"Gosh! Speak up your address already! It's been 10 minutes we are driving random places!" He said and shook my shoulders. After the embarrassment, I couldn't speak anything. I just wanted to dig a hole, trap myself inside and never come out.
"It's not like I saw your complete nude! Its just..." he shut his mouth before saying any further.
And the embarrassment came crashing down on me once again. This damn pervert!
"I'm sure you cant walk on the road like that in the public so you have no choice but to tell me your address," he said and I bit my lips. He is right... I cant walk on road looking like this.
I hugged my bag tighter around my chest before pulling the zip open to take my student diary out. I wasn't going to speak to him so it was a good opportunity to look at my spare address. I opened the address part and handed to him.
He just sighed and read out the address to the driver.
We kept silent until the rest of the ride.
"You live... here!?" Hagiyama exclaimed as we reached narrow road in front an apartment that looked like it is going to break down any time. I didn't know house like this existed in real. I thought it only existed in horror movies. One side of the wall was blackening due to some sort of fungi or something. Oh well...
I got down from the car and headed to the building, looking down at my diary. It did match with the address of the apartment. Oh god...
"See you at the party on the 5th!" He shouted with a smirk. "I'm not coming!" I shouted back at him forgetting that I was not going to speak with him again.
"If you'll come, I'll manage the lucky draw thing and I'll make it announce it for you, how about that? I'm sure you cant resist that offer, now do you?" He smirked and slid the window shut and drove away without hearing what I had to say.
What is the point in him trying to make me admit that I'm after money? I mean, poor girls are after money? It's not always true! Ugh...
Anyway, I'm going there in my real appearance so hopefully he wont recognize me.
I went into the apartment and called my mom to send a driver here.
I had nothing to do till then so decided to see what my apartment room looked like. Even though I didn't remember the address, I always had the key in my bag. I opened the door and the floor creaked like anything.
When I entered inside, I was expecting it to be dirty and smelly but instead, it looked like someone actually lives here and it was well taken care. There was some furniture and it had a living room, one bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. It had toilet and bathroom combined. I looked around and saw fridge in there and decided to look inside wishing to find some food.
And I was actually surprised to see some food in there. Why would dad keep some food in here if I'm not living here!?
I grabbed a pudding and went into the bedroom and saw study table that didn't look much expensive. There was a photo frame and it was me in the picture. I don't know what the heck is going on...
Just then my mobile rang. It was from dad.
"Aya!" He shouted as I picked up. "Are you in that spare house? I got a call from your mom," he said quickly. "Yeah, I am," I said and heard him growl in frustration. "What's wrong?"
"Is there anyone in there with you? Like from the high school?"
"No, why?" I asked being totally confused.
"Then why did you think of going to that place? At least you could've asked me, I could've sent you a driver there!" he said aggressively. "Dad! What's wrong with you!? You know what I went through today, right? Someone offered me a ride to my home and I couldn't decline so I had to come here, okay?"
"Someone offered you a ride? Who?" he asked suspiciously.
"First tell me what's wrong with this house,"
"There's someone living there currently," he admitted after a while of silence.
"Who?"
"It's none of your business, Aya. Just get home as fast as you can,"
"Wait, it is actually my business because this is a house you bought for my emergency. Now where should I go if someone has to come with me at my house?" I asked angrily. How can he say that to me when he knows what situation I'm in!?
"Okay, I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. I'll tell you about everything going on once you get back home, alright?" He said with calmer tone this time. "Now get back home quickly," he said and cut the call.
Weird... What's going on in this house exactly?
Just then, I heard the sound of key outside the door. Shit... Someone, the person living here is coming...
I hugged my bag tight and went into the typical Japanese styled closet and closed it before that person opened the door. I peeked outside from the small gap but I couldn't see the person from that angle.
The person was humming a song so I could tell it was a woman.
She locked the door as she came in and I heard rustling sound of plastics. She must have come from shopping. Then I heard her opening the fridge and rustling the plastic even more. She might be keeping food into fridge right now.
Just then, I heard something fall down and roll over into my sight.
OHHHH MY GOOOOODDD!!! ITS A RED EYE BALL!!!!!
Oh wait, it's just a mini tomato...
"Who's there?" She called out. Shit, I think she heard me moving when I got shocked. But the weird thing is, I think I recognize the voice but I don't know who.
I peeked from the gap and the woman appeared looking around the room with a chopstick in her hand. Is that the best weapon she could find in the entire kitchen? What's she gonna do with a chopstick? Poke an eye out? But is it possible with only one chopstick? But wait, is it actually possible if she had a pair of chopsticks?
What the heck am I thinking!? She might just try to gauge out my eyeballs!
Just then, she turned this way and I could finally see her face.
"Arakawa san!" I said aloud and got out before I could think what I was doing.
"Kyaaaa!! Intruder!!!" She started to swing the chopstick all around and it hit me several times. Thank god she didn't pick any kitchen knife.
"Arakawa san! It's me! Aya!" I shouted and tried to stop her but before I could, she just suddenly paused, causing me to slip a bit.
"Ojousama! Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?" she threw the chopstick away and rushed to check on me. "Its okay, its nothing," even after I said that, she kept on whispering "I'm so sorry," like a mantra.
"Arakawa san! Its okay now. You didn't hurt me at all, okay?" I shook her shoulder and finally she stopped apologizing. "But what are you doing here?" I asked and she sulked a bit.
"I should've told you earlier. I was suddenly told to move out from the apartment I was living. I was told to move out in three days or they would throw me out. It was just couple of days back and I had no idea what was going on. And that's when master noticed that something was wrong with me and urged me to tell everything. And he offered me to live in this apartment for a while until he will find out what's going on with my apartment," she said with an apologetic smile.
"If so then dad is doing a good thing. Why did he want me to get out of here quickly as though he had rented this to some dangerous person?" I questioned curiously.
"Its because he didn't want madam to know about it," she said in sad tone.
"What's with mom?"
"She is thinking that master is having affair with me. But the truth is, he is just trying to help me and nothing more," she said and sighed dramatically.
"I'll convince her that -"
"No! Please don't let her know that I live here until my apartment matter gets settle down. After everything will settle, I'm planning to explain it to her by myself. I don't know if she will believe me, though," she sighed sadly.
"Arakawa san..."
"I know exactly how it feels when you know your husband is cheating with someone else," she sighed sadly and sat down beside the table.
"Did you have an experience?" I asked curiously and settled opposite to her.
"It was a year ago. I was married to a guy for 2 years. I was going to come back another morning from a shoot. But the shoot got canceled so I got to return on that night. But when I entered, he was using our bed to be with another woman! I couldn't handle it and he also said that I no longer pleasure him so we got divorced. We divorced about six months ago," she said and tear trickled down her cheek. "I'm sorry, I bored you with my past story," she chuckled emotionlessly and wiped the tear away, whilst heading to the kitchen, picking the tomato up on the way.
"Do you want to eat something? I was going to make some pasta tonight," she said. Her sad tone was long gone and she was back to her joyful self. But I could tell she was not totally happy after telling her story.
"Thank you but I'll be going as soon as the driver will come to pick me up so I'll just eat this," I showed her the pudding I took from fridge earlier.
"Oh, sure," she smiled and handed me a spoon.
That's when something important that I was forgetting, crossed my mind.
"By the way, Arakawa san, I need your help."
. * . * . * .
What do you think Aya wants help from Arakawa Siho? Any guess?
Hint : the topic is already there, somewhere in the story...
Thank you for reading the story! I hope you like it :)
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