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5-year-old Atobe Keigo walked into his best friend’s room as quietly as he could.  He had been told his friend was sleeping and shouldn’t be woken up.  Keigo had missed his friend dreadfully through the whole day and wanted to see him even if he was asleep.  Keigo walked over to the bed smiling and peered into his friend’s face.  “Hiro-chan, you awake?”

Hiro-chan cracked one eye open as he nodded.  “Mom says I have to sleep” he whispered softly.  He was smiling and clearly as happy to see Keigo as Keigo was to see Hiro-chan.

Keigo thought this statement over briefly before climbing onto his friend’s bed and finding a way beneath the covers.  “Then I’ll sleep too” he stated firmly, but quietly.  He didn’t want their mothers to come in and lecture them when they were about to do as they were told and get some sleep.  Hiro-chan smiled brightly and snuggled into Keigo’s chest.

“You’re the bestest friend ever, Kei-chan” he murmured sleepily.  It didn’t take long for Hiro-chan to fall asleep using Keigo as a pillow.

Keigo smiled as he closed his eyes to take a nap himself.  If his best friend couldn’t get out of bed and play because he was sick that Keigo would simply stay in bed with him until his mother made him go home.

*****

8-year-old Keigo chased after Hiro-chan as they played a two person game of tag.  They both knew that you were supposed to play tag with more than two people, but they didn’t really have any other friends.  Sure, they talked to other people, but there was no one else they called a friend.  They always relied on each other and that was fine as far as they were concerned.  Their parents, unfortunately, didn’t see it the same way and often tried to convince them to make friends with other children.  Keigo and Hiro-chan brushed off those lectures easily without a second thought.

Keigo caught up to his friend, but instead of just tagging him and running off he grabbed the other boy’s hand.  “Got ya!” he yelled even though they were standing inches apart.  The excitement from the chase hadn’t worn off yet.

Hiro-chan laughed.  “That’s not the way the game works, Kei-chan!  You tag me!  You don’t catch me!”  Hiro-chan laughed loudly and openly.  It was the reason Keigo had caught him instead of just tagging him.  He wanted to hear his friend laugh like that and breaking the simple rule was a guaranteed way to do that.

“Let’s play something else, Hiro-chan.  I don’t want to run around anymore.”  Keigo smiled at his friend and hoped that they could settle down and play a board game.  It was more fun to sit around and laugh over silly things than chase each other around Keigo’s large home as far as Keigo was concerned.  Sometimes Hiro-chan agreed and sometimes he didn’t.  It all depended on his mood.

Hiro-chan stopped laughing, but kept smiling as he nodded.  “Okay, Kei-chan!”  The two held hands as they ran to the game room to find something new to play with.

*****

11-year-old Keigo stared in shock as his precious Hiro-chan was loaded into an ambulance.  Hiro-chan had slipped and hit his head on a statue in Keigo’s family’s garden.  He hadn’t woken up when Keigo had yelled his name over and over again begging for him to wake up.  His butler was holding his hand tightly so that he wouldn’t run after Hiro-chan.

Hiro-chan was in a coma.  Keigo didn’t really understand what that meant.  His mother had explained that it meant Hiro-chan couldn’t wake up.  Keigo had already known that.  He wanted his mother to explain it better, but that’s all she would say as she held him that night. 

Keigo was told that Hiro-chan woke up two weeks after the accident.  He demanded to be taken to the hospital to see his friend, but he was told that Hiro-chan had amnesia.  Keigo asked what his mother meant by that only to be told that Hiro-chan didn’t remember who anyone was, not even his parents.  He would be allowed to see his friend once he had recovered a bit and had settled into life at home again.

A month passed and then six and when it was a year to the day that Hiro-chan had his accident Keigo realized something very important.  Hiro-chan’s parents didn’t want them to be friends anymore.  They wanted Hiro-chan to make friends with other people and he wouldn’t do that as long as Keigo and Hiro-chan were best friends.  For the first time since the accident Keigo cried himself to sleep that night knowing that he had lost his best and only friend.

The next morning his mother asked him how he was feeling and Keigo replied for the first time in the way that would make others consider him overly arrogant in the future.  “Ore-sama feels fine, Mother,” even though he felt far from fine.

*****

13-year-old Keigo watched the doubles pair out on the court at Nationals.  It had been two years since Hiro-chan’s accident and Hiro-chan still didn’t remember him.  That didn’t mean that Keigo had forgotten him.  When he realized his best friend was playing the same sport he was and had even made the regulars line up he had started watching for him.  Hiro-chan seemed to have made friends and had even managed to find a new best friend to replace Keigo.

“They’re nothing special.  We could beat them.  Right, Yuushi?”

Keigo ignored his teammates beside him.  He doubted the validity of their statements if only because he knew how stubborn his Hiro-chan could be.  Unfortunately, the teen standing on the court wasn’t his Hiro-chan.  He wasn’t the boy that had called Keigo “Kei-chan” with such affection growing up.

“Game Oishi-Kikumaru pair! 6 games to 3” the referee called out as the match came to an end.

Keigo watched jealously as his Hiro-chan was embraced by his new best friend.  Keigo turned and walked away from the painful scene.  He had never even considered replacing Hiro-chan, but Hiro-chan didn’t exist anymore.  Oishi Shuichiro had been more than willing to replace a best friend he didn’t remember.  Keigo on the other hand had learned to keep people at a distance so that no one could break his heart like Hiro-chan had.

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