[19]

I have no idea when I fell asleep or how I could feel safe enough to let my mind shut down in someone's arms. But when my eyes jolt open, I'm not in the school's restroom anymore.

Sitting up with a start, I look around me with frantic eyes. It feels hard to breathe until my eyes suddenly find my backpack at the end of the bed that I'm sitting on.

I quickly grab it and zip it open, checking if anything is missing. When I'm positive that everything is still there, I let out a shaky breath of relief. My mind is a mess and with all those voices screaming at me, I have no chance to fix it, which causes my stomach to churn painfully.

It could cause a panic attack to take control of me if I'm not cautious, which would be a horrible thing to happen in a place that I have no idea of where it is.

I glance over to the small window of this cramped yet tidy room. The sun is already halfway back into its hiding place and the sky's colors are just as much of a mess as my head is. Only thing different is, that the sky's mess consists of beautiful colors that are intermingled with each other, and the one in my head is just a bunch of voices, laced with fury, yelling at me all at the same time.

Carefully, I swing my legs over the bed frame, set on leaving this room which slowly starts to make me feel suffocated.

But when I try to stand up, my legs give in and my stomach burns in agony. I fall back down onto the bed, my face scrunched up into a grimace. I think back to what happened at lunch time and mentally groan in frustration. I almost forgot, but how could I when I had a reminder of what happened plastered on my stomach?

With one of my hands, I lift my hoodie only a tad bit, revealing a purple bruise right underneath my belly button. But on top of that, I guess the punch has agitated the other, much older bruises as well, because they have become more painful again. Their colors have most probably also been triggered, seeing how vibrant they are looking again.

Sighing, I swallow down the growing lump in my throat, and attempt to stand up again, only this time slower and much more careful.

After a few failed attempts, I'm finally on my feet. I instantly swing my bag over my shoulder, before I tiptoe my way over to the only door in this room.

As I proceed to do so, I let my eyes wander around the room once again, this time with questions racing behind them. Whose room is this? Where am I? Why does it look so empty in here? Why the hell am I even here?

I halt abruptly when a thought crosses my mind. I think back to Riku's arms around me, his hand buried in my hair, playing with them and twirling them around with his fingers in a somewhat calming manner.

Is this- . . No, it's not, right? That's impossible.

I push the thought aside and instead try to concentrate on the task at hand - getting out of wherever the hell this place is.

Slowly, I grab the door handle and open the door as quietly as possible. When I step outside the small room, I'm met with a narrow hallway. Its walls are painted beige and just like in the tidy room, there are no pictures or any kind of decorations whatsoever.

It makes me question whether anyone is even living here. It looks so tidy and empty, as if the owner of this place couldn't be bothered to make it their home.

My breath hitches as a crack emits when my shoe comes into contact with one particular spot on the wooden floor. It echoes through the eerily silence of the building, causing my heart to pick up its pace.

I stay frozen for a few moments, listening if anyone has heard me. But no sounds other than my thundering heart fill my ears, so I continue tiptoeing my way through the hallway.

When I arrive at the end of the hallway though, there are three doors to choose from, all looking the exact same. I bite my lip in frustration. This feels like some game - choose a door, but no matter which one you choose, you die.

I never hated the idea of some day playing that game though, so instead of making myself go nuts, I just mindlessly pick one and slip through it with closed eyes. Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was clever, I have no idea. But it was kind of a game of luck, wasn't it?

Unfortunately though, luck wasn't on my side. I mean, when is it ever, anyway?

When I peek my eyes open, I find myself standing in - what I believe to be - a living room. There is a couch standing against the beige wall on my left, and on the wall opposite to it is a small TV, propped up on a harassed little table, which looks like it would fall apart by the tiniest breeze of wind.

Maybe I should've just peeked my head into the room and not stepped into it.

I mentally face-palm myself but the low grunt that suddenly ripples through the room stops me from actually doing it in real life.

My eyes widen in horror.

With my heart going on a rampage inside of my chest, I glance back over to the couch. This time, I notice the form of a guy that I haven't noticed before. He's taking up the whole couch but his feet are still reaching over the end. One of his hands is under his head, attempting to serve him as a pillow, and his other hand is resting on his chest.

My stomach drops when my eyes land on the guy's face.

Riku.

So, it really is his home.

Instead of breaking out in a panic attack though, my eyes linger on him, my heart thumping loudly against my ribcage.

The sun is at the perfect angle at the sky to be shining straight through the small window onto Riku's face. It highlights his features and casts shadows in ways that make his face seem so much less scary than usual, which I didn't even know was possible. His face looks just so relaxed.

And I think he took a shower, because his hair looks soft and somewhat messy, and not gelled into place like usual.

It makes me unconsciously inch closer to the couch, my fingers itching to brush a loose strand of hair behind his ear. The feeling is confusing but for some reason, it is too stubborn to let me stop my movements.

So, I crouch down to him, my stomach protesting but being overpowered by the overwhelming urge to come into contact with Riku's skin. For a moment, I just stay there, one knee pressed into the ground while I'm putting all my weight on the other foot.

