Chapter 5
Issei was a little stunned by how willingly Sakura's parents took him in. He'd expected protests, or reluctance at the very least. He was going to be a rather large burden to them, after all. But the moment they'd discovered the reason for his injuries, he'd been unofficially adopted into the family.
Weeks later, his head was still reeling from it all. To go from the rejection and hatred of his own parents, to the acceptance and welcome of these total strangers... well, it was dizzying, to say the least. As Sakura had predicted, they had the spare room cleaned out for him by Sunday night, set up the futon, and pulled an old dresser out of the attic where it had been stored.
They'd even helped him arrange to transfer into Sakura's school. He could have continued to go to his old school, and transferring mid way through his last year was certainly a hassle. But the travel time between Sakura's home and his old school was prohibitive; that, and he hadn't wanted to risk provoking his father's anger by continuing to attend the same school as his sister.
By the time a month had passed, Issei was finally starting to lose the edge of his bewilderment. His ribs were all but healed; his jaw was still wired shut for another few weeks, but the bruises were faded to just the last traces of yellow where the break had been. He was heartily sick of eating nothing but liquid food; it was getting to the point where he literally dreamed about even plain food like onigiri.
That Saturday afternoon after their classes were over, Sakura preceded him into the house, and they both dumped their book bags in the foyer. "Mom! Dad! We're home!" she called, kicking off her shoes as he followed suit.
"Welcome back, you two," her mother replied, entering the hall from the direction of the bedrooms. She was wearing a formal kimono and had her hair swept up elaborately; she was fighting to close the hoop of an earring as she walked.
"Sakura, your father has been invited to a dinner hosted by one of the company presidents," she told them. "We'll be leaving shortly. It's in Kyoto, and it's likely to run very late, so we'll probably just get a hotel room for the night. We'll be back early tomorrow afternoon, unless we decide to do some sightseeing, in which case we'll be back in the evening. Oh, blast it, why won't this thing close?" she exclaimed, pulling the earring away and glaring at it.
"Let me, Kokusho-san," Issei offered, moving forward to take the earring from her. A moment later he had it through the hole and properly fastened, and he stepped back with a smile. "There you go."
"Thank you, Issei-kun," she acknowledged, smiling back at him. "You have very deft fingers." Turning away from him, she called back down the hallways, "Dear? If you don't hurry, we're going to be late!"
Sakura's father appeared, dressed in Western formal wear and fiddling with his cufflinks much the way his wife had been prodding at her earring a moment before. With a sigh, Sakura's mother moved forward and fastened the cufflinks, then quickly tied her husband's tie. "There. Now we're both ready. Shall we?"
"Have a good time," Sakura said, stepping up into the house and moving aside so they could pass. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."
Her mother smiled at the two teenagers. "Actually, it's nice to know that Issei-kun will be here with you, Sakura-chan. It makes me feel better, knowing that I won't be leaving you alone for once."
Her father pressed some money into Sakura's hands. "This is for entertainment, or if you want to order food tonight. Issei-kun, we're counting on you to be a restraining influence on her."
Issei blushed faintly, and Sakura laughed and shooed her parents off. "Go on! You don't want to be late." The two adults swirled out the door, and when it closed behind them Sakura and Issei were left in the odd silence of the house.
Issei looked at his friend, a little surprised, and she laughed. "They do this most weekends," she confided. "That's why they weren't here last weekend when you showed up, either." She glanced at the money in her hands, and grinned. "And they left enough for both of us, too. C'mon, I say we go out tonight. You need the distraction. Don't think I haven't seen the way you've been brooding this week!"
"I haven't been 'brooding'," he protested, following her farther into the house. It was a lie, and they both knew it - when she wasn't actively distracting him, he had a tendency to fall into negative thoughts about his life and the circumstances that had led him to the present situation.
"You have, and you know it," she countered. "How does going out to a club sound? Do you have ID?"
He nodded, and she looked at him, a little surprised. He shrugged. "Jinpachi got us both some, quite a while ago. I've never had any problems passing with it."
"I should have known he'd be the one getting the two of you into trouble," she replied, laughing again. "All right, good enough. We'll go out, then. Dinner first, and then there's a great dance club not far from here."
