Authors: Marian Tee
I’m almost in tears as the laptop’s display shut down into blackness. I had this idea that I could learn something to, well,
seduce
Yuki but now I know I’m no way near that level.
I picture myself knocking on Yuki’s door wearing nothing but an over-the-top trench coat, which is a popular scene in Scott’s AV library.
Nah.
That’s not just downright embarrassing, but – considering this is Florida – I’d be lucky if I don’t get a heat stroke before I reach the Himuras’ house.
I look at the stuff on Scott’s desk absently, noting his collection of graphic novels – one of which is actually of Jace. I wish seducing a guy is as easy as drawing---
I can almost see a light bulb blazing into life above me.
Mmm....
I can always draw.
“Katerina Chariot in the house!” Megan Walters lets out a laugh when she sees me, her ground-stomping boots working like a drum roll entrance as she poses flamboyantly on the doorway.
If I had to choose someone I think sticks out like a sore thumb in school as much as I do, it would have to be her. Megan’s my total opposite, the very yin to my yang. She’s done
everything.
She drinks, smokes, does drugs – all the works, really. I think she’s been spent the night in the county jail once. They also say there’s not a dark corner in school she hasn’t shagged someone in, but so far the Tattler’s only been able to confirm three.
In any other day, her words would have been flattering, but unfortunately today’s house meant detention room. I manage a smile for Megan, barely. I’m still unable to get over the after effects of going without sleep for two nights in a row. It’s also the reason why Mr. Lewis in History has given me my first detention. I wish I could tell him his Civil War lesson isn’t why a yawn as loud as an earthquake came out of my mouth.
Treating the warning hisses from the teacher like they’re background noise, Megan and the rest of the kids in the room chat animatedly with each other. Next to them, with my shy and mumbling way, I feel like I might as well change my name to Goody Two Shoes Chariot.
“So,” Megan says as she takes the seat next to me, her leather jeans squeaking against the wooden seat. Her pink hair glows under the fluorescent glare of the overhead light. “I hear Ameli-‘ho has been dishing out serious crap to you these past few days.”
By crap, I think Megan means the way the other girl looks like she’s smelled a dead rat whenever we find each other in the same two-foot-radius. Or maybe by crap Megan is referring to the way Amelia has been tweeting nonstop of how there’s this girl – aka
me -
is so bloody jealous of her now that she’s been spending so much time with Yuki Himura.
Either way, it takes me a while to answer. I’m still too busy trying not to laugh at Megan’s nickname for Amelia.
“Was it that obvious?” I finally manage to say.
She shrugs. “It’s hard
not
to notice when it’s all she talks about.”
Which, of course, means that it’s all everyone talks about, too.
Megan lifts her hands in the light, checking her nails, which have red skulls on a black background painted on them.
“Nice nails,” I say.
“Thanks. My ex-boyfriend did them for me.”
“I’m, umm, sorry?”
“Thanks,” she says, still gazing at her nails. “I’m really going to miss having my nails done.”
Right.
Done admiring her nails, she looks back at me with a curious smile. “Is it true, then? I don’t believe anything Ameli-‘ho says, but did you and Yuki used to be an item?”
“Umm…no?” Blast it. I don’t think I sound convincing.
Megan doesn’t seem to think so, either, but she lets it slide. “If you ask me, you’re much better suited for the Jap guy. He’s wasted on her.” Her dark red lips stretch into a smile. “I hope you do something to get him back in your corner. I’d love to see Ameli-‘ho dumped.”
“Me, too,” I say absently.
Her eyes widen.
Oh, shite.
“I mean,
et tu
? You’re thinking like that, too?” I try not to cringe at the way Megan’s grinning and breathe a sigh of relief when she turns the other way to speak to Jackson Derby, who was sent to detention for being caught copy-pasting his assignment from Wikipedia.
The minutes tick by at such incredibly slow speed I feel my eyes drooping against my will. Since it’s ten to five now, Yuki must have gotten my little package from Lace. He must have finished reading it, and I just have about forty minutes more to kill before I learn what he has to say.
If
he has something to say, I correct myself.
“Hey, Chariot.” Someone’s shaking me awake. I must have dozed off after trying to come up with the next arc for my
manga.
Imagination’s no fun at all when there are no hot guys in it. And with Yuki pissed at me, I feel like I’m bloody forbidden to use his body in my fantasies.
Lifting my head from the table, I see Megan grinning down at me. “Time to go and get your Jap,” she says before walking away, her hand sneaking into the back pocket of Jackson’s jeans.
She’s fast, I’ll give her that. It may be why guys are willing to learn nail art for her.
Hurrying out of the detention room, I feel like any moment now Yuki would appear and tell me I’m bloody forgiven. But he doesn’t. The darkened school hall is empty, its silence broken only by the random fading footsteps of detention veterans like Megan.
I really, really believed he’d be waiting for me outside. Silly, right?
I drag myself to my locker. My schoolbag suddenly feels as heavy as an elephant. It’s that or despair has zapped my energy levels to zero. I open my locker and empty my bag like a garbage bin.
“Hello,
senpai
.”
I nearly jump at the unexpected sound of his voice. He is a god – a
ninja
god, this time.
My hands are near trembling as I carefully push my locker door shut, and then I am face to face with him.
Yuki is leaning against the lockers, bangs covering one of his eyes like a dark patch, and he’s holding his blazer in one hand. He’s even more gorgeous than I remember, and I can’t help thinking how impossible it would be if I have to find someone who can replace Yuki as my inspiration.
