Windy Nights

 

The whistling of the wind was getting irritating, the weather was gale windy for days, it hadn’t abated at all since the day it started. At first the meteorologists had said that it would last for a couple of days the most but it had already been a week and the wild northern wind kept going strong, causing the thicker branches of the trees to curve and break under its irresistible force.

When the weather was like this, most of the people preferred to stay at home rather than go out when they had nothing urgent to attend to. At least most of the rational human beings did that and, as it seemed, my friends and I didn’t belong to that category of people since we let Ruki convince us to go out that afternoon.

At first everything was like every other time our gang hanged out. Ruki was criticizing everything around him and Uruha was backing him up, especially when it came to some poor person’s selection of clothing. Aoi and I were sort of playing Devil’s advocates and defended our friends’ victims and Kai, being the peacemaker type, had taken the role of the referee in all that. In other  words, he was trying to put an end to all the ing and bickering, something easier for him this time thanks to the wind.

“Guys! Shut up already! Can we for once do something other than this? Every time we end up doing the same thing, it’s getting boring! Besides, the weather is awful, let’s just go somewhere indoors and do something more relaxing.” He exclaimed after listening to our completely meaningless “argument” for about twenty minutes.

Those seemed to be the magic words ‘cause we stopped talking and thought about it for a few seconds before agreeing with him.

“Ok, first of all, where are we going?” Ruki asked. He might be the younger among us but he had, somehow, managed to become the leader in our gang, as we liked to call our little company.

“We can go at my place and watch a movie.” Uruha suggested. “My parents are on a business trip, we can do whatever we want without them getting in our way.” He explained.

“That’s fine with me.” Ruki said. “What about you guys?”

“Sure, I’m in.” I told him.

“Me too.” Kai said as Aoi nodded in agreement.

“Ok then, let’s get going!” Ruki said and hopped off the bench he was on.

As he did that, a really powerful blast of air hit us, causing him to stumble and almost fall down, face first. Lucky for him, I caught his upper arm in time to save him from being teased for the next hour or so, because, we might be friends but who can say no to a good chance to tease the other? He looked at me thankfully and I blushed.

“Thanks.” He said with a small smile.

“Any time.” I said trying to act cool and not show my frustration. We were friends no argument on that, but sometimes I had the feeling I liked him a bit differently, not as I was supposed to.

“Ok, as it seems we can’t go anywhere on foot without Ruki becoming a kite so I’m going to bring the car. Wait here, I won’t take long.” Aoi said and took off before Ruki could say anything about the “kite” comment.

So, we sat there and waited for Aoi to come to pick us up and, as he had said, it didn’t take much time for him to pull his car over near our usual haunt by the park. We got in the car, never bothering to fasten our seatbelts and started driving towards Uruha’s place.

~x~ ~ x ~ ~x~

When we arrived there, Uruha jumped out of the car as soon as Aoi pulled over on the drive way, and unlocked the garage. That meant that Aoi would, most certainly, spent the night there with him and, since his parents had taken their car on their trip, there was no reason for them to give gossip material to Uruha’s nosy neighbours.

After Aoi parked his car in the garage, the rest of us got out and headed to the door that was connecting the house to the garage, leaving Aoi and Uruha there, because Uruha had to lock the door and Aoi seemed to be a bit stuck in his car. Besides, we all knew that, those two had long since crossed the boundaries of friendship.

So, we granted them a few moments of privacy and waited for them in the living room, roaming through Uruha’s DVD collection and trying to decide what movie we would watch. Kai, being the ever-smiling bastard he is, wanted to watch a comedy, Ruki, on the other hand, was persisting we should watch a horror movie and I backed him up in this because I wanted to watch some action. The decision was made long before the two flustered lovebirds emerged from the garage but, well, we asked them whether they wanted to watch a comedy or a horror movie anyway, just to make sure and as it was expected they opted for a horror one.

After that, we had to decide which movie to watch. Our top three choices were: “The house of wax”, “Mirrors” and “Stay alive”. Aoi and Uruha had watched the “Mirrors” not so long ago and so we decided not to watch this one and flipped a coin to choose between the two other movies since they both sounded really interesting. Unluckily for Kai who freaked out easily, “The house of wax” was the movie that we ended up watching. Having put the DVD on, we turned off the lights and made ourselves comfortable to enjoy it.

During the movie, we kept silent unless some times when we couldn’t help but cuss or make disgusted noises. So, with the exception of Kai who screamed when that freak used a pair of scissors to cut that poor guy’s tendons in order to make him a living statue, we didn’t freak out that much. At least we thought so.

By the time the movie ended, it was kind of late so Aoi offered to give us a ride home. An offer we gladly accepted since the weather was even crappier than before. The sky was now full of thick clouds that covered the stars and blocked the moonlight from reaching us and, judging by the way the humidity had increased ad the temperature had decreased, a storm was coming.

