“Hey, honey – is something wrong?”

This happens every single time I call her, why can’t a son just call his mother for the first time in god knows how long without wanting anything?

“Nothing’s wrong! I just wanted to talk to you.”

From there I stepped into treacherous waters, our conversation spanned every little topic from what my father’s been doing at work, to what my mother’s friends have been up to. She refers to everyone by name as if I have any idea whom she’s talking about.

I like to think I’m a good son who wants very little from their parents, an independent child so to speak – but it had dawned on me that I am in fact, a liar.

I want something.

Sorry, mother!

“And what’s new with you, Akira?”

Ah, it feels nice for someone to call me by my actual name occasionally, I feel like if I was around Koi any longer, I would be referring to myself as ‘Aki’ in these monologues.

I hold the phone closer to my ear and sit down on my couch as if I’m about to get ready to watch something on TV. I must be relaxed about this kind of thing, if I ask it nicely and casually then I won’t get any weird follow up questions.

“Well actually, I was wondering if you had Koi’s number at all. It looks like she’s changed it since we were kids.”

I hear rustling from the other side of the phone. This operation has already failed, she’s onto me!

“Uh, mother. Are you there?”

More rustling. What is she even doing?

Finally, after a good minute, she picks up the phone and replies to me, completely out of breath.

“Oh, sorry honey – I just had to talk to your dad about something unrelated. I don’t have Koi’s number, but I do have her parents' number if you’d like to contact them. Or if you’d rather I can contact them for you?”

Completely unrelated, huh? Just couldn’t wait a few little seconds…

Both her aversion to not mentioning why I want Koi’s number and her brief little interlude followed by breathlessness has me slightly on edge. My back swerves as I push myself into a prone position – lying over the entirety of the couch.

“Are you there?”

“Yes, yes! Just one second.”

What do I do? What do I do?

On one hand, it would be easiest to make her get the number off Koi’s parents because they’re already friends – but isn’t it a little awkward for a fully grown adult to ask his mother to get a girl's number? What would her parents think of me, heck, what would she think of me if she knew I’d gotten her number through such a cowardly and roundabout way?

“Just give me her parents’ number, I’ll ask them myself. Don’t worry about it!”

I drop the phone and run my hands down my face. Still mid-call, the device slides between the two cushions I lay on, into the crevice of the abyss where nothing shall return.

The barrier to entry for Koi’s friendship just went sky-high for a socially anxious little idiot like me.

The muffled replies of my mother reach me in my despair, but I don’t have the energy to pick up the phone. After a few moments, I hear the dull beep of the call ending.

What have I gotten myself into?

My time spent in that position on the couch could be measured in seconds, years or even light-years.

As this thought goes through my brain, I’m imagining a snarky quip from Koi telling me that light-years are a measure of distance or something. Imaginary Koi is probably right.

My ongoing revelations are halted by multiple vibrations emanating from between the couch cushions – the chasm of despair.

I lazily stick my hand into the crevice and fumble around for the phone as it continues to shake violently.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming!”

Grasping the phone in my hand I pull it out of the secret dimension, this time it won’t be counted as one of the lost ones – gone to eternity.

Sitting back up onto the couch and putting my feet onto the coffee table in front, I flick through my notifications screen to see multiple texts from my mother.

“I think my signal must be bad here, sorry but we will have to call another time!”

“I’m so glad you want to reach out to Koi; she’s such a lovely girl and I think you two could become very good friends again. Her parents are very happy about you two meeting up.”

“I’ll give you their home phone number.”

“Also, here’s her father’s number just in case you can’t get through on their home phone.”

“Just in case he’s busy, here’s his mother's number as well.”

Her thoroughness bothers me. It’s as if she were sending in an application and giving multitudes of supplementary information to make sure it all works out.

I don’t have the energy to form much of a reply, the onslaught of messages has riled me up more than I thought. Somehow having her father’s number sends shivers down my spine, it’s not like he’s not friendly or anything either – I can’t explain it.

“Thanks, we’ll catch up later.”

I don’t even look at the phone as I tap away on the screen, my eyes wandering off into the distance, unfocused and unalive.

Why is this so freaking hard?

I can probably name countless times I called Koi’s family phone from ours when we were growing up, sometimes even daily. As a kid, I never gave it a second thought.

I’m an adult now, I can do everything I did as a child and more – that is the ongoing theory at least.

My eyes snap back into action as they home in on the message on my screen; I quickly tap to add the number into my contacts and start calling Koi’s family phone.

No need to psych myself up, I’m an adult – I can do this!

The phone rings for what feels like an eternity, but finally, someone picks up.

“Hi, you’ve reached the Aizawa residence, Sakura speaking.”

Sakura? As in Koi’s sister, Sakura?

Memories of a hot-headed and energetic younger sister flood through my mind as I try and form my response.

This is bad news.