Memories Of Us (Karma x Okuda Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty Five

Let's pretend that I've totally been uploading the past two weeks and that I made no such promise of having multiple chapters uploaded last week, shall we?

Oh thank you so- DID YOU JUST SAY NO?

Well okay then.

And now to the chapter....

Karma's P.O.V.

I looked everywhere for Okuda, called everyone who I knew knew Okuda. I searched the entire town, her entire campus, her dorm. All her favorite places: the lab, the beach, the shopping center, the library. She was out of town. She was just simply gone.

I even attended the school reunion thing that I had never attended before in hopes she'd be there and she hadn't showed up. We all joked around and told stories and played games, but it was clear by the way that everyone reacted that they were all worried.

"Where's Okuda?" Professor Bitch, or is she just Mrs. Bitch now, asked some of her roommates at one point. "She had said that she was going to make it."

"Um, we don't know." Their reply was all the same and then they'd turn to glare at me. I retreated away from the group, trying to calm the panic I was feeling. It wasn't my fault she was gone, I thought over and over again angrily. They're the ones who upset her in the first place.

I heard someone walking toward me and looked over to see who it was. It was Karasuma. He took his place standing next to me.

"Karma, hey. How's, uh, school been treating you?" He asked. He looked awkward so I looked away from him. It was unusual. However, I saw his wife not that far from us, staring at us.

"Pretty well." I replied simply.

"How's... life?" He asked, pausing after the word life like he was trying to figure out what he was going to say.

"Fine, fine. It's all been fine. What does she want you to really know?" I asked.

"Uh, a lot, actually." He replied.

"Go on. We have time and she's staring at us." I replied, staring back at her.

He put a hand on my shoulder, his grip hard. "Don't make eye contact with her. She'll know that you know what you're supposed to know which is that the made me come over here to talk about feelings."

"Where should I look?"

"At me! Pretend like we're having a typical conversation and like this isn't awkward!"

"But this is awkward!"

"Don't let her know that!"

I looked at him and he removed his hand from my shoulder. "Calm down."

"I'm always calm."

"Honestly, I don't think you're ever really calm. I think you're just really good at pretending but your mind is often times more in panic mode than it is in anything else and like you don't even know what to do with yourself. You've learned, mastered even, how to hide it."

A flash of anger lit up in his eyes. "Like you?" He challenged.

I shrugged. "Yeah, like me."

He didn't say anything but the anger in his eyes was gone.

"What does she want to know specifically?" I asked after a minute.

"Like I said, a lot." He sighed before listing off things. "She wants to know why you haven't showed up the past few times when she went through so much work to get it together. She wants to know if you're actually okay and if you have something to do with why Okuda isn't here considering this is your first time back and Okuda's first time not being here. And she also wanted to know how you've really been since you've never been really good at telling your feelings or the truth for the matter. She wants to know why you live off campus and alone instead of in a dorm with your friends after you promised them for years that that was what you were going to do. She wants to know if you've been sleeping at night and if you've been sick and if you've still been having nightmares in which you wake up crying and you've found yourself screaming. She wants to know if you're still having trouble trusting your judgement after everything that went down. And she wants to know what exactly you've been so busy doing and-"

"She talks a lot." I interrupted, unable to stay silent any longer.

He laughed. "Oh I know."

"Can I tell you a secret?" I inquired suddenly, my voice stiff.