Chapter 8: Household
Kaito groans as he sits up in bed, feeling as if he should sleep three hours more. Sunlight filters in through the one large window in his bedroom and casts the room in a golden morning glow. Outside he can hear a few birds chirping; the beginning of spring.
With a yawn, he pushes himself out of the mattress and strides around the room, getting ready for the day. He pulls open his door, entering the hallway, and begins to go into the room directly across from his own.
The door slides open soundlessly and he catches sight of a figure curled up on an air mattress in the corner of the study. Long cyan hair falls around her, her face buried in a heavy blanket. Kaito softly shuts the door, the events of last night flooding over him.
'Please don't leave me.'
'I won't.'
He remembered arriving at the loft in the dead of night and creeping across the floorboards to where Miku lay on her side near the wall. Her eyes had opened and closed but they did not see. Small sounds escaped from her mouth, pleas, yelps of pain, but the whole time she had not moved in a significant way. Shivers racked her body, but that was all. It was like watching someone have a nightmare but not being able to wake them up.
'It's only you.'
She was screaming as he held her, fighting against something as if it were hurting her. Her tears that fell on his hands burned like acid, her sobs a piece of ice wedged in his chest. She was alone. So alone. No one was there to hear her cry and she was not brave enough to call out.
There's no one, no one who wants to hear you.
He had said it, and he had meant it. He would never leave her again.
Miku watched as the professor scratched equations across the chalkboards, trying to focus all her attention on the lesson. Too much had happened last night and it sent feelings flying around in a constant whirlpool, drumming against the inside of her head and leaving her breathless.
The darkness; the room that was haven during the day, but an abyss at night; the emptiness; the loneness; the fear; the indecision; the fingers hovering inches away from the phone, too uneasy to reach further; does this mean it will come to an end? Always being near him - the strange man that gives off warmth just as a sun does - will that make it all go away?
The bell rings and she's snapped out of her focus, the teacher quickly assigning homework. She sighs. Her attempts at focusing had failed; she has no idea what the lesson had been about. She bundles up her books and steps outside, glancing around anxiously for the man. Though when he arrives, Miku knows that she won't be able to think of a thing to say to him.
After a few moments of being shoved around by passerbys, a figure breaks through the crowd and leans against the wall with her, standing just so as to shield her from the traffic. He smiles and gestures down the hallway towards the cafeteria. It's too loud to hear the exact words he mutters, but she gets the meaning and nods, starting down the corridor, Kaito trailing after her.
The lunchroom is the same earsplitting pandemonium as any other day with students milling around, chatting with friends, and shooting water bottle guns at each other when nobody's watching. Kaito leads her through the chaos by one hand to the table where their friends sit. Meiko gives a military salute and Rin halts her attempt at putting ribbons in Len's hair as they approach. Luka bites into an apple thoughtfully.
"Hey, Miku!" Rin chirped as Miku took a chair, Kaito seating himself next to her. "It's great to see you here!" The twins and Meiko both have heavy shadows under their eyes and seem rather burned out despite their warm welcome to the two of them, and Miku remembers with a start that their wild party was really only last night.
"Did you sleep at all?" Kaito asks, looking slightly amused. Rin shakes her head enthusiastically. Len just sighs.
"It went on until five in the morning," Meiko announced proudly. "And I stayed there for all of it." Kaito raise his eyebrows and glances at Luka. Her expression makes it clear that, no, she had not gone, nor had she wanted to.
Talk continues circulating around the table for the lunch hour, with Miku mostly staying quiet and listening. About halfway through the meal she notices Meiko staring at her peculiarly, or more exactly, at her hands. She glances down, worried that perhaps her sleeves had slid back a bit too far, but only sees her turkey sandwich clutched between her fingers. After a few months of enduring the noxious school food, Kaito had decided that he would rather take the time to pack his own lunch than go hungry or be poisoned by 'mystery meat'. This morning, he had made her one as well.
She discreetly checks over the roll, making sure there isn't some sort of mold that she hadn't seen, but finds nothing. It's just a sandwich. She glances up, gathering her courage and meaning to ask Meiko what she was gawking at, but the woman had already looked away.
The walk from school is quiet, with neither Miku nor Kaito being able to figure out a way to start a conversation. Miku's stomach churns as she realizes that it was Friday and they had a whole weekend of secluded awkwardness ahead of them. Upon reaching the house, Kaito pulls out a key and whips open the door, dropping his bag and shoes in the front room.
Miku gazes around. In the daylight his house looks much different than it had last night as she stumbled in, bags in one hand, Kaito holding the other and guiding her up the stairs. The house is modern, with cream colored walls and metallic furnishings. The front room has a door leading to the kitchen off to the left and a small archway leading into the living room, where white leather sofas bask in the light of floor to ceiling windows covering one wall. A small spiral staircase leads to the upper floor which consists of a bedroom, bathroom, and office room.
"Do you want something to drink?" Miku snaps her head around to the voice. Kaito leans out the doorway of the tiny kitchen. She nods and follows him in there, taking in the surrounding of the room. The room is wide but short, with appliances lining one wall; a small set of table and chairs is crammed against the opposite. With walls the color of sunflowers and a white curtained window, the room has a distinctly feminine feel to it that Miku finds rather confusing seeing how this is, after all, a man's home.
In fact, the entire existence of this house is rather odd. Being a college student, Kaito should only be surviving monetarily by the skin of his teeth, but somehow he owns a house and seems to have enough money to take a random girl under his wing as well. Something doesn't add up.
Noticing her thoughtful expression Kaito smiles, urging her to say whatever's on her mind. Miku reddens and glances out the window, wondering why it is that he always seems to pick up her every thought. He turns back to the cabinets, reaching for a cup, his interest still hanging in the air.
"How…do you have a place like this?" Her question is vague at best, but Kaito seems to understand its meaning instantly. His hand stops midway to its destination. Miku bites her lip and takes a step back, certain that she's asked something that she shouldn't have, that she's made him angry, but when he turns to her his face holds only his usual unruffled smile.
"My parents left me this house, along with all of their other assets," he says in a voice as smooth as the surface of a lake. Miku stares for second before lowering her head.
"I'm sorry…" she begins, not understanding what else to say in a situation like this. He coolly waves a hand at her and goes back to his task.
"Ancient history, Miku. They died a long time ago."
Miku blinks a couple of times, surprised at his collected response. It should've been a sensitive topic, one that at least brought back a melancholy quality to him, but he had brushed it off like water off a ducks back. To lose your parents, especially at a young age, would be a grief that stayed with you forever, so why was he able to just shut down the subject like that?
As she watches his back, moving with the actions of his arms, Miku realizes that she rarely ever saw Kaito upset. His voice was calm and cool, his actions measured, no matter how anyone pushed his buttons he never showed anger or hurt. The only time he had ever cried had been for her.
Those tears had been silent, as if he would not allow himself to make a sound.
A/N: So it continues! The reveal of Kaito's 'Big Bad Secret' (Which may be a disappointment to you guys expecting him to be bipolar or a rape victim or something; it's seriously not like that.) is coming up!
Oh, and I think this will wind up being about twenty chapters. I've got a lot of work...
