She didn't look at her phone until the first break. It was Kiri's. And there were half a dozen text messages waiting. Hikaru didn't expect it to unlock at her touch, but it did, and she messaged her own number anxiously.

… H TO K

Hikaru: I have your phone. 

Kiri: I know, don't worry, I already forwarded my work calls to this one for the day.

Hikaru: There are messages. 

Kiri: Can you figure out how to forward them to me? Don't worry about answering calls, only my family would call I think, and they can leave a voicemail. 

Hikaru: Ok

Hikaru worked her way through the menus and figured out how to forward the new messages.

Hikaru: That's all of them. 

Kiri: Thank you <3

...

Risa laughed at Hikaru when she told her friends about the mix up of identical phones while they ate lunch. While they talked, Hikaru forwarded the three new messages to Kiri.

Shizuoka stared at Hikaru in shock. 

Hikaru looked at her inquisitively.

"You spent the night with him already?" Shizuoka asked.

Hikaru blushed. She was a little surprised by Shizuoka's reaction. Her friend had a great deal of experience with men, though it wasn't all good.  

They'd originally become close when Hikaru had rescued her classmate from a man she'd been dating who'd decided that the acceptance of a present had meant consent to anything he wanted. Hikaru had just finished a job with Mirage, and recognized her classmate struggling with the man. She'd stopped him, forcefully, and Shizuoka had thrown the gift at him as they backed away.

Rin had arrived too late to do more than look threatening as the guy ran. He had grumpily asked Hikaru how she managed to get into a fight when left alone for less than five minutes. When he'd pointed out that he couldn't take them both on his bike, Hikaru had shrugged and taken Shizuoka home on the bus.  

Shizuoka had protested that she didn't need to be taken home, and hadn't agreed to be accompanied until Hikaru had pointed out that such a creep might try to follow until she was alone.

At Shizuoka's home, Hikaru had nonchalantly invaded. She'd been polite to Shizuoka's drunken father, who had just lost his job, and after listening to his confused explanation had asked that he find his next job in the same area, so that her friend could stay in her class. She'd helped Shizuoka clean their kitchen before leaving. 

They'd been friends ever since and Risa had welcomed Shizuoka into their circle warmly. Hikaru said, "Yes, I spent the night at his house." 

Risa gasped. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, having not realized that earlier.

Hikaru said, "I only slept there, we haven't had sex yet." 

Then she had to explain the fight that had led to her mother sending her home with Kiri.

"He hit you!?" Risa freaked out.

Hikaru nodded.

"That bastard!" Shizuoka said angrily. As often as she'd been embarrassed by her own father, as often as she'd been dragged around the country because of his changing jobs, he'd never been violent, and she couldn't stand the thought that Hikaru's new step father would hit her. 

Hikaru winced. "It was just once, and I was screaming insults at him," she tried to excuse Izumi.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Her friends refused to excuse him. 

"I knew you weren't very happy at home," Risa said to Hikaru, "but I had no idea things were so bad." 

"I thought you were just annoyed by the stupid curfews," Shizuoka fumed. 

Hikaru had a difficult time calming them down.

-- 

After school she went straight home. She entered the house anxiously. "I'm home?" she called out as she took off her shoes. 

Miri called back from the kitchen as usual, "Welcome home!" She put away what she was working on and met her daughter in the living room before Hikaru made it to the kitchen. "I'm sorry," Miri said, looking up into her daughter's face.

Hikaru looked at her anxiously. She looked determined.

"There won't be any more curfews, I've told Izumi not to interfere with you anymore. I'm so sorry Hikaru, I just thought that if I left things alone you'd get used to each other," Miri said sadly.

Hikaru asked, "Is everything OK?"

Miri nodded. "Why didn't you tell me he was the one that hit you?" she asked her daughter.

Hikaru said, "You've been so happy. You have no idea how much Yuki-ni and I have wished for you to be happy." 

Miri said sadly, "I feel guilty. I was so busy trying not to make you feel excluded, I didn't want you to feel like I'm starting a new family that you're not part of. Instead I made you put up with so much!"

Hikaru shook her head in denial. 

"Hikaru, I don't want you to feel like you have to move out as soon as you graduate," Miri said anxiously.

Hikaru gave her mother a wry look. "You don't expect me to live at home forever do you?" she asked.

"No, but I always want you to feel like this is your home," Miri said. 

Hikaru winced and said, "Sorry. I just don't seem to be able to get along with him. We're too different maybe. The only thing we have in common is that we both love you." 

Miri sighed. She said, "You're so much like your father. And I think the reason I can really love Izumi is that he's nothing like your father. Nothing about him reminds me of Akira, I think the only thing that's similar is how much he loved me too."

Hikaru patted her mother's shoulder. 

Miri asked, "Was it OK? Sending you home with Kiri-kun?"

Hikaru nodded and blushed. "I, he keeps saying he loves me," she said and stopped.

Miri nodded and looked at Hikaru uncertainly. "And?" she asked. 

Hikaru said, "I want to say it back to him, but I don't know. I know I really really really like him." She shrugged.

Miri looked amused and asked, "Does he seem to mind that you haven't said it?"

Hikaru shook her head.

Her mother said, "Don't worry about it, you don't have to rush."

"Yeah," Hikaru agreed without conviction.

She put on jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt and did her homework. A little before Izumi would usually get home, Kiri's phone rang. Hikaru looked at it, the number was labeled 'Chi-the-brat'.

Hikaru let it go to voicemail. It rang again. 

"You're not going to answer?" Miri asked from the kitchen. 

"I have Kiri's phone, by accident we switched, he said not to worry about answering," Hikaru explained. 

A text arrived, also from 'Chi-the-brat'. "Uncle Kiri pick up, it's an emergency!" it said.

When the phone rang again Hikaru answered it.

"Who is this?!" demanded the girl on the other end. 

"I'm Kiri's girlfriend," Hikaru answered, blushing, thankful that she couldn't be seen.

"I have to speak to my uncle!" the girl demanded.

"He's at work," Hikaru replied. 

"Why do you have his phone," the girl asked suspiciously.

"They got mixed up this morning," Hikaru answered. "Your text said it's an emergency?"

The girl on the other end of the phone started crying.

"Are you OK? What's wrong?" asked Hikaru anxiously.

The girl explained that she was locked in the bathroom at the bar she'd accompanied her friends to. Hikaru managed to assemble most of a coherent story pretty quickly. Kiri's niece had gone out with friends on a date with an older guy, who'd put his hand up her skirt and touched her and shocked she'd run away and locked herself in the bathroom.

Hikaru asked, "Should I call the police for you?

Miri who was listening to Hikaru's half of the conversation gave a worried gasp. 

"No! They'll call my parents!" the girl protested. "I just need my uncle to come get me."

"He can't, he's working," Hikaru pointed out.

The girl started crying again.

Hikaru said, "If you are safe for awhile, I'll come get you, I'll have to take the bus though, what's the bar's name or address?"

The girl said she was safe in the bathroom and gave Hikaru the information.

Hikaru told her mother who had pressed close enough to hear more, "I'll go fetch her and probably take her home?" 

Miri nodded.