She liked coming to the museum when she had lots to think about like the troubles at home or the awful kids at school, the museum was quiet and peaceful. It was like her own refugee away from home and school.
She's had a lot more on her mind though concerning Shiori and Suga. Before Shiori left she asked Sakuma to call her sometimes to tell her how Suga and the rest of them were doing but ever since she left she hasn't called her once but the obvious decline in Suga's physical and most likely mental state is probably something Shiori would want to know about but what does she say? She didn't know why Suga was like this and she didn't know how to get him to write what's wrong with him.
Sakuma sighed as she closed the book and put it aside on the glass table. She looked over at Suga who was slowly dusting off books as if moving his limbs were a struggle. She made up her mind.
Sakuma walked over to Suga and tapped on his shoulder which caused Suga to jump a little from surprise which he soon recovered from with a silent sigh of relief as he realized it was only Sakuma.
"Manager, may I borrow your phone?", Sakuma asks. Suga gives her a confused look as he processes the request but then nods and makes a small motion with his hand that indicated her to follow him.
Sakuma silently follows him upstairs to the room at the left end of the hall.
When they get to the room Suga points to the phone and to the relief of Sakuma leaves the room. Sakuma peaks out the door and looks around and when she confirms that the manager is not eavesdropping she goes back to the phone and takes out a slip of paper out of her pocket, punching in the numbers that were written on it.
She picks up the phone trying to plan what she was going to say in her mind as she waited for the other to pick up.
" Hello?", a voice said curiously on the other line.
"Onee-san!", Sakuma says with a smile. She was so happy to just hear her voice again.
" Sakuma? Is that you? I was wondering when you were going to call!", Shiori says with her voice filled with happiness. "How are you?"
"I'm good but I called you to talk about Suga", Sakuma says.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not really even sure what's the matter but he's not eating and it looks like he hasn't slept for days. Whenever me or Officer Mochizuki try to find out what's wrong he just doesn't respond. He hardly even uses his memos anymore and we don't know what to do", Sakuma says as she tries not to leave out any important details. The other line goes silent for about half a minute and Sakuma wonders if she's even there until she hears a determined voice on the other end.
"I'll be there by tomorrow"
"Wait! Onee-san Suga will be mad though.", Sakuma says as she tries to reason with the reckless girl.
" I know but I made a promise to protect Suga-kun, even if it's from himself "
Before Sakuma could say something else to convince the girl to change her mind the other hangs up. Sakuma sighs as she runs a hand through her hair. She had a feeling that this wouldn't turn out good.
Meanwhile Suga was downstairs polishing his sword until it shined. The voices seemed to back down when he was near his sword.
"Scary scary scary" They all said at the same time and the word made Suga wonder what would happen if they didn't find him scary one day. It was a scary thought but it couldn't help but cross his mind. He desperately wiped at his eyes, trying to keep the tears in. They seemed to get even louder when he cried, they wanted to take control of the vulnerability of his saddened mind and make him follow their commands but no matter how saddened or frustrated he wouldn't break in to their commands. He owed that much to Shi-chan.
Suga blinked his eyes as fast as he could to stop the tears when he heard footsteps going down the stairs. He couldn't let Sakuma see him cry, she would only ask more questions. The voices yelled at him as he tried to make his eyes puffy from crying appear normal.
As Sakuma headed back to the spot where her uninteresting book was she halted to a stop as she saw the manager's eyes shine in and tracks of clear liquid that seemed to trail out of his eyes and down his cheeks that could be seen if you look at him in the light. The manager tried to hide his face with a book, pretending to read it as his hands shaked. The voices were yelling at him again.
"Su-", Sakuma started but stopped as Suga shakily stood up from his seat and dashed towards the room the left. Sakuma sadly looked at the door and huffed. This is all worse than she thought. She really hoped that Shiori could fix things and that the sight of her back in the mansion will not make any of this worse but who was she kidding. Suga is going to explode when he finds out that she's coming back.
Suga let out his tears, feeling weak as he felt the substance roll down his cheeks like an endless waterfall. He wasn't crying for anything specific. A part of him was relieved that he was crying, that he didn't turn into a hollow husk with only voices swarming around inside of him. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was seven at night. Surely Sakuma has gone home by now so he was all alone.
The voices continued on but all he wanted was silence. He wanted a second where they didn't call out to him. He opened one of the drawers in the bedside table and took out a pair of tweezers. If he jammed these inside of his ear and pulled out his eardrum would he still be able to hear the voices. He thought about this for sometime, the voices seemed to dare him to do it inside his head chanting the word 'yes' like a mantra. He inspected the tweezers for a while before quickly putting them back in the drawer.
Suga walked over to his window that looked upon the forest and with all that he could muster he glared at it which caused the voices to shriek in terror. Suga couldn't help but bitterly smile at this as he layed down on his bed and closed his eyes.
What a scary scary guy he was. He was so scary that sometimes he even scared himself.