Sk8 the Infinity: 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐝𝐞

chapter twenty-five.

Kojiro's POV

I'd been quite awhile since either of them visited.

I can't even tell you how many times I prepared extra pasta before realizing there wasn't anyone waiting at the bar counter to eat it. I was completely out of it.

So out of it, that I lost my touch of seduction. The far worse part being I couldn't care less.

"Good morning, Nanjo~" My female employee greeted me as she usually did before starting her shift in the morning. I hummed in response and the young girl halted before entering the kitchen. She immediately ran over to me and placed the back of her hand on my head.

"What's wrong?"

"Huh? Nothing," I responded quickly and waved my hand dismissively.

"Every morning I come to my shift I say 'Good morning, Nanjo~' and every time you respond with some flirty pick up line. You never miss the chance, so what's going on?"

I sighed in exhaustion and rubbed my eyes with my hand. "Just a bit tired, recently."

"Does it have to do with that pretty boy who used to come here every day?"

I laughed pitifully to myself and raised my head to glance over at her with a sorrowful expression. "Which one?"

She frowned and tried to comfort me by placing a hand on my shoulder. I forced a small smile to reassure her that I'd be fine for the rest of the day and attempted to head off to take orders but she blocked my path. She stood in front of me and shook her head before guiding me to sit down.

"I know you, you're going to work yourself to death if I allow you to keep going on like this."

"I'm fine, sweetheart. Really I am." I insisted and chuckled while patting her head. Though, my effort to convince her was only in vain as her face downturned into discontent.

"Nanjo, I know heartbreak when I see it. Even you aren't immune to it, so just take the day off and I'll handle everything."

"Ryo, I-"

"You're welcome." She interrupted and wink as a gesture to show me that her mind was already made up which meant I didn't have much say.

"Thank you.."

I genuinely said to here with softened eyes but now that my body wasn't occupied, my mind wandered. It started to replay that other night in my head, over and over until I analyzed tirelessly. Where had the night gone wrong?

Where had I gone wrong?

Maybe, under my conscience incompetence I knew the exact words that slipped past my lips and lead the night down a worse road then it was already heading towards. I started to question my own feelings for Kaia and Kaoru. I tried to honestly ask myself if what I felt was even what I labeled it to be; love. I word rolled so easily off my tongue that along the way it really lost it's weight as a word.

I didn't want to admit it but this may have just been lust, couldn't it? Who am I to claim I know the difference when I say it's love but still have been intimate with all those woman.

I found myself in the back of the restaurant leaning my back on the wall. In the midst of my thoughts I had began to drift through the restaurant. I felt my phone buzz in the back of my pocket and roughly fished it out to see the who it was.

'Speak of,' I thought while glancing down at the missed call in disappointment. 'There was one of those woman now.'

She left me a voicemail and I clicked to listen but the words weren't really registering in my mind. I picked up on the fact that she wanted to meet somewhere and "have some fun" or however she wanted to word having sex.