Domestic Housemate

The clock on the wall ticked away for several minutes with no other sounds interrupting its beat.

Then, Minato set down the papers he had been handed by Saki, who had long since left to go do work elsewhere. He had read those two pages over and over again, trying his best to get as much information out of them as possible. But for some reason, he kept coming up empty-handed.

The information on the pages read like a character stat sheet from a video game, but only giving information that a government bureaucrat or tax lawyer would find interesting. Well, maybe the generalized health information was interesting to a doctor.

Even the graphs meant nothing to him.

He had lined them up next to each other and desperately looked for a single point of connection between the two.

In the end, there was none.

They did not line up at all. They were not similar in the same stats listed, nor were they the exact opposite.

To Minato, the values listed seemed to have been run through a random number generator and meant absolutely nothing in the end to him.

“AAAAHHHRRGGG!!!”

Frustrated, he crumpled up the papers, and tossed them across the room, where they bounced off the wall softly and fell to the floor nearly silently. Pushing the chair back hard as he stood up, he huffed angrily to himself.

“Like I care if she thinks we’re ‘perfect’ or whatever,” he grabbed his plate of failed breakfast that Mari had prepared for him and stomped his way to the garbage disposal. Turning it sideways, he let the food land with a SLOP into the drain and flipped the switch. With a loud rumble, the machine whirred to life and minced it all away.

“It’s all garbage anyway. Everything that woman says is a lie. No one can be trusted.”

Turning off the switch once all the food was gone, he set the dishes together on the counter and brought up his hands to his chin to think.

“I need to think of a way to get out of this in one piece.,” he spoke aloud his innermost thoughts, “One misstep, and it's all over for me. So, I need to be careful.”

GROWL!

As the gears of his tired brain started to turn, his stomach called out, saying it needed fuel to run that engine.

“First things first. I need actual food.”

Holding his still growling stomach with one hand, he made his way over to the fridge. Opening the door, he crouched down and was surprised by what he found.

“There’s nothing much in here, is there?” He glanced around the interior of the fridge with wandering eyes and found next to nothing inside. There was a pitcher of barley tea, a couple of small vegetables stored in the crisper, and a few other odds and ends. But all of this together was not enough to feed Minato who was famously a light eater.

Shutting the door and turning towards the pile of dishes he had made earlier, he asked aloud, “There must be more elsewhere, right?”

With more haste in his movements, he made his way to what he guessed was the pantry. He was correct, but there was almost less inside than there was in the fridge. And what was left over had since past their expiration date.

“What’s going on? Why is she out of food?” He stood dumbfounded in front of the empty doorway with a strange feeling flooding over him, filling his chest with a tight feeling.

“Did she use everything she had for just breakfast?”

Unsure of what to do now, Minato stood there as his mind raced. She had to have been paid to take in him already, right? An advancement on the payment she was guaranteed by the government. Did she spend it all on expired food? Was she that much of a fool and couldn’t shop for herself? Or was she just unable to tell the difference?

Then some worse thoughts started bubbling up.

Has she been living like this for a while? Scraping what she could together just to get by?

As that thought finished percolating in his head, Minato shook it out vigorously.

“Like I care,” Minato huffed again, furrowing his brow and flaring a nostril in disgust, “She doesn’t actually care about me. So I don’t care about her.”

With that, he slammed the door shut and was going to march his way up the stairs to his room and lock himself in there until a perfect idea came to him. And if eternity came before he did so, then so be it. That would be fine.

But he didn’t make it further than a single step before his stomach growled in protest.

“Great, now I have to go find my own food,” he grumbled, looking up to the sky as he did.

Sighing heavily, he headed towards the front foyer, to change into his shoes, so he could go to the nearest convenience store. As he kicked his slippers off, he was reminded that he still had not been giving his belongings back yet. Standing barefoot on the tiles of the front door, he wanted to kick something in frustration, but decided against it. He was still barefooted, after all.

Looking to the side where a wooden shoe rack was, he checked to see if there were any shoes of any sort he could borrow for a brief moment. There were shoes there, a couple of Mari’s stored there for when she was heading out herself. But comparing the tiny pink shoes to Minato’s feet, he shuddered.

If Minato were to put them on, the seams would burst and the shoes would fall apart before he made it to the sidewalk.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he growled in further frustration as he shoved his feet back into the spare slippers and stomped his way to the door, gritting his teeth as he walked.

