Judging by the squeals of delight on the other end of the phone, I can tell my best friend is ecstatic. I fake a few laughs and reply to her when she asks me questions. We finally hang up and I slump on the swing, my head hanging low as all the emotions from the past two weeks come out; from my dog, to my grades, to this ordeal with Daichi.

Tears roll down my face as I sit on the swing, gripping the chains tightly. I shouldn't be crying because of something like this. Why can't I just get over this. This shouldn't be that big of a deal, so why am I so upset?

"Hey are you okay over there?" A voice reaches my ears making me wipe my tears and look up.

I see the boy from before walking up to me. He looks about my age with fluffy, medium brown hair. He's tall and rather attractive, wearing a school uniform from another local school. I can't remember which one at the moment.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," I tell him quickly, flashing a fake smile, something I've been doing quite a lot recently.

The boy narrows his eyes studying me. "Look, I may not be an expert on women's feelings, but I do know that when a crying girl says she's 'fine,' she's not."

"I wasn't crying," I shoot back.

"You were balling your eyes out, sweetheart. Just admit it," he scoffs with an eye roll. "Even my nephew could tell."

I glance at the young boy pulling himself up on top of the monkey bars and crawling across them.

"Be careful, Takeru!" he calls to the boy, then looks back at me, his hands on his hips as if waiting for me to respond.

"Okay, I was crying," I mutter. "What's it to you?"

"What were you crying about?" He takes a seat on the swing next to me, still keeping an eye on his nephew.

I'm about to spit out another defensive retort when I stop myself. This guy goes to a different school, and I've never seen him before. I could spill everything to him, and nothing would get out. We are perfect strangers, and I'm probably never going to see him again. He could be a good person to vent to.

I take a breath. "A lot of things," I say softly. "Its stupid really."

"If it made you cry that much its not stupid," he comments. "So what happened, if you mind me asking."

"Well the first thing that's been eating away at me for the past couple weeks is that my family needed to put our dog down two weeks ago," I start.

The boy next to me sighs sadly. "I'm sorry. That must have been difficult."

I just nod. "Well, because of that my grades slipped since I had two big exams a couple days after that." I draw patterns in the dirt with the tip of my shoe as I speak.

"Didn't you talk to the teachers about it?" he asks me. "Surely they would have let you take the exams a day or two later so you have time to grieve."

I just shake my head. "That's not right. I can't just cry my way out of difficult things to make my life easier," I say.

"Isn't that what you were just doing?" He pushes himself off a bit, making him swing slightly.

"I wasn't doing it to get pity," I answer. "I just needed to let off some steam."

"I get it," he nods. "You can't keep your emotions bottled up for too long or else it could drag you down."

"Yeah, I need to study a lot more now to pull my grades back up if I want to become a oncologist," I comment.

"You wanna be a oncologist?" The boy looks at me, cocking his head to the side.

"Yeah, but I won't be if I can't get into a good college," I add.

"Well grades are an easy fix, so don't cry about it anymore," he tells me.

The little boy, Takeru wanders up to us as we sit on the swings.

"Hi, you're really pretty!" Takeru exclaims as he reaches us.

I giggle lightly at the young raven haired boy in front of me, a blush heating up my cheeks at his blunt statement.

"Well you'll just have to get in line then, champ. I bet this girl has all the guys lining up to take her out," he says playfully with a wink.

Unfortunately, what he says makes me frown as I look at my brown shoes, remembering my previous phone call with Yui.

The boy sees the expression on my face and frowns. "Oh no, please don't tell me your boyfriend recently broke up with you too."

"N-no, it's not like that," I tell him.

"Then boy troubles?"

"Yeah," I mumble, lightly kicking the dirt underneath the swing with my shoe.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks me as Takeru wanders away towards the fireman's pole, where he attempts to climb up it. "As you can tell, I'm a great listener."

I smile lightly at his words as he shoots me a dazzling smile. He's a really nice guy. I'm glad he's the one I met today, although I can tell he's the pretty-boy, heartbreaker type of guy. I let out a sigh before I explain my situation.

"So you've liked this guy for three years now and still haven't told him how you feel?" He asks after I finish my explanation.

"Yeah..." I mutter. "Its too late now anyway. Daichi likes Yui. There's nothing I can do besides support them."

"You could always steal him from your friend," he suggests with a casual shrug.

"What kind of friend would I be if I did that?" I question, glaring at the boy next to me.

"Hey, I was kidding!" he says with a laugh. His playful smile then changes to bittersweet as he stares up at the sky above us. The wispy clouds slightly obscuring the vast ocean of blue. "I get why your so upset about all those things. You're grades and the guy you like, I mean."

"Hm?" I say, egging him to continue his explanation.

"The thing you want more than anything else, is just out of your reach," he states softly. "No matter what you do, how much you try, practice, study, or train, it'll always be something that always slips away right as you think you almost catch it."

"I'm sensing a backstory to those thoughts," I say to him. "I'm all ears. Don't be afraid to cry. Hell, you've already seen me do it."

"I guess," he shrugs. "Although, I'm not really the crying type. I usually just play-"

His sentence is interrupted by his phone ringing in his pocket. He pulls it out and checks the caller ID.

"You want your son back now?" He says as he answers the phone. Takeru hears his uncle's one-sided conversation and runs over.

"Is that mom?" He asks.

"Yeah, buddy here." The boy hands Takeru the phone.

"Hi, Mom!" Takeru exclaims as he holds the phone to his ear. "Yeah, Uncle Tooru brought me to the park!"

"So the name's Tooru," I comment.

"Tooru Oikawa to be exact, yes," he explains, proudly. His name sounds slightly familiar as if I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't place it. "And can I have yours?"

"Asuga Azumane," I state.

"Well, Asu-chan, it was nice talking to you, but I gotta drop this guy back off at home," he says with a cute grin.

"Yeah, sure, but Uncle Tooru is flirting with a pretty girl right now. I don't think he wants to talk to you now," we both here Takeru say on the phone.

Oikawa snatches the phone from his nephew. "I think that's enough phone for you today," he tells him. "Asu-chan, I'll see you around." He gives me a little wave.

"Yeah, see you, Oikawa," I tell him. "And thank you for listening."

He gives me a smile and walks off with Takeru, the phone to his ear. "Yes, I was watching him! I happen to be very good at multitasking. No, my girlfriend didn't dump me. We broke up on mutual terms because I need to focus more on volleyball. Oh come on. You sound just like Iwa-chan!"

So he plays volleyball as well, huh. Maybe I'll see him around at a tournament or something. That would be kinda nice.

I sling my bag on my shoulder as I make my way home, my spirits a little higher due to my chat with a certain brunette.

***