After returning to UA, my panic attacks were less frequent and not nearly as severe. My father kept trying to convince me to return home and I was becoming irritated with his letters. My trash can was overflowing with them, but all of them were open. I guess I was still hanging on, just a little bit. Sighing, I read through the latest letter.
I'm becoming tired of your attitude. If you don't come home within the week, I'll find you myself.
"Is it him again?" Eijiro asks, crossing his arms over my shoulders and reading over my shoulder.
"Yep. More bullshit lies," I mutter, crumpling the paper and throwing it into the trash, "I'm starting to regret even writing to him to begin with."
"You did what you thought was right. It's him that's making this so hard for you," he replies, resting his chin on my head. I wave him off, standing up.
"It's not hard for me-"
"You know I can always tell when you're lying. He's your father. It's not hard to see it," he cuts me off, shaking his head and taking my hand, leading me to the door. We put on our shoes and leave the apartment. We were planning to go down to the park or something, but we mainly just wanted to be together for a while.
"How do you do that?" I ask as we walk out the front door, the receptionist waving at me and wiggling her eyebrows.
"Do what?"
"Read me so well?"
"It's really not that difficult if you know what to look for. Your expression, how you sound, what your eyes are doing... just pay attention for a while and it'll be obvious."
"I love you."
"I know."
I laugh, grabbing his arm and wrapping it around my shoulders as we walk down the road. The first semester of school was already almost over, and in my opinion it had gone way too quickly. I still wanted to be in class, with my family, instead of alone. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I still curled into a ball and cried in fear.
We spent the day around town, just walking aimlessly and trying to find something to do. Eijiro bought a new video game we could play together, so we went home and loaded it up. It was a game where you could either team up with another person or play against them to the death. Obviously, we went against eachother.
"COME ON!!" I shout as he gets a few hits in, furiously mashing buttons until I pulled free. I quickly turned to attack him again, using every skill at my disposal. My legs were twitching in front of me and I kicked the air a few times in frustration. Eijiro was also yelling, his forehead knitted in concentration and his back hunched.
"NOO STOP YOU EVIL BASTARD!!" he cries as I knock him to the ground.
"SUFFER!!" I yell back, keeping the hits raining down on him. Finally, the words 'You Lose' flash across his side of the screen, whereas 'You Win' flashes across mine.
"FINALLY!!" I shout in victory, throwing my arms into the air and stretching at the same time. We had been playing for a few hours now and the sun was setting. It had started first to three, then first to five, and now it had become first to twenty wins. I had beaten him in almost all of the matches. After laughing for a solid minute in sheer triumph, I finally calmed down. Eijiro stayed the night with me, and in the morning we played the game again, this time together. We made it to round three hundred and four before finally dying. It was the highest score most of the people who had played the game had ever seen, and we displayed it online with pure ecstasy.
"Nice job, (Y/N)," Eijiro said, grinning, as I pasted the screenshot of our score online.
"Stop being so modest, you helped a lot too," I respond, running my hand through his hair as he stands beside me. He chuckled, wrapping an arm around the back of my neck and pushing my head towards him so he could kiss my temple.
"Come on, it's late. Go to sleep."
He turns to shuffle away but I grab the back of his shirt, keeping him with me.
"Sleep with me."
His face turns red at my bluntness and he stutters a lot, rubbing the back of his head and averting his eyes. After a while he calms down and we walk to my room, sliding under the covers.
"Goodnight," I say, rolling on my side so he couldn't see my face.
"G-Goodnight..." he mumbles back, still scared and confused and adorable.
'You pure motherfucker,' I think fondly, closing my eyes to sleep.