7/10/2017 : Due to the fact that I fix this chapter for a bit, I forgot who reviews during the previous chapter release.

WHOOOOPS.

Sorry hahahah my bad but I love y'all!

I feel bad for not crediting. :(

Love Me For Thirty Days

DAY EIGHTEEN

Tuesday

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"...though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert."
― Edith Wharton, Summer

She never expected for him to return the next day; There she was busy in her own, quaint office room filing the documents that had been piling up on her desk ― calculator on the edge, her cellphone buzzing with a tune played in small volume; Beethoven's Marmotte, a red notebook filled with minutes of meetings and lists of calculations (she worked in audit firm, after all) and crossings; a few doodles here and there and her Lenovo at the most centre ― and suddenly there came Seijuurou, in his usual suit; smart and sharp-looking as always. Yet this time, he adorned a conflicted look, lost like a child despite leaning against the now closed door behind him. He attempted an awkward smile, lifted his hand weakly to give her a wave.

She spoke to lighten the air; "Pretty early to set a date, huh?" There was small laughter, but the way he had laughed seemed heavy to Yui's ears. After all, one does not simply return without a reason when she had been the one to dump him. It had been so good yesterday, and yet Seijuurou had to ruin it for her. "What's happening?" Her voice shaky, lined with concern.

"Will you hear me out?"

"Well sure, but if it's a fucking story that required three hours of listening, you might as well be notified that I'm meeting with a client in about," she checked her watch, a golden wristwatch from a birthday gift, Michael Kors, "an hour," she looked back to Seijuurou, and quirked her eyebrows, "Aren't you supposed to be working too?"

"Soon."

"So? What's the matter?"

The redhead looked slightly anxious. He clasped his hands together, "Yui, last night. . . I'm sorry if my words hurt you in some way."

"Look, Sei," she interrupted him before he could speak any further, "I mean what I said last night. It's nothing about what you said, okay? You mean it, you want to be a keeper, Sei. And I know, deep down there," she closed the distance between them, until they were no more but half a metre apart, and poked his chest with an index finger; "Your feelings for Tetsuya are still strong."

Seijuurou knew that. Of course he did. It became clear now, but of course, sooner or later his feelings were bound to be pointless.

"I know about mine. . . But Tetsuya? I don't know. . ."

The hesitance in his voice was strong. Sweat trickling on his forehead; his fists instinctively clenched as he brooded. The ebony-haired woman took upon the dare to ask him.

"I've been suspecting it, but uh, I just confirmed it last night. . ."

She swallowed, "W-What. . . What are you talking about? He's dying?" The words didn't felt good rolling on her tongue, "Then, why are you here?"

"He's not dying, Yui," a tensed pause, "Early onset dementia. Triggered from an incident years ago. . ."

There was a moment of silence, a long uneasy pause that neither of them seemed to long for but did not dare to speak a word. Yui dropped the file she was holding for quite some time and her other free hand clasped her mouth.

"This age ―? That's pretty rare, Seijuurou."

"From an accident, Yui."

Another silence, but this time Seijuurou seemed to snifle his tears from coming down. There was a pained look, and he was holding it all back in ― don't cry, don't cry, please. . . ― but he had been on the edge for days. The things he worked so hard always ended up crumbling to pieces again. He felt a touch on the shoulder, warm but not the warmest; and Seijuurou flinched.

He traced his footsteps backwards, pulling the door behind him open. "I need to go now. . . I guess."

"Wait, Sei ―"

The man looked up. His multi-coloured eyes showed an unfamiliar expression, glossy and wet and disdained.

The raven held her breath and heaved out a long sigh, "What was the point of telling me, actually? I mean, we shouldn't have something going on already. And so far that I know of, Tetsuya isn't really close to me," she chuckled at her own words, "In fact, he hates me."

"Perhaps," Seijuurou didn't try to deny it, because well ― it was a well-known fact since the beginning, "But can't you be my friend?"

Friend.

"R-Right."

There was nothing else to be said, afterwards.

Seijuurou didn't expect to return home to found a visitor on the doorstep. Tall and olive-skinned (they said he joined extreme sports ― bungee, sky diving, for fun in diploma); with a darker shade of crimson much contrast to his ashen scarlet, and dangling within his lips a lit cigarette, and he was puffing smoke everywhere. A blue flannel wrapped around his torso, whilst he wore nothing more than a simple black tee and faded jeans, a pair of Levi's Seijuurou knew Tetsuya had bought for the taller man on his twenty-first birthday six years ago.

The taller man glanced him sideways, taking a long drag from the cancer stick and remained as silence as he could be, but there was something else than just a simple relaxation on his expression. One arm crossed, a slouched lean against a bare wall, eyes squinted slightly to give a dip on his thick brows, eyeing his every movement ― everything about him was yelling curiosity, with loads of questions at the tip of his tongue.

"Fancy meeting you here," smoothly, the Akashi heir spoke but he was wondering as well.

Kagami wasn't one to beat around the bush though. He straightened his shoulders, took a last inhale to his cigarette and tossed it aside ― Seijuurou tried hard not to be disturbed by the littering ― and stood tall, as if to intimidate Seijuurou; who was only shorter than him by a mere inch now. "What's going on between you and Tetsu?" he breathed out the dreaded question at last.

"Depending on the question, I assume you knew Tetsuya's whereabouts."

But before he could press any farther, Kagami slammed his palm against the door and flinched at his own strength. "Don't you dare to ignore my question!"

"We have an argument," Seijuurou confessed, fast, "I admit, it's my fault. But you should know better that I'm not here to idle as well. Now," he may be shorter, but the pair of raw sandy shade and the colour of thick blood sent an icy shiver to Kagami's spine, "You might as well tell me where you sent him off."

Kagami scoffed, somehow a bit baffled but not disturbed. "What makes you think it was me?"

"Well, since you're not actually involved in my life with Tetsuya. But here you are right now, asking me what's happening to Tetsuya but not about where he might be."

The taller man winced at his own dubious advances, and clicked his tongue to express his frustration yet to himself. "Fine," he sighed, grabbing another cigarette ― Marlboro's ― from the back pockets, "He's in Kyoto, but this morning he told me through text that he probably went to his parents' tomorrow."

"His parents'? Osaka?" Kagami nodded by his brief wonder, "Then why is he in Kyoto now?"

"Who knows? I asked him a lot of questions yesterday," he lit up the new cigarette, "Didn't say much though."

The thought of Tetsuya being alone didn't seem so appealing, especially since his condition wasn't the most satisfying. Seijuurou took no moments to spare, he bolted as quickly as lightning but the other one wasn't too eager to let him go just yet.

"Where are you going?" Kagami snarled, "Oi, I'm not done with you yet!"

The intimidating one stopped his paces, and sent the taller redhead a fierce glare that reminded him of bad memories from ten years ago. Kagami gulped, and his frustration seemed to be replaced by something else. "And what more do you want to know? It's a pretty nice offer to have a seat and chitchat but if you think I'm going to waste my time now, you might as well reconsider that."

"And you think he wants to see you right now?" asked the latter, "Especially since he's probably had a good reason to run away from you ―"

Before he got to say any farther, Kagami found himself plopped onto the ground before feeling the sting on his left cheek; perhaps, bruised by now. Glancing upwards, the redhead remained a calm composure, but even Kagami knew better the sandy and crimson eyes could par the devil's gaze by now. He noticed Seijuurou's fists clenching tightly, holding his breath for a short time of interval before huffing. "I'm leaving," he notified.

Wide-eyed and startled, Kagami just let the other one left him on the ground. He snorted a laughter; "Jesus Christ, they're both similar. . . Why the fuck are they arguing anyway?"

At night, Tetsuya listened to plenty of things. He heard the laughter of men and clinking shot glasses, he'd heard music from below, and there was a bottle crashed (he knew it was a bottle because the others complained their booze was wasted just like that); he heard mothers screaming to little children to sleep; it was 11PM. He heard sex from the next room; the moans of the woman sounded too forceful and unnatural ― the blunette had to cringe. But it's not like the man cared anyway; they continued with the noises, the creaks, the rough foreplays (he heard slaps, he wished not to imagine any farther than what he could have listened). Yet, with all those noises, he wondered why he was here in the first place and the loneliness that settled deep in the pit of his chest.

He remembered his name, Tetsuya ― was it? He remembered he have a companion, but where could he had been?

In the square room of wooden boards, tatami mats and somehow a cheap bed with a thin quilt draped over it, and an aged desk and a shaky chair; Tetsuya knew that he wasn't home. He knew he was somewhere far than home. But he couldn't be sure why his mind was fuzzy; why was he here?

And just as he was about to remember, his phone rang with a somewhat familiar name clicked on the screen. "Akashi. . ." It sounded familiar, it sounded nice in words. There was warmth in the name, Seijuurou. But somehow, the bitterness settled back before he could stop himself from answering. "S-Sei. . .?" He choked out the words, unable to contain the tears from his eyes. He wasn't scared. It was a deeper feeling than that.

Short to say, Tetsuya was terrified.

"Tetsuya? Where are you?" The other voice held the same wavelength of fear, somehow. And instantly, Tetsuya could feel the bitter feeling dissipate as if it wasn't there in the first place. Seijuurou spoke again, when Tetsuya didn't bother to respond. "Where are you? I'm here. I'm here in Kyoto too. . ."

"I'm in. . ."

An inn.

"Uh. . ."

"Tetsuya?" The voice was tight, shaky.

"I don't know. . ."

There was a groan of distress; and before the blunette could speak any farther, the line went dead and left him with a long, monotonous beep. And all Tetsuya could do was to wonder, and perhaps wait.

TO BE CONTINUED

Mozu : Oh boy, only a few chapters more! :3 And then, I'll be on a rampage proofreading my own story. Hahahahaha!

How's your holidays, people? I don't know what to do in my six-month holiday. Perhaps, write and game. . . Write and game. . . Write and game. . . And I'm going to finish this and The Push and Pull Relationship so I can finish my other AkaKuro stories as well.

X for love, O for hate?

-Mozu The Mochi (2016)