Even Now

Even Now - Chapter 8 "Love"

Chapter 8 —Ichigo—

"Love"

It was stupid.

Renji had lost his mind, yeah it must be it. If not, he would not dare to bring that… that guy with him! I should have known since he showed me that smug grin when I asked him who he would bring along with him. I already had a feeling that his friend would be some kind of punk.

This one was even worse than any other punk.

Damn that baboon in human skin.

I clenched my fists.

No need to say, our walk to the inn was awkward. Hime walked really close to me, almost like she was trying to hide behind my body. She might have pretended like she was okay by smiling and talking about random things, but the way her hand clenched on my sleeve told me different. She pretended to be okay. I scowled deeper. Why did she always do that?

"I'm okay!"

"No, you're not. Let me check your temperature…"

"No!" she stepped back quickly avoiding my palm.

I growled, "Hime…"

"I'm fine!" She insisted, she placed her hands to cover her forehead so I could not touch it, "I'll be okay, don't worry so much!"

She could be really funny sometimes.

She did not want me to be worry about her. Of course I would worry about her. After all, I was her boyfriend. I swallowed at the thought. Boyfriend, eh? A year ago, if she did not insist to stay with me, would I still be her boyfriend? If we really broke up that day, would she be okay? Would I still worry about her? Would she have another boyfriend by now?

I sighed.

I felt it.

He looked at me.

No, he looked at her who walked beside me.

That damned Ulquiorra.

I looked at the man. He looked back at me but say nothing. This man… How dare he show his face again in front of us after what had he done to my Hime? Hime might have forgiven him, she was just that naïve, but I would never forgive him.

"Ok, here we are!" Renji announced as we arrived in front of a traditional inn.

The inn looked nice and it was not that far from the train station. I had to admit that Renji had done his best to find the place for us to stay; after all, he was the one who insisted that we had to go to the Onsen this year.

When we walked into the building, a middle aged woman had been already there to welcome us. The woman in kimono was the Okami [*], she bowed gracefully to welcome us. I bowed back rather stiffly; I was never really good with this kind of formality.

"Welcome to Ran Inn…"

"Uh, we already book two rooms…" I looked at Renji but he just nodded, "For two nights…"

The Okami nodded, again so gracefully, "We already prepared the room for you, let me show you the room…" She looked at our bags, "Oh, and you can just leave your belongings there, our staffs will bring them to your rooms…"

I nodded.

The Inn was really good. Actually I didn't expect anything like this. I looked at Renji, wondering if he was lying about the price. He just gave me a toothy grin like telling me not to worry that he had everything under control.