Dark Places | S. Tendou

I GUESS YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED YET

Maeko nervously peeked over her shoulder, wondering if he was still following her.

She didn't notice him walking this way previously but, she supposed, they had different schedules because of his volleyball practice, and she sometimes stayed behind late to do homework in the library. Maybe he lived in the same direction as her. Maybe it was all just one big, unlucky coincidence.

Just to be safe, Maeko took a left turn that she wasn't supposed to, followed by three right turns. She'd walked in a circle and was now standing in the same spot that she'd began at and, lo and behold, he was still a short distance behind her.

Maeko tried to steady her emotions with a deep, calming breath before she turned around to face him, trying to make her expression as steely and unfriendly as possible. "Why are you following me?"

Tendou glanced over his shoulder, doing a double-take as if to say: Who, me?

Maeko stayed deathly quiet, folding her arms across her chest to show she meant business.

Tendou sighed and took a long stride closer to Maeko but, seeing her take a step back, he froze in place, eying her carefully. "I'm just out for a stroll!"

"A stroll?" Maeko stared with a blank look on her face, not believing him for even a second. "You just followed me in a complete circle."

Tendou pointed to the right down a long, narrow alleyway. "If you must know, I was just about to head this way."

Maeko leaned forward hesitantly, trying to peer in the direction he was pointing. She still wasn't convinced. "Why didn't you go that way to begin with?"

"So many questions!" Tendou ran his hands through his spiky red hair until they came to rest behind the back of his head, fingers linking together. "I guess I might've wanted to talk to you a bit first."

"Why?" Maeko had nothing to say to him. She was clueless what he could possibly have to say to her.

This was the exact opposite of staying away from him like Ayume warned her to.

"Why this, why that. Do you not know any other words?" Tendou asked with a bemused expression.

Maeko got the impression he was trying to make light of the situation, but she wasn't going to let him do it. "If that's all you had to say, then I'm going to go home now."

She briskly turned around and took a few steps down the sidewalk, but she didn't make it very far before one of Tendou's hands curled around her arm. "Wait a second, I—"

"What do you think you're doing?" Maeko said, startled, pulling her arm out of Tendou's hand and stepping back.

She wished Ayume was here, but she wasn't.

Maeko had no choice but to try to deal with this by herself.

"You don't know me." Maeko's voice was on the verge of cracking, and she had to fight to keep the tears that welled in the corners of her eyes from spilling. "Please don't grab my arms, or follow me after school, or shout my name in the hallways, or—"

Her voice did crack that time.

Tendou looked sincerely hurt, withdrawing away from her like the words had been a physical weapon held in his face. Or, perhaps, it was disgust with himself, like he had accidentally done the exact opposite of whatever he had meant to do.

That made Maeko feel extremely guilty. She wasn't trying to make it seem like she was scared of him—even though a small part of her was.

It wasn't that he was scary as much as he was loud and unpredictable which, for Maeko, were scary things. Maeko was no good at coping with characteristics like that. She didn't know how to react to him and, clearly, he didn't know how to react to her in a way that would make her calmer in his presence.

Maeko sighed, deciding to apologize for what she said even though her heart was still beating out of control—even though she meant it. "Look, Tendou, I—"

"—I'm sorry." He said quietly.

Even his body language in that moment was somehow quiet.

He kept his eyes glued to the ground. "Truthfully, that's what I wanted to say to you in the first place. Earlier today, your friend..." He struggled to recall her name.

"Ayume." Maeko said just as quietly.

Tendou nodded. "Ayume pushed me away and told me that I was making you uncomfortable. I wondered for a while why you didn't tell me yourself, but then I realized it must be because you don't feel like you can."

Tendou lifted his eyes to Maeko's, but only briefly, only to confirm that he was right.

He gathered from her pitiful expression that he was. "I make a lot of people uncomfortable. It's nothing new."

He shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal. "Anyways, I just wanted to catch up to you and let you know that I—" he paused again to search for the right word, but this time Maeko had nothing to offer up for it. "—didn't want you to have that opinion of me, I guess."

Maeko was speechless.

She was actually speechless. Having to explain to Tendou the source of her discomfort so directly like that had taken a toll.

Tendou gave his head a rough shake and, just like that, all of the sorrow and pain she saw in his eyes while he explained himself was gone.

With a smile, he turned around and headed for the alleyway. "Walk safely."

Such an odd and ironic thing to say when it only felt like she could now that he was gone. Perhaps he knew that too.

Without properly thinking it through first, Maeko approached the alleyway as if her feet had a mind of their own. She peered down the dark, dimly lit street and just barely made out Tendou's side profile ducking into a store.

Maeko had absolutely no idea what compelled her to check on him, but it felt like the right thing to do.

After taking a minute to gather up her courage, she wandered down the alleyway until she was standing outside of the door he walked through. She tentatively pulled it open, wincing when it released a harsh, squeaking noise.

Inside was an arcade.

She didn't even know this place existed.

It wasn't a particularly big space, and the variety of games was certainly nothing to boast about, either. The room looked dirty, like it hadn't been cleaned since it opened. Besides Tendou, who she recognized by the red spikes of hair sticking over the top of the chair, there was nobody playing games or appearing to work in the place.

Maeko sighed with relief. If he had come to the arcade to play games than she surely had been overthinking and had nothing to worry about.

For a second, she thought he might've lived down there.

She turned back and exited the arcade, quickly scurrying back to the main road.