Stumbling Over Love | ✓

Chapter 9

_Chapter 9~ Every Single Day_

"Dad, you can't be serious!"

"I already said it's final."

"I'll die! Dad, please. I apologized! It was a mistake!"

He shook his head, not wavering in the slightest. I'd have hoped he would cave—his only daughter was wailing with tears in her eyes—but he instead stood his ground, and that itself was scary.

Unlike Mom who had a reputation for being stubborn, Dad only displayed that side of him periodically. The only time I'd seen him the most adamant was when he got his job at Akelius and forced me to attend.

Seeing as Dad showed it again, it must've meant I screwed up.

Big time.

"Mom!" I cried, facing her. She sat idly on the sofa. "Tell Dad he's being ridiculous! You saw it! I didn't punch him, Iwasaki did!"

"Regardless of what I saw—which I didn't—Iwasaki and you were definitely in front of the unconscious officers." Mom had her arms folded over her chest, face scrunched up angrily. "I don't care who knocked them unconscious, just be grateful that you both got off the hook with simple community service."

"Then I'll stick with that!" I clenched my fists for emphasis. "Just not the infirmary! I didn't do any—"

"Didn't do anything?"

My heart leaped at the chilling voice. Mom's already scary expression warped into one more murderous as she propped a leg over her other one. Colour drained from my complexion when her eyes met mine.

"Reina Kikuchi," she enunciated. "I gave you specific orders before I left for the party. I told you to make two batches of cookies and bring them over by four. And yet at five o'clock, you were outside, without the cookies, and involved in some trouble you shouldn't even have gotten yourself into."

I squared my shoulders. "I swear to God, Mom. I made those cookies! But, Iwasaki—"

"Stop blaming Iwasaki." She cut me off. "This is our issue, not his. Take responsibility for your own actions."

My mouth clamped. Usually, I'd have concurred a lot sooner because both my parents were against me on this. But this issue was entirely different. This wasn't even my fault! I shouldn't even have received a community service punishment because if those officers were able to remember anything right, I wasn't the one who punched them. And yet they automatically assumed Ryu and I were in cahoots, blaming it on the fact that we were arguing aka "planning" about something before they fell unconscious.

How ridiculous was that? I was outright furious! More so, because my parents sided with the officers. They couldn't see how corrupted Ryu really was, somehow implying that he was innocent and I was the evil mastermind.

I couldn't fathom why. My parents—the two people who knew me all my life; the ones who should have it engraved that I abhored fights and delinquents more than anything in the world—had the audacity to doubt and not have my back on this. Why didn't they? Honestly, I was more enraged about that aspect than the actual punishment given to me by the police.

Because, of all the things in the world, they decided that not only grounding me was fitting enough, but having to assist my dad in the infirmary was better.

If that didn't tell you how much I was crying inside, I didn't know what would.

"You're working in the infirmary and that's final," Dad said for the umpteenth time.