Issei frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not really big on clubs or dancing, Sakura," he said. "It's not my sort of thing."
"Yes, but it's my sort of thing, and you wouldn't want me going out by myself, all undefended, would you?" she asked, batting her eyes at him. He swatted her arm, and she chuckled.
"You did well enough before I was around to 'protect' you, if what I heard over your cell phone when I called you last weekend is any indication," he replied. But he already knew he was going to give in. She had been indulging him these last few weeks, always letting him choose the activities. It was only fair for him to go along with her plans in return.
Except... "I don't have anything to wear, though," he said, frowning. "Just my new school uniforms, and the jeans and t-shirts my sister snuck out to me."
"Jeans will be fine," she said, waving her hand. "We'll find you a top from my closet. You're built narrow enough to be able to fit my stuff, and I've got some tops that will probably look better on you than they do on me. Nothing girly, I promise."
He shrugged, a rueful grin on his lips. "The girlier it is, the better it would probably look on me," he acknowledged with a sigh. "All right, just let me get changed."
Twenty minutes later he knocked on her door, having taken a quick shower to wash off first. He was dressed in one of the two pairs of jeans his sister had packed for him; they were older, but not as worn as they might be because they were really a size too small for true comfort. That made them just tight enough to be acceptable as club wear, however. He still had the towel draped over his shoulders, which hid most of his chest; the bandages he'd re-wrapped around his ribs covered the rest, and he didn't see the point of wearing a shirt when he was just going to have to take it off again to change into whatever she picked for him.
"Come in!" she called, and he opened the door. She was seated at her vanity table, using a curling iron on her hair. She smiled at him in the mirror, and gestured at the bed. "Have a seat. I pulled out some of the shirts I thought would look good on you, so feel free to start trying them on."
There were half a dozen tops spread out over the comforter on her bed, and he examined them as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Most of them were earth tones, the colours that looked best against Sakura's colouring. They would make him look ruddy, or just sallow, unfortunately.
"Try the black one," she suggested, apparently divining his thoughts. "You look good in black, your skin is so pale. Or the white one, maybe, though it will probably make you look washed out."
The white shirt was a silk button up shirt, which was just a little too far on the safe side of 'feminine' to qualify as a 'blouse'. He pulled it on, but shook his head almost immediately. "It's a little too see-through," he said, looking down at his chest and blushing. "I'd feel like I was half naked."
"Mmm, I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. "The black one, then. Though it might be a little translucent too."
He picked up the black top, feeling the material slide through his fingers. It wasn't cotton, exactly; looking at the label, he saw that it was a cotton and lycra mixture. He pulled it on over his head, wincing slightly as the struggle to get his arms into the sleeves made his ribs protest.
Once he had it settled, he stood and looked at his reflection in the mirror, past her head. It was tight against his skin and slightly see through, the loose knit of the material creating a very faint mesh effect. The sleeves were a loose, sheer fabric, the gleam of his pale skin easily showing through the translucent material. Studying the effect in the mirror, he decided he liked it.
"Okay, that looks about a hundred times better on you than it does on me," she declared, swinging around in her seat to smile at him. "You are so keeping that. I'll never be able to wear it again, it'll just make me feel inferior."
"Don't be silly," he protested, blushing hotly. "Black just isn't the right colour for you, that's all. You look good, too." She did; she was wearing a light brown mesh top over a darker brown tank top, and the colour made her cheeks and hair look redder than usual. The curls she'd added to her hair made it frame her face in an appealing manner, and also made her look both older and more sophisticated.
"I'm almost done," she told him, turning back to the vanity. "Just need to finish my makeup, then we can go."
He looked at the bewildering array of jars and tubes on the table in front of her, and shook his head. "I'll never understand makeup," he declared. "There's just so much of it, and it seems so complicated."
"Spoken like a true male," she said dryly, and laughed. "I seem to recall it was Enju giving Shusuran the makeup lectures, before. There you go, that's one thing that's changed."
"I don't remember that," he admitted. "There are a lot of things I still don't remember about that life. I wonder if we'll ever remember it all?"
