‘That’ Side Character Chapter 29: Overnight Stay

Kenma paused his game and looked up.

“So, we have to stay somewhere tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah. Umm… but…” you said, looking around for the town nearby but it seemed to be quite a distance away and it looked like it was only big enough for a small shopping center and a post office, “it doesn’t look very big?”

“Let’s go,” Kenma said, walking over to the platform edge and jumping down onto the rails.

“Kenma! What are you doing?!” you spluttered, “you’ll get run over!”

“By a train that isn’t coming?” he asked.

“Oh. Yeah. True.” You said, looking down at him and trying to figure out where you were going to jump to as everything was very uneven.

“Here,” he said, holding his arms up, “just let me help you down.”

“No, I can jump, I’m ok,” you said still trying to figure out where to place your landing.

“No. You’ll hurt yourself and we don’t need that,” he said, putting his PSP into his pocket and stepping towards you.

You conceded and crouched down so that he could put his hands under your arms and help you down and you let him, sliding into him as he lowered you to the ground.

“Oh. Uh. Thanks,” you said bashfully while he held you in his embrace. 

There was a small moment shared, before the nerves completely overtook you, and you quickly stepped out of his arms and moved to the side with some exaggerated arm flailing as you made up something about needing to get to a place to stay for the night. He nodded and just followed you.

It was indeed a small town. There wasn’t even an inn, until you finally went into the bakery there and explained what had happened and the kind lady behind the counter offered the room above the bakery for you and Kenma to stay in.

“No one has lived up there for years,” she stated with a hand wave, “it’s a little dusty, but it’ll do for one night to help you kids out.”

You thanked her and turned to Kenma, who was hanging back at the door, watching the conversation from a distance.

“I got us a place!” you said excitedly as you bounced over to him, “upstairs here!”

You turned back to the lady behind the counter and she smiled again.

“Oh. Wait, let me get the keys for the room,” she said as she disappeared off into the office of the bakery to get the set.

She appeared a few moments later with the keys and handed them across to you once you had bounced back over to her.

“Thank you!” you said again as you took them from her, then met Kenma at the door and told him to follow you.

You exited the bakery and walked around to the side where there was an outside ladder that led up to the second floor.

“I can’t believe we have somewhere to stay the night!” you said happily as you walked up the steps, the ‘thud’ ‘thud’ ‘thud’ of your footsteps shaking the galvanized iron footing as you traversed to the top of them. 

The door itself just looked old and you stopped in front of it and got your keys out to put it in the lock.

With one turn, the door opened and you stepped inside, looking around as Kenma stepped in behind you.

“Well… this is us then,” you said to him, walking over to look out the window onto the street below.

After looking out the window for a bit, you then walked into the single bedroom there and saw a queen-sized bed in it.

“Hey! Kenma! They have a queen si—,” your voice faded. “Oh… wait… are we sleeping in the same bed?!”

“What is it?” he asked as he walked in and stopped beside you as you stared at the bed in front of you.

“Nothing,” you replied brightly after a long pause of silence, “it’s fine. Nothing. We can go out now,” you said, turning and taking his arm to make him leave as well.

“Oh. There’s only one bed…. I’ll sleep on the lounge,” he said.

“N-No you can sleep in the bed with me I… I… I don’t mind at all. It’s fine, we’re friends… so, like, yeah, you know. Fine.” You laughed on the end, trying to make light of just how flustered you were right then.

“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable,” he added.

“Why would I feel uncomfortable?” you asked.

He shrugged.

“Because I’m a guy and you’re a girl?” 

“Pffft,” you hissed through your lips, “what? So, what. That’s… there’s…” you waved your hand dismissively, unable to find the words you wanted to say.

“I don’t want to accidentally do anything in my sleep,” he added, hanging his head to shield his eyes and hide the small blush on his cheeks.

“But… you wouldn’t do anything? Would you?” you asked him, a little concerned now that he had said it like that. You weren’t actually fearfully concerned; it was more that you were thinking that if he did do something to you it meant that he found you attractive and that thought was jamming your rational thinking.

“What if we actually did end up doing something though?” 

You mind immediately dragged up the thought of your bodies intertwined, one of his hands up under your shirt while you had your arms around him and you had to smack the mental stop button on that image immediately because your thoughts were starting to show through the expression on your face and you quickly looked away and shook your head.

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” you said quickly.

Meanwhile, Kenma was starting to get worried that it might not be a good idea, after all, for you and him to be together alone.

“What if I accidentally do something to scare her and then she doesn’t want to talk to me ever again?” he thought sadly as he walked slowly out into the lounge room, “if I don’t sleep… then I can’t do anything in my sleep. I’ll just stay up all night.”

“Umm… should we get some food or something?” you asked as you finally collected yourself and walked out into the lounge to join him.

“Yeah. And some energy drinks,” he said, looking at the floor. 

“Energy drinks?” you thought, looking at his side profile, “why energy drinks? Is he staying up?” Your mind pulled up that image of him on top of you again and you scrunched your face up to hide the look of bliss in your eyes.

“I don’t plan on sleeping tonight,” he replied, slowly turning his face to look at you, and because of what you had just been thinking about, you interpreted his look as something lowkey sexual and had to quickly spin away so that he wouldn’t see the look on your face.

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‘That’ Side Character Chapter 30: The Perfect Friend  >>>