Sexfriends

Chapter 8

"You know you want me, Kaoru-kun. I'm the only one who understands you. I'm the only one who knows what you truly yearn for, what you truly need. Stop rejecting your feelings. Accept them. Accept me." Rei smirks and takes the other boy's face in his hands, their lips only a few inches away. "You want to be loved, Kaoru-kun. You want it so bad it hurts, but you can't have it. Why? Because you're a coward. You run as soon as a problem surfaces, you'll never face it. You're a coward, Kaoru-kun." He slowly moves his face away and disappears abruptly.

Another person suddenly appears right behind him, whispering in his ear. "Cowards have nothing to do in this world, Kaoru."

Kaoru turns around in panic, "F-Father?"

"You're a disgrace to the Marine Club!" Souma shouts behind him, before slicing him in half with his katana.

"AAAAAAHH" Kaoru wakes up all of a sudden, panting and sweating heavily. "God...a nightmare." He covers his face with one hand, the other one reaching for the water bottle. He drinks it all down, before looking at his phone. 8AM.

"Shit, I'm late." He jumps out of bed, before rushing to the bathroom.

He leaves the house ten minutes later and hurries to school. A few days have passed since his "fight" with Rei and he hasn't been in the mood to go there at all, especially after the shitty day he had yesterday. His father kept lecturing him about the same things again and as if it wasn't enough, he added to this another lecture concerning his love life. Indeed, his sister's third omiai didn't go well and their father wasn't pleased at all...which led to him blaming Kaoru for everything, once again. It's become worse and worse at home and the blonde doesn't even know how he can still find the motivation to get out of bed and go to school. His strong will to get out of this house as soon as possible, probably.
Plus, his stress has been getting more and more intense as the end of the year approaches. At that moment, he actually wants to quit everything. Everything's just a pain and he's so done already.

He reaches Yumenosaki right on time. He breathes heavily, exhausted from his running. Never has he thought he'd make such efforts to attend class. He lifts his head and notices two people standing in front of the school's doors. Rei and Wataru. He doesn't greet them and passes them quickly, hoping that they haven't seen him. He's got no time to deal with them and only wants this day to go by as fast as possible.
Lately, Kaoru's been rushing to the clubroom every day after classes end. He still doesn't want to go home and hasn't felt like going on dates either, so it's the only place he can go, for now. Plus, Kanata's always there and he feels like the blue-haired boy is the only person he can talk to. However, he's back to skipping practices again. Everything's been adding up and it's honestly the last thing he can endure. No matter how serious he wants to be, it's just impossible for him to go and see even more people, especially Rei. Fortunately, his relationships with his classmates haven't changed at all, since he keeps pretending everything's fine. Moreover, no one ever asks him about his life or anything anyway...
Kaoru has ended up talking to Kanata about his relationship with Rei as well. The latter didn't have a specific reaction, as he always keeps his usual smile at everything Kaoru says. The blonde doesn't mind at all, though. He actually appreciates this part of him a lot. Kanata's always been there to listen, and would sometimes give him advice too. Well, he doesn't always understand them but it still means a lot to him. Thanks to Kanata, he's been feeling less lonely these past few days.

The 3 remaining Undead members have been practicing almost every day in the light music clubroom. For some reason, no one has questioned about Kaoru's sudden disappearance, as if everything's gone back to how it was before. Rei hasn't talked with Kaoru ever since, nor hasn't seen him at school either. The only time he has, the blond seemed to have avoided him and he didn't have time to think about it any further, or more like he didn't want to. He's been keeping himself busy, both as his unit and club's leader and fortunately, there have been a lot of things to do. He hasn't felt like apologizing either, though. He was right, after all, so why apologize when you're right? It's Kaoru's fault for taking everything this way and not admitting it.
However, he'd lie if he said he doesn't miss their time together. Not only that, but he also misses ruining his friend's dates. Seeing his reactions and emotions was a delight to him. He misses their daily texts and calls, as well. Rei would often call the blonde for futile things, only to tease him. He's always believed it was funny to hear him say "What now, Sakuma-san?" as he picks up the phone but he's never realized that he actually wanted to hear his voice and talk with him a bit more. Unfortunately, everything belongs to the past, now.