School Girls' Stories - Year 2

Chapter 15 – I Love You

Shai and Kyoei sat on the floor, little Shu between them, doing nothing more than kind of gurgling, and somehow it was the most adorable thing both of them had seen.

“Is that Mama’s little boy?” Shai was asking in the cutest voice. “Yes he is,” she smiled, leaning down and kissing him on the forehead.

Kyoei watched Shai cooing and fawning over her son in a way he never expected to. He had always admired a woman’s strength, but never enough to stop and watch the woman. Shai was different. She had broken, and fallen apart, and thanks to one miraculous event that had kept her from completely being destroyed, she went along and found all of the pieces again. She slowly began putting them back together. It may not be a perfect glass figure, as it had been in the beginning, but she was so close it was frightening.

“He looks so much like you,” Kyoei said, watching the two of them closely. “Thank God.”

Shai laughed and kissed her son’s stomach, making a loud noise that seemed to thrill the child to no end. “He has Teiyoku’s eyes. You can already see them changing to green instead of staying blue. But that’s okay. I think he will be a real looker with my black hair and Teiyoku’s green eyes.”

“You know that’s the first time you have ever addressed the man by only his given name,” Kyoei pointed out. “You have been calling him Mr. Tennison, even when I talked to you yesterday.”

Shai gave off a small shrug, but for her it meant more than ‘nothing’. “He’s my son’s father, it would be odd to call him ‘Mr. Tennison’ in front of him.”

“So you are reconsidering?” Kyoei watched Shai lean her head up and look into Kyoei’s eyes.

Shai sighed and nodded. “I think it’s only fair that my son know his father,” Shai admitted. “I mean… I don’t want to lie to him, not the way my father lied to me. Not that I think any less of my father for it, though it does make things a bit more complicated. It’s just that… I want some sort of normalcy.”

Kyoei sighed, disagreeing with her the moment she had opened her mouth to agree to let that man have anything to do with her son. “You are going to tell him you were fifteen and seduced by your teacher and that-”

“Stop, Kyoei. Please.” Shai stood up, leaving Shu to gurgle happily in front of Kyoei. She walked into the kitchen and he heard the glasses rattling as she pulled one out. He glanced once more at Shu, who seemed perfectly fine lying there, stood up, and followed his girlfriend into his kitchen.

“Shai, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Kyoei said softly.

“Kyoei,” she turned and looked to him, two glasses in her hand. “We can’t leave Shu out there by himself.” She began to set the glasses on the table and go back through the door, but Kyoei stopped her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tightly to him.

“Shai,” he whispered into her hair. “Let me be the one who is around for little Shu,” he murmured into her hair. “Let me be the one to help you raise him, to help you take care of him, to just be with you.”

“Kyoei…” she started, but did not know what to say.

“I love you, Shai,” he murmured, quiet enough that she almost did not hear him, but she did. She heard him whisper the words she had never heard from any man but her own father before. Something about it sent an electric thrill through her belly and had her knees feeling week. At the same time, she could not say the words back.

“Kyoei,” Shai began, and at the last minute went with the worst thing she could have said, “thank you.”

Kyoei was not stupid enough to not guess what she meant. He slowly pulled away from her and looked down at her wide eyes. He was not going to leave her for not saying she loved him back. He just could not stay at that moment knowing she could not yet commit to a life with him.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” he told her, kissing her softly on the cheek. “I promised to take you and Shu to the zoo, and I will.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, following him through the house and to the door, glancing quickly at Shu’s figure on the floor. The child was fast asleep, which was a relief to Shai’s heart. “Kyoei… I just, have a lot on my mind.”

Kyoei smiled at her, leaning down and kissing her passionately, pulling her to him, pressing the lengths of their bodies together. Shai wrapped her arms around his neck to feel the deepness of his mouth, to let their tongues wander one another in a sultry sensation that had her knees falling away from her, the whole bottom dropping out of the world. It was then she realized what Kyoei had been realizing every day since their first time: they had only had one time, and it had been about six months since then. Six months of waiting for one another, six months of needing…

“I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” Shai said with the utmost honesty.

“Oh… Me too,” he said with his usual coy grin.