✍🏻 Little Matchmaker

7 - Auction

"Aki??!!" Sophie called out and before she could add what she wanted to ask, Akira shouted from his room in response "On the kitchen counter!!"

Sophie walked slowly across the spacious living room, grabbing the car keys from the counter and shaking her head, thinking she really needs to do something about this.
She put the keys into her handbag but then leaned against the counter, massaging her thigh.
In the end, she moved still very slowly to the intercom at the door and called to the reception, asking them to book a driver for them.
Even though the pain wasn't that terrible, just highly uncomfortable, she still didn't want to risk getting a cramp or something while driving herself.
Akira made it obvious that he is not very happy about it as they now couldn't sing their songs but Sophie just added it to the pile of complaints he already voiced ever since he got up.

First that he for some reason thought he is old enough to be home alone and was upset that Sophie didn't trust him enough and booked Maria, his babysitter/nanny to come over. She knew he liked Maria but also was sure that he was just planning to play on PlayStation and stuff himself with popcorn till late at night and she just ruined his plans with that.
And as if that wasn't enough of arguing for one morning, he picked that moment to again start trying to convince her to get him new skates. Claiming that he can't keep up with Yuzuru because of it.
Sophie already planned to get him the skates for Christmas and now just had to dodge his begging and keep telling him that he doesn't need  new skates.

So now they sat quietly on the backseat of the car and the moment the driver parked, Akira almost stormed out, stomping his way into the rink. Sophie only rolled her eyes on that, let the driver know that he can take a two-hour break, and slowly walked to the rink as well, doing her best not to limp.
She made it only to the foyer when she was stopped by the rink's manager and asked to come to his office.
He had that uncomfortable expression that Sophie was pretty certain he was about to tell her some bad news and wondered if this day could get any worse. She was already in a pretty bad mood as it was and really didn't need any more trouble to be added to it.

Sophie came out of his office and slowly walked back to the main hallway, stopping there as if on a crossroad. Going right would get her outside in fresh air, but also the moment of solitude would allow her to cry and she wanted to avoid that for all costs.
To the left were the rink and her trusty bench, providing her enough distractions to push away how upset she was. But then if she wouldn't manage to hold it down, she would end up crying in public, in front of all the bullies and that was the last thing she wanted.
So she stood there for almost a minute and in the end took a deep breath and turned to the left, not wanting to let them win.

She made it to the other side of the rink as usual, but when she saw the flight of stairs in front of her she rather opted to sit in the first row. She picked an empty bench and set up her laptop but after ten minutes she caught herself just staring at the screen and not doing anything.

"Good morning, Sophie-san".

She raised her head just to see Yuzuru gleefully smiling at her over the barrier.

Well, at least somebody is having a good morning.

She thought but as he looked at her his smile began to fade and he leaned more over the barrier and lowered his voice. "Is everything okay?"

"Absolutely."

He obviously wasn't satisfied with the answer but also it looked like he was now fighting with himself, wondering if he is allowed to question further or not. Sophie didn't have the emotional strength to be dealing with that right now, so she looked back at her laptop screen and hoped he would figure it out himself.
She could still see Yuzuru's silhouette standing there for several long seconds before he finally skated away without saying anything.

It took only two minutes and Akira wobbled to her with his skates on and sat down next to her, putting his head on her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist.