Ironies of life

Chapter 13: The therapist.

Naoki woke up in his own bed, and for a second he thought that everything was a dream. He tried to sit up by pushing himself up on his elbows, but a wave of pain washed over him from his shoulder immediately. He screamed and Dante showed up in the room right away.

“Are you okay?”

If looks could kill, Dante would be incinerated with the glower Naoki sent his way. “After pulling my shoulder out of place? Hmm let me think… NO.”

Dante sighed.

“Don’t try to sit up.” He commanded.

“Oh thank you for the advice. Better late than never, isn’t that the saying?” If the sarcasm had a face it would look very close to Naoki’s at that moment.

“Naoki your shoulder is right. My-” Naoki cut in.

“Oh, is it? It felt a little out of place, but I guess the pain is all in my imagination.”

“My therapist was here. She said I did a good job, but she still bandaged your shoulder because, after it dislocated, your muscles around got hyperextended. It’ll be just like the pain after too much exercise or overexertion. It should disappear in three or four days, but if it doesn’t then I’ll call her again, but for now it seems like you don’t have permanent or major injuries. No torn muscles, your bones are right. You should be okay.”

“Yeah, great job Dante, you almost disassembled me like a doll, but good job.”

Dante sighed again and sat down on Naoki’s chair, looking for something inside a plastic bag he brought in with him.

“You have to take care of that shoulder with this anti-inflammatory cream three times a day. And technically you moved and made your shoulder pop out, I was just holding you.”

Naoki deliberately ignored him. ‘As soon as I recover a bit I’m going to get out of here. I don’t care about the police. I’ll never forgive this wretch.’

“Do you… need anything?”

“I need you out of my room. Now. I told you that you are not welcome here.”

“I just went and bought the cream so I think you should use it now.” Dante ignored Naoki’s insistent remark. “You fainted and woke up six hours later so you are probably hungry. Just let me know and…”

“Hey.” Naoki interrupted, