DRAWN (27 page)

          “
Senpai
.”

          Somehow, that makes my hand moves faster. Everything goes faster, too – my breath, my heartbeat. Even my world is spinning too fast for me to feel I’m grounded.

          “
Senpai
,” he grits out again.

          Yeeargh! That voice! That voice! It’s exactly how he sounds in the video, and it just makes my hands move even faster.

          “Y-yes?”

          “Ask me your next question.”

          My. Next. Question?

How the bloody hell can I think of his next question when I’m feeling like this? I blink several times, trying to clear my thoughts even as my hand doesn’t stop moving up and down, squeezing, curling and uncurling around him. It takes a while before I realize we’ve already made the turn to his street, and I wonder dazedly what’s going to happen when we get there and no one’s home.

          “
Senpai
.”

          Somehow, that makes my hand squeeze around him more tightly, and Yuki curses in Japanese under his breath. Seeing, hearing, and oh bloody hell feeling Yuki affected by what I’m doing makes me feel like my body’s become light and taut as a drawn string, and I’m just waiting for Yuki to trigger my release so I can let go.

          We’ve reached his house, its garage doors shut but the light blazes out the edges of the blinds covering the living room windows. Yuki bends to grab the remote control for the garage doors in the tiny compartment below his car’s LCD screen. His jeans gape open more widely as he does, and my fingers automatically try to wriggle further inside.

          Yuki stills, his breath harsh now.

          I squeeze him again. I can’t help it.

          “
Senpai
…” He fumbles for the remote control and pushes the button to have the garage doors roll up.

          Instead of a darkened garage, the area is brightly lit. I see the shapely legs next – two pairs of them, near the doorway leading to the kitchen.

          Bloody hell!

          “Yuki!” I spring away from him in panic.  

          It’s Sascha, and standing beside her is a girl about our age, with strawberry blond hair and pretty pink lips forming a small ‘o’ in surprise.

          Oh, shite indeed.

Scrambling noise fills the car as Yuki curses, struggling to zip his jeans without being too obvious while I cross my arms and flatten my palms against my chest, willing my body’s headlights to lose power and die a quick death. I desperately search for something to stare at – anywhere, everywhere, but
them.

          Someone knocks on my window.

          “Bloody hell!” How did she get to my side so quickly?

          Sascha’s face hardens. Either she lip-reads like a master or I’ve said the words more loudly than I intend to. But how can she blame me for getting shocked, blast it! She practically popped out from nowhere like the blasted Blair Witch - if she had a thousand-dollar makeover, that is.

          I push the button for the window to swoosh down. “Err, hi, Mrs.---”

          “Yuki, I’m in such a terrible bind,” she says, cutting me off completely without a look at my direction. Yup, she’s totally mad at me.

“I need to fly to New York. It’s an emergency. Would you be so kind and drive Anika back to her hotel?” Her voice is still charming as before, but now I’m not so dazzled by it, and I probably will never be again, not after what I’ve learned. Right this moment, Sascha just reminds me more of a charming…snake.

“I’ve promised Katerina I’d drive her home tonight.” Yuki’s voice is toneless as before.

          “Then drive Anika after. She can go with you now.” The snake’s – I mean Sascha’s - gaze finally turns to me. “You won’t mind, will you, darling?” She asks it so charmingly I know I’d have to be the Antichrist to say no.

“Anika is such a close friend of the family that I’d hate for her parents to know I’ve made her go home alone in a cab.”

          I force a smile. “Sure, Mrs. Himura.”

          “Darling, really. You can call me Sascha.” She pauses.

          It’s not a very nice pause.

          “I hope you don’t mind, but I think it’s better if when Anika gets in…” She pauses again.

          It’s still not a very nice pause. Apparently, Yuki’s ability to say a thousand words with his pauses is something he’s inherited from Sascha. They must be mother and son, after all.

          Sascha suddenly reaches for my hair. Her touch makes me tongue tied, and I’m bordering on shock when she starts rubbing the strands between her fingers, as if checking its texture. What is it with the Himuras and hair, really? Yuki’s touch, I don’t mind at all, but this is…different. Creepy. I feel like my hair’s being tested for voodoo curses.

          Letting go of my hair, she says very delicately, “May I talk to you for a moment?”

          Yuki’s baby blues shoot me a warning glance.

          “Of course,” I say at the same time, and I can’t get out of the car fast enough. I try to ignore Yuki’s burning gaze behind me. Can’t he see I’m in danger of being in the wrong end of a curse if I don’t do what his mother says?

          What he’s told me about Sascha is enough for me to see past her Wisteria Lane glamor, and now all I can see left is a psycho witch who’s willing to do anything to get what she wants.

When I’m standing next to her, I ask, “What is it?”

          Her eyes bore through me. “I think you’ve left something in the backseat.”

          Inside my mind, I’m totally head-butting the dashboard.

          “I’ll go get it.” I can’t meet her eyes now.

          As I half-crawl into the backseat, I hear someone getting in the passenger seat beside Yuki and the other door slamming shut.

          What the bloody hell?

          “Yuki, it’s been so long!” Ani-‘ho – I mean, Anika – throws her arms around Yuki, pressing her breasts against his arm as she does. It’s hard not to notice when they’re almost popping out of her silver flapper dress.