"Who knows?" she replied, shrugging. He watched, fascinated, as she applied various powders and liquids to her face. The transformation was subtle; she wasn't the sort of girl to layer makeup on heavily, and she used natural shades of colour. But there was a distinct difference between her appearance with and without makeup.
"Ready?" he asked, when it seemed like she was done. To his surprise, she shook her head.
"Nope. Now it's your turn," she informed, him, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Issei drew back, eyes wide. "My turn? What are you talking about? I'm not wearing any of that!"
He scooted away when she only smiled and stood, padding towards him. "Oh, stop," she scolded him. "It's not going to kill you, and it'll look good on you, trust me. I'm not going to put you in blush and lipstick, Issei. Just a little eyeliner. And you need a touch of coverup to hide the last of the bruise. You'll see."
"Absolutely not," he said, standing and backing away more quickly as she continued to advance. Part of his endless struggle with Enju lay in ignoring the occasional feminine urge to be beautiful; wearing makeup definitely fell under that category. "Sakura..."
His protest was cut off by the sound of her phone ringing, and she broke away, laughing. "Sakura," she answered it, and her eyebrows went up in surprise at the response. All Issei could hear was a deep voice, identifying the caller as a male, but her next words made him freeze in place. "Ogura! This is a surprise. What's up?"
She listened for a moment, her eyes gentle on Issei as he collapsed back down to sit on the bed, wrapping his arms tight around himself. He was still stung by Jinpachi's abandonment from before, and it still hurt a lot to think about his former best friend. This was the first time Jinpachi had called Sakura since Issei had come to live there, and he hadn't been prepared for the rush of emotions the thought of talking to him brought.
"Hang on just a second, will you? I've got another call coming in," Sakura said abruptly, and hit a button on her phone. Instead of continuing to speak into it, however, she lowered it and tilted her head at Issei.
"He's calling to ask if I've heard from you," she told him, and he squeezed his eyes shut. "He said you never showed up to school this week, and your parents hung up the phone on him when he tried to call to find out if you were okay. Do you want to talk to him?"
He shook his head, his throat clogged with unshed tears. "No," he said, his voice husky. "Not really. Besides, he probably wouldn't be able to understand me with my jaws wired shut. You're just used to it, and you can see my expression to help you interpret what I'm saying."
"True," she acknowledged. "What do you want me to tell him?"
"Just... just tell him that you've heard from me and I'm okay, but that I switched schools and you don't know anything else," he finally said. "I'll call him myself when I can talk properly, if I'm up to dealing with him."
He opened his eyes to see her giving him an odd look. "What happened?" she asked, and he winced as he remembered he'd never told her about the aborted phone call he'd made to Jinpachi the night he was thrown out of his house.
"Long story," he said, and she nodded understandingly.
Bringing the phone back up, she hit another button and said, "Hey, Ogura. Yeah, I heard from him about a week ago. He said he was changing schools, but he didn't tell me why. No, he didn't give me a new phone number for him... I didn't realize his cell wasn't working." She listened for a moment, then sighed. "If I hear from him, I'll let him know you called, okay? See you later."
Hanging up, she shoved the phone back in her purse. "He's worried about you," she told him, and he shrugged.
"I know," he said softly. "I just can't face him right now, Sakura. He... I called him first, for help, before I called you. He was out on a date, or something; he never let me get a word out, and hung up on me after telling me we could talk in school the next day."
"Ouch." She winced, and sat beside him, hugging him lightly. "That must have hurt. You know he didn't mean it, though. If he'd known you were in trouble, he'd have come to help you."
"He never gave me the chance to explain," Issei replied bitterly. "You knew there was something wrong the moment I spoke. And not just because I called you Shusuran by mistake, either."
She nodded, not bothering to deny it, and just hugged him for another long moment. He sat there, trying not to be bitter that it had taken his former best friend a month to think of calling here to look for him. Oh, he was sure Jinpachi had been looking for him since he'd failed to show up for school that first Monday; the other boy was probably even genuinely worried about Issei at this point. But it wasn't as if Jinpachi hadn't known that Issei had become close to Sakura. This should have been the first place he called, after trying Issei's cell and family phone. Why had it taken him so long?
