Chapter Fifteen: Needy:

Nothing about Sakura-hime impresses me. Tonight, she has on a bright red baby doll showing off her cleavage. I try not to look down her gown. I don’t understand why she’s in my room right now.

“What do you want?” I asked, facing the wall. Sakura-hime put her arm around my body. Her hot breath on ear made me cringe.

“I need you,” she whispered. I pushed her off.

“Why?” I asked. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see her pouting at me. She rested her head against my back.

“I don’t know,” Sakura-hime said.

“You don’t know?” I repeated.

“Hm,” she mumbled. I sneered at the direction that this could possibly go.

“Why did you come to me?” I asked again. Sakura-hime shrugged against my body.

“You are just so cute,” she whispered. It’s taking my all not to push her out of my bed. What the hell does she want with me? I hold my tongue from anything nasty that I am tempted to say.

“That’s nice,” I mumbled. Sakura-hime pulled me closer to her body.

“Tell me more about Hitomi,” she whispered. “What was she like?” I narrowed my eyes in the darkness. This isn’t going to end, is it? Oh well, might as well humor her until she finally decides to leave. I used my shoulders to try and push her off.

“I barely know her,” I answered.

“Why not?” Sakura-hime asked.

“We lost touch with each other after junior high.”

“Why is that?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It just happened like that.” My eyes trailed upwards to the ceiling. “She’s thinks too highly of me, though.”

“Why do you say that?”

I shrugged under her arms. “I’m not anyone special. I’m just… me.”

“Is that a problem?”

I struggled to answer that question. I hated to admit it, but Sakura-hime was starting to sound like Hitomi. Both of them seem like damaged girls. I don’t know much about them, but they both seem pretty weird too. Hitomi had that obsession with frogs while Sakura-hime is obsessed with ero guro and death. I shuddered thinking about the last thought.

“Something the matter?” I heard Sakura-hime asked in my ear. I quickly shook my head.

“Nothing,” I lied. “It’s nothing at all. Just…” I turned the words over and over in my mouth. It felt bad to say this out loud, but something in me wouldn’t stop. “You remind me of her in a way.”

“Oh, I do?” Sakura-hime asked. I nodded, pressing my lips together.

“You both are kind of weird, but I don’t really know anything about you,” I admitted. “Her mother left me her journal and tapes and I still don’t know anything about Hitomi.” Sakura-hime’s fingers crept down my back.

“Why would you want to do that?” she asked. I looked down at the sheets covering our bodies.

“I don’t know,” I answered out of honesty. “Maybe I would have some answer to why she died and what she saw in me as a friend.”

“And why would you want to know all of that?” she asked again. I gave her a strange look.

“What’s with all of these questions?” I asked. “Why are you so interested in me and why are you so interested how my friend died? Sakura-hime pulled me in a desperate embrace.

“I think I’ve fallen for you,” she confessed in a whisper. I looked at her with big, panicked eyes.

“What?!” I whispered. She looked straight in the eyes. I hoped that she would say that she was only joking. Sakura-hime gave me a small, sad smile.

“I mean it,” she said. “I think I really like you.” By now, I don’t know how to handle this. I push myself out of her grasp.

“I’ve got to go to bathroom!” I said quickly. I crawled out of bed and raced out of the room. I closed the bathroom door and locked it behind me, panting. What the hell was that all about?