Daycare

✧16:Koushi✧

Any words that I could have said, at this point, we're beyond me. The look on his face, without him even physically touching me, reached past my skin and stole the breath from my lungs. Shockingly enough, he looked sad.

Maybe the better word was hurt.

Wounded.

His mouth moved, and he thoughtfully attempted to push words out to fill the silence but nothing came out. He just stood, solemnly in his dejected silence not daring to make any movements. But I guess in this moment, there wasn't really anything that could be said.

In the hindsight, there was truly no reason for me to really stay. Tobio was gone and Daichi had proven to be going through enough and I don't think that I could provide as a safety blanket for him.

After all, what did I mean to him?

Other than to act as a teacher of a tutor, there was nothing really going on between us. No matter how much I wished there would be a day in the future that a relationship flourish, but I knew that would ever be a possibility.

But watching him get so worked up earlier in Tobio's defense just tore me apart. To see one person care for another so immensely was something that I couldn't fathom. Daichi's whole world was built into the small body of a boy and while he never really verbalized that to me, I could see it in his eyes. I could hear it in his voice.

And when he was screaming his soul out to Kiyoko, I realized something.

No matter the circumstance, be it negative or positive, Kiyoko and Daichi will always have a connection. They have a history.

They will always have a force that is constantly drawing each other together.

That being the case, they can never fully move on from each other. In the eyes of a stranger, they are labeled as 'family', and that was something that I could never be with Daichi. He was something that would always be just out of my reach. In a reality that I could only view from behind a glass window.

And as I walked back into the house after leaving Kiyoko, I came to the realization that I could no longer be a spectator. The more I looked on, the more attached I got. And even though at first I didn't notice it off the bat, I was starting to fall in love with the man.

But, emotionally, I couldn't afford to fall so I decided maybe it would be for the better for both of us if I just stayed away. Or at least as far away as I could be realistically, his son was enrolled in the daycare I was employed at.

I looked past Daichi into the blank space, desperately trying to hold onto it and wedge it in between us. The tenseness in the room was almost suffocating me and the silence was steadily being replaced with static in my brain.

Slowly, almost knowing that Daichi wasn't planning on saying anything to me, I began to inch my way towards the door. At this point, I didn't care about the overnight clothes that were waiting to be changed into that I left sitting in the living room or the half-cut vegetables sitting neglected on the kitchen counter. All I wanted was space. Pushing all those things to the back of my mind, I turned my body fully so that I wasn't facing him knowing that my emotions were written all over my face.

But just as my hand had turned the doorknob, the afternoon air threatening to spill through the door, something stopped me.

Well, someone. Daichi to be exact.

The skin on his hand sliding against mine as he tightened his grip around my wrist, not hard enough to hurt but it was enough to make me stop in my tracks.

Still, I didn't dare to face him, possibilities of what he was going to say flying through my brain, all materializing with different outcomes. But as his mouth opened and his voice fell past his lips, quiet and breaking, the thoughts disappeared.

"Koushi,"

He paused and the sound of him carefully inching towards me, his other hand reaching for my free hand. Lightly he grabbed at it, pulling me to face him. I allowed my body to turn in the directions of his beckon but kept my gaze off of him, making it a point to keep my head turned towards the door.

The sound of Daichi shakily inhaling a deep breath filled my ears.

Softly he let some of the air pass through his nose and it just barely met the skin of my neck causing small goosebumps to arrive on the stretch of skin.

The sudden intimacy of the situation distracted me from the context of the whole situation, small shocks of electricity, and waves of chills shot through the entirety of my body.

"Please, Koushi."

He opened his mouth again, this time talking slightly louder than before but gradually returning to its softer state almost as if he hadn't been able to gauge the power he had behind his words. But I stood still, knowing full well what would happen if I gave in and looked at him.

"Could you look at me or something?" his voice finally gaining a steady bass behind it.

Don't, it will all be over, I subconsciously reminded myself.

Reluctantly, his grip on both of my arms loosened finally he let them go. Causing them to fall limp by my sides. Everything in me screamed for me to stay. To tell Daichi everything from A to Z, just in a minor attempt to fix this whole mess that I've created but my body refused to comply.

Wordlessly, I let them fall to my side with a heavy thud. I didn't make any kind of sudden movements for the door, I just stood there silently. Shaking off all the impulses screaming at me to do the opposite of what I was doing, begging me to turn around and stop the mess that I've created.

I could feel Daichi's stature moving closer to me, then past me. I watched as his large hands stretched over the doorknob twisting it open a little harder than necessary and he leaned even more forward to push the door open, his face inches away from mine.

He pulled back just slightly before pausing, his mouth just past my ear.

"I understand." He said.

A hot wet drop fell on my shoulder, sinking into the fabric of my shirt followed by another and then another.

Shocked, I turned to look at him but he had already pulled his face away and had it hidden away by the palm of his hand.

Finally, I realized the fault in my ways and I broke.

"Go!" he emptily commanded, no real candor behind his words.

I reached my hand out but as soon as the palm of my hand reached the warmth of his skin, he pulled away like I was a burner on a stove that had been left on. He attempted to mumble out more orders which turned to begs which turned into incoherent sobs. And before I knew it, tears were pouring down my face and my feet were moving before my mind had the time to process what I was doing.

My arms stretched out and I fell into the surface of Daichi's back, my face collided with the fabric of his shirt. The tears from my face sinking into the cloth, soaking small circles into it but I refused to pull away.

I desperately grabbed at his shirt, trying to force him to face me. Trying to sill a spew of sorries and 'I didn't mean its'.

Daichi frantically faced me, his eyes scanned over my face confused.

His face twisted from confused to something else, something I couldn't really make out.

His hand moved to my forearm and he lightly moved his thumb on the surface of my skin in small circles comfortingly but I was too scared to move. Too scared that if I let go for even a second, he might vanish into thin air.

"Hey," he said quietly, his own hurt almost untraceable now. His hands moved from my arms to my neck to my chin and tilted my head up to look at him.

"Hey," he said again, quieter this time in an attempt to soothe me.

Slowly, he let his forehead fall to meet mine, "You're okay."

Then, "It's okay."

His words were so silent, I almost didn't hear them but I watched his lips. But the words became meaningless and before I knew it, I had his lips on mine.