Finally Issei turned and hugged her back, drawing a deep breath. "You know what? I've changed my mind. Put whatever you want on me. I need to get over him, and I'm not going to do it by hiding in my room or refusing to go out where I might meet someone else."
"That's the spirit!" she cheered, slapping him on the shoulder as she smiled. His empathy let him feel the twinge of sadness she felt at his words, but she was very good at covering it up. He was careful not to let his own sympathy for her pain show through in his expression; that would only make it awkward when she realized he'd picked up on her feelings.
She stood and grabbed what looked like a soft pencil crayon off her vanity table, then returned to sit next to him. "Close your eyes," she instructed, taking his chin in her off hand. He obeyed, and had to fight not to flinch when he felt the point of the pencil press against his eyelid. It was harder to stay still than he would have thought; then again, having something pointy near your eyes was the sort of thing anybody would flinch from.
After that, she picked up a small tube and gently rubbed a bit of the contents into his cheek over the last traces of the bruise. "There," she announced when she was finished. "Take a look in the mirror." She stood, giving him room to move.
He turned so that he could see himself, and blinked at his reflection. The bruise was completely invisible. The liner wasn't really noticeable, except in the dramatic difference it made in the way his eyes looked. The dark lining made the paler grey of his eyes stand out from his face, instead of fading into the paleness of his skin.
"You don't need anything on your eyelashes, that's for sure," she commented, replacing the pencil on the table. "I know women who'd kill to have your eyelashes. Hell, I'm one of them! Guys have all the luck."
"I suppose that's one way to look at it," he said, chuckling softly. Standing, he caught her in another hug. "Thank you, Sakura. For everything. I'm going to be spending the rest of my life paying you back for all you've done for me."
"Don't be stupid," she said, swatting him. "You'd do the same for me, and knowing that is payment enough. Now, let's go! We're going to go out and have a blast tonight, and forget all about any problems we have. Agreed?"
"Agreed." He smiled back at her. "Lead the way!" She caught his hand and tugged, pulling him towards the front door, and he followed, laughing. Sakura was right - they both needed the time to relax, and Jinpachi or no Jinpachi, he was going to have a good time. And, more importantly, make sure she had a good time, too.
Issei was a little stunned by how willingly Sakura's parents took him in. He'd expected protests, or reluctance at the very least. He was going to be a rather large burden to them, after all. But the moment they'd discovered the reason for his injuries, he'd been unofficially adopted into the family.
Weeks later, his head was still reeling from it all. To go from the rejection and hatred of his own parents, to the acceptance and welcome of these total strangers... well, it was dizzying, to say the least. As Sakura had predicted, they had the spare room cleaned out for him by Sunday night, set up the futon, and pulled an old dresser out of the attic where it had been stored.
They'd even helped him arrange to transfer into Sakura's school. He could have continued to go to his old school, and transferring mid way through his last year was certainly a hassle. But the travel time between Sakura's home and his old school was prohibitive; that, and he hadn't wanted to risk provoking his father's anger by continuing to attend the same school as his sister.
By the time a month had passed, Issei was finally starting to lose the edge of his bewilderment. His ribs were all but healed; his jaw was still wired shut for another few weeks, but the bruises were faded to just the last traces of yellow where the break had been. He was heartily sick of eating nothing but liquid food; it was getting to the point where he literally dreamed about even plain food like onigiri.
That Saturday afternoon after their classes were over, Sakura preceded him into the house, and they both dumped their book bags in the foyer. "Mom! Dad! We're home!" she called, kicking off her shoes as he followed suit.
"Welcome back, you two," her mother replied, entering the hall from the direction of the bedrooms. She was wearing a formal kimono and had her hair swept up elaborately; she was fighting to close the hoop of an earring as she walked.
"Sakura, your father has been invited to a dinner hosted by one of the company presidents," she told them. "We'll be leaving shortly. It's in Kyoto, and it's likely to run very late, so we'll probably just get a hotel room for the night. We'll be back early tomorrow afternoon, unless we decide to do some sightseeing, in which case we'll be back in the evening. Oh, blast it, why won't this thing close?" she exclaimed, pulling the earring away and glaring at it.
"Let me, Kokusho-san," Issei offered, moving forward to take the earring from her. A moment later he had it through the hole and properly fastened, and he stepped back with a smile. "There you go."
