A high school romance - Bungo Stray Dogs Shin Soukoku

chapter 4

"Sorry I'm slightly early, the meeting was shorter than expected. I truly hope I haven't interrupted anything," Mori chuckled, his voice as sickly sweet as honey, ignoring the fact he was clawing at Akutagawa's skin like a hungry lion. His presence was enough to make akutagawa feel sick, tempted to throw up all of his organs to avoid the humiliation. Mori knew how much he hated being embarrassed in front of people, his pride was important to him. The doctor often took advantage of that fact.

"And whom might you be? I am genuinely curious. I don't know if I have ever actually seen Akutagawa with a friend before, yet again, I haven't seen him actually talk to any student here willfully." He smirked at the last sentence.

Akutagawa felt his eyes fill with tears, Oh God... he can't actually remember the last time he cried. This was probably the second worst outcome he could imagine (the first being he kiss him or something). Now atsushi wouldn't be able to look at him without pity anymore, not after knowing he was the first person akutagawa had talked to (other than family) in years. 'Please just kill me' he begged, not at anyone in particular.

Mori could feel akutagawa shaking even more now from embarrassment, that made him even more cheerful, he laughed snarkily before gesturing to atsushi to reply.

'Is he a teacher here?' Atsushi guessed in his head 'but if he was, why would akutagawa look so frightened... terrified?!' He clearly saw akutagawa shaking, his eyes quickly welling up with tears. He also noticed what akutagawa flinched whenever the supposed teacher spoke. 'Teachers cant possibly make a child cry, they are meant to be there to help the kids not harm them right?!' He thought again.

Atsushi shuddered nervously before clearing his throat," Oh uh hello... sir?" He said the last word with a bit of confusion because he didn't actually know what to call him,"Oh no worries he was just about to leave now so it's fine haha.. Im Atsushi Nakajima, I don't actually go to this school I was invited here, " he tried to laugh to prove to himself he wasn't scared but the attempt was pathetic.

Atsushi tried to convince himself that noone was in danger, maybe Akutagawa just didn't like this teacher, which makes sense to him because in his opinion he seemed pretty creepy. His gut was telling him otherwise but he didn't want to accidentally mess up and make things worse than they are.

"Oh great! Thank you Atsushi, dear, for looking after him for me until I got back," the teacher carried on. Atsushi attempted to smile sincerely in reply. "Well, I need to borrow him again now, he did his science test last week and we haven't had enough time to go through the answers yet," Mori explained, his hands not daring to leave akutagawa's shoulders.

Well... that did seem like a reasonable excuse, but atsushi did this it was peculiar that he would be removed from the dance for this. He shrugged this red flag off too, as well as his anxious thoughts and ever-growing amount of guilt seeming to loom over him. Hanging his head, and still struggling to form a sentence he replied ," Oh yeah sure no worries.."
He looked closely at the other, and tears were spotted slowly falling from his eyes, but barely noticeable "goodbye Autagawa" he frowned.

A few moments passed while Akutagawa still didn't bother to reply, not moving, barely breathing and not daring to relocate the direction of his eyes. He knew Atsushi had made it worse, even if he didn't mean to. He only hoped that Atsushi didn't get dragged into it. Akutagawa feels the tears in his eyes slowly start to escape, he desperately wants to quickly wipe them away before atsushi notices, but he knows that wouldn't help. This is just what Mori wanted.