But as his fingers tightened around the door knob, his whole body seized. No matter what he tried at that moment, he couldn’t budge an inch further.

His heart beat faster as his breathing became ragged and labored through his nostrils. In a nervous tick, he began to nibble on his bottom lip as he tried to turn his eyes away from the doorknob still locked in his grip. Tearing his sight away finally, all he could find himself doing was staring out the window in the frame of the door while his mind flooded with questions.

Is this OK? I will be fine, right? I know it's different, but I can handle this much, right? It's just the outside.

Out the windowpane was a brightly lit tiny front yard that led out to a street which currently had no one traveling it. If any time would be best now was it.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his nerves and pushed through his struggles and the doorway.

***

DING-DONG! DING-DONG!

The chime of the sliding doors on the convenience store sang at Minato as he stumbled his way in. His chest rose and fell quickly as he braced himself on a nearby ATM near the entrance.

One could say it was quite the uneventful trip down two streets to the market on the corner. Trip totaling around 10 minutes max. But Minato felt this was the most arduous journey he had made in his lifetime.

Being surrounded by new scenery caused his eyes to strain as it quickly tried to take in the details and plan escape routes. Using the satellite map on his phone, which luckily he was able to keep on him before all of his belongings were taken from him, he wandered his way down the straight line street, sweeping hard to avoid oncoming people as they also walked down the same street.

He was out in public, and as such, he had to watch his every move. It wasn’t safe for him. Though Minato could not put it into words, he felt all the passersby eyes on him like laser dots, judging him all the while. And he desperately wanted to get as far away as possible immediately.

Keeping his distance as long as best he could was a lot of effort, and waiting for people to pass in their slow, carefree way ate away at much of Minato’s time.

In the end, the stress of the whole ordeal was enough to almost cause him to lose his yet to happen breakfast. Almost that is.

But his mental fortitude was enough to keep him going. That and an empty stomach that kept awkwardly growling loudly whenever someone was within earshot of him. Thus causing him even more stress as he tried to escape his predicament.

With sweat dripping down his brow on such a cool spring day, he readied himself to do his shopping by easing the shaking in his knees.

“Success” he barely was able to get out of his dry throat.

“Welcome to Dawson’s!” instantly came a set of voices from further into the store just as the sliding doors closed behind him, causing Minato to almost drop into the fetal position out of terror. But his grip on the money machine kept him falling down, luckily.

It took him a minute to remember that that was standard practice in any convenience store, to welcome their customers warmly and treat them with respect in order to earn repeat business.

But it took longer than it should have for him to realize that, as his mind was still processing his trip up that point still. Holding a hand to his chest, he steadied his breathing and heart and prepared to do his shopping.

Fortunately for him, almost every convenience store in the country was stocked almost exactly the same from location to location, so it took him almost no time to find all that he was buying.

With a blue plastic hand basket filled with instant ramen cups, some drinks, and a few other odds and ends, he made his way to the checkout counter. Setting the basket down, he did his best to not look at the guy on the other side. But after a few moments of nothing happening, Minato could not help but look at him with confusion and frustration.

Opposite him in the work uniform of a blue and white checkered polo shirt was a younger guy. He was probably just in high school, judging by how short he was compared to Minato, who was just at average height. On his quickly rising and falling chest was a name tag which read ‘Haruto’. He stood there, scan gun in hand, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, like a fish. Or maybe someone trying to speak, but couldn’t, judging by how hard they were breathing.

And he did seem to be ever so slightly hyperventilating.

Though he didn’t want to, Minato looked at the guy’s eyes, or rather just one of them, as beneath the blue ball cap they were forced to wear was the guy’s black bangs sweeping over one of his eyes. The other one though was wide, almost in a terrified look as his face fell flush like he was about to be sick.

“Wel-Wel-Wel-” he repeated multiple times, never saying a real word as he spoke in a squeaky voice in an octave that a post puberty boy shouldn’t normally be able to reach.

Out of concern for his purchase, Minato carefully reached out and grabbed the basket while taking a step back.

“I’m open over here, sir,” came another voice to the side. At the next checkout desk was another employee, this one a taller, pudgier guy with eyes squinted shut with a smile, waving for Minato to join him over there.

Carefully, Minato stepped to the side while keeping an eye on the unmoving clerk, who continued to repeat the same syllable over and over again. “What a weirdo…” he muttered to himself as he laid the basket on the counter to check out.

