Chapter 12

The fall trimester starts in two days. Akari, Carsten, and Ai all got back earlier today. Akari, my mom, and Daisuke are helping me move. It might seem like a lot of help for moving into a dorm room, but I can't really do any of the carrying. I could have asked Carsten and Ai to help too, but that would probably be overkill and I imagine they want to be alone since they are reuniting after so long.

Me, Daisuke, and my mom are in my room boxing up some things I want to bring to my dorm.

My mom and Daisuke are dealing with the books, while I'm getting clothes and décor I want to bring with me.

My mom just finished packing a box and says, "Goodness. You sure want to bring a lot of books." She laughs, "Your father would be proud."

I laugh, "Well you know, it is school, mom. Books are kind of important."

She smirks at me, "Excuse me, little girl. Was that a shot at your mother?"

"I dunno, was it? How many books did you have in your Yamaku dorm room?"

Daisuke does his best to suppress a laugh, but my mom still glares at him and crosses her arms.

"Okay, I get it, you two. I wasn't the most industrious student at Yamaku, it's true. But I managed to do enough to graduate and get into a university, where I was far more studious. So cut me a little slack. Otherwise, Daisuke is going to be tasked with packing and carrying all the books."

We both laugh at her. I pat her on the shoulders. "I'm just teasing you, mom. You're every bit as smart as all us nerds."

She sticks her tongue out at me and says, "You got that right."

—-

We park in the Yamaku faculty lot, where Akari is waiting with a big smile on her face. When I get out of the car, she hugs me very gently despite being incredibly excited. I guess she took my mom's 'training' to heart.

"I'm g-glad I'm back, and I'm r-really glad you're going to be my neighbor."

I pat her on the head and say "Me too."

When Daisuke gets out of the car, she looks at him a little nervously, and at first, I don't know why. Then I realize that between me asking for space from Daisuke and Akari staying away from our lunches, they haven't formally met. Although they were both there last time I dislocated my elbow.

"Akari, this is Daisuke. Daisuke, this is Akari."

"H-hi D-daisuke, it's nice to m-me-"

Daisuke hugs Akari, rendering her silent and he says, "Thanks for being such a good friend to her." I guess he figured out that she really helped me through stuff when I was getting over him.

"N-no p-problem."

My mother is starting to get impatient. "So, are we going to stand around here talking and hugging all afternoon, or are we going to move Kayoko?" While she tries to play it off as a joke, she sounds genuinely irritated. My mom gets a little scary when she's irritated.

It's enough for Akari and Daisuke to immediately get to work. The three of them each get a box, and I lead the way, opening doors for them. Unfortunately, this is the most I can do. I can unpack the boxes once they are in my room, but I can't carry them very safely.

Once we've gotten everything up to the room, which takes three trips, we all take a rest. Me, my mom, and Akari sit down on the bed, while Daisuke sits at the desk.

My mom seems to be testing how comfortable the bed is by bouncing up and down a little bit. Then she says, "You know, you all are lucky these new dorm halls are so much more spacious. Back in my day the rooms were about half this size, the beds were tiny even for me and we had to use communal showers."

I quip, "Man, the 1950s sound like they were really hard." Akari and Daisuke both burst out laughing.

This earns me a hard poke in the ribs, "You sure are enjoying teasing your mother today, aren't you?"

I wrap my arms around my mom, surprising her somewhat. "I'm gonna miss you, mom. I guess I'm just making fun of you to cope."

My mom removes her finger from my ribs and hugs me back, "I'll miss you too sweetie. I'm sorry if I've been a bit…irritable today. I think that's how I've been coping. But we'll still see each other a lot. I'm glad you're doing this."

She looks at Daisuke and Akari and says, "Can you two give us a minute?" The two of them step out into the hall, and I think even hear Akari invite Daisuke into her room. That's impressive for her.

Once they're gone, my mom stands up and opens the box that has my bedding in it and pulls out something soft and fluffy and says,

"I snuck this into this box. Do you know what this is?"

I nod, "I-It's one of the capybaras that dad got you when you were still dating."

She smiles and briefly hugs it to her chest before holding it out to me, "That's right. I wanted you to have this one."

This surprises me because she wouldn't even let me play with them when I was little. I got my own capybara at the zoo, but I never liked it as much as the two she wouldn't let me have.

"A-are you sure?"

She nods, and she gets choked up. "I'm sure. I thought it would be…a n-nice way to have both me and your d-dad here with you. And I have the other one at home. S-so when we get in bed at night, even though we're not together, we c-can think of each other." She's crying softly now.

It's really sappy and even kind of silly, but I know the gesture means a lot. And I know we're really going to miss each other. So that's okay.

I take the capybara and hug it, and I start crying too. After we both cry for a bit, my mom pulls herself together and says,

"Hey, you're getting him all wet with your tears. I know real capybaras like the water, but these don't do so well with it."

I laugh, "Thank you mom. Remember to call me if you need me, okay?"

She nods, "I will. You do the same. Now, I should get going. You have fun with your friends."

We hug again, and my mom leaves. It's a little bit scary. I've never lived somewhere without her. But…it's also exciting.

I wipe away my tears, cross the hallway and knock on Akari's door. She answers and I see Daisuke sitting at her desk. He looks very out of place in the pink nightmare that is Akari's room.

"Daisuke, you're free to go." I laugh. "Thank you for your help. Tell Kaito I said hi."

He gets up and hugs me and says "I'm glad you'll be living here. It was nice to meet you, Akari. I hope to see more of you."

She nods and Daisuke leaves.

"Well, do you want to help me unpack?"

She nods enthusiastically, and we go about really making it into my dorm room.

—-

We finished unpacking, and then ordered some food with some extra money my mom gave me for that purpose. We just finished eating, and I'm looking around the room with pride. It feels like home.

Akari is admiring the capybara on the bed, and she asks, "This is really c-cute but…what is it? It is from a m-manga?"

I laugh, "Nope. That's a real animal, believe it or not. A capybara. My mom really likes them. My dad gave it to her. And she gave it to me today."

Akari smiles, "That's really nice." She wrings her hands for a moment. "If you ever m-miss him and want t-to talk about it, l-let me know."

I guess I haven't really told her much about that whole situation. She knows he passed away, but that's about it. Me and my mom have mostly had each other for those moments, but since I won't be at home anymore, I probably will need to talk to Akari about it at some point.

I smile, "Okay, I will let you know. I am sure it will happen at some point, so thank you."

She smiles and nods at me.

"So… I was thinking of maybe hanging out with Ai and Carsten tomorrow. I thought I would invite them to see my room. They have stopped being so…handsy in public. How are you feeling about that situation?"

"I think I'm okay. I thought I would be back at l-lunches."

"Do you want to try to feel things out tomorrow? You can always escape to your room if it isn't going well."

She thinks for a moment and then smiles, "Yeah, that's probably a g-good idea. I hope it goes well. I'd like to be friends with them."

—-

The next morning, I get up and decide to take a shower. There is one that I share with Akari and two other girls, and the other two girls aren't back yet, so I thought I would take advantage. This building is new, so the shower is surprisingly nice. It has great water pressure and is quite large. I grimace when imagining having to use a communal shower like my mom mentioned yesterday. While this one is communal, we can lock the door when we're inside, so we don't have to worry about anything awkward.

After I finish taking my shower, I open the door and grab my towel. When I go to get out of the shower, I slip and fall forward, landing on my chest and right elbow. I wince, expecting the worst. The impact hurts my breasts, but the fact I can even feel pain that minor means I didn't dislocate anything. It's a good thing too, because I locked the door and would have been stuck in here completely naked. I would have had to call for help and then wait for the dorm keeper to come and open the door. That would have really sucked on the first morning I'm here.

I'm still not completely out of the woods yet, either. I need to carefully get myself up without falling. I take things very slowly and manage to get upright. I wrap myself in my first towel and wrap another one around my hair. Then I hear a knock on the bathroom door. It startles me so much I'm surprised I don't fall again.

"K-kayoko? Are you okay? I th-thought I heard s-something."

I open the door with a frown on my face to find a very concerned and sleepy-looking Akari wearing bright pink pajamas.

"Yeah, I fell. Somehow, I didn't get hurt though. Thanks for checking on me."

"Oh…that's g-good."

When I walk into my room, I realize I'm more than a little bit shaken. My legs are wobbly. I have to sit down on my bed the moment I'm close enough. I feel tears starting to well up inside of me. I didn't even know I was this upset. I guess now that the moment has really passed, I'm processing things.

Akari sees this and follows me in and closes the door.

I can't do this.

"A-are you sure you're okay?"

I can't do this.

"Yeah I'm not…hurt. B-but that was scary."

I can't do this.

"It f-feels like that was a warning. I need to be more careful."

I can't do this.

Akari sits down next to me on the bed. I turn to her while a few tears fall down my cheeks. My chest hurts a little, every muscle in my body is tense, and I'm somehow out of breath.

I can't do this.

"I've n-never been alone when I got hurt. My mom, or dad, or s-someone has always been there. I guess I just r-realized how scary that would b-be."

I can't do this.

Akari sees how upset I am and hugs me. I feel a bit awkward about it at first since I have nothing but a towel on, and I can see she feels awkward about it too. But then she settles into the hug, and I do too.

I can't do this.

Then she says, "W-well, at least it was j-just a warning. We should think of how to make it safer."

She's right. I need to channel my energy towards that right now or I might really freak out. I'm on the verge of completely unraveling and asking my mom to come get me.

I take a deep breath and think through everything. "I g-guess I can't lock the door. And I should m-make sure you're here and awake every time, if that's okay."

I can do this.

Akari smiles, "Y-yeah of course. I will be on shower duty."

I can do this.

"Hmm…should get some bathmats to put down to make it less slick too."

I can do this.

Akari nods. "I b-bet your mom can bring s-some s-soon."

I can do this.

"I just need to be more cautious too, especially because I don't have my braces on for the shower. I normally am very intentional with how I move, but this shower is new to me, and I need to learn the best way for me to get in and out of it."

I can do this.

Akari says, "Yeah, maybe we should do some practice?"

I can do this.

I exhale and finally feel my body relax. I hug Akari tighter.

"Thank you so much for this, Akari. I was…really, really scared for a minute there. Like, on the verge of a panic attack, I think. You reeled me back in."

She lets go of me and smiles up at me. "Yeah, I thought so. I-I've b-been there. I'm glad you feel better."

She gets up and heads towards the door and smiles sort of bashfully. I guess because of our more intimate than normal hug. She says, "I'll l-let you get dressed now."

—-

"You girls sure like to decorate your dorm rooms, don't you?"

Carsten and Ai have just stepped in to see my dorm room.

Ai laughs at Carsten's silly statement, "Yeah, sorry we don't just leave the walls barren. We like to have a little bit of character in our rooms."

Ai rolls herself towards me while rolling her eyes at her boyfriend. She looks up at me and says, "Hey can you um…sit down, or bend over? I want to hug you, and don't just want to hug your crotch." She giggles. "Might get a little weird."

I feel a little flustered by her request but I sit down on my bed and we hug each other.

"Thank you for your help over the break."

"You're welcome. I'm glad I helped."

Just as we finish hugging, I hear Akari's door open and she somewhat gingerly steps into my room and she says, "H-hey everyone."

Carsten, who is examining some of my books, turns around and says, "Hey Akari, it's been a while." He approaches her and gives her a quick hug, which she returns.

"Y-yeah, the end of l-last trimester w-was rough. B-but you should see more of me n-now. I'll b-be at lunch."

Luckily, I filled her in on the lie I used to explain her absence.

Ai smiles and says, "Hey, that's great. I haven't really gotten to know you, and I've heard good stuff about you, so I'm excited."

I see Akari's face falter ever so slightly, with a tiny glimpse of what might have been anger. But I think I'm the only one who noticed. Then she smiles and says, "Y-yeah. I want to get to know you too."

Carsten says, "Well, we should probably get to bed. Gotta get some good rest before we start school again tomorrow."

The way he phrased this makes me want to ask a few questions, but I manage to keep them to myself. I look at Akari, who has a fake smile plastered to her face. She must be wondering the same thing.

Ai says, "Yep, we'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well you two."

"Okay, see you later."

Akari adds, "Y-yeah, s-sleep well."

Carsten and Ai leave, and once we hear them get in the elevator, Akari closes the door and exhales before looking at me with a sad expression. I guess she still isn't completely over Carsten.

"D-do you think th-they are s-sleeping together?"

"I don't know for sure. But…probably? Many couples our age do, and based on how physical they are, and what they just said…"

She sits down on my bed, and looks down at the ground, defeated. "Wh-why am I like this? I do f-fine when I stay away…but when he h-hugged me I w-wanted him to h-hold me longer. I w-wanted him to kiss m-me."

Her face contorts into one of disgust and anguish as she hugs herself with her arms. "And…and…and I don't want them to…to b-be having…s-sex."

I sit down next to her. She's tried so hard to get over him. It just isn't working. I say, "Well…you must really love him."

These words cause her to start crying softly. I hug her and say, "I wish I could do something, Akari. This sucks for you. I won't have them over here again."

She dries her tears and pushes me away softly. "No."

"No?"

"I…I can do this. I'm g-going to be at lunch, I'm g-going to spend time with them. Distance isn't working. M-maybe I just h-have to get used t-to them. M-maybe seeing them together a-all the t-time…it will get through to me. F-fake it until I make it."

I nod, "Okay. You're right. It's worth trying."

She nods with a determined grin, "Plus, I want to have lunch with you."

I smile, "Yeah, I would like that, and honestly I think they would too. You can always vent to me about it, of course."

"Yeah…I am sure I will need to."

She stands up and heads towards the door. "Okay, goodnight. See you tomorrow."

"'Night Akari."