CHAPTER FOUR

I had always thought that the only person capable of making my life miserable was my mother. It never crossed my mind that somebody else could do it, too.

I had to say, Aomine Daiki was doing an excellent job in ruining every second of my life. For the last two days since we'd moved, it felt like I was in a penitentiary, paying for the sins I didn't commit.

I mean, can you believe it? He made me scrub his "grossgusting" toilet with his evil snickering as background music.

Gah.

Cringing at the memory, I thoroughly massaged my aching temples.

Why did I do it, anyway? Why was I even putting up with him and his demands? He was practically enslaving me.

What a devil...

"Aren't you going to unpack your things?"

Breathing out an exasperated sigh, I lazily turned to the direction of the door when I heard his deep voice. Unwanted people sure have their way of showing up when you least expect them to. Popping up like a mushroom in the most unexpected time had been Aomine Daiki's hobby as of lately.

"No need to," I said in a bored tone, hoping to drop the conversation as soon as possible. I wasn't even surprised of his sudden appearance anymore. I got used to it like it was some common occurence. But if he knew how to pop up like a mushroom, he must also learn how to pop like a bubble and be gone. After all, it wouldn't be hard for him to disappear out of sight since he could easily blend into the darkness. I'd surely lose sight of him in an instant. Except maybe for the plain white shirt he was wearing.

Okay. I knew I deserved a cookie for that joke.

"So you like it this way or you're just too lazy to tidy up?" He arched up a brow, sounding like some strict supervisor questioning me for my incompetence and it was annoying as hell.

I rolled my eyes, grunting. "Piss off, Daiki. Just mind your own shit."

Of course, I couldn't tell him that I didn't want to unpack and tidy up and actually decorate the room because I knew I would just be wasting my time and strength. It'd be nothing but a major hassle. But now that I had come to think of it, I hadn't exactly tried decorating any of my roomsssss before.

Why?

It was simply a matter of self-preservation. When you move around a lot, you just don't let yourself get attached.

Aomine Daiki merely shrugged his broad shoulders, seemingly unaffected of my sass. How annoying. I'd never win. "Yeah, sure. But if you don't want to clean your room, help me clean mine, instead."

I gaped, looking at him as though he had grown real life demonic horns on top of his head. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Do I fucking look like I'm kidding right now?"

I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn't quite bring myself to say a word yet. I was much too dumbfounded. I'd be damned but there's no way he could make me do it.

No. Fucking. Way.

I'd seen and smelt his room. When he dragged me there, literally, to scrub his "grossgusting" toilet, I kind of saw how much it resembled a smelly dumpsite. It reeked of sweat and feet and whatever he owned that I didn't want to know. Gravure magazines, jerseys, used clothes, and even food wrappers were everywhere I turned.

You know, it was kind of amazing how he could actually breathe the air quality in there.

Remind me to give him a crap flavored cookie later for being so disgustingly amazing.

"Your stunned silence is very reassuring," he said sarcastically, snapping me out of my irrelevant thoughts. He leaned his back against the wall, slipped his hands inside the pockets of his jeans, then added, "Are you afraid of my room? You were there yesterday."

"First of all," I started, finally regaining my composure back, "I'm not stunned, I'm horrified. And yes, that's exactly the reason why I'm never going to get in there again. I'm not very good at holding back my breath so no thanks."

He didn't give a comment about the way I insulted his room nor showed any signs of anger but his blue eyes narrowed, eyeing me up with a somewhat covered up smirk on his lips. I knew he was up to something again. Something wicked. "Are you worried that maybe you'll end up on my bed with your legs spread open?"

I sucked in a heavy rush of air as I felt like literally burning to ashes. Even if I didn't want to, my mind instinctively processed what he said and enabled me to see myself in that exact picture. "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE DISGUSTING! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Sweet baby Jesus!

How dare he made me feel this way? How could he? It was like he had lit a fire right between my legs and now it spread over every cell in my being.

Aomine Daiki's smug grin turned into an amazed laugh as he studied my reaction. The sound of it rang in my ears like a sweet symphony. Completely surprised, I stared at him with wide eyes, suddenly forgetting all about the ridiculous fire in my body or the disgusting picture he just made me imagine. This was the first time I'd seen him laugh genuinely, and it was nice. For a moment there, he actually looked like a pretty decent guy in my eyes.

A guy. And for once, not a devil.

"Don't worry," he said after he managed to calm himself down, "That's not going to happen. I have a basketball game today so you'll be all alone in my room."

