Yakusoku (Avara Stadium Book 1)

New Flowers

Akiko's head hurt like hell.

She sat in the bath wishing it would do something for her. She felt over her body, remembering the feeling of Tess on her, and felt her heart ache stupidly, like the stupid person she was. Of course she was gone in the morning.

She'd left a note, a phone number and some nice words, a little heart. Of course Akiko saved the number. And what the hell was she supposed to do with it? Text her and say, "hey, nice sex?" "Screw me again sometime?"

Ugh. She'd gone and slept with her on the first date. If you could call it a date. Now things were weird and she was impossibly attached. She wanted her back. She wanted her back, wanted to hold her close, kiss her forehead, kiss her nose, kiss her lips, tell her how beautiful she was. It wasn't about the sex. Although she definitely didn't mind that. She wanted Tess.

She sloshed water out of the tub onto the floor, just feeling petulant. This bath was stupid. Her apartment was stupid. Everything was stupid. She needed a drink.

She stood up, put on a robe haphazardly, and stormed out to look through her bottles. She cycled from sake to gin to whisky and then to vodka, wondering where to start, but for some reason none of it appealed to her. She burned with embarrassment, conscious of herself standing there naked trying to drink her morning away. How low could someone go?

She sank into her ratty sofa and just looked up at the ceiling. If she didn't want to drink, what did she want?

Someone knocked on the door and she jumped through the roof. Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.

Oh, god no. Not him. Not now. Her stomach twisted. She wasn't even dressed. She wasn't going to deal with him.

He kept knocking. She set out on the mission of ignoring him as hard as possible, but he kept going. It must have been ten solid minutes before she stormed over and yelled through the door.

"Get lost!"

"Good morning," he said. She fumed.

"This is harassment. I'll call the police."

He laughed. "No, you won't."

Ugh! She hated the fact that he knew. "What do you want?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you."

"No! I'm not dressed."

"I can wait for you to get dressed."

"Then you'll be waiting until class on Monday, because I am not doing a thing today!"

"I brought gin."

She rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to bribe me with alcohol. Leave me alone!"

"I wanted to talk about our business plan."

"There is no business plan! We're not doing this!"

"Oh." He went silent for a long time, and she stood there waiting. Waiting expectantly. Waiting on edge for his answer. Why would she care? She didn't get herself. "I didn't know."

"I told you I'm not a roboticist!"

"I just mean, I didn't think you were okay with your life as it is. I know a lot of things, and I thought you wanted a change."

Akiko felt like he'd just up and slapped her. She stood there, her face hot, and forced herself to swallow a few times before she responded. "Leave me the hell alone."

"All right," he said. His voice receded a little. "Well, thanks for the consideration. I'll see you in school."

"I hope not," she mumbled, and he didn't respond. She was really hoping he'd respond.