Violet Roses | Saiki K

Chapter 4

Akemi stared out the window, struggling to keep her eyes open. She had gotten almost no sleep the night before and it was really taking a toll on her. She would've gone back to sleep after abruptly being woken up only an hour after first falling asleep, but a dream that had turned into a nightmare faster than Akemi knew was possible kept her from doing that. Instead, she had spent the night staring at old photos of her and her mother with silent tears falling down her face.

This wasn't the first time this had happened either. The first four months Akemi had gone without her mother had left her with almost no sleep for multiple days at a time. Even when she did get sleep she found herself waking up thinking her mother was still there only to be reminded that she was gone. For her, it was just better to not sleep at all than have to deal with that pain of being let down every morning. And while that didn't happen as often anymore, it still happened more than Akemi wanted to admit.

Akemi shifted and rested her head in her arms, letting her eyes close. She felt herself just about to drift off to sleep when an annoyingly familiar voice filled her ears.

"Good morning, Kumiko," Teruhashi greeted. Akemi lifted her head and glared at Teruhashi, who seemed to be a little scared of the look Akemi gave her. "You seem really tired."

"I am. Go away." Akemi said shortly, lowering her head again and closing her eyes. She heard a chorus of gasps and instantly knew everyone's attention had shifted to her and Teruhashi. She let out a sigh and lifted her head again to look at Teruhashi, "Look, I didn't get great sleep last night, so I don't have a lot of patience for anything. I'm sorry, but I'd like to be left alone."

Teruhashi stared at Akemi for a minute, clearly thinking over her words before she smiled brightly, "Alright, I'm sorry you didn't get good sleep last night. I'll leave you alone now."

"Thank you," Akemi mumbled as Teruhashi walked away. She felt the eyes of her classmates on her but ignored it as she leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh.

That's when she noticed Saiki. He was watching her just like he had yesterday. Akemi wasn't sure what was wrong with him. After their encounter at the grocery store, she had thought that he wasn't that weird. Not weirder than anyone else at the school. But every time he stared at her, she felt like he was interrogating her, with just a look. Like he was trying to look inside her mind or something.

Akemi had ignored it yesterday, but now that she was back in the classroom and seeing it through tired eyes, it really annoyed her. She didn't understand why he did that. It was probably because she was tired, but she felt really upset at his staring.

She closed her eyes and held her head in her hands. Why can't these people just leave me alone? What's their problems? No one was like this at my old school. No one there made me want to never see them again on the first day.

I can't wait to hear what Mom has to say about these two.

Akemi's breath caught in her throat as she realized what she had just said to herself. The nightmare she had that night came flooding back to her mind.

She had been standing with her mother in her garden. It had been Akemi's favorite place to be and it was just in her backyard. Their backyard hadn't been huge, but it had been big enough for her mother to fit hundreds of different flowers. There had even been a small gazebo in the center of the garden that had been covered in rose vines. The paths that had led around it were flat stones and the flowers that had lined the paths had always seemed to be in bloom even during winter. It had always held a beauty to it that had even caused a few of their neighbors to come over and look around. That garden and Akemi's mother had been the reason she had a love for flowers growing up.

They had been standing in that small gazebo, purple roses in small flower pots around the edges of the gazebo. Those were her mother's favorite. Purple roses.

In her dream, Akemi's mother had been handing her a purple rose. But the second Akemi touched it, the peddles wilted and her mother disappeared. When Akemi had looked out at the garden, she saw all the flowers dead. All the colors gone.

Her mother's casket on display in the garden in front of her was the last thing she had seen before she had woken up with hot tears in her eyes.

It hadn't been the first time she had this exact dream. This nightmare. Yet every time, it had scared her and caused her to not be able to sleep for at least the rest of the night.

Akemi felt tears start to prick her eyes and she stood up to escape the classroom before anyone saw her crying. She thought she saw Saiki and his friends, Kaido and Nendo looking at her concerned, but wasn't sure and didn't care. As long as they didn't really see her crying, she didn't care.

She slipped into the same bathroom she had the day before and locked the door just like she did the day before. Akemi leaned against the sink to keep herself from falling over and looked at herself in the mirror, violet eyes the same color as her mother's favorite purple roses staring back at her.

"I can't do this," she told her reflection. She ran her hands through her dark hair as tears slowly started to fall. "I can't pretend everything is ok."

Akemi let her hands fall to her sides, "I can't make this a habit. This just isn't going to work."

She took a few deep breaths and whipped tears from her eyes. It's only been two days and I've already had two to stop myself from having meltdowns at school twice. Akemi thought, a sad smile appearing on herself. How is Dad able to do this? How does he act like everything is fine?

Whipping her eyes again, she took a few more deep breaths before unlocking the bathroom and walking back to her classroom. She saw Saiki watching her as she sat back down in her seat. For some reason, something inside her told her that this was going to become a regular thing if she didn't figure something out.