"Hey, I didn't--"

"Get it done in time before I come back if you want to leave my room unscathed," he warned, looking as dangerous as ever with that seductive smirk on his lips.

Mesmerized by his twisted smile, I didn't say a word. I couldn't. So I partly nodded my head instead, immediately regretting it the second I snapped out of my trance and finally remembered what he wanted me to do.

Sanitize His Room.

However, before I could voice out my protests, he was gone in an instant---almost like a bubble that had been popped. Nice. So he learned that move already.

Good for him,

Too bad for me.

Aomine Daiki's devilish charm certainly had two effects on me. It was both menacing and enticing.

Damn. I'd better be more careful.

***

Reminding myself for the thousandth time that I was going to be fine if I'd just try to minimize my air intake, I finally pushed the door open. The familiar gruesome environment I witnessed yesterday was yet again displayed before my sight.

One word: Aomine Daiki was a lazy piece of ass.

Wait, that's eight. Sorry. The sight of his underwear on the floor just below my feet was making my brain completely unfunctional at the moment.

"Fuuuuuck," I swore in a screechy voice, pissed yet undeniably blushing from embarrassment, kicking the piece of fabric aside---accidentally kicking it too strong that it ended up under the bed.

Oh, great. Just great.

I stomped my way over to the bed, almost too willing to crawl like a creeper and retrieve the damn underwear just so I could feed it to its owner later when he gets back, but then my peripheral vision caught sight of something. I stopped dead on my tracks, rolling my head to get a better view of the object that had me freezing on my spot.

It was, in fact, a portrait of a happy family -- Aomine Daiki's once happy family.

I stared at it blankly for a while, trying to figure out why it was kept here. Then my chest tightened as realization finally dawned on me. Of course, his father knew that my mother surely wouldn't appreciate seeing the portrait still displayed somewhere in the house so he removed it when we had to move in. And Daiki kept it close, like a treasure he didn't want to lose.

I blinked back the tears that blurred my sight.

I knew he was having a hard time adjusting, but I never truly understood his misery. I was much too preoccupied with my own that I failed to realize how hard this whole setup must be for him, too. Surely I had dealt with other stepsiblings before him, but all of them were younger than me and were just glad to finally have someone like me around, Natsume included. So now that I had to deal with a stepsibling that was old enough to fully comprehend the situation, I was at a loss.

Aomine Daiki was different, a whole lot different in so many ways.

All too suddenly, I forgot how pissed I was as I started to move and get the work done. Every single thing that had me gagging earlier ceased to matter. I cleaned up everything without any more complaints.

And I made sure I did a good job.

***

About two hours later, I found myself making tea in the kitchen. I was alone so the entire house was very quiet. And peaceful.

Well, that is until I heard the sound of my stepfather's car in the garage.

I groaned.

After being gone all day with Kaito, the lovebirds finally remembered to come back home. I mean, they didn't even tell me or Daiki where they were heading or what they were going to do when they had left this morning. They just left us.

Yeah. Some real A+ parenting.

"Miyako?" I suddenly heard Aomine Daichi spoke from the entrance of the kitchen, startling me a little bit because I hadn't noticed that they were already inside the house. "What are you doing here?"

To be honest, among all the stepfathers I had, Aomine Daichi was the gentliest. Like, even if I'd break his car window on purpose, he'd just gonna go smile and say: At least you didn't get hurt, dear.

When I remained quiet, due to my thoughts again, he slid down to the chair opposite to mine. I could tell he was trying to get me to talk with him. "Where's Daiki?"

"He said he has a basketball game today."

I thought he'd leave after that, or maybe just stop trying to talk to me at the very least after seeing that I was utterly uninterested in the conversation, but I was wrong. What I said somehow gave him an idea on what else we could talk about. "Did I mention that Daiki is a hell of a player? Their team, Generation of Miracles, played and won against an international team last year."

The name "Generation of Miracles" rang a bell, but I didn't bother trying to figure out why. I merely shook my head. "No, you didn't."

Duh. Obviously.

"Really?" He raised his brows, as if he really couldn't believe that he hadn't bragged about it yet until now. "But, anyway, I'm sure you'll see him play more at school."

I deeply frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You see," he started, showing me a kind smile, "Your mom and I took care of your transfer papers today. So from now on, you and Daiki are going to be together on the same school."

Shocked, I bolted upright. "WHAT?!"

Fuck my life...

School transfer. Again.