DRAWN by Marian Tee

up?”

Chapter Eleven
     
     
    Too late I notice Yuki’s black BMW, parked just a few feet away from my house, its custom plate YUKI mocking me in big, bold letters. When Yuki steps out of the shadows, still in his school uniform, I gasp. His angelic aura is gone.
              Oh, shite.
              “Don’t tell him we’ve been together since morning,” Jace says loudly.
              “Will you just shut up?” I scramble out of his car, never taking my eyes off Yuki, feeling like he’s a bomb that’s about to detonate with the slightest provocation.
              I test a smile. “H---have you been here long?”
              Yuki doesn’t answer, his lips remaining compressed in a straight, no-nonsense line – a sure sign of his anger. His hands are submerged inside his pocket. I’ve a feeling it’s either that or throttle me.
              I start to babble. “It’s not what you think, I swear. So don’t get mad---”
              Yuki stiffens, gritting out, “What makes you think I’m mad?”
              Because he looks and sounds like it?
              When Yuki turns away, I panic and grab hold of the back of his blazer. “Wait!”
              Yuki stills. I tug, and I tug, and tug harder until he slowly turns around. “What?” He’s still speaking between clenched teeth.
              Anger, I think I can handle, but when I see that his baby blues have become blank, it reminds me of the time he’s talking to his mom. I don’t want things between us to be like Yuki and his mom. It’s just not good between them.
              “I draw manga ,” I blurt out.
              Yuki blinks.
              I tighten my hold on his blazer just in case he decides to bolt. “Jace draws comic---”
              “Graphic novels,” Jace corrects irritably from somewhere behind me.
              We both ignore him. “We have the same agent and once a month we go to her office in Miami to work on our stuff. No one in school knows about it and…” This time I can’t meet his eyes and I look down, studying the abstract patterned grooves on the sidewalk like they’re telling me the secrets of the universe.
              “I…I didn’t want to tell you about it because I’m…” I have to force the next words out. “I’m…scared to know what you’d say if you see my…work.”
              Yuki is still silent.
              And of course, that’s something I totally can’t handle so I slowly look up.
              My heartbeat speeds up like a rampaging emotional twister on the loose when I see Yuki’s angelic smile is back, although it’s tinged with exasperation. Best of all, there’s a gleam in his baby blues that make all my sexual fantasies come back and I just want to throw myself in his arms and---
              Yuki’s low laugh startles me out of my thoughts.
              “W-what?”
              As he bends down, I can’t help thinking giddily how everything feels like déjà vu.
              “You’re fantasizing again,” he whispers to my ear.
              I turn red on cue.
              He straightens and looks at Jace over my shoulders. “I apologize for misunderstanding,” he says politely in his best oh-so-cultured tone.
              I turn around just as Jace reaches us.
              Jace throws an arm around my shoulders.
              I quickly shrug it away. “He likes messing people around. Don’t mind him,” I tell Yuki hurriedly when I see his baby blues threaten turning into ice.
              Jace inhales sharply as he asks in a hoarse voice, “What are you saying, KC?”
              Jace is wasted as a graphic novelist. He deserves a bloody Oscar for the way he’s making Yuki’s eyes turn into an even colder shade of ice-blue