late regret|H. Ran

Ch2

"𝕲𝖎𝖋𝖙"

The Next Day

Ran clicked his tongue when he saw Y/N running toward him again. This happened every morning when she was on her way to school  he was heading the same direction, though they attended different academies.

"Ran-kun!" She smiled as she ran, and the older Haitani literally saw a heavenly light surrounding her the moment that sweet smile landed on him, the way it always did. It was as if he were looking at an angel. He swallowed and looked away.

Every time he saw her angelic face, his mind went haywire and he couldn't think straight. The way she smiled at him sent thousands of butterflies swarming through his stomach, and he hated it.

No, scratch that. He loathed it.

He didn't like the feeling Y/N gave him. In his twenty years of existence, she was the first girl who had ever made him feel this way, and it unsettled him deeply. Unlike the other women he usually spent his nights with in Roppongi,  all sharp edges and hollow attitudes  Y/N was something else entirely.

Too beautiful. Too kind. Too innocent. It made her seem like an angel.

Or was she pretending? Most girls put on that pure, innocent act just to get his attention, and maybe she was no different.

Ran felt her fall into step beside him and heard the sound of a zipper, followed by rustling inside her bag. He exhaled slowly. She's going to give me another bento. "Ran-kun, I made this for you!" she said with a small laugh.

He rolled his eyes and glanced at what she was holding out  a girly lunchbox with a decorative cover. He scoffed and fixed her with a cold stare. "Didn't I tell you yesterday? Stop giving me those. Do you not understand plain words?" His tone was calm, but the threat beneath it was unmistakable.

He immediately regretted it when he watched the light fade from her eyes.

Ran didn't know what to do with that, so he did what he always did  he left, walking ahead without waiting for her.

A quiet smile tugged at the corner of his lips seconds later when he heard her footsteps picking up pace behind him. Like a little dog. The thought amused him more than he cared to admit.

Her small figure settled beside him again. This time she was quiet, simply matching his silence without trying to fill it. Ran had no intention of breaking it either  not by asking her anything.

He had no questions left to ask. He already knew almost everything about her: her favorite color, foods, shoes, hair clips, snacks, books
even her favorite perfume.

As an executive of Tenjiku and a close friend of Izana, most of what he knew had come directly from her brother. Slowly, one question at a time, he had been asking the leader about her out of what he told himself was simple curiosity. By some stroke of luck, Izana kept answering without suspicion  he was a perceptive person in most things, but remarkably oblivious to the fact that Ran had taken any particular interest in his little sister. Which was for the best.

Izana was dangerously overprotective of her.

Ran's footsteps slowed as something surfaced in his memory. "What's wrong, Ran-kun?" His violet eyes shifted to hers  worried orchid, the same shade as Izana's, though where Izana's eyes carried a murderous edge, hers were impossibly soft. They looked so much alike: silver hair, orchid-colored eyes  though she had a lighter complexion where Izana was tan.

He didn't answer her and simply resumed walking, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder.

He had just remembered her birthday. Three days from now, she would be turning fifteen. Good for her.

She would spend it alone , no one by her side  because Izana was still in juvenile detention. Ran turned the thought over in his head.

Should I get her something? He quickly shook it off. No. Too much trouble. If he gave her a gift, she would only grow more attached, hovering around him even more than she already did. He didn't want that.

He didn't want any of this, if he was being honest. He wanted her out of his sight. But she was his boss's little sister, and disrespecting her would be disrespecting Izana, a mistake he had no interest in making. So he tolerated her. Kept himself composed. Accepted her presence near him as a necessary inconvenience.

If she weren't Izana's sister, he would have already told her, coldly and without remorse: Stay away from me.

But she was. So he walked beside her instead, quietly counting the days until she would eventually lose interest and disappear from his life for good.

ᘜᖇᗩᗰᗰᗩTIᑕᗩᒪ ᗴᖇᖇOՏ ᗩᕼᗴᗩᗪ!

He hates Y/N because the way she acts is giving him butterflies that he loathes,but he'll love it soon ;>