Call My Name | 𝘕𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘪

- 12 -

*
Walking Home

*

A/n: This chapter is so damn corny. I still feel like it's not that good but I am posting it anyway. I am looking at you nykolaii to tell me what you think.

*

Nobara greets her mother plainly as she walks in. Maki noticed the way her face changed right when they heard the keys in the door and then upon her entry. When her mother walks in, what was previously an intimate atmosphere adjusts completely.

She doesn't move from her seat, and she doesn't try to sound enthused by her mother's appearance.

Maki is a bit put off by this reaction. But not entirely, since Nobara spoke about her parents earlier and expressed the feeling that they didn't really understand her or try to.

Though, Nobara seems to be more upset by her mother arriving home than neutral. Maki never had a relationship with her birth mother, so she doesn't really know what's normal between daughters and their mothers. But she knows enough to identify that this isn't it.

Maki's stomach recoils, she instantly doesn't like her. She maintains her neutral face, but her body seems to have other ideas as she assumes an almost defensive position, arms crossed around her chest. When she notices this she forces her arms down, settling for her forearm on the table, and her other hand in her pocket.

Keys settle down in a porcelain tray by the entryway. Nobara's mother meets Maki's eyes curiously and then looks to her daughter for an explanation. There's an imperceptible hardening in her expression when she changes views. 

"We just agreed on meeting at my house today," Nobara tries to explain first.

"You couldn't let me know while you were coming over here?"

Nobara doesn't answer because she guessed that was a valid point, but she didn't let her mother know Maki was going to come over because she thought the girl would be gone by now. She didn't think that they would be talking for this long, it's really her fault for not enforcing the demand she set that Maki leave before her parents got home.

"I was just leaving now," Maki tries to interject to save Nobara from some consequences-–if she can. She polices her tone to be as polite as she can possibly muster. Meanwhile by the second, her irritation grows. 

"Since you are here you might as well stay. Don't leave because I came in." Nobara's reaction is to look at her mom in annoyed disbelief at that statement. If it wasn't a problem that Nobara was here, why berate her for having her over then? It made no sense. Then the fact she talks to Maki kindly, but then switches her tone completely when speaking to her own daughter.

"What is your name?" Her focus is on Maki now, and Nobara does not like this at all. She wants Maki to leave immediately. It's an irrational fear, she knows it but she didn't want Maki to say her name anyway.

"This conversation is pointless, and Maki really was just leaving. Mom, I think you should just let her go." Nobara attempts to turn the focus to Maki's exit instead, but her mother doesn't pay her any attention, and instead of Maki following her lead in this, she decides to answer her mother's original question because she saw no harm in it. Of course she didn't, she didn't know what was so important about names. Well...her name in particular.

"Maki Zenin," Maki answers, but then she does bring the attention to what Nobara had said immediately after, "I really should be—"

"Zenin..." She repeats, "I don't believe I know anyone with that last name around here, and I know everyone."