Hikaru worked a full eight hours at Safeway, while Noa only worked five; even though she had come in two hours after him, she still left an hour before his shift ended. Her departure somehow made him think more about the necklace, and the exchange that had taken place earlier that day. For the last hour of his shift he replayed the moment over and over in his head, growing increasingly irritated as he did so. He was more than ready to go by the time his shift ended, even though he still had a shift at Barbarossa to work in a few hours’ time. He ignored Paige and Amanda’s farewells as he left the building with a duffel bag in tow, walking steadily towards the Houses at the other end of the campus. In a matter of ten minutes he was making his way into the First House, traveling straight up to the third floor. Hinata had given him the spare key to his dorm room, but he rarely ever needed it, and this time was no different; the door was wide open, and he didn’t hesitate to invite himself in.

He found Hinata sitting at his desk in his bedroom area, his focus trained on the textbook and paper in front of him; he looked up at Hikaru and paused, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be quiet,” he assured him. “I just want to sleep for a couple of hours.” Hinata nodded, turning his attention back to his homework.

“Douzo.” Hikaru continued to walk towards the living room and dropped his bag on the floor before sliding two of Hinata’s chairs together to make a cot and plugging up his phone. He asked Hinata to wake him up in two hours before stretching out on the chairs for a nap; he heard his brother get up to close his dorm room door before he fell completely asleep. He hadn’t been sleeping for very long, he was sure, when an interruption came in the form of a knock on the door, loud enough to open Hikaru’s eyes to look at the ceiling above him. He heard Hinata move quickly to the door and open it, but Hikaru already had a guess as to who it was.

“Don’t you have your own dorm room?” he questioned in Japanese, though he didn’t move to sit up, nor did he look away from the ceiling.

“That’s where I was,” came Shuya’s somber response. “It’s too quiet.”

“I feel like I ask you this every time I see you; where is your girlfriend?” Hikaru demanded, sitting up in his cot. “Why are you never with her?”

“Frankie-chan