"Thank you, Issei-kun," she acknowledged, smiling back at him. "You have very deft fingers." Turning away from him, she called back down the hallways, "Dear? If you don't hurry, we're going to be late!"
Sakura's father appeared, dressed in Western formal wear and fiddling with his cufflinks much the way his wife had been prodding at her earring a moment before. With a sigh, Sakura's mother moved forward and fastened the cufflinks, then quickly tied her husband's tie. "There. Now we're both ready. Shall we?"
"Have a good time," Sakura said, stepping up into the house and moving aside so they could pass. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."
Her mother smiled at the two teenagers. "Actually, it's nice to know that Issei-kun will be here with you, Sakura-chan. It makes me feel better, knowing that I won't be leaving you alone for once."
Her father pressed some money into Sakura's hands. "This is for entertainment, or if you want to order food tonight. Issei-kun, we're counting on you to be a restraining influence on her."
Issei blushed faintly, and Sakura laughed and shooed her parents off. "Go on! You don't want to be late." The two adults swirled out the door, and when it closed behind them Sakura and Issei were left in the odd silence of the house.
Issei looked at his friend, a little surprised, and she laughed. "They do this most weekends," she confided. "That's why they weren't here last weekend when you showed up, either." She glanced at the money in her hands, and grinned. "And they left enough for both of us, too. C'mon, I say we go out tonight. You need the distraction. Don't think I haven't seen the way you've been brooding this week!"
"I haven't been 'brooding'," he protested, following her farther into the house. It was a lie, and they both knew it - when she wasn't actively distracting him, he had a tendency to fall into negative thoughts about his life and the circumstances that had led him to the present situation.
"You have, and you know it," she countered. "How does going out to a club sound? Do you have ID?"
He nodded, and she looked at him, a little surprised. He shrugged. "Jinpachi got us both some, quite a while ago. I've never had any problems passing with it."
"I should have known he'd be the one getting the two of you into trouble," she replied, laughing again. "All right, good enough. We'll go out, then. Dinner first, and then there's a great dance club not far from here."
Issei frowned, shaking his head. "I'm not really big on clubs or dancing, Sakura," he said. "It's not my sort of thing."
"Yes, but it's my sort of thing, and you wouldn't want me going out by myself, all undefended, would you?" she asked, batting her eyes at him. He swatted her arm, and she chuckled.
"You did well enough before I was around to 'protect' you, if what I heard over your cell phone when I called you last weekend is any indication," he replied. But he already knew he was going to give in. She had been indulging him these last few weeks, always letting him choose the activities. It was only fair for him to go along with her plans in return.
Except... "I don't have anything to wear, though," he said, frowning. "Just my new school uniforms, and the jeans and t-shirts my sister snuck out to me."
"Jeans will be fine," she said, waving her hand. "We'll find you a top from my closet. You're built narrow enough to be able to fit my stuff, and I've got some tops that will probably look better on you than they do on me. Nothing girly, I promise."
He shrugged, a rueful grin on his lips. "The girlier it is, the better it would probably look on me," he acknowledged with a sigh. "All right, just let me get changed."
Twenty minutes later he knocked on her door, having taken a quick shower to wash off first. He was dressed in one of the two pairs of jeans his sister had packed for him; they were older, but not as worn as they might be because they were really a size too small for true comfort. That made them just tight enough to be acceptable as club wear, however. He still had the towel draped over his shoulders, which hid most of his chest; the bandages he'd re-wrapped around his ribs covered the rest, and he didn't see the point of wearing a shirt when he was just going to have to take it off again to change into whatever she picked for him.
"Come in!" she called, and he opened the door. She was seated at her vanity table, using a curling iron on her hair. She smiled at him in the mirror, and gestured at the bed. "Have a seat. I pulled out some of the shirts I thought would look good on you, so feel free to start trying them on."
There were half a dozen tops spread out over the comforter on her bed, and he examined them as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Most of them were earth tones, the colours that looked best against Sakura's colouring. They would make him look ruddy, or just sallow, unfortunately.
"Try the black one," she suggested, apparently divining his thoughts. "You look good in black, your skin is so pale. Or the white one, maybe, though it will probably make you look washed out."
