A/N: The production of this fanfiction was a little fast at first, but now I'm slowing down. Official posting days are now Fridays and Sundays. Enjoy :D
Chapter Thirteen
I stayed inside as my father and Mr. Aihara loaded a bus on the last day of summer vacation. The two of them had been so excited to go to their junior high reunion that they may as well have burst into flames. And it was a good thing they'd finally left so they could be put out of their misery of waiting.
My mother, brother, and Aihara closed the door behind them as they reentered.
"They were acting like elementary students going on a field trip." My mother said on the way through the living room.
The phone rang from the kitchen and she ran for it.
"Irie residence," she said, "What? Oh no! I'm on my way." This tore me away from the book I was reading. My mother stood with a horrified look on her face as she hung up the phone.
"Oh goodness." She said.
"What happened?" I asked as I came to the kitchen.
"My mother's been hurt. It's not bad, but she has to stay overnight at the hospital," For just a millisecond, there was a lapse in her panic-stricken face and I bored into her, "I need to stay with her." She said, turning to Aihara.
"Do what you can to help." Aihara said with an approving smile. She must've had no idea what my mother was doing, that she was lying.
"Thank you, Kotoko. I will," My mother turned her attention back to me, "You two please take care of the house."
"Yes," Aihara nodded, and it dawned on her, "Wait… just two?" I rolled my eyes. I could see right through my mother's intentions.
"I'm bringing Yuuki with. You two have school tomorrow so it would be better if you didn't have to watch him."
I sighed. There would be no stopping her, so I said, "Alright."
My mother snatched Yuuki from his seat despite the protests he spewed and flew him out of the kitchen, "Now hurry, Yuuki! Go get ready." She took off after him.
A string of obscenities formed in my brain as Aihara gave me a day-dreamy look and smiled, overjoyed to be spending the night alone with me. I could only see problems arise right before me.
Because of this, I decided to retreat into my bedroom for the rest of the day and leave her to herself. She was going to cook up some ideas whether I was present or not, so I thought I may as well get some peace for the time being.
I finished my book and retrieved another from the shelf. Reading this one did not go over so smoothly, though. I began to hear Aihara clanking around in the kitchen, the sploosh of water, and the exclamations of "ow", "oops", and "oh no". It wasn't like I had bionic hearing either… she was just that noisy.
I became tired of trying to concentrate after a bit and snapped the book shut. Reaching for the doorknob to go see what she was doing, I picked up on her talking to herself and sniggered.
On the way downstairs, I noticed wafts of smoke weaving in and out of my face. And if it was this bad outside the kitchen, I couldn't imagine what it would be like in the kitchen.
I pushed the door open to be greeted with smoke blasting me in the face. I coughed and searched for Aihara through the haze, waving the stuff away from me.
"What is going on?" I said as I reached the stove and Aihara. Everything was a mess. Sauces were splattered on the counter. Carrot peelings laid around randomly. Every dirty dish was stacked up on each other in and around the sink. The idea of having her clean this horrified me.
My gaze finally settled on her. She was at the stove whipping up some watery… soup?
"Irie-kun..." she said as she turned to me guiltily with the pan of some unrecognizable type of food.
"What is that?" I said, as I couldn't even attempt to guess.
"Bifteck en bourgeoise… um…" She said. I'd have never guessed that in a million years.
She spilled some on the floor and giggled about it, looking up at me like she was in trouble. In a single moment, I had another one of those intrusive thoughts. It was so…
Cute.
I batted away the thought. I sighed and said, "Throw that out." I got to work cleaning up the counters. If we were going to be eating tonight, it was going to have to be me cooking.
"Okay…" Aihara said and threw the whole soup in the garbage. Not even the sense to pour the liquid down the drain… but I suppose I should've known to tell her since she really never seemed to know anything.
I piled the rest of the dirty dishes into the sink, "If I'm cooking, you can at least clean these." I said as I wiped the counter up, tossing carrot peelings into the garbage as I came across them.
"Right," She said and looked at me apologetically, "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing and just wash the dishes." She snapped to it. Naturally, I was quicker than her and finished first, so I went to help with the dishes.
We were done in no time flat.
"What was it you were trying to make?" I asked. Aihara fetched a cookbook.
"This." She said, a smile spread across her endlessly happy face. I took it from her and ran my eyes over the recipe. Having memorized it, I collected the ingredients quickly and laid them out before me in an orderly way on the counter. Aihara hung back and watched me in admiration. I started cutting the carrots.
"Don't you need to look at the recipe?" She said.
"I already did." Such a scatterbrain. She should've known by now that I only had to see things once to remember it.
Aihara took a seat and watched me over the counter as I cut the vegetables and prepared the meat.
"It smells so good. How did you get good at cooking?" She said, beaming at me. I'd forgotten she was there for a second, as she'd been melted away into the wonders of her mind.
"It's just a set of instructions. It can't be that hard to follow. And yet you still can't get it right." I said. Aihara bit her lip.
Once I was done, I served the food according to the picture in the book and set the plates on the table.
Aihara compared her plate and the picture and gaped, "Amazing! They look exactly the same."
"Just eat." I said as I cut off the first bite of food. She set the book to the side and dug in.
Her eyes rolled back into her head, "It's delicious." Surprisingly, that was the only thing I heard from her the entire time we ate until near the end when she said, "I'm sorry I made you cook this."
I found the perfect opportunity, as this whole supper had been dull.
"Then I would like something sweet from you." I said. She raised her eyebrows at me. I leaned forward, playing at the idea that I would ever actually kiss her. And then I left, almost thrown into a fit of laughter.
I'd been in my bedroom for a few minutes when came a tap. Aihara opened my door and slid in.
"Are you doing your homework?" She said.
"Homework? I finished it on the first day of vacation." I said.
"The first day? You truly are amazing…"
"Don't tell me you haven't done it." In no way was I helping her this time. She'd gotten herself into this by waiting so long. She grinned, her cheeks going rosy.
"Nope." She said.
"Well, that was a bad choice. Because, for you, it would take a week. And that's excluding sleep." Her face drained instantly.
"Good luck." I said. She left and I dressed for bed.
…
A creak roused me. There was someone in my room. Aihara. I opened my eyes and let them adjust to the dark. Surely, there she was, sneaking on over to the desk. There was another creaky floorboard.
"Shhh," She said to herself. It was everything I had in me not to give it away that I was awake.
"Notebook, notebook…" She whispered. I heard the shuffling of papers, then a footstep as she began back toward the door. The little sneak.
I shot up and grabbed her arm, pulling her onto the bed, "What are you doing here? Making noises in my room in the middle of the night." She looked positively terrified and embarrassed.
"Nothing!" She said, "Goodnight!" She tried to leave. I pulled her back.
"That's not going to happen."
"...um…" She whined.
"I know," I said, "You came here to make love to me, didn't you?" Her mouth fell open as I pulled her down.
"Huh?!" Aihara said in a panic, "No, that's not the reason."
"There is no other reason to come to a guy's bedroom so late at night." This might've been going a little far. But that was what she got for waiting so long to do her homework, and then trying to copy off of me.
She stared at me. "Don't worry. I won't embarrass you."
"E-embarrass?" I nodded and leaned over her, "No, wait! I may like you, but I think we should be in a healthy relationship before…" It was the end of my composure and I cut her off with a laugh.
"'Healthy relationship'?" I let her go, "I see. So you do still like me."
Aihara scrambled up from the bed, "You… were you teasing me?"
"Don't worry. I have no intention of being in a relationship with you." She glared at me.
"I'm going to tell everyone you did this." She stood, fuming.
I crossed my arms, "Tell them. I'm sure there are worse rumors concerning us anyway." Aihara stomped to the door and I reached for the journals she dropped when I grabbed her.
"You forgot these." I waved them at her like bait. It clearly written all over her face that she wanted them, I climbed out of bed and headed toward her bedroom. She was stumped.
"Hurry up before I change my mind and go back to bed."
"Thank you, Irie-kun!" She shouted as she rushed after me.
"Not so loud. I just woke up."
"Oops," she giggled, "Sorry." I sat the two journals flat on her desk. Her worst subjects: math and English. This was going to be a long night.
"Which subject first?"
"Math." Aihara sat beside me and pulled out her own journal. For hours she'd been doing this homework and she'd written down zilch but one number on one of the problems.
I explained to her the formula for the equation. When that was too fast for her, I simply walked her through the entire problem. We didn't have time for this sort of thing. The same went for the rest of the page.
"We're using the same formula on this question." I said as I brought her to the next question. I was becoming so drowsy it was hard to stay awake. Aihara yawned.
"Can't I just copy it?" She said.
"Then there would be no point to doing homework." I said. Seeing they are contagious, I also found myself yawning. I yearned to go back to sleep.
We finished with math at around 3 am and started English, the lesser of the two evils. This one was easier to get through and we were finished before 6 am. The normal time we would wake up in the morning. Getting through the day sleepless would wreak havoc on me.
With all of that finally finished, we left her bedroom and met out in the kitchen. She plopped down into a chair.
"I can't believe we stayed up all night," she said, "As a token of my apology, I'd like to make breakfast for you."
"Please don't. I don't want to be sick on the first day back on top of being tired." I said. She was disappointed. Then I remembered about her coffee.
"Coffee. If you could make some coffee for me, that'll do." Not having the energy to smile as wide as she usually did, she settled for something a little more muted and small.
"Sure."
I waited as she brewed the coffee and an amazing smell wafted through the kitchen. What was it about the way she made it? Of all things to be good at… brewing coffee.
She brought me and herself a mug and sat with me at the table. The first sip of that sweet coffee brought back a few of my senses.
Aihara's mouth split into a tired smile, "Good morning." She said.
"We've been up all night. You don't have to say good morning." I said.
Only she would think to say 'good morning' after all that. I thought.
