Beauty With a Brat (The Suzuhara Family 1) ✅

Chapter Nine

"Wataru?" The knock on the bathroom door was gentle, as was Hinako's voice. "Are you okay?"

The family had been distracted by the fiasco Itsuki had created at school, but Hinako had picked up his call and came to pick him up with Koyama. For once he was glad to see them in Hinako's sea foam green Prius™️ and not Koyama's motorcycle. Wataru didn't remember the drive to their apartment, but upon arrival he had rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Now he laid on the bathroom floor, staring up at the ceiling with glazed eyes. His breathing was heavy and unsteady. He still felt nauseas but his throat felt like sandpaper. Just the mere thought of vomiting again made his body tremble with pain.

"Wataru?" Hinako called out again.

"I'm okay, Onee-san," he called out, slowly sitting up. His voice was low and raspy. "I'll be right out."

Wataru cleaned himself up and drudged out of the bathroom and into Hinako and Koyama's living room. A long couch ran the length of the windows and faced a coffee table and Wataru collapsed onto the cushions in front of the window. On the far side the balcony door was open and Koyama was leaning on the rail, smoking a cigarette with his usual stoic expression.

Hinako carefully sat down beside where Wataru lay. She reached out and ruffled his hair. "Would you like to talk about it?" she asked him softly.

Wataru shook his head. "I already said everything that happened."

"That you did," Hinako said. She stroked her little brother's hair in a more comforting manner. "What you have told us Wataru is very unbelievable, but...but a girl sealing your memories away also makes a lot more sense than you simply forgetting everything."

"What was the girl's name again?" Koyama asked from the balcony, glancing towards them.

"Hoshiko Nimura," Hinako said. "I've personally never met her as I teach at the Elementary School, but I have heard from teachers at Shirahime that she's a strange girl who seems to know too much about everything around her. I guess she's made a decent amount of money from students and teachers giving tarot card readings."

"Do you think she may be an Onmyōdō?" Koyama wondered aloud. After a moment though he shook his head. "No, wait. Tarot cards aren't common amongst Onmyōdō are they?"

"Maybe her abilities are a blend of eastern and western powers?" Hinako mused. "Wataru, you said she has blue eyes right? Maybe—"

"What does it matter where her abilities come from?!" Wataru demanded, sitting up. "She locked away my memories and then unlocked them all at once! I remember it all! Everything I did to Natsumi! I-I—" he shook his head and gritted his teeth, clenching his hands into fists in his lap. "I was a monster, Onee-san! The things I did to her—how could I have done these things?! Just thinking about it makes me sick!"

"We know," Koyama drawled. Hinako gave him a look and he awkwardly put out his cigarette in an ashtray on the floor.

Hinako rubbed his back comfortingly. "Now you know," she said softly. "And now you understand why she feels the way she does about you."

"But I just—" Wataru pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes as tears began to spill out. "I...I still love her, Onee-san! I've never felt this way about anyone in my whole life! But the things I did..."

The images of the memories swam together like a hideous kaleidoscope behind his closed eyelids. Pushing her into mud, pushing her into puddles...destroying her homework, tricking her into eating bugs, public humiliation after public humiliation...it was clear and fresh in his mind now as though each event had recently happened. And the anguish...the pain in Natsumi's face every time he hurt her. And the sadistic glee he felt when he saw her tears.