The white shirt was a silk button up shirt, which was just a little too far on the safe side of 'feminine' to qualify as a 'blouse'. He pulled it on, but shook his head almost immediately. "It's a little too see-through," he said, looking down at his chest and blushing. "I'd feel like I was half naked."
"Mmm, I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. "The black one, then. Though it might be a little translucent too."
He picked up the black top, feeling the material slide through his fingers. It wasn't cotton, exactly; looking at the label, he saw that it was a cotton and lycra mixture. He pulled it on over his head, wincing slightly as the struggle to get his arms into the sleeves made his ribs protest.
Once he had it settled, he stood and looked at his reflection in the mirror, past her head. It was tight against his skin and slightly see through, the loose knit of the material creating a very faint mesh effect. The sleeves were a loose, sheer fabric, the gleam of his pale skin easily showing through the translucent material. Studying the effect in the mirror, he decided he liked it.
"Okay, that looks about a hundred times better on you than it does on me," she declared, swinging around in her seat to smile at him. "You are so keeping that. I'll never be able to wear it again, it'll just make me feel inferior."
"Don't be silly," he protested, blushing hotly. "Black just isn't the right colour for you, that's all. You look good, too." She did; she was wearing a light brown mesh top over a darker brown tank top, and the colour made her cheeks and hair look redder than usual. The curls she'd added to her hair made it frame her face in an appealing manner, and also made her look both older and more sophisticated.
"I'm almost done," she told him, turning back to the vanity. "Just need to finish my makeup, then we can go."
He looked at the bewildering array of jars and tubes on the table in front of her, and shook his head. "I'll never understand makeup," he declared. "There's just so much of it, and it seems so complicated."
"Spoken like a true male," she said dryly, and laughed. "I seem to recall it was Enju giving Shusuran the makeup lectures, before. There you go, that's one thing that's changed."
"I don't remember that," he admitted. "There are a lot of things I still don't remember about that life. I wonder if we'll ever remember it all?"
"Who knows?" she replied, shrugging. He watched, fascinated, as she applied various powders and liquids to her face. The transformation was subtle; she wasn't the sort of girl to layer makeup on heavily, and she used natural shades of colour. But there was a distinct difference between her appearance with and without makeup.
"Ready?" he asked, when it seemed like she was done. To his surprise, she shook her head.
"Nope. Now it's your turn," she informed, him, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Issei drew back, eyes wide. "My turn? What are you talking about? I'm not wearing any of that!"
He scooted away when she only smiled and stood, padding towards him. "Oh, stop," she scolded him. "It's not going to kill you, and it'll look good on you, trust me. I'm not going to put you in blush and lipstick, Issei. Just a little eyeliner. And you need a touch of coverup to hide the last of the bruise. You'll see."
"Absolutely not," he said, standing and backing away more quickly as she continued to advance. Part of his endless struggle with Enju lay in ignoring the occasional feminine urge to be beautiful; wearing makeup definitely fell under that category. "Sakura..."
His protest was cut off by the sound of her phone ringing, and she broke away, laughing. "Sakura," she answered it, and her eyebrows went up in surprise at the response. All Issei could hear was a deep voice, identifying the caller as a male, but her next words made him freeze in place. "Ogura! This is a surprise. What's up?"
She listened for a moment, her eyes gentle on Issei as he collapsed back down to sit on the bed, wrapping his arms tight around himself. He was still stung by Jinpachi's abandonment from before, and it still hurt a lot to think about his former best friend. This was the first time Jinpachi had called Sakura since Issei had come to live there, and he hadn't been prepared for the rush of emotions the thought of talking to him brought.
"Hang on just a second, will you? I've got another call coming in," Sakura said abruptly, and hit a button on her phone. Instead of continuing to speak into it, however, she lowered it and tilted her head at Issei.
"He's calling to ask if I've heard from you," she told him, and he squeezed his eyes shut. "He said you never showed up to school this week, and your parents hung up the phone on him when he tried to call to find out if you were okay. Do you want to talk to him?"
He shook his head, his throat clogged with unshed tears. "No," he said, his voice husky. "Not really. Besides, he probably wouldn't be able to understand me with my jaws wired shut. You're just used to it, and you can see my expression to help you interpret what I'm saying."
