𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙽𝙰𝙶𝙴 𝙳𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙱𝙰𝙶 ,, high&low

chapter twenty - six | lola

for best experience, listen to lola by lilith czar while reading this chapter

twenty six

lola

Hiroto hissed in pain as I pressed a soaking wet dish towel to the cuts on his hands. Though she looked fairly harmless, Sarah could pack a punch. And take a punch, for that matter.

All in all, we got back from the Funk Jungle in better shape than we could have, but Noboru was still annoyed that we had gotten into a fight.

"Seriously!" He shouted "It's not even like Bernie hit you first, you could have just walked away."

I shook my head, turning back to the stove. I didn't realize how long I had slept for, and how long we had been out: it was almost four o'clock.

The men continued to argue amongst themselves while I threw some raw chicken into the cast iron frying pan, turning quickly back to a stainless steel pot where I was making curry.

The entire day felt like a waste: we'd gotten nothing done at the Funk Jungle, but left covered in bruises, the full-timers had been calling me non stop, to the point where I'd had to turn my phone off. Above it all, I felt like I was suffocating in some sort of inescapable hell. Trapped in my own mind, and that any second I would wake up and it would be different.

But it wouldn't, because this was reality for me.

And my head wouldn't stop hurting.

I took a deep breath, brushing my hair behind my ears and turning to the cutting board. It was all going to be fine. Just two hours where nothing went wrong. The doorbell rang, and I swear I jumped out of my skin, the knife falling between my fingers and clattering to the floor. Breathing heavily, I knelt down to grab it, Murayama shooting me a concerned glance.

"You okay?" He asked quietly

"Yeah, that just startled me." I said, still slightly out of breath "Hey, can you watch the stove? I'm just gonna go see who that is."

"Yeah, no problem." He said, pressing a quick kiss to the side of my head as I ran out of the kitchen.

Wiping my hands on my jeans, and pushing my glasses further up my nose, I reached for the handle of the door. No sooner than I had opened the door, was I engulfed in a bone-crushing hug, a mass of blond hair in my face as I wrapped my arms around whoever it was.

"Yasushi?" I said with a nervous laugh. "You're crushing my ribs, kid."

"I thought you were dead!" Yasushi replied "You weren't answering our calls, and Murayama was gone as well."

"We were worried." Another voice said. Looking up from the seventeen year old who's arms were around me, I saw the others: Tsukasa, Nakagoshi and Fujio.

"So that's why you were calling. Sorry, I had some things to sort out." I said, separating Yasushi from my body and giving Nakagoshi a quick hug, the worry evaporating from his face.