          Still holding my bra, I slam the back door shut as hard as I can. Sitting smack in the middle of the backseat, I feel like the adopted kid of an inhumanly beautiful couple.

          Sascha blows us kisses. “Take care, you three.” She’s smiling now. I used to think it’s a pretty sight, but now that I know everything about her, it’s just plan creepy. Her eyes suddenly turn to me, quick as a basilisk, and the coldness of her gaze makes me look away just as quickly. Really, really creepy.

          Yuki untangles the clingy vines around his neck. “Anika, that’s not where you should be sitting.”

          “But it’s been so long.” She twists halfway to look at me, her lips curving into a smile that eerily reminds me of Sascha’s.

          I think we’re going to get along like a house on fire.

          Not.

“Hello, sweetie! I’m Anika. You’re?”

          “Katerina.” Yuki still hasn’t driven out of the parking lot. I wish I can tell him to just step on the gas and go. His mom’s creepy graze is freaking me out.

          “Anika, will you just switch places---”

          Her voice just a little louder, she asks, “You two go to school together?”

          “Umm, yeah.” Yuki’s gaze meets mine through the rearview mirror.

          This is your childhood friend? I mean, really?

         
Yuki’s lips twitch, but he just shrugs.

          I glare at him. That was such a guy thing to do it’s not funny. And why are we still
not
moving? Can’t he see that Sascha’s creeping me out to death? Can’t he see that the only way to get Anika off my seat is to drag her out kicking and screaming?

          “We used to go to school together, too,” Anika’s saying. She didn’t even notice I was having a mental conversation with Yuki a while back. Airhead much?

          “It’s been forever since I last seen Yuki,” she sighs.

          Sascha is still staring.

          “I’m just here for a week---”

          Realizing that it will take forever for Anika to get to the point, I say, “She can sit next to you, Yuki. Let’s go.”

          I feel Yuki’s searching gaze on me through the rearview mirror, and I look away. Yuki sighs, but he steps on the gas and the car slowly backs out of the driving way. I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel the strangling effects of Sascha’s creepy gaze fading. She must really hate me.

          “Thanks for being so nice.”

          Anika’s words make me look back at her. She smiles at me and then her gaze drops to my hand.

          Oh, shite.

          I quickly chuck my bra behind my back. When I look at Anika again, she’s no longer smiling.      

          She bounces back to her seat. I’m not kidding. She’s so, umm, light and bubbly
everything
about her is bouncing. I guess I have to be happy that Yuki’s not like other guys. If Jace were here, he’d be totally staring at Anika’s bouncy twins.

          “Yuki, it’s like you grow taller every time I see you.” She flips her hair over her shoulder. “You’ve gotten cuter, too, Yuki.”

          I hate how she says Yuki’s name. She makes him sound like a lollipop she’s dying to get inside her mouth.

          Yuki grunts.

          I smile – until I see Anika staring at me through the rearview mirror.

          Bloody hell.

          Anika jiggles – no, I’m really not kidding on this one either – to the edge of her seat, getting as close as she can be to Yuki. “I remember when we were going out in middle school---”

         
Didn’t he tell me he never had a girlfriend?

         
Anika smiles at me through the rearview mirror, even as she continues cooing. “You were always the tallest boy in class. I had to step on top of our schoolbooks just so I could kiss you.”

          My
mangaka
mind goes
aww, that’s so cute. I totally have to draw that.

         
But my heart’s screaming,
bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody---

         
“And I remember during Valentine’s Day I got to sneak into your bedroom and hide under your covers so I can be the first one to give you chocolates---”

         
Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody---

         
“I haven’t forgotten during the last year of middle school, when we went to the school festival together, and my sandal broke and you had to carry me on your back---”

         
Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody---

          Yuki switches on the car radio.

          It doesn’t make a difference, though. Anika’s voice just switches from annoyingly sweet to shrill. “Remember during Sports Day? I was crying because I made us lose the race, and you wiped my tears---”

         
Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody---

          And then Anika smiles.

          At me.

          Her voice lowers, but I still hear her loud and clear.

          “I’ve never forgotten our first kiss---”

          Somebody kill this girl before I---

          “We’re here,” Yuki says.

          Thank the bloody heaven. Any second longer and we’d have a dead body with us. I jump out of the car.

          Yuki’s at my side by the time I have the trunk open, his gaze intense and his lips firmly compressed. “
Senpai---
”

          “You told me you never had a girlfriend!” I grab my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, wrenching away from his hold.

          “She wasn’t really my girlfriend.”

          “She really isn’t but she technically is?” I snarl as I stalk past him.

          “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he says, easily catching up with his blasted long-legged stride.

          “No, we won’t.”

          Yuki pulls me to a stop. “It’s not what you think.”

          I don’t want to look at him.

          He inhales. “
Senpai
, please.”

          He’s so bloody unfair. When he says ‘please’ like that, how can I even refuse?

          When Yuki tips my chin up, I let him. He leans toward me, and I lean toward him.

          The door opens. “Angel?” Gazing at us questioningly is a buffed man with a buzz cut hairstyle wearing a checkered shirt tucked inside faded jeans.

          Bloody hell.