Chapter Text
Miyamura’s message had come in only a few minutes ago -- she’d been in the bath, trying to enjoy the fact that Kyouske wasn’t there to annoy her.
From Miyamura: Okasan needs help at the bakery . Do u mind if we watch the movie tmrrw?
Her initial response was anger. Today was the only afternoon they’d have the house to themselves, and only until Souta got home. Today was the perfect day for them to watch Kuchisake onna undisturbed. How dare he! Of course, there was also a part of her that was secretly hoping Miyamura wouldn’t want to watch the movie, and that they’d take advantage of the empty house to be alone with each other. Her family loved Miyamyura, but sometimes they seemed to forget that he was her boyfriend, and not the newest family pet.
Instead of giving him a real answer, she sent an angry emoji back. He replied quickly with ‘y are u angry?’ followed by several sad faces. She began typing a passive aggressive answer claiming that no, she wasn’t angry at all but she couldn’t bring herself to send it. She deleted what she’d written and typed a new message.
To Miyamura: I’m not mad at u
She waited a few more seconds before adding another message.
To Miyamura: I wanted to hang out just the 2 of us.
This was a problem she had been attempting to work on for a while. In her mind, she referred to it as the ‘Actually Talking to Miyamura’ problem, but the moniker was a bit inaccurate. Actually talking to Miyamura wasn’t the problem. They talked all the time, everywhere. Miyamura practically lived in her house. They were together constantly, yet somehow they managed to never really talk about important things, like the fact that they had gotten engaged months ago but never discussed it after that day. This was only the first item on the list. On it were also: the fact that she had yet to meet Miyamura’s parents, that he never complained about the scary films, and her incapability to tell him when she wanted to have sex. Kyouko understood that this was probably a damning thing for their relationship, but whenever the thought of bringing any of this up even crossed her mind, she would immediately become embarrassed. Even after nearly a year of dating, the thought of being with Miyamura, of kissing him, of spending her life with him made her heart feel like it was going to beat out of her chest and she would find herself going mute. And when Miyamura was around, none of those things usually mattered. They seemed to just exist together without any complication. But the closer they got to their graduation date, the more had her silent worries increased. Two back-to-back beeping noises interrupted her train of thought.
From Miyamura: What exactly did u have in mind Hori-san ?
From Miyamura: My apt will be empty tomorrow. I’ll make it up to u.
Hori couldn’t help but want to damn him to hell, with his stupid hair and tattoos and his stupid flirty messages. This, also, was the bigger part of the problem. Miyamura never seemed to find it difficult to be suggestive or straight-forward, despite the fact that he was much more insecure than her.
Just as she sent him a reply back , the front door opened and she heard her brother greet her from the genkan .
“Okaeri , Sota. How was school?”
“It was ok,” her baby brother said as he walked into the room. “Did you and onii-chan have a fight?”
“No! Why on Earth would we have a fight?”
“I didn’t see his shoes, but you said he’d been coming home today. ”
“He had to work at the bakery.”
“Is he coming back later?”
“Sota, Miyamura doesn’t actually live here. He has a real house.”
She expected her brother to look disappointed. What she didn’t expect was for her brother to look up anxiously at her.
“Did you steal Miyamura’s wallet or something?”
Sota panicked immediately, “No! I just needed his help because I have to take cupcakes to school tomorrow.”
Ahh , she thought to herself. “Well if you need help with cupcakes...”
“No, one-chan, you don’t have to help me! I’ll figure something out!” he said in a rather alarmed tone.
She should have gotten offended at that. She was actually kinda getting offended at that. How dare he! Her brownies had been perfectly edible, thank you very much. But, her little brother had just provided her with a golden opportunity, and she wasn’t about to waste it.