‘That’ Side Character Chapter 15: Spending Time Together 

“Yum! My aunt makes amazing apple pies but I don’t go to her place much. I don’t really like my family and relatives that much; they all pick on me. I can’t do anything right.” You looked down and kicked a small pebble out of the way. 

“You’re happy, and you don’t mind if I don’t reply when you’re asking questions,” Kenma said.

“Yeah…well,” you sighed, “you’re just a nice person to be around. Nicer than them.”

You smiled at his side profile and your heart warmed walking beside him.

“He’s really nice, I’m glad I have Kenma,” you thought to yourself as you looked up at the sky as it came into view once you had stepped out from under the tree covering.

Hey! We should give each other nicknames!” you said excitedly, “like… I’ll be Apple and you be pie!”

“No,” he replied bluntly.

“Awwww, but why?” you moaned playfully, letting your shoulder slump as you fell in behind him and followed him up to his front door. 

“Because,” he replied, opening the door and walking in.

“Ok, pie,” you said with a grin.

He didn’t say anything back and you followed him up to his room.

“Ok, so, what do you want to start on first?” you asked.

“I want to play my game,” he said, quickly shrugging his bag off his shoulders and grabbing his PSP out of his pocket.

You dropped your bag down as well and got your phone out, then hopped up on his bed next to him.

He sat with his back against the wall and you sat cross legged in the middle of his bed, facing him.

“I’m gonna look for pictures to use for the project,” you said, typing something in to Google.

He nodded, his eyes shining with excitement as he waited for his game to start.

Silence fell as you typed various image searches in, then you saw a quiz about what fruit you would be and clicked on it instead.

You appeared to be really into the project searching and Kenma looked up at you, observing your face for a little.

“Found stuff?” he asked.

“Pomegranate?! That’s a weird… oh… yeah ok. I’m weird. That’s why they picked pomegranate for me.”

You looked up at him and he just stared at you so you just remained like that for a few minutes.

“Sorry, what?” you asked him.

“Never mind,” he replied. 

He had realized that you weren’t doing anything that helped advance the project, one bit, now and so went back to playing his game, and you continued down the endless Internet rabbit hole, and wound up on YouTube watching a compilation of weird Japanese ads- well into the night.

“Hey, Y/N,” Kenma said as he stretched and looked at you again.

“Mmm?” you hummed, eyes still glued to your phone.

“It’s 9pm.”

“Huh?” You looked up blankly.

“It’s 9pm.”

“Oh… ok…” you replied, looking back down at your phone.

“You need to go,” he added.

“Hmm?” you asked again, “oh. Go. Yeah. Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow, Pie, yeah?”

Aimlessly, and a little brain dead from all the rotting useless information you had taken you, you got off the bed and grabbed your bag then saluted as you exited the room and closed his door.

“Well that was fun,” you thought as you left his house and headed home.

……………………….

For the next week, you spent almost every waking moment at Kenma’s house, sometimes working on the project, sometimes just chilling on the bed silently.

It was Sunday and you had both worked on the project together then decided to have some down time so he grabbed his PSP and you picked up your phone and then silence fell.

As usual, you were on the floor and Kenma was on the bed with his back to the wall but the floor just wasn’t cutting it today for you – you felt like you were lying on cement.

“Ugh. Why don’t they make the floor out of pillow materials and make it soft. It’s so not soft here,” you grunted, pulling yourself up off the ground and getting up onto the bed.

You spied Kenma’s legs and thought they would make a wonderful pillow to rest on (weirdly enough because legs aren’t known to be soft- which had been your main complaint about the floor) and you crawled over to him and tapped his knee.

“Good evening, I’m here to take your legs,” you said to him putting your phone down and grabbing his knee to straighten his leg out so you could lie on it. 

“What?” He asked, a look of surprise crossing his face as he watched you push his legs to the bed then pat his thigh.

“Perfect.”

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I need a pillow. And your legs look good. I’m going to lie on them,” you replied, laying your head down and picking your phone up then wiggling around a bit to get comfy.

He watched you curiously for a bit then went back to playing his game and you lay there happily for a while.

After about 10 minutes he shifted and tapped you on the forehead.

“My legs are dead, I need to move them,” he said.

“Let’s swap,” you replied, looking up at him with a grin, “I’ll sit with my back to the wall and you lie down on my legs.

“Do I have to?” he deadpanned.

“Yes. It’s comfy,” you said, sitting up and copying his position at the wall, “now come lie down.”

He sighed and let you drag his head into your lap. 

As he got comfy and lay there with the PSP up above his head, his fringe fell out of the way a little.

You watched his face curiously, checking out his features while he focused on his game.

Then suddenly realizing that he might start feeling anxious about his vision getting wider you reached for a pillow and placed it next to him, across your legs.

He looked at it, then at you, and his intense golden coloured eyes captured yours for a second, making you catch your breath.

“Why did you put a pillow there?” he asked.

“Umm, because I don’t want you to feel anxious so I put something to block your vision of that side of the room,” you said with a smile.

“Oh,” he replied, “I don’t feel so anxious in my room because I feel safe here.”

“Oh. Ok, I’ll move it,” you said, leaning forward over him to grab the pillow across your shins.

<<< ‘That’ Side Character Chapter 14: PSP Takes a Back Seat 

‘That’ Side Character Chapter 16: Protective Kenma >>>