Life As Teikoku's Manager (an Inazuma Eleven f.f.)

A Kiss In Exchange For Forgiveness

Continued from last chapter. I'm sorry, the title is lame.

        "Say, Shizumi-chan?" he looked into my eyes and asked innocently, but I could detect the edge of myschief in his voice, "Will you make a deal with me?"

        In just a few seconds, the Kidou inside was gone, and the arrogant prince was back. Just like back at the balcony, I felt the dangerous aura emitting off of him, something I did not trust at all. "That depends..." I stuttered, scared of what he was weaving in his mind. What he was planning was always unpredictable, and most of them were never good. For me, at least.

        "We'll put all of this behind us if you..." said Kidou, his voice trailing off, a cheshire cat grin stretched across his face as he crawled onto the couch I was sitting on and advanced on me. I instinctively backed up, but found myself leaning against the armrest.

        He leaned in, knowing that he had me in the best position, and...a sharp knock came from the door, breaking the moment. He instinctively pulled back a little, and I coud've sworn I heard him cuss under his breath, but I was still trapped.

        "Yuuto-chama, please forgive me for interupting, but five minutes are up," the maid's high pitched, overly sweetened voice came floating in. I cringed at how fake her voice was whenever she refered to her "young master". What a faker.

        Kidou sucked in his breath, clearly as annoyed as me. "Go away, Kaori, she's my guest. Show some manners," he snapped. "Hai, gomenasai," she said, then her footsteps walked away.

        Then the goggled boy turned back to me and sighed. "I'm sorry you had to come through her to get in. It must have been hard. She's always super obsessive and clingy." "It's okay," I replied, wanting to keep this subject up to avoid whatever Kidou had been planning earlier. "When you first saw her, how old did you think she was?" he asked. What a weird question to ask. But oh well, if it's letting me stall, then I'm all for it. "Um...our age? Or an year older?" I said, my voice unsure.

        I couldn't believe this, but he laughed. Not the "I have dominated all" laugh which every Teikoku member has mastered by some unwritten rule, but an actual one. Only a little, of course. This was Kidou Yuuto we were talking about after all.

        "She's actually two years older than us, but she acts like a kawaiiko to get attention, mostly from me. Her family has a good relationship with father, so she was sent to work for us since they didn't need her," Kidou explained. "That's terrible!" I gasped. I couldn't imagine mama or papa giving me away. Didn't her family love her? Now I was feeling a little sorry for her instead of completely annoyed.

        Kidou continued, "So her plan is to make me fall in love with her so she can use me to get a better status in the society." "Well, I don't really blame her," I blurted out. If it was for survival, then I would do it too, even flirting with someone I hate like Kidou.

        "You know, I bet she was listening to us outside earlier, then broke the moment on purpose," Kidou said thoughtfully, "The timing was off by two minutes." He pointed to a clock in the room which I hadn't noticed earlier. It was true, there was a clock in the foyer too and indeed seven minutes had passed so far.

        "So anyway, as I was saying, she's the fifth child of the Ukita family. The eldest is a sister who is married off to Genda's older brother cuz they wanted to get rid of her too without dirtying the family name, not smart, pretty or obedient enough or something. The second is a brother who has inheirited the family buisness, the third is also a sister but she's apparently super smart and studying abroad in America, and the fourth is a brother who was some genius pianist shipped off on some sort of tour with some famous rumored to be Japanese violinist there whose name I forgot."

        "It was Sakurai Akane, right? And the boy was Ukita Daichi, 17 year old prodigy," I replied without thinking. "Yeah, that was it. How did you know? Are you interested in European violinists?" Kidou asked. I shook my head and tried to stiffle a giggle. It came out anyway. "Last name reference?" I asked in a when-are-you-going-to-get-it tone. He thought it over for two seconds. "You're last name is also Sakurai right? Is Sakurai Akane your cousin?" Kidou asked. I shook my head again, "No, mother." I felt his eyes widening behind those tinted lenses. "But she's looks so young! So you don't live with your parents?" "Nope. They went to Europe to cover up the Inoue Shizuro thing."

        "You had me distracted there for a few minutes. Let's resume to what we were doing before we were interupted, shall we?" Kidou said after waiting patiently for me to finish, lips curving into a grin. Shoot, he remembered. And I could tell that this time there was no steering the topic away.

        He leaned onto me and pinned my wrists to the couch. I tried to struggle free, but my pretty much nonexistent arm muscles barely did anything. And somehow, I didn't think kicking him in the part where it hurts will get me good results.

        He watched me, amused at my failed attempt to escape. Then his face came closer, until it was only inches apart. I had a good feeling I knew what was going to happen. Then even closer, until I felt warmness spread over my lips, and it streamed through my veins inside my body.

        "See, that wasn't so hard, wasn't it?" he asked after pulling away. His tongue traced the top of his lips, as if savoring the taste that mine's left behind. I blushed, and averted his eyes. "By the way," he continued, "We're cool now. The deal is done." 

        The kiss left a faint whisper behind on my lips. A piece of Kidou Yuuto himself, a mix of both the annoying a-hole and the nicer side of him I haven't figured out quite well yet.