afraid (kubokai)

chapter four

"damn it, there's no way i can finish this in time."

aren had been at it at his desk for hours. unlike shun, english wasn't his strong subject. the way people could bring amazing wordplay into their writing amazed him, but when he put all his focus in doing it himself, nothing came to mind. the fact that he had left his notes somewhere didn't help his progress.

so, with a deep breath, he relaxed. multiple papers with crossed out lines from his spelling or punctuation mistakes were scattered in front of him.

his handwriting was messy. as a kid, he'd never bothered to work on those handwriting booklets they made you do for homework in elementary school. his parents didn't care if he did his homework or not. not that was a bad thing for aren. or maybe it was? everyone has their own opinions on the debate on wether students should have homework or not.

the reminder of his parents had him continuing to think. where was his father? he hadn't seen him in two weeks. he left without a word.

he didn't talk to aren much, even when he was here. him and his parents were such a happy family when aren was young, the little boy oblivious to the world of delinquents. him and his father were inseparable when he lead his first gang along side him.

now the house was always empty. aren worked, but there was no way he worked a wage enough to pay for electricity, internet and water. it never ran out, so he assumed his dad had everything covered. he still had to pay for his own meals and clothes though. but he didn't mind. he was used to the lifestyle.

a small photo frame covered in dust sat in the corner of aren's desk. there were marks where aren had swiped his fingers along the dust to reveal the picture, where the face of a beautiful middle aged woman with black hair and familiar slender dark violet eyes.

that's all he had left of his mother. her eyes.

snapping out of his trance, aren had determined that he was quite hungry and marched his way downstairs. he didn't like the place completely dark and quiet, so a stove light always gave a dim light to the lower floor of the house with tv making soft background noise. i suppose it made him feel like someone was there.

kuboyasu pulled a tray of sliced beef strips out of the fridge, along with a stir fry sauce and a bag of frozen vegetables. he could properly cook something from scratch if he wanted to, but his motivation was out the window. a container of rice that he had made the other night was pulled out of the fridge.

after tossing the bag of frozen vegetables in the microwave, he poured the sliced beef into the pan, watching it cook through before he added the half-cooked vegetables and sauce into the pan. an odd way to go making a stir fry, but it did the trick.

his kitchen was pretty much to your right as soon as you walked through kuboyasu's door. the lounge room was to the left, but that was besides the point. due to the kitchen being ever so close to the front door, he had almost flipped his pan into the air when he heard a pounding at the door.

"aren! it's shun!"

aren frowned. this late?

he paced himself to the door and opened it to find shun staring frantically into his eyes. within a matter of seconds, he had rushed into the house, closed to door and locked it, and held his back against it. he was panting.

"i-i don't know how they got away! i was able to lose them just in time! aren, oh my god. someone was after me out there! i-i could've- i could've ... oh, god, aren."

to aren's shock, shun balled his fists into aren's shirt and pulled his head into his shoulder, letting out a large gasp of air. he had been hyperventilating.