✍🏻 Little Matchmaker

28 - Dark Screen

Sophie spent most of the Saturday in her bed, staring at the dark screen of her phone.
It was around noon when she got the call that the stalker's sentence was indeed reduced for good behavior and he was out and about already for months. According to the police, they were not obliged to contact her about it.
Having Mike in the apartment and no Pokemon cards missing did give her a sense of security yet what she wished the most was to have somebody close to talk to.
At least Akira was kept occupied by Elliot who she asked to come over as well, not wanting to channel her negative mindset onto her son and rather stay locked up in her room.

She messaged Yuzuru to update him that the stalker was released but that the card was found. He responded by asking if she has Mike around and when she confirmed she has, he only wrote a simple 'good'.
Nothing more.
And it was now over two hours since that exchange and she stared at the phone and waited for the screen to lit up and hear the familiar tone of an incoming text.
Or even better, a doorbell.
She was slowly coming to terms with the fact that there won't be anything that would break the lonely silence and reached for the mp4 player, setting it on a random shuffle.
Her ears got blasted by loud Japanese rock music and she instantly pulled the earphones out and first lowered the volume before putting them back in.

Somebody is on a mission to ruin their precious super-hearing with this.

She thought, not believing he is still able to hear a word anyone says if for years he listens to the music so loud.
There was a mix of both Japanese and English rock songs and she began to drift in and out of sleep.
Until her eyes shot open when she heard her native language.

'Soy de Japón'

A female native speaker said followed by a translation of a Japanese, male voice.

'I am from Japan'

"What?!" Sophie whispered and rolled on the bed, checking the track on the player.
It was called "Meeting new people" in a folder called "Spanish for Beginners"

Seriously Hanyu? You are ignoring me yet you secretly learn Spanish?!

She growled into the pillow and pulled it over her head, for the thousandth time trying to figure out what is going in that guy's head.

'Buenos días!' the female voice said chirpily.

'Good morning' came in the translation in Japanese and she pulled the earphones out, tossing it all on her nightstand.

One more week.

One week.

One week.

She kept repeating in her mind, already out of justifications for his actions. Now left only with the blind hope that if she ignores it all and just manages to wait until the next weekend, she will get her answers. Her emotions were like a ticking bomb, with the countdown set to Saturday, the day when Yuzuru would finally cut the red wire and it will decide everything.

He carried me up for eight floors just so that I didn't have to take the elevator.

No matter how stupid and stubborn that was, it was still nice of him.

He stayed with me throughout that night, awake, just to make sure I am alright and get some sleep.

And he genuinely cares for Aki....

Sophie shot up and pulled her notebook on her lap, with a lighting speed googling Yuzuru and what the media write about him. Ignoring the level of desperation she has reached, trying to find some nasty articles that would make her feel sorry for him and give her the so much-needed justifications she ran out of.

She didn't have to search for long and came across a first tabloid article, having an interview with some psychologist-wannabe who was analyzing why Yuzuru isn't married and with kids yet. Covering his sexual orientation or the possibility of being asexual altogether, putting it as if both options would make him an outcast of society.