Little Tiger

The cabinet

I sprang out of bed the moment my fever passed, when I was a human again. I excavated a pair of pants and a shirt from the messy floor of Ayame's room, struggling to get them on coordinately. I stepped down the stairs, my hair still a mess and my nostrils red and inflamed. I nearly fell over my feet down the stairs because I was moving too fast.

Ayame was cutting a woman's hair. "Are you feeling better--hey! Get back here!"

I raced out of the salon without looking back. Toya came out after me, calling my name. I didn't turn around.

"Hello? I haven't seen you in a long time." It was Kureno. He had just left Akito's room, a genuine look of excitement on his face. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to talk with him.

"Where's Hatori?"

He furrowed his eyebrows at me, looking me up and down skeptically. "Are those Ayame's clothes?"

Ayame had recently monogrammed almost all of his clothes. The A.S. sewn onto the pocket of my shirt was unmistakable. Not to mention the pink cursive in which he'd sewn it with. "Where is Hatori?" I was already shoving past him, moving towards Hatori's office.

Kureno grabbed my wrist. "Wait a minute." He pulled me back towards him again. "He's not in there." With a jerk of his chin, he indicated Akito's bedroom.

I really didn't have any time to wait. I pulled away from Kureno's grasp and stalked down to the office. It was better that I did this alone anyway. Kureno was following after me. I suppose my state was more concerning than I thought.

I didn't know where to look. I had spent a lot of time in Hatori's office when I was working with him, but I had never seen the incriminating evidence that I was looking for, or anything similar to it. I opened the drawers to his desk, rifling through them. Pens, notebooks, printer paper, paper clips, thumb tacks, batteries, post-it notes.

"What the hell?" I murmured angrily to myself. I slammed the doors to his desk shut then turned to the medicine cabinet. I pulled open the doors, my trembling fingers knocking over every bottle of medicine in their wake. At one point, I started pulling all of the medicine bottles off purposely, sending them to the ground, just to get some aggression out.

Kureno was standing beside me, picking up each bottle I'd dropped. "Calm down, Koharu, you're making a scene," he whispered, grunting when a pill bottle fell on his forehead.

Eventually, he cut in with a little more assertiveness. He threw the pill bottles back to the floor, grabbed my wrists, and pulled me backwards. I fell against the corner of the desk, my hands slapping against it behind me. Kureno put each bottle back in its place. His silence only forced the tension between us even more.

"Now," he turned to face me, the medicine cabinet closed, "are you going to tell me what you're looking for?" He thought for a moment, his lips pursed into a thin line. "Unless you're only here to make a mess of Hatori's office?" he considered, searching me for the answer.

I pushed off of the desk, standing up straight. "No, I'm not here to make a mess of Hatori's office," I answered through gritted teeth. I turned to the rest of the office, looking from corner to corner, searching for a place Hatori might keep it.

"What are you looking for?" Kureno asked again when I didn't answer.

I couldn't tell him. Not when I didn't know if it was true or not. It was only a dream, after all. "Leave," I said, looking at him over my shoulder, "I need to think and I can't when you're pestering me with questions."

He scoffed behind me. "You know, I haven't seen you for months and you didn't even say 'hello' to me."

I knew I had hurt his feelings, but he couldn't understand what I was dealing with. If he knew what I knew, he wouldn't be focused on my lack of greeting.