✍🏻 Little Matchmaker

30 - Misunderstood

Sophie waited in her bedroom, surprised at how long Nari was in Akira's room. And she wondered even more about what happened there when she heard that Nari returned back to her room and started to cry as soon as the door closed behind her.

Sophie stood in the hallway, contemplating if she should knock on the door and ask her if she is alright, but in the end, decided against it. Nari seemed to her like that kind of person who would rather die than cry in front of somebody and it would possibly make her only more upset knowing that someone has witnessed her moment of weakness.
And so she returned back to bed but told herself that from tomorrow onwards, she will try to be nicer to her.

Which proved to be harder than expected when she got out of the bathroom in the morning and both Akira and Nari were already standing in the hallway, fully dressed and with their arms crossed on their chests.

"You said," Nari started, "that I will not miss a single second of training by staying here. And you are late."

Sophie only growled something inaudible and went to the bedroom to quickly change, opting for skipping breakfast and having some at the rink's cafe instead.
She wasn't sure how she will manage to even look at Yuzuru without having her morning coffee but her worries about Akira's first day at school after the interview were much stronger and she momentarily forgot all about him on the way to the rink.

He still kept ignoring her, not even questioning why was Nari getting together with Akira out of her car when they crossed paths at the parking lot. He only raised his eyebrow but then sped up and when Sophie sat down at the cafe with her breakfast he was already on the ice.
And same as before, no more glances in her direction.

She barely did any work and rather focused on interactions between Nari and her son, with relief noticing that they seemed much friendlier. At least judging from Akira's behavior and from the look on Nari's face. She saw that the girl often tried to hide her smile when her son was telling her something but always lost and ended up giving him a weak smirk. Or short laughs that she immediately suppressed but they were there nevertheless.
But most of the time she seemed lost in her own thoughts and Sophie saw that even Yuzuru was looking at her with his analyzing gaze, trying to figure out why is she not paying much attention to the training and being somewhat withdrawn.
Sophie still had a hard time forgiving her for what she did, but it seemed that at least Akira did and it was the step in the right direction.

Curious about what happened in Akira's room the previous night, she tried to question him when they were alone on the way to school but already expected to have a little success since her son never told on anyone.

"So," she said casually, looking into the rear-view mirror, "did Nari apologize last night?"

"Yeah," he answered, staring down on his phone, "I think I know what her problem is."

"And what's that?"

"Well," he elaborated, "you say that people are not mean because they want to, they just seem mean because we don't understand them, right?"

"Um," Sophie frowned, "something along those lines. There are genuinely mean people out there, it's just most of the time, people simply need to get to know each other better."

"That's what I said," he said, "and when I talked to her last night, she reminded me of Loki."

"Who?" Sophie said and her frown deepened, "you mean that superhero villain dude? The green one from your game?"

"Yeah," he said and raised his head from the phone, "I think Nari is also misunderstood. He was also mean to others but is actually a good guy."

"Wait a minute," Sophie paused, trying to recall all the movies he made her watch, "isn't it the guy who like actually killed other people?"