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CHAPTER TWORIDE OR DIE
AYAKO LAID ON HER BED, blinking through the darkness of the early morning. Her cheek was stinging like crazy again, so she stripped off her comforter and shifted on to her better side as a lousy attempt at easing the pain.
Her clock glared back at her. 1:27 AM, it read.
Ever since that fight with Himari, her arms and a small portion of her face had been aching endlessly to a point where she constantly found herself waking up to the stinging in her jaw.
When she got home late earlier that evening with Bokuto in tow, she immediately ran up to her room to avoid having to go through another interrogation from her mom. By the time she had changed into her pajamas, the faint rumble of Bokuto's voice downstairs had subsided, followed by the light shut of the front door.
Bokuto had always been good at talking with people. He had enough charm to easily slip between tight situations and lessen the overall gravity of the situation. Ayako, on the other hand, couldn't lie to save her life, so Bokuto and her fell into agreement on the way home that he'd be the one to handle his mom.
With that, it left Ayako to deal with Akaashi, which was probably ten times harder.
Akaashi had always been very protective of Ayako growing up. He never let her go anywhere unsupervised, which is why Ayako relied on him a bit too much sometimes. For years, the Akaashi siblings were always a package deal ─ you wanted one, you get the other.
That is, until Bokuto came in the picture.
Bokuto was known to be very sociable and earnest with everyone he met, so it didn't come as a surprise that he managed to break the great routine of the Akaashi siblings, one of which included their daily walks home.
Normally, Akaashi would never leave Ayako to go on the train alone during rush hour, much less actually have another man with her. However, during the occasional hell week where Akaashi would stay behind to submit his papers, the third year captain was always the first person he called to walk her little sister instead.
Despite his house being four stations away, Bokuto didn't seem to mind the side trip. In fact, sometimes it was almost as if he looked forward to it just so he would have an excuse to lounge around until dinner.
Akaashi trusted Bokuto more than anyone and Ayako trusted him just as much because of this.
Reaching for her phone on the nightstand, Ayako had to take a second to adjust to the searing brightness of her screen. She didn't have any unread messages or notifications.
Sighing, she sat up and looked over her window. It was still dark and the room across from hers had their blinds shut, indicating that it was late enough for the entire neighborhood to be in bed.