I watch Riku's chest heave up and down peacefully. A few soft snores leave him once in a while, filling the silence of the room with something else than my still quickly beating heart.

But then, when his eyes roll underneath his closed eyelids, I reach my hand out and block the sunlight from reaching his face. It warms my skin and simultaneously casts a shadow in the form of my hand on Riku's skin.

His eyes' movements still and the slight frown that had etched itself onto the space between his eyebrows, dissolves.

It makes my heart flutter for some reason and calms down the rampage in my mind. The voices go quiet and fade into the background, causing the headache that was building up to disappear as well.

A small smile blossoms on my lips, the first genuine one I have had in months - if not years. It is too small to reach my eyes or to lift the corners of my lips to a level where it could be called a actual smile, but it is enough to be considered a faint one.

I let my eyes travel over Riku's face once again, wondering why he makes me feel this way when not even my mother could. What I'm feeling is much more than what my mother made me feel. She made me happy and made me feel safe, but she never made my heart flutter or could clear my mind from all those bad thoughts, like Riku can.

What am I even doing?

My hand drops to my side, the barely visible smile fading.

I'm getting attached.

The panic comes crashing back down on me like a wave would hit the shore. There was one rule that I vowed to never ever break again - to not get attached.

The only one that I'm somewhat attached to is Kai, but only because I knew him since before I set that rule for myself, since before my heart was broken in more than just one way.

And I feel like I'm close to breaking that rule with my aunt and Gwen as well, making everything even worse. Why can't I just do one thing right? It's like I'm begging to get my heart ripped into pieces.

Sighing shakily, I attempt to stand up.

But the hand that suddenly grabs ahold of my wrist prevents me from doing so. I yelp in surprise, my eyes growing wide.

I look down at Riku just as his eyes flicker open, revealing his dark orbs that look so much brighter in the sunlight.

His eyes are locked with mine, neither of us moving. My thundering heart is probably the only noise in the silence that has embraced the room now that his soft snores are gone. I'm slowly starting to wonder if my heart will just set out eventually by how fast it is beating ever since I woke up.

"What were you doing?" Riku's husky voice cuts through the awkward silence.

"I- uh." I stumble over my words, my mind still too void of anything to come up with a possible excuse or lie. Instead, I avert my eyes and dig my teeth into my lower lip.

For a few nerve-wracking moments, Riku just keeps his hold on my wrist and bores holes into the side of my face, making it hard for me to not squirm under the intensity of his stare. But then, he finally loosens his grip.

However, the next moment, he grabs me by my upper arms, pulls me onto the couch with him and turns us around, all in one motion. It happens so fast that the breath that I had sucked in when he put pressure on one of my bruises, was knocked out of me.

Suddenly, I'm lying on the couch, with him caging me between his arms that are on either side of my head. His face is mere inches away from mine; if I moved just one bit, our noses would touch.

I'm sure my heart has stopped working by now, its pace jumping back and forth between fast and thundering.

"You passed out, that's why you're here. I didn't know where you lived," he explains quietly. With every word he says, his warm breath brushes my face, sending a shiver up my spine.

I can't concentrate on his words, I'm too aware of our close proximity for that. So, I just hum in response, my eyes too stubborn to break eye contact.

Do not get attached.

Riku's face is blank, but it looks less stoic than when we are in school. And with the sun still shining onto his face from the best angle possible, he looks somewhat handsome.

Heat rises to my cheeks at that thought.

His eyes almost instantly snap to the pink tint on my face, which automatically causes the color to deepen even further. But when his eyes suddenly wander down to my lips, the embarrassment of the situation is long forgotten, and is replaced by a whirlwind that ripples through my stomach.

Slowly, almost unnoticeably, he leans in further until our noses come into contact with each other. My breath hitches.

Then suddenly, the only thing on my mind are his eyes - no unsettling thoughts, no voices screaming at me, no images of my past. Only him.

But I'm ripped out of my daze, when his hand brushes the exposed skin on my hip where my hoodie had slid up when he pulled me onto the couch earlier.

It snaps my mind back into reality. He is a stranger. I don't know him. I shouldn't get attached, I'm not allowed to get attached.

I turn my head to the side and try to shove him off of me with all the strength that I've got. Unfortunately though, it is barely enough to make him move.

Instead, he pulls his head back and puts his hand back to where it was before, looking unfazed. But as soon as his eyes land on my panicked expression, he gets off of me faster than lightning. I don't know if it was because of my expression or because of something else, but I'm thankful anyway.

Heaving out a breath of relief, I slowly sit up, my heart still racing faster than any being could ever run.

Why didn't I stop him? Why was I so caught up in his eyes?

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey there.

Well, as you can see I wrote another chap, lol.

My motivation for this book is just extremely high right now and I'm having so much fun writing this, so yeah.

Also, my heart does some hella weird things lately, especially when I wrote on this chap.

Recently, I started listening to some chill/depressive music while writing so I get more into the vibe, Idk.

And my heart always starts pounding real hard and quick, and I'm like, what's going on?😂

Anyway, what do y'all think of what happened here?

Stay safe! Love ya guys!

❤

- L I S A