CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

“MOM? WHAT DID YOU DO?” Fujio rushed into the kitchen, with his backpack still on. He stormed in with a somewhat angry and somewhat worried expression, and then immediately froze when he saw what was going on.

His younger sister and Hikari were playing cards on the dining table, and their mom was cooking something at the stove. Fujio’s eyes went wide, and he nearly passed out. His cheeks were turning red rapidly, and he had no idea what to do.

Eventually he regained the ability to function and scurried into his room. He slammed the door and stood there taking deep breaths to calm down. He wanted to scream and blow himself up.

“How am I THIS STUPID! YOU IDIOT! YOU SHOULD CHECK THE SHOES AT THE HOUSE! YOU --” Although he was only thinking this, he stopped himself before he said something that he wouldn’t want to say out loud.

He sat down on the ground and tried to think of a battle plan. After some thinking he thought of texting Eiichiro. He couldn’t hear any footsteps, and the voices didn’t seem to be moving from the direction of the kitchen so he hoped he would have some time to recover from this.

“Yo, Eiichiro, I need help bro” sent at 3:51pm

“Sure, what do you need?” sent at 3:57pm

“So basically, I ran in my house to confront my mom about that thing, and then Hikari was sitting there! I got scared and ran away to my room...” sent at 3:57pm

“Bro... You're an idiot lol” sent at 3:59pm

“Shut up! I’m still in my room. How do I recover?” sent at 4:00pm

“Your hopeless there’s literally nothing that can save you rn, so just suck it up and act like nothing happened” sent at 4:05pm

“Bruh ok, thanks I guess” sent at 4:05pm

He decided to put his backpack down and try to go back downstairs. He slowly opened his door and creeped downstairs very slowly. He tried to walk into the kitchen as if nothing happened, but as he appeared his sister started giggling, which made Hikari start giggling too.

The kitchen air felt heavier. He could smell watermelon, probably something his sister ate earlier as a snack. He also noticed that the fan for the stove was on, and there were dirty plates in the sink.

Noticing that his mom wasn’t in the room anymore, he accepted the fact that he would never recover from this and sat down at the dining table.

“H-hi...” Fujio tried to make conversation; he didn’t address anyone, but it was clear he was talking to Hikari.

“Hey, not sure what that was earlier, but you ready to get started?” Hikari said with a smile that didn’t reek of secret thoughts or fake kindness.

Fujio’s face went bright red.

“W-what! Start what?” He said, clearly flustered.

“Relax genius, it’s nothing that weird. Your mom hired me to tutor you!” She said.

Fujio, for what felt like the millionth time that day, nearly fell out of his chair. He knew his grades weren’t the best, but he didn’t know that his mom was thinking of tutoring, let alone from someone in the same grade.

“I wish she chose a cram school instead.” he slipped out under his breath.

“What was that?” Hikari pretended to not hear but the look in her eyes told Fujio a different story.

“Uh... nothing, anyways, my stuff is in my room” Fujio said while getting up from the table. He thought he was going to just bring his stuff, but Hikari followed him into his room, which made him very nervous.

The entire tutoring session went by well for Hikari, but terribly for Fujio. He could barely focus on anything, just worrying about how he might make a worse impression on Hikari. He managed to get by with no major incidents though.

After the one-hour tutoring session, Hikari packed up her things and left, and Fujio was relieved. He had been running a mental marathon and finally got a break. That’s when he noticed that she left her phone behind. 

THIS IS THE END OF THE CHAPTER
Author's Note: Hello everyone! Thank you again for the support on this novel, it is making me really exited to keep sharing this story with you! I am here to apologize in advance, as my chapter upload schedule will be slowing down. It is taking me a while to write these chapters, because I am bogged down by school. The chapters I have been posting were written before I decided to publish this story here.
Once again, thank you for the support, and please continue enjoying Fujio's story!