"True," she acknowledged. "What do you want me to tell him?"
"Just... just tell him that you've heard from me and I'm okay, but that I switched schools and you don't know anything else," he finally said. "I'll call him myself when I can talk properly, if I'm up to dealing with him."
He opened his eyes to see her giving him an odd look. "What happened?" she asked, and he winced as he remembered he'd never told her about the aborted phone call he'd made to Jinpachi the night he was thrown out of his house.
"Long story," he said, and she nodded understandingly.
Bringing the phone back up, she hit another button and said, "Hey, Ogura. Yeah, I heard from him about a week ago. He said he was changing schools, but he didn't tell me why. No, he didn't give me a new phone number for him... I didn't realize his cell wasn't working." She listened for a moment, then sighed. "If I hear from him, I'll let him know you called, okay? See you later."
Hanging up, she shoved the phone back in her purse. "He's worried about you," she told him, and he shrugged.
"I know," he said softly. "I just can't face him right now, Sakura. He... I called him first, for help, before I called you. He was out on a date, or something; he never let me get a word out, and hung up on me after telling me we could talk in school the next day."
"Ouch." She winced, and sat beside him, hugging him lightly. "That must have hurt. You know he didn't mean it, though. If he'd known you were in trouble, he'd have come to help you."
"He never gave me the chance to explain," Issei replied bitterly. "You knew there was something wrong the moment I spoke. And not just because I called you Shusuran by mistake, either."
She nodded, not bothering to deny it, and just hugged him for another long moment. He sat there, trying not to be bitter that it had taken his former best friend a month to think of calling here to look for him. Oh, he was sure Jinpachi had been looking for him since he'd failed to show up for school that first Monday; the other boy was probably even genuinely worried about Issei at this point. But it wasn't as if Jinpachi hadn't known that Issei had become close to Sakura. This should have been the first place he called, after trying Issei's cell and family phone. Why had it taken him so long?
Finally Issei turned and hugged her back, drawing a deep breath. "You know what? I've changed my mind. Put whatever you want on me. I need to get over him, and I'm not going to do it by hiding in my room or refusing to go out where I might meet someone else."
"That's the spirit!" she cheered, slapping him on the shoulder as she smiled. His empathy let him feel the twinge of sadness she felt at his words, but she was very good at covering it up. He was careful not to let his own sympathy for her pain show through in his expression; that would only make it awkward when she realized he'd picked up on her feelings.
She stood and grabbed what looked like a soft pencil crayon off her vanity table, then returned to sit next to him. "Close your eyes," she instructed, taking his chin in her off hand. He obeyed, and had to fight not to flinch when he felt the point of the pencil press against his eyelid. It was harder to stay still than he would have thought; then again, having something pointy near your eyes was the sort of thing anybody would flinch from.
After that, she picked up a small tube and gently rubbed a bit of the contents into his cheek over the last traces of the bruise. "There," she announced when she was finished. "Take a look in the mirror." She stood, giving him room to move.
He turned so that he could see himself, and blinked at his reflection. The bruise was completely invisible. The liner wasn't really noticeable, except in the dramatic difference it made in the way his eyes looked. The dark lining made the paler grey of his eyes stand out from his face, instead of fading into the paleness of his skin.
"You don't need anything on your eyelashes, that's for sure," she commented, replacing the pencil on the table. "I know women who'd kill to have your eyelashes. Hell, I'm one of them! Guys have all the luck."
"I suppose that's one way to look at it," he said, chuckling softly. Standing, he caught her in another hug. "Thank you, Sakura. For everything. I'm going to be spending the rest of my life paying you back for all you've done for me."
"Don't be stupid," she said, swatting him. "You'd do the same for me, and knowing that is payment enough. Now, let's go! We're going to go out and have a blast tonight, and forget all about any problems we have. Agreed?"
"Agreed." He smiled back at her. "Lead the way!" She caught his hand and tugged, pulling him towards the front door, and he followed, laughing. Sakura was right - they both needed the time to relax, and Jinpachi or no Jinpachi, he was going to have a good time. And, more importantly, make sure she had a good time, too.