It’s also my first time to see a humble smile on Yuki’s face.
“Hey,” I squeak-whisper because the word comes out a little of both. “Did you, uhh, get your package?”
Yuki’s smile widens the tiniest bit. “It’s hard not to when your friend threw it to my face.”
Lace, you idiot.
Avoiding his gaze, I babble, “She’s, umm, into basketball. She likes throwing stuff from a distance. It’s, um, like practice for ball handling.”
“I was standing right in front of her.”
My shoulders slump. “Sorry. She’s a misandrist.”
“A what,
senpai
?”
Wow. There’s actually something
I
know that a god doesn’t? I just knew there was a point to all those Word-of-the-Day terms I memorized from the dictionary app in my iPhone. It’s honestly the only book I can bear reading. Barely.
“It means she hates men,” I explain. “So don’t take it personally. She’s like that with all guys.”
An awkward silence crops up, but before I can babble again, Yuki says, “I love your drawings.”
Yuki’s so-called package is a one shot, which in
manga
speak is like a short story or novella, featuring Yuki and me. I had slaved my nights on those few pages, which were basically my way of apologizing, explaining, and seducing. I figured it’s also good to kill two birds with one
manga
. Now he knows how I draw. Now he can tell me if I suck or not.
And apparently, I don’t!
I beam like crazy. “Thanks.”
His humble, begging-to-be-drawn smile still in place, Yuki asks softly, “Peace,
senpai
?”
He’s forgiven me, too!
Sheer happiness engulfs me in tsunami-sized waves that I can’t speak.
Yuki sighs. “Do you know that you look like you’re about to cry? I don’t want people to see you crying,
senpai
.”
I nod, just so he knows I get him but also because I still can’t speak.
“Well, actually, the only time I want to see you cry is when you’re in my bed---”
Okay, that one, I totally have to say something – anything.
“Yuki!” I cover his mouth immediately, my cheeks flaming, but I’m smiling, too. It feels absurdly great to just be with him, even if it means getting myself tortured with blushes every minute.
He takes my hand away but only so he can kiss my palm.
I try getting my hand back. “There are still people around! What’s gotten into you?”
“You. Or rather I want to be inside---”
My hand slams back on his mouth. “
Yuki!
”
He chuckles against my lips, and it tickles. He takes my hand away, but this time he just holds it, entwining our fingers.
“The withdrawal symptoms from my toy,” he says seriously, “were hell.”
“Same here,” I confess unevenly.
“But it helped me see things clearly,
senpai
.”
Mmm…that can be good or bad since this is Yuki, after all. With his angelic-slash-demonic persona, he doesn’t think like normal guys do.
Yuki’s smile is a bit wry. “I really don’t do well with sharing,
senpai
.”
“Yeah, I sorta got that after this whole…thing.” I don’t even know how to refer to those dark, dreary days that we’ve been separated. It felt like heartbreak but without actually breaking up. I don’t want it to happen again so I tell him quietly, “We have to talk.”
“Boundaries,” I repeat to him nervously a few minutes later. We’re back at the diner, sitting next to each other on the bar stools, a shared plate of burger and fries temporarily forgotten in front of us. “Lace said before it could help, but I…uh…just didn’t get around to talking to you about it.”
“And you’re talking to me about it now because…”
“It’s just nice if we know where we’re both coming from?” The inscrutable look on Yuki’s beautiful face is extremely unnerving.
“What kind of boundaries then,
senpai
?”
“Well, we already have some actually. Like, we agreed that we’re not going to tell anyone about …
this
. And for you, it’s…about not lying?”
Yuki raises a brow. “And?”
“And…what?”
“Stanford.”
I roll my eyes at his glare. “What about Jace?”
“You will tell me every time you’re forced to spend time with him.”
The word ‘forced’ is quite pushing it, but it’s just not worth arguing about.
“Okay, okay. That, too.”
“Thank you,
senpai
.” Yuki’s sudden smile is disarming.
“Umm…” I totally lost my train of thought with that one. “Right. Well, umm, that’s...” My words end up with a half-gasp because Yuki’s suddenly pulled me to sit on his lap.
“Yuki!” I hiss, feeling my face redden.
“I can’t concentrate when my toy’s near but I’m unable to play with it.” All the while, Yuki is arranging me on his lap with frowning concentration. I end up sitting sideways, facing him, my hands locked between us, my feet dangling several inches off the floor.
“This is embarrassing,” I whisper furiously, reddening even more as the other women in the diner, young
and
old, are throwing me poisonous looks.
Yuki doesn’t seem to notice, though. He’s completely focused on watching his fingers trace a familiar path on my skin. I feel his touch on my cheek, moving down slowly as he caresses my neck. But instead of stopping along the lines of my collarbones, the way he usually does, Yuki moves past it until he’s reached my first button, which I always leave free.
This is not good.
“Uhh, Yuki…”
“Go on speaking,
senpai
,” he says innocently as he flicks the second button open.
Yeeargh!
“Boundaries,” he repeats innocently, even as his lips form the tiniest smirk.
Well, that I don’t miss. Much.
“We don’t talk about this to anyone. Agreed. What else,
senpai
?”
“Umm. Okay. To recap. We also don’t lie to each other---”
“Agreed,” Yuki says just before biting my ear a little too hard.