“Oh that’s Haruto,” the clerk, whose name tag read ‘Junpei’, laughed at Minato’s comment while starting to ring up his basket, “He’s an odd one. But he’s a hard worker. When he isn’t having a panic attack, that is.”

“Right…” Minato muttered as he kept watching the strange employee out of the corner of his eye.

“Before I finish ringing this up, would you like to add anything else to this order?”

Minato was about to wave him off to just finish his job when something caught his eye. Just past the counter was a rack of magazines. Sitting directly in his line of sight, and slightly extra illuminated by a stray sunbeam peaking through the windows, was the newest copy of the top weekly manga magazine.

Though the action duo on the cover were not ones from a series he cared for, it was something that pulled at his attention. Usually he found out about the top upcoming anime from magazines like that, and it had been a while since he got the last copy.

Plus it seemed like there was nothing for him to do at home, this would be a good distraction for at least a couple of hours.

Sure, why not? He shrugged to himself and grabbed the copy and brought it back to the clerk to scan.

“That will be 2855, sir.”

“I guess I did splurge a little?” Minato mumbled to himself as he got out his phone that had his pay card in its case and pressed it on the scanner.

But as he did it, a buzzer sound came out of the machine rather than its normal positive chime. Scared, Minato jumped back a bit while the clerk checked his computer to see what the problem was.

“There seems to be an issue, sir.”

What? He questioned in his mind, I should be fine for at least a couple of years when it comes to money…

The clerk turned the monitor to him and pointed, “I’ve never seen this before, but it says I can’t sell you the manga. Weird.”

“Huh?” Minato gurgled in confusion as he leaned over more to better look at the screen. An error message had appeared reading, “By law, this item cannot be sold to this customer”. Other information was provided, like how to contact the AWRP for further help.

Minato could feel something snap in his head, like a rope snapping.

But this would be a bad place to lose his cool, so instead he bit into his lower lip to keep from screaming.

“Just remove the item.”

“Huh?” The clerk asked, but as soon as he saw the near bloodshot eyes of Minato straining to keep his emotions under control, he quickly went to work to fix the problem. “Yes, sir. Right away!”

After receiving the new total and finally being able to play, he readied the bags of his purchase while holding his throbbing head in one hand, sighing heavily. “That woman has gotten her fingers on every part of my life, hasn’t she?”

But before he could prepare himself fully for his trek back to Mari’s house, the clerk spoke up.

“Hey, sir, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know something that might cheer you up.”

Minato did not want to entertain the conversation further. His social gauge was running low, and he still had a few minutes walking in public left to make. But against his best judgment, he decided to give anything a shot to try and cheer up his mood.

As he began to raise his eyes up at the clerk once more, a phone screen was suddenly thrust right before his eyes. The surprise was enough to cause him to slightly lose his balance and step back in freight.

After a few seconds, his vision was able to focus on what was being shown to him. Hard to see clearly from how close it was to his face at the time, but now he could see that it was a picture. One of a girl, hard to gauge the age of her as she was fairly plastered with a spray-on tan and dressed in bright and flashy clothing. Her hair was dyed blonde and quite poofier than anyone’s hair had any right to be.

A Gal? Minato wondered what part of that was supposed to cheer him up.

But not only that, he was wondering why she was looking so upset in the image. And with an arm raised like she was about to punch someone in front of her, and was slightly blurry as if the picture was taken while she was chasing after him.

“That’s Hina-tan,” the clerk began to gush forth a stream of worrisome statements, “She’s my new girlfriend. Though she doesn’t like me calling her that. We just moved in with each other, and it has been bliss ever since. I’ve been showing her to everyone I meet. Isn’t she the best girl on the face of this Earth?”

“Uh, congrats?” Minato did his best to defuse the situation. Normally he just wanted conversations to end, but this was the first time he wanted it for the safety of another. While he slipped out from the convenience store, the clerk kept prattling on about how absolutely beautiful this poor girl was.

As soon as the doors of the store slid close behind him, he whipped his phone out, preparing to call the police. In his head, he readied what he was going to tell him.

“Yes, hello? I think I have found a stalker?”

The longer he thought about it, he wondered if it was his place to make such a call. Or even if he could handle talking to another person today. He was spent, after all.

So silently he put his hands together and prayed for the safety of that Gal.

