get up. I have plans for us."

"Plans?" He sat up at the mention of activities. I rarely planned things for the two of us, Shoyo was better at it after all, but I had been planning this day for a while. I thought that nothing could go wrong today, I was on a high even though an intoxicant hadn't touched my breath in hours.

I nodded my head and grinned at him so that he knew that I was excited as well.

I drove him back to my house so that we could both change out of the clothes we had worn the night previous. As Shoyo changed, I took a shower. The lukewarm water ran down my back and I found myself smiling again. The expression was once a foreign thing, but lately I had been smiling more and more. It became more familiar, natural almost.

I changed into the clothes I had brought with me and I walked back into my room. I immediately smelled the stink of his sins on him. Earlier, I hadn't noticed (likely because I smelled of the same stench). I smelled the cheap liquor and smoke wafting off of him, mixing with my apple scented shampoo.

He got up and went to the shower, I sat on the bed and breathed the unmoving air.

We were on the train 30 minutes later. I hadn't told him where we were going, but if you had lived in Tokyo your whole life, you'd know exactly where we were going. Luckily for me, Shoyo had only lived here a year and a half.

We arrived at an amusement park, a local one that was cheap and fun. It wasn't run by a big company, and that was clear upon entering. It had a small crowd, mostly because not many people knew this place existed, but those who did knew it was a gold mine.

Shoyo's eyes widened after I uncovered them. There was a sweet scent in the air coming from cotton candy stands. He looked at the rides and immediately told me that we had to ride the biggest roller coaster. I agreed, but only because I knew that the roller coaster wasn't that bad compared to other places.

Most everything there was made in the late 80s' and early 90s', so I guess you could say it was a bit run down. Renovations had recently been made to most of the rides to make them smoother, and a new ride hadn't been added for a solid 15 years. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him that this place was mostly likely at its prime when we were barely toddlers, that would take away some of its charm. Most things looked new at first glance, so might as well let him think that this place hadn't been made long ago.

"Everything is so shiny," he said, his mouth open slightly, "I want to touch it all."

I giggled at his comment and led him to the first ride.

Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into an hour or two. We sat on a bench sipping on cherry sodas. He swung his legs and leaned his head against my shoulder while fixing his gaze on the roller coaster we had yet to ride. I could tell he was eager to be on it, up in the air, feeling the rush when his stomach dropped along with the cart in which he sat.

"Are you ready for it now?" I asked.

"I've been ready, are you?"

I sighed, "I suppose so."

He stood up and grabbed my free hand, leading me to the line to the coaster. I could feel the excited aura around him. He always got excited for the simplest of things, sometimes I envied how easy it seemed.

We waited not five minutes before boarding the slightly worn carts. He gripped my hand as the ride began to move and the track rumbled slightly. Despite his tight hold on me, he seemed at ease. He seemed to be enjoying himself, as long as he was doing that, I would not fear anything. The devil himself could have appeared in front of us at that very moment, and I would not tremble. He could threaten, prod, and poke me as much as he pleased, I would not twitch. Not with him at my side.

After the coast had ended and we indulged in typical activities, we paid our debts and left the park. By that time the sky had begun to warm in colour and the air became cooler. We stopped by a store to pick up some microwave meals to bring back to my house.

Somehow, we ended up in the stationary section, him squatting in front of the shelves and me with a full basket in hand. He hummed to himself as he observed pens and notebooks, all of them looked virtually the same to me.

"C'mon Shoyo, we have to leave." He waved a hand around as to dismiss me as he continued observing.

"You can go ahead and check out, I'll pay for what I want to buy." I rolled my eyes at him and made my way towards the self checkout.

"If you take too long I'm leaving without you, and I'll take the last train," was the last thing I said before going off and buying what I had put in my basket.

I sat on the cold curb outside of the store, waiting for him. The sky was much darker now, and the temperature had decreased slightly. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms as the wind gracefully caressed my skin. I must have waited upwards of ten minutes before he came back out, bearing a simple notebook in his arms.

"What's that for?" I asked, standing up and taking his hand to lead him to the station.

"It's a diary, can't you tell? I think I'll start journaling my thoughts this school year instead of telling everything to you, that way you don't get stressed." he looked up at me and smiled. My heart softened ever so slightly and blood rose to my cheeks. I smiled back at him.

He would kill me one day, I was sure of it.