Youth Unsupervised

Chapter 27-Sugar Coated Poison

When I woke up in the morning, she was still lying in the bed beside me, which surprised me a little because I half expected her to pull her disappearing act again.

I finally understood why she'd said sleeping together was a bad idea. I'd assumed it was because she couldn't bring herself to be so exposed. That her stone skin wouldn't allow her to shed that many layers, but I was wrong. It had all been entirely for my benefit. I might have been able to pretend to be her friend until then, barely, but that would be impossible for me now. I was sure she knew how I felt about her. She probably knew from the beginning, but chose never to ask me about it. Why would she? She already knew the answer. Asking something like that would only force us into a conversation neither of us really wanted to have.

I managed to answer one of Hiromasa's billions of texts and missed calls. I assured him that Saki was fine, but didn't really give him any details. It wasn't my secret to tell.

The rest of the day was awkward to say the least, mostly because I wasn't really sure how to act around her anymore. I was behaving myself, but really, what was the point? I wouldn't last long without doing something stupid, not anymore. Saki was her usual self, or at least she tried to be, but it was hard for her to do since I was totally off balance.

I cracked even sooner than I expected when she gave me that look again and I was too eager and stupid to refuse. It did occur to me that I was only making things worse for myself. I was the one who would suffer when all this came to an end, but I just couldn't bring myself to stop. How could I? It was all I wanted, to be closer to her, to touch her without holding back. For this, I would gladly continue to eat sugar coated poison until it killed me.

We both returned to school on Monday, but there was hardly a point to me being there at all. I couldn't focus. My mind wouldn't quiet itself. I still hadn't managed to find my footing in this new relationship development.

What were we now? Friends? Of course not. I hadn't thought of her as just a friend in a very long time, and I don't even think Saki could classify us strictly as friends anymore. Friends with benefits? Too crude. That might be all there was to it on Saki's end, but that label completely ignored my side of the spectrum. Lovers, then? Not quite that either. I loved Saki completely, but she didn't feel the same way about me. I was sure she was merely using physical acts to fill an emotional void in herself, a tactic I was all too familiar with. Was this how it felt for my past girlfriends to be in our one sided relationships? I was even more of an asshole than I thought.

Monday evening rolled around. It was almost seven, which meant the phone call I'd been dreading all day was going to happen any minute. Saki had decided to go take a shower, which meant I'd be speaking to my mother alone. I preferred it that way. I was stressed out enough as it was.

The phone rang and I picked it up off the bed. "Hi."

"Hello, Kaito," she said. "How was your day?"

"Fine," I said. "Listen, I need to tell you something."

"What is it?" I could tell by the sound of her voice she wasn't prepared for any deviations from our normal conversation.

"Saki is living here now," I said.

There was dead quiet on the other end, not that it surprised me. It's not like I had expected her to take it well.

"That is unacceptable, Kaito," she said finally. "You must tell her to leave immediately."

"No," I said.

"Kaito," she said in a warning tone.

"You can say she has to leave if you want," I said. "It's your house. But I'll go with her."