She does look pretty capable of taking care of herself from that photo…

***

After arriving back at Mari’s home, mentally drained from his relatively short trip and back, Minato once again attempted to trade his slippers he wore all the way to the store and back for his personal pair. All the while forgetting that he was already wearing his “personal pair”.

Frustrated by how poorly his life was going up to this point, Minato made his morning cup of ramen, grumbling to himself all the while it was cooking. As the timer dinged, letting him know it was ready to eat, he picked up the cup and carried it from the kitchen area into the dining area.

This area was attached in an open concept way to the living room, so before he sat at the table to eat, he caught sight of the T.V. sitting in the entertainment stand along the far wall of the room. It was normal for him to watch something while he ate and was wanting to do so at this moment too.

Grabbing the remote, he turned on the screen and flipped through the channels to find something entertaining.

News channel. Next. Game show. Next. Talk show. Next. Advertisements. Next.

Then Minato’s finger froze. He knew what the next channel was. Normally at this time of the day it was devoted to children’s programming. And almost all the shows on that channel would be… anime.

It wouldn’t be much. Not even a show he would give the time of day, as he was nowhere to the target demographic of the show. But it would be better than nothing, right?

Even if it was something small like this, it would be nice to return to some sense of normalcy. With a small smile peeking its way through his lips, he clicked the next button.

And technically what he saw next could be considered anime, to some.

On the screen was a chibi cartoon figure dressed in a business suit and her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was standing there wagging her finger while a voice clip played on repeat incessantly, “No No No”.

Above her were the words, “This isn’t for you, Minato-chan!” and below her, “Go outside and play!”

“She’s friggin’ everywhere!”

Unknowingly, Minato began to crush the cup noodles while he strained himself from trying not to punch a whole through the T.V. screen. It was not his after all, but if it was, there would be no holding him back at this point.

It wasn’t until the hot noodles started to begin cooking his palm did he notice the mess he was making. He wasn’t one for cleaning too deeply, but something about this was bugging him greatly. Maybe it was the fact the food could mold if left unchecked, or something else like that.

Regardless, he couldn’t leave the mess there. So sighing with further frustration, he made his way to the closet he guessed would most likely hold the cleaning supplies. As his fingers wrapped around the door handle, a sense of dread washed over him, one he couldn’t place at the time, but later wished he had heeded.

As he opened the door, an avalanche of miscellaneous items came rushing out like a wave and sweeping him into the middle of the room.

“What the heck is all of this…!?” He gasped as he finally came to a stop with his legs covered in a pile of dirty clothes and shoes, random knick-knacks, and even bags of garbage that spilled out of the closet. First, he was concerned as to why it was all piled up in there. Then he began to wonder how it had all fit in such a small space.

“Why was she storing all of this in here?”

Something was off, Minato just couldn’t put his finger on it. Was she keeping all of it here for a while, or had she just recently-

Right as he thought of it, he remembered all the banging and yelling that happened before he arrived at her house.

“Did… Did she hide all of this the night before?”

A sense of disgust flowed over Minato. How could she live in such filth and then try to hide it, so she could look better than she actually was. How hypocritical could she be?

Frustrated, Minato stood up and dusted himself off, glared at the mess at his feet. He wanted to leave it as it was. A sign of the actual woman Mari truly was. Maybe he could use this as an excuse to have him leave her and go back to his own home? Not likely, but well worth the try.

But there was something going on with him. Words could not explain it, but without reason he began to pick up the pieces strewn about on the floor. Sorting them and preparing to organize them across the home appropriately.

For some reason, Minato couldn’t stop himself. But he wasn’t really trying to. It was coming naturally to him. His hand moved on their own, and the frustration wasn’t that it had happened, but that Mari had let it get this far without doing something about it sooner.

Slowly but surely, the mess disappeared and was replaced with a clean feeling filling the room. Even though there were now baskets of clothes needing to be washed, Minato only sighed. One of pride in his work.

Gathering the clothes into the washroom to wash them, he separated the loads into lights and darks and like items to make the washing easy and prevent damage to the clothes in the wash. He even considered adding his own clothes to the wash, but realized that he did not have any to wash other than the clothes he was wearing at that moment.

Another wave of frustration rushed over him, but it subsided quickly as he closed the door to the washing machine and turned it on to run.

