I smile gently at Sakae's formal words, lifting my hand in farewell as I stand in the doorway. It's hard to smile at the moment, when I can feel brown eyes staring at me coldly from the doorway to Kaneda's room, but I do my best to ignore that gaze. I'm two seconds from being out the door and on my way home, after all, and he won't exactly be following me. So whatever his issues are with me, in just a few minutes, I'll be free of them until tomorrow's session. I reach for the door, satchel gripped in my off hand, and slip through, but at the last minute, I can't resist glancing back at the soft smile of farewell Sakae is offering me. Once out the door, I fumble out my mp3 player, getting it set up before starting to head toward the bus stop.
I feel sorry for Sakae. I'm out of there, but delicate Sakae still has to face that guy over dinner before he finally goes off to his job. I can't help but wonder what's going on in his mind when he watches me with that hateful look of his. It could just be overprotectiveness, but that doesn't really feel right. However frail Sakae seems, I can't imagine their relationship is so close that Kaneda would feel that protective. Sakae told me that they only got to know each other in the last year or so, when Sakae was taken in by Kaneda's family. They may call each other 'brother', but they definitely aren't. They're far too opposite for that.
If it weren't for Kaneda's cold looks, tutoring Sakae would be really calming. I like him. He's fun to talk to, and his smile is like sunlight after a heavy rain. That smile is why I try to make all the lessons as much fun as possible. Seeing it makes me want to return to Sakae all the time, but Sakae's smiles fade when Kaneda gets home, and the last hour or so of our tutoring always passes without any smiles at all. I think, tomorrow, I'm really going to try to make Sakae smile in the last hour. If I can do that, I'll be able to defeat the cloud Kaneda brings.