The Collection - Chapter 11
Yuuko woke up hungry. The man hadn’t come back last night for dinner (or what she thought was dinner since it came some time before the lights were out.) She was starting to worry in spite of the other women’s assurance that sometimes this happened and that he always came back. But what if something had happened to him? What if he was lying in a hospital bed or worse, in a morgue and never came back? If nobody else knew where they were, she and the other women would starve to death. God, please be ok.
She hated wishing well to the man that had taken her away from everything she knew, but what choice did she have?
She heard footsteps. Was it him? It was him. She heard him go in into every room. It was her turn again, last time it had been Takahara, so it was her turn again to be taken.
She heard him leave Takara’s room and she prepared herself. They had all agreed she would try to make him talk again. Shige thought that since she had gotten him to talk to her before, she might succeed again.
She didn’t want to talk to him, but the others had argued that if she could manage to befriend him, he might give her more freedom and she could get the others out or get help.
Yuuko knew that she could act all sweet and cute so that most people did what she wanted. God knew she’d done it before to her boyfriends, her friends… her mom. The door opened and the man came in.
He was wearing the oversized hoodie as usual and all she could see were his lips. He had nice lips, she noticed, full and well shaped. He might be handsome under that hood. And he seemed young, not much older than her. She took a deep breath.
“Is it my turn?” She asked in a small voice as he was starting to leave. The man didn’t answer but he didn’t keep on walking either.
“If… if it is, may I ask you for something?” He is still giving his back to her but he turns his head a little. He was listening. Yuuko hadn’t planned what to say, she hadn’t really believed he would talk to her again. What? What could she ask? Then it came to her.
“When you tie my hair. Could you not do it so tight? The pins hurt and I have to loosen them and I end up messing my hair.”
He turned around and set his head to the side. After a few seconds he nodded once and left.
Yuuko let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“So?” came the voice of Takahara after the man footsteps disappeared.
“He didn’t answer. But he did listen and nodded.” She answered after going to the hole connecting the rooms.
“I think that’s still good.” Said Takara. “Why did you ask him that?”
“Well, first of all I couldn’t very well ask him to let me go right away. It’s better if I start small. With some people it’s better to start small and get their trust little by little and then get what you want.”
Wow, the little brat knew what she was doing, thought Takara.
“Yeah, I know” said Yuuko, as if reading the other girl’s mind. “I sound a little like a manipulative bitch, but I’m really not that bad, I swear.”
“I never thought of you as a bitch.” Takara said.
“Brat, then.”
Takara smiled, honestly was the girl reading her mind?
“Ok, maybe a bit. But I don’t think you’re bad at all.”
“And second of all?” prompted Takara.
“Oh, it really does hurt when he puts up my hair with those pins so tight. I guess I might be getting one thing I want.”
Takara laughed. How could she laugh in a situation like this?
“I’m sorry you ended up here, but I’m glad it’s you on that side of the wall Yuuko.”
“I feel the same way.”
And so the days turned into weeks and then turned into months and winter had come. Akane had gotten a job designing clothes. She was actually getting paid for designing clothes. She was working for an online shop that sold customized and rare dolls and she was in charge of designing and sometimes making the clothes. She was still with Tomohisa and even if he sometimes seemed far away and would not see her for days, he did always call to talk, their relationship was getting better. Yes, he was a little peculiar, he never took her to his house, he had this project of which she knew nothing about, but, hell, she was peculiar too so who was she to talk.
Her phone rang, it was him. Even after these months her heart still sped up every time he called.
“Hi” She answered.
“Hi. Where are you? Are you close to my office?”
“Um, yeah, actually. About 15 blocks, I think.”
“You feel like having dinner with me?”
“Always. I’ll be there by the time you get out.”
“Okay, but come inside, it’s supposed to rain today and it’s cold.” Then they said good bye.
It was close to 6 and she entered. She got in the office, she said hello to everybody. There were a few new faces and a few changes in the office. There was something that hadn’t change. Tomohisa was in his office with a girl who was making him sign some papers and showing a lot of legs and even more cleavage.
Wow, huge déjà vu there. He even had that awkward expression she remembered from when she was still in the office. And it was the only thing that stopped her from going in there and starting a good old fashion catfight. Well that and Tomohisa’s huge smile when he saw her. He gave the papers back to the girl with a thank you and even though he was polite he didn’t really give her a second look. And now Akane’s heart was making crazy somersaults. She might need to visit a cardiologist if this kept going, honestly.
He opened the door just as she was getting to it.
