Chapter 5:
I didn't see Sou-chan much after he said he was going to the school. Sure, he came to class, but not as often. He told me he got his schedule changed, so he only had to go a few nights out of the week. I couldn't figure out why he'd do that. From what I knew, Sou-chan loved to paint. Reducing his classes is like taking away his blood. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating…again.) But, one afternoon, he came to class…and he left his bag behind. He said he was going to the elementary school again. Something was definitely up.
After Sou-chan left, he was gone for a while. I admit that I was very impatient. Go ahead and ask my classmates. They know, because they had to put up with my constant snarling.
"What do you mean you're busy!" I yelled into the phone. Sou-chan continued to talk like there was nothing wrong, but he should have been a little more stressed than he sounded! He had an assignment due that night, and he hadn't even started! Damn bastard! After he hung up, I tried to call him back, but he turned off his phone! I couldn't believe him! For revenge, I decided to blackmail him, the number one source being his unattended, nearly open bag.
"Kio, Kio-san, don't go through Agatsuma-kun's bag," my classmates warned me. Oh ho, but I didn't listen! Ha! I'm basically his wife, so why shouldn't I go through his bag?
I found the strangest things in there. Sou-chan had a lot of pictures, probably fifty of them, in his bag. So, he had found himself another toy, and this one was a little kid! Actually, the kid was kind of girly-looking. The girls with me thought the little boy was cute, but I knew better. Sou-chan could not be trusted with a little virgin. After all, why pick on a poor little virgin kid when he has someone like me? So, just to make Sou-chan pay for turning off his phone so I couldn't call him back and being a cheating pervert, I stole the pictures.
Later that evening, Sou-chan finally came. I had never seen someone paint so fast before! He sat in front of his canvas all evening and painted almost non-stop. Luckily for his sorry ass, the professor accepted his work.
"But," he told me later, "my paints haven't dried yet."
"That's what you get for skipping out, you bastard," I scolded as I lit his cigarette. "What else?"
"Hm?" Sou-chan breathed deeply on his cigarette before letting out a small puff of smoke.
"The kid in the picture," I said hastily before I changed my mind about asking him. "Who is he?" Sou-chan just shook his head at me, like a parent scolding a misbehaving kid.
"I want to know!" I snapped. "I want to know who the little punk is in the picture!" Sou-chan brushed loose strands of hair behind his ear, and he took another deep breath of his cigarette.
"You shouldn't go through people's bags, Kio," he replied. "His name is Aoyagi Ritsuka. I'm saying nothing more."
That name again! The name of my Sou-chan's so-called 'master' was back with a new face: a sixth-grade, girly-looking boy who, like the Aoyagi before him, still had his ears. What is it about virgins that Sou-chan feels attracted to?
