New Years Worries

The night had been pretty quiet after the New Years celebration, and after everyone accepted they would need to spend the night at Kurotama and cancel their previous plans. Even with all of the Defense Club in Yumoto’s bedroom, it was surprisingly calm.

But even if it had been quiet, and even if the futon was really comfortable, Ryuu couldn’t fall asleep. There was something bothering him too much to let him relax enough.

He heard someone getting up, so he turned around to look at what was happening. He saw Yumoto quietly leaving the bedroom, probably for a short bathroom break or something similar.

Once Yumoto had closed the door behind him, Ryuu spoke. “Is anyone awake?”

Io and En didn’t seem to hear him. However, Atsushi turned around to look at him. “Is something the matter?”

Ryuu leaned a bit closer to him, not wanting to risk waking the other two up. Thankfully, he and Atsushi ended up on futons right next to each other. “Don’t you think Yumoto has been a little weird ever since we got snowed in? He seems kinda down…”

Atsushi was silent for a moment as he thought about it. “He does seem a bit odd, I thought he was just tired after the New Years celebration, but… Do you think something happened?”

Then, the bedroom’s door opened again, and the two instinctively looked at it.

Yumoto walked in, and noticed that Ryuu and Atsushi had looked at him. “Did I wake you guys up? Sorry! I just needed to go to the bathroom.”

“I haven’t been able to fall asleep until now. It’s not your fault.” Ryuu said with a small, reassuring smile.

Atsushi nodded. “It’s a bit weird sleeping somewhere you’re not used to, after all.”

“Good, then.” Yumoto said before going back to his own futon.

They were all quiet for a moment… Until Ryuu decided he needed to actually ask Yumoto what was going on. “Hey, Yumoto, is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine.” Yumoto said with a smile. But something about that smile felt… A bit too odd. Ryuu wasn’t sure how to describe it. Perhaps ‘hollow’? “Let’s just all go to sleep.” He turned around in his futon, his back now turned to Ryuu and Atsushi. “You all need to wake up early tomorrow, after all. The earlier you wake up, the earlier you can just go back home.”

Ryuu gave Atsushi a concerned look, which Atsushi returned.

“He’s definitely upset about something…” En suddenly whispered, at a volume low enough that Yumoto couldn’t hear…

The next morning, Yumoto woke up naturally. He hadn’t bothered to set an alarm on his phone.

After rubbing his eyes, he looked around his room and found the other four futons were empty.

He sighed. He had expected that his senpais wouldn’t stick around for too long after waking up. They all had wanted to be gone before midnight, after all.

Even so, the sight of the empty futons did sting a little. He didn’t remember hearing anyone else’s alarm. It could be that he heard it and simply forgot, as that had happened with his own alarms when he was tired before. But even so… They could have at least said ‘bye’ to him… He wondered if he’d done something wrong recently for none of them to want to spend time with him…

He shook his head. Maybe they just had plans for today that they needed to get to. They all had plans for midnight, after all. Surely that was what had happened…

But then, he heard something coming from the living room. Something that sounded a lot like Ryuu laughing.

He quickly got up and headed to the living room. He found all four of the other Defense Club members hanging out, a few empty plates and cups around indicating they had already eaten breakfast. (Gora was probably already out cutting wood, and Wombat was still sleeping in Yumoto’s room.)

Io was the first to notice him. And when he did, he smiled at Yumoto. “I was just about to go wake you up! Your breakfast is gonna get cold.” He handed Yumoto a plate of food before taking a seat between Atsushi and Ryuu on the couch.

Yumoto raised an eyebrow as he sat on the floor, at a spot near Ryuu and facing En. “Why… Why are you still here?”

En tilted his head with a smile. “Why would we have already left? It’s still early.”

Yumoto looked downwards, his voice coming out more as a mumble as he spoke. “I mean… You guys didn’t really seem to want to stay around last night…”

Io shrugged. “We did have plans for last night. But that doesn’t mean we had plans for today. Or at least, not so soon.”

“Plus, it’s fun to spend a few more hours together! Don’t you agree?” Ryuu said with a wide smile.

Even though that was nice to hear… Yumoto still couldn’t bring himself to smile quite yet, still a little confused. It felt like something was up…

“You seemed a bit weird last night, Yumoto.” Atsushi said with a kind smile. “Something seems to be bothering you right now, too. Whatever is bothering you, you can tell us.”

“I…” Yumoto sighed, looking down once again. “I was looking forward to spending the New Years with all of you. I know we didn’t actually make any plans, but… It had been just me and my brother for every holiday every year for a good few years. So I thought it would be fun to do things with friends too for once… I did have a good time last night! But… You didn’t seem like you wanted to be there as much as I did… If the snow storm hadn’t happened, you would have left and it would have been just me and my brother again…” Yumoto rubbed his eyes, hoping that would help him hold back the tears that were threatening to gather in his eyes. “I’m probably just being selfish…”

Atsushi looked at him with a sad expression. “I’m sorry that we made you feel like we don’t like being around you…” His lips curled into a small smile. “I still had fun with everyone too, even if it wasn’t what I had planned to do with my night!”

The other three nodded and made small “hm” noises in agreement.

“Let’s make actual plans together next year! Then it’ll be even more fun than it was this time!” Ryuu said.

Yumoto took a moment to fully process what they had said and then, despite still needing to hold back tears a little, he smiled widely. So they didn’t hate him… They actually liked spending time with him… “Sure!”

He knew the next New Year's Eve was gonna be even better than this one.