“Hi.” He said and gave her a quick but firm kiss. “Come in, just give me 5 minutes and we’ll be off. ”She would have given him anything he asked at that moment so 5 minutes were easy.
It took him a little longer to be ready, so everybody had already left by the time they left his office and went to the elevator.
“Maybe we’ll get locked up again.” She said and then she remembered his panic attack and wanted to kick herself. However, Tomohisa was smiling, and he got closer to her to kiss her.
“I certainly hope not.” said Kimura, who had come after them and had gone unnoticed until then. “You know, Yamashita-kun, I’m still waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Tomohisa asked as Akane frowned.
“My thank you. If I hadn’t sent you to her apartment with the check you would still be mopping around staring at the computer screen.”
“I wasn’t like that… but thank you.” Was he blushing?
“Yeah, thank you.” Akane added lacing her fingers through Tomohisa’s.
“You are both most welcome.” He said with a smile and giving them a mock bow.
The elevator arrived and they got on it. They got off on the ground floor and Kimura said:
“I could make you pay me back by inviting myself to have dinner with the two of you but I have my own date so you are off the hook. BUT I do want to be the best man at your wedding. See you.” And with that he left them. Akane’s jaw hit the floor and when he looked at Tomohisa he wasn’t much better. He did, however, recover before her.
“Come on let’s get out of here. You wanna go somewhere or back to your apartment?”
“Umm, what do you want?” She asked. She wanted to go back to her apartment where it was cozy but she didn’t know how he would feel about that after Kimura’s little comment.
He looked outside and it was pouring rain.
“Your apartment. The rain won’t let out for a few hours and I feel more comfortable in your apartment.”
She smiled, relieved.
“Me too.”
They got to her apartment and prepared dinner. They were silent. Yamashita didn’t know what to say. It was what Kimura had said. It’s not that he didn’t like the idea of marrying her in the future. It was the fact that he didn’t know if he could nor if he should. He really couldn’t have her move in with him and he couldn’t move in with her and just disappear for most of the day.
“I don’t expect you to do anything about, you know?” She suddenly said.
“What?”
“About what Kimura said. I don’t expect… I mean, you haven’t said much and I was afraid you might think my biological clock started ticking or something and start freaking out or something…” she looked down at her food then.
“I’m not freaking out. It’s just… There are things about me I can’t tell you. I keep waiting for you to say you’ve had enough of me and leave and I couldn’t even blame you. I disappear for days; there are things I can’t tell you…”
“Tomohisa?” She interrupted and waited for him to look up. “I know all that and I don’t mind. If I was gonna leave you because of those things, I would have done it already. I understand you have your own things and some day you may want to share them with me and if you don’t I’ll be fine with it. As for telling me EVERYTHING, I don’t expect you to. I mean there are things I don’t tell you.” He lifted a disbelieving eye brow. “Okay, I do tend to blurt out everything but I never said anything about the skeleton in my closet, have I?” She stopped abruptly open her eyes and then looked down. Yamashita saw her shoulders sag.
“The skeleton in your closet? Is that figurative speech?”
She looked up with the look of a puppy just caught chewing on its owner’s favorite shoes and it looked too adorable on her.
“Not exactly.” She said and shut up. He didn’t ask. She didn’t push him to say anything and he would answer in kind, but he was really curious.
She took a deep breath and let it out. “I used to have this roommate. She was a med student and she had a skeleton to help her study anatomy. She moved out and she was supposed to take him but she never did, so Mulder is still in the back of the closet in my workshop.”
Did she just call the skeleton a HE? And… “Mulder?” He asked.
“Yeah, she had a skull too. I started calling the skull Scully and the skeleton Mulder. She took Scully tho.”
Yamashita started laughing so hard, tears started rolling down his cheeks. Soon she was laughing too.
“God, I love you.” Yamashita blurted out. Akane sobered up.
“W-what?”
Yamashita looked down then he looked back up and looked straight into her eyes. “I love you.”
Akane flew at him and kissed him senseless. “I love you too.” She said and kissed him again.
After a few moments Yamashita thought it was a good idea to take this conversation into the bedroom.
Sometime after that, Yamashita was lying next to Akane’s warm body. She was fast asleep and he could hear the rain still going on outside.
He had been drawing random patterns on Akane’s arm with the tip of his fingers.
“Would you understand, Akane? Would you really understand?” He thought. Then he closed his eyes, buried his face in her hair and let sleep come.
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The end is coming soon guys!!
CH01 - CH02 - CH03 - CH04 - CH05 - CH06 - CH07 - CH08 - CH09 - CH10 - - CH12 - CH13 - CH14 (Final)