Returning to the living room once more, he stood there with wrists on his hips, trying to figure out what to do with his time. He still wanted to watch some anime but as that was not an option, his eyes darted about to find something to entertain his mind. After some time, they did find something that caught his attention.

Put simply, everything had a thin layer of dust on it. Or, at least, everything that wasn’t used often enough. The coffee table in the living room was the first thing he noticed to be dusty, running his finger over it, leaving a clean trail in its wake.

Exasperated by the look of the line his finger had made in the dust, he grabbed a rag he found in the kitchen and began dusting everything in sight. It took not much time to finish everything in the room, and so he stood over his handiwork with pride in his accomplishment.

By that point, the laundry was slowly becoming done in the wash. Removing it from the machine, he took it to the backyard where he found the clothesline out in the bright sunlight. Though the constant up and down was murder on his unused back, it took him little time to have all the clothes from the wash on the line. A small smile spread over his lips as he admired the articles of clothing flapping in the softly flowing winds.

That was until he realized what the last few had been. Directly in front of his face was a small pair of white panties with a bit of frills along the waistband and a tiny pink bow in the center top of it. Looking down the line, there were other undergarments, bras included, of Mari’s swaying gently in the open air.

Face turning bright red, Minato hurried his way back into the house.

Quickly, he needed something to take his mind off of what was still waving in the breeze in his mind. Rushing to the small broom closet in the kitchen, he grabbed a bucket and a rag and began a mad dash around the ground floor cleaning every wooden surface as he raced about, screaming internally as he went.

It didn’t take much time for him to finally complete the cleaning of the whole house. In fact, he had just barely missed lunch, which conveniently was another cup of ramen. But as he tossed his cup into the now full trash, he collected up the bag and took it out to the collection zone, just barely outside of Mari’s fence.

Returning inside to the safety of the house, he realized that there was nothing more for him to do. He didn’t want to watch T.V., as there was still nothing he wanted to watch that wasn’t blocked by Saki. But that left nothing for him to do until Mari came home.

If he was at his house, he could watch a show he had on DVD or maybe play a game on one of his game consoles. But as he was still not at his home, those were not an option. And in his initial search, he did not find any video games of any sort in the house, which made Minato feel a bit uncomfortable. Like, who doesn’t have any video games in this day and age?

As he had made laps around the house, he didn’t find many things to entertain himself in the house, excluding some electronics like the T.V., some playing cards he found, and Mari’s work laptop station, which the laptop itself had been taken with her as she went to work.

Looking at the clock and guessing he had several hours to entertain himself, Minato wondered what he would do. Aimlessly, his feet began to search the house.

“Hmm, what’s this?”

After having opened some doors and a few drawers, Minato came across some things, items that together started to paint a different picture of Mari. Though they were considered normal to some, together they started to make him feel a bit off.

A feeling that he couldn't pin down was starting to wash over him. And once again, that frustrated him.

Now he needed Mari to return soon.

***

Hours had passed. Many more than someone who worked a normal desk job would normally take to get home.

The sun had long since set, and the chill of the night descended on the house. Minato had been sitting at the kitchen table for several hours at this point, anxiously waiting for Mari’s return, which seemed to be more fabled than reality as the clock continued to tick behind him.

Minato was used to being left alone, but this was the most infuriated he had ever been at the realization of it. Furiously, he rose from his seat and slammed both hands on the table and roared in complete rage.

“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE!?”

Right as he finished his short tirade, a loud thud was heard coming from the doorway, which caused him to jump a little in surprise. Confused as to what it could be, he hurried his way to the front foyer.

Laying in a heap on the floor was a disheveled version of a woman loosely dressed in office clothes. The pink bow on her head had drooped down, tired and unable to stay upright. The putrid stench of booze and sweat emanated off of her and stung Minato’s nose, causing him to reel back in disgust.

“I am so tired. That took forever. Who knew they could go on for so long? My body is so sore I can’t even stand up anymore,” silently moaned Mari as she slowly slipped her black heels off and set them to the side.

Minato’s first reaction to seeing Mari collapsed on the floor was to help her up, but that feeling quickly left him as he got his mind straightened back out again.

“You’re home quite late, aren’t you?”

