VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter sixteen

act ii

how do we do this?
( carefully. )

chapter sixteen

❛are you jealous?❜

━━━━━━

"Ow, ow, ow, ow."

"You need to relax."

"I am relaxed — ow." Amara shies away from Chris' wandering hands. "You're making it exceedingly difficult to focus, you know."

"Well, if you didn't get so tense, this wouldn't hurt so much," he shoots back, stern enough to make her wince because he's right.

It's not personal. She's quickly learned that he hates the fact that she carries so much tension in her shoulders and neck. She just doesn't think that he has to keep pressing on the obviously sore spots if it's clear that he's not going to unknot them.

Amara sighs and forces herself to relax again, the fading ache from the spot he was pressing soothed by the quiet goodthat he murmurs.

"Focus on the painting," he urges. "And relax."

She doesn't respond, lifting her hand again and focusing on the brushstrokes. Too soon to tell what this one will be.

Chris didn't have PT today — why Miyuki wasn't here, either, spending the time on the field, overseeing practice, probably wallowing in self-pity or something — and he's already finished with his assignments for the week, ready to be turned in tomorrow.

With a lack of things to do, he made the decision to unwind some tension from her muscles and she's yet to decide whether it was really a good decision. Truthfully, the real reason she's so tense is because of her call with Luisa from Monday and because she knows that Chris probably agrees with her sister on the fact that she shouldn't be 'throwing away' her college years to try and protect Luna.

And part of her knows that's true, too.

But the truth of the matter is that she likely won't be able to afford going to another college outside of San Antonio or even Texas, not unless she's offered some type of scholarship — and her grades are good, good enough here, but not the scholarship kind. So, she'll end up staying at the house out of practicality, not choice, and that essentially seals the deal on watching over Luna.

It's . . . a more disappointing future than she wants to admit.

"I know it's been a couple days," Chris starts out of nowhere after a moment. "But . . . I'm curious."

"About?" She prompts, also curious to see what he wants to talk about.

"Your talk with Miyuki on Sunday."

Unable to help herself, she grins. "Why? Are you jealous?"

A scoff. "It's Miyuki."

She turns around, far more interested in this conversation. He crosses his arms.

"So?"

Rolling his eyes, he says, "That's exactly why I have no reason to be jealous. He probably doesn't even know how to flirt."

"You're terrible."

"Yes, well," he shrugs. "It's not bad. Miyuki lives and breathes baseball, so he's very happy on his own. It's fine. I don't think, when the time comes, it'll even matter that he's a terrible flirt. He'll have his own strange way of appealing to someone."