Uruha accompanied us to the garage and after wishing us good night, he gave Aoi a quick peck to the lips and the keys to the garage and went back inside.

~x~ ~ x ~ ~x~

On our way back we didn’t say much, which was quite weird considering that, usually, we couldn’t stop talking after watching a movie. Even Ruki was gazing out of the window silent. Well, I’m not sure if they kept silent after I left them, as usual I was the first to go home since my parents would freak out if I was late.

Anyway, when I got home, my parents weren’t there and, as the note they’d left for me on the kitchen table said, they’d be late. Great, I’d probably be bored until I got sleepy enough to actually sleep which, I had a feeling, wasn’t going to happen any time soon…

Since I had nothing better to do, I went to my room and the CD player. I turned off the lights, lied down on my bed and tried to focus on the music I knew so well. But, after a while, I couldn’t focus on the music anymore instead I started to pay attention to the sounds that came from outside. The whistling of the wind, the screeching of the swing in the backyard of the house next door, the bay of a dog… All these sounds made me shiver in an unpleasant way. Maybe it was the weather, maybe the movie had affected me more than I had realized but I was starting to freak out.

Suddenly, my cell phone started to ring and, I have to admit that the sound scared the hell out of me. I took the device from my night stand and glanced at the screen, trying to catch my breath. As I had suspected, Ruki couldn’t sleep either and had decided to cause me a heart attack by giving me a call. I the lights, took a deep breath and answered the phone.

“Hello?” I said out of habit.

“Did I wake you up?” Ruki asked.

“No, why? Did something happen?” I couldn’t help but feel concerned about him, there was something in his voice that sounded a bit off.

“No, everything’s fine. I-I just can’t sleep…”  He answered sounding somewhat scared.

“Neither can I.” I told him. “I think that this movie got to us…”

“No Sherlock! Next time, let’s do Kai a favor and watch a comedy when the weather is like this…” He said.

“No more thrillers at night for us!” I exclaimed trying to lighten up his mood.

“From now on, we’ll only watch this kind of things while the sun still shines!” Ruki added already sounding like his usual self.

“Ditto!”

Just then, a thunderbolt struck down on earth, making me jump and Ruki to squeal and, as if that wasn’t enough, the electricity went down, engulfing the town in darkness.

“Ruki, are you alright?” I asked him, my protectiveness taking over.

“I-I don’t know, I’m freaked out, that’s for sure.”

“Same here.”

“If we’re so freaked out, I don’t even want to imagine how Kai must be feeling…” Ruki said, sounding regretful.

“We made him watch that thing… let’s just hope he won’t get a heart attack tonight ‘cause we need to apologize” I said in the same tone.

“Yeah, we do… In any case, one’s for sure, Aoi and Uruha are lucky to have each other tonight…”

“Mhm… Are you alone?” I asked him.

“Unfortunately yes, I wouldn’t be overreacting if anyone else was here. How about you?”

“All alone in the dark. Let’s hope our cell phones won’t drop dead for a while…”

“That’s kinda weird, don’t you think?” Ruki remarked.

“Us talking on the phone?” I asked him, quite confused.

“No, us not wanting to let go off the phone.”

“I’m risking to sound pathetic but I don’t want to stay all alone, not tonight at least…” I said.

“Same here.” Ruki said. “Ok, we both sound pathetic tonight…” He added and we both laughed at this remark.

We kept talking for some more time, until the power came back and we finally relaxed enough to sleep without unpleasant things hunting our dreams.

~x~ ~ x ~ ~x~

The next day I woke up to the sound of someone’s laughter. I got out of bed and went to the window. I pulled the curtains aside and looked out. The sky was clear and the sun was shining, the wind had finally subsided and the day looked hot.

I took my cell phone from where I had put it last night and texted Ruki.

“Good morning!!! =D Wanna go for a walk or something?”

He replied right away.

“Morning! LOL Of course I want. Meet you at our haunt in 10?”

“Ok, see you there. Call the others?”

“Maybe later.”

“Ok.”

I got ready and was on my way to our haunt in no time but, when I got there, Ruki was already waiting for me. I sat next to him on the bench and we talked for a while, discussing about last night’s events and stuff.

As Ruki talked I eyed him trying to decide whether I should tell him how I felt about him or not. The previous night we drew even closer to each other and I finally thought it was time for me to confess. As I debated with myself Ruki stopped talking and looked at me with concerned eyes, wordlessly asking if everything was ok. I took a big breath and made my decision. If he didn’t see me that way I would simply tell him to forget it.

“Ruki…I wanted to say something to you…”

~x~ ~ x ~ ~x~

Twenty minutes later Aoi, Uruha and Kai approached us. I had Ruki’s hand in mine and I smiled at him reassuringly. After my love declaration Ruki confessed that he didn’t think of me as friend either and now we were officially going out. At the moment we were both nervous to break the news to our friends. Even though, I think they had seen this coming since Ruki and I had always been close but anyway…