“Hehe, yeah, you are right,” Mari laughed weakly to herself trying to raise her head up and face Minato but kept falling back down, like she was about to fall asleep where she sat, “They wouldn’t stop. I just couldn’t break away from it all. Hehe…”

Finally, she was able to look up far enough and focus her eyes long enough to see who she had been talking to. Eyes springing open wide, her rosy face reddened from embarrassment at her sudden realization.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times as if she wanted to speak but was unable to make a sound. Before she could say anything, her eyes darted down at her body, seeing her clothes wrinkled and buttons done up wrong. With quick hands, she wrapped her arms around herself, preventing Minato from seeing much more of her.

“Minato, I am so sorry!” She apologized repeatedly, bowing her head and attempted to stand but was unable to get further than one knee up. “I promised to be home as soon as I could, but… but… One thing led to another and I’m… I am just so sorry…”

Minato clenched his shaking fists. He didn’t know what to do, but he wanted to do something with those hands. Maybe it would be to smack her, maybe it would be to push her out-of-the-way, so he could make it to the exit?

Could it be to hold her?

Before he could think further on the subject, he tucked them into his sides as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the wall next to him.

“I made some dinner,” he said flatly, keeping his emotions in check and going for a killing blow back at her, “Nothing special, some chicken and a salad.”

Mari’s eyes were watering in the corners, “Oh Minato, you did that for me? Wait! Where did you get the food from?” Her brows shot up in confusion. She clearly knew she was out of food from the start.

“Picked it up at the convenience store down the street while I was out trying to get lunch for myself,” he scoffed, refusing to look her in the eyes. His head was turned to the side. Part of it was disgust at the sight of Mari. The other was her blouse left opened awkwardly at the top, letting her chest spill out a bit. If he couldn’t look her in the eyes, he would probably be staring there, and that would nullify that fact that he was mad at her in her eyes.

Best not give her any ammo at this point…

“Wow…” she sighed, head lowering as she spoke, her voice going softer and near silent, “You were able to go out on your own. And it was because I was an awful Host to you. I am sorry you are having to deal with me.”

The bridge of Minato’s nose wrinkled in disgust at those words. His teeth gritted as he pushed his weight off the wall, “If you are going to talk like that, either bow your head down all the way. Or better yet, stand tall with pride in what you have done.” Without thinking, he tools steps towards her.

He was going to pull her upright and straighten her out, he couldn’t stand the sight of her in that state. She looked too lowly, and though he had only known her for a few hours at this point, he couldn’t stand to see her so pitiful.

“Fix yourself, you look terrible,” he bent down to get closer to her, his eyes still furrowed, but his voice was even as he could, trying not to scare her further into the ground, “Don’t talk to me while you look like a mess. Have some respect for me and yourself.”

Her collar was a wreck, all bent out of shape. That was going to be the first thing he would fix for her. Maybe even get her hair pulled back right into her bow.

But as his fingers came within inches of her, Minato felt a pain erupt on the side of his hand.

Mari’s eyes had since gone wide as she noticed him reaching out to touch her body. With a gasp, she fell backward trying to escape and not being able to move fast enough, she swung her arm quickly, striking Minato’s hand away from her.

Time froze. Both of them stared at their hand still held in the air for a moment, unmoving. Minato wanted to speak up, to say, “What was that all about?” but before he could even open his mouth, Mari rose quickly and slipped past him to the staircase.

“Sorry, Minato, I just can’t now. Not tonight. Not with you.” She spoke in such a weird way to Minato, who was still in shock from her smacking his hand.

“Huh!?”

“I’m sorry, Minato,” she kept saying on repeat as she stopped halfway up the staircase, still keeping her eyes towards her feet. Though Minato was not sure, he could have sworn he saw drips of tears fall from her face. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Lightning fast, she started to make her way up the stairs again, heading towards her room.

“Hey wait!” Minato sprung to his feet and began to ascend the stairs behind her, “Hey! I want to talk. Listen! I’ve got questions for you.”

Mari stopped and as she did, Minato instinctively stopped as well, keeping his distance from her. She turned, ever so slightly, looking back over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her cheeks raised from a smile. Her makeup was smeared by the streams of tears that had run down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Minato, not tonight, OK?” She spoke so softly, her voice trembling with each syllable, “Maybe tomorrow?”

Before he could answer, Mari was gone in an instant with a slamming of her door at the end of the hall.

And with that the tense air fell silent, leaving Minato alone to hold his hand, which was turning red from being hit. He glanced down at it while flexing the knuckles. After several moments, he looked back up the staircase again.

“What… was her problem?”