Little Tiger

Summer break

It felt like I had been out of sorts for weeks, but I only realized it when Shigure, Hatori, and Ayame came home. Their--somehow both--nostalgic and refreshing air in the estate made me lucid again. It was too subtle to notice at first, but Akito had loosened her reins on me. It felt like I had finally been forgiven. Her tantrums could last a long time but they never lasted forever. After the boys returned, I wasn't expected at dinners, I didn't have to inform Akito of my every move or even ask permission, Kureno didn't pay random visits to my room in the middle of the night to make sure I was there, and I could see my friends as often as I wanted to. 

My obedience towards Akito's rules was part of the reason she had backed off, but the other was that I wasn't as important to her as Shigure and Hatori were. Akito couldn't care less about Ayame--not enough to treat him as badly as she treated me, anyway. She could tolerate Ayame, even with his loud music, messy room, melodramatics, and his ridiculous stories he shared at the dinner table. His only redeeming quality, in her eyes, was his knack for cutting hair. He cut all of our hair, including Akito's, which was the only time she spoke to him. She was a fifteen-year-old girl, after all, and getting a haircut made her happier. While she kept her hair short to appear more masculine (there were seemingly no other reasons for her choice in preference), I could tell she felt more confident in herself when it was cut. Of course, I only observed Akito from a distance so I could be wrong in my assumption.  

I remember one time I heard Akito laugh while Ayame was cutting her hair. It startled me because I had never heard her make such a noise. I thought Ayame had accidentally nicked her with the scissors, resulting in this ungodly sound. But, no, she had actually been laughing. Ayame was good with people and even better with the most unpleasant ones. 

"People love to laugh," Ayame told me after Akito left his Haircutting Station---the bathroom the four of us shared. "Even the worst people in the world want to laugh," he added quietly, tilting his head towards Akito's bedroom. Ayame didn't make jokes, but he knew how to make a fool of himself which, to Akito, was funnier than any joke.

I was high on my reborn freedom from the estate--in all actuality, my shackles had been loosened, but that was no different from the rest of the Zodiacs--and I imagined the boys and I would leave the estate as often as possible now that they were home. But, I had forgotten that they rarely left the estate. It was hard to tell if they liked being at the estate or they were just playing their parts. Unfortunately, I think it was somewhere in between. I couldn't help but feel slightly devastated by this fact every time I noticed it. I tried to rouse them out of their beds one morning, suggesting we go to the coffee shop near the school again, because it was the last interesting thing I had been able to do before getting locked away, resulting in my inability to let it go. Ayame insisted we stay here because he had convinced the chefs to make French toast for breakfast (another delicacy Francis had introduced the three of them to). I was hopeful that Hatori would agree to my outing since he was already up and sitting at his desk. The dark eye bags, stale scowl, and arched back said otherwise. 

"How long have you been awake?" I asked with a taut expression. 

Hatori's eyes were glazed over from not blinking for a while. His jaw unhinged slowly as he stared at me stupidly. "All night. Didn't go to bed," he answered hollowly, regarding me irritably like I had been the reason he hadn't been able to go to bed. 

I put my hand on his shoulder firmly. "Studying?" 

He nodded, laying his forehead on his desk, causing my hand to fall back to my side. There were no books open on his desk. I was certain he was so delusional from studying constantly that he started incorporating it into his sleepwalking as well. I backed away uneasily. 

I left Hatori after telling him to go to sleep, which I'm not sure he ever did, but there was no point in trying to convince Hatori to do something he didn't want to do. I tried Shigure last.