Youth Unsupervised

Chapter 12-Liquid Amber

There wasn't much more talk about Saki around the house, or much talk in general really, not that I expected there to be. They chose to ignore the matter, probably because they had no means of controlling it, which suited me just fine. I was actually pretty excited the day they left because it meant I could start seeing Saki again.

When they left, it went like every other time before that. No long, sad parting words. No show of affection. Not even an, "I'll miss you." I told them to be safe on their trip and they told me to take care of myself, and that was that. I'd be lying if I said I hoped, or even cared if it went differently. Saki had done what she could to stir the emotions inside of me. For the most part, I would call this a success, but there were emotions towards my family that hadn't even been touched. As I watched their car pull out of the driveway, I didn't feel a single bit of sadness. Maybe I wasn't numb at all. Maybe part of me was just dead.

Saki and Hiromasa started showing up again, and things more or less went back to normal. We hung out almost every day, usually doing nothing but playing games or finishing up our summer work. A couple of times a week, Saki would lead us to another reckless or destructive activity, but nothing new, no place we hadn't gone before. Not until that last weekend before school started again, when I found myself outside a traditional looking house in a fairly nice neighborhood in the dead of night, with my heart pounding so hard in my ears I thought I might go deaf.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Could you repeat that? Did you say 'we're going in'?"

Saki's lips spread into a smile. "You got it."

Hiromasa shut his eyes and jerked his head left to right frantically. "No. No. No. No. Absolutely not. No way. No. No. No."

Saki rolled her eyes and started up the stone steps leading to the house. "How out of character for you to refuse, Hiromasa."

"What are you going to do once you're inside?" I asked.

"A game, of course," Saki replied without turning around.

A game? What game? The "let's see how much stuff we can steal from this house before the cops show up and haul us all to jail" game?

"Saki..." I started, unsure of what to say to her.

This was the first time I was considering not going along with one of her crazy plans.

She stopped with a groan and tilted her head back. "Would you two stop being such babies if I told you it was my father's house?"

"So, you live here?" I asked.

"No," she said. "But my father does."

I was elated that I finally grasped some of Saki's situation. It wasn't much, but it was something. If she didn't live here, but her father did, then her parents must have been divorced and Saki must live somewhere else with her mother. It was on the hopeful discovery of more information that I made one of my stupidest decisions to date.

"Hiromasa," I turned to face him. "You should go home. Seriously this time." I walked up the stairs towards Saki, leaving him behind.

She grinned and continued up the stairs. We circled around the house to the back door. Saki placed her hand on the door knob.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Wait," Hiromasa said, running up to us.

I sighed. "You should really go home. I'm not joking."

He marched up to me and stared me in the eyes. "And let you get ahead?" His voice was low. "I don't think so."

"Are you serious right now?" I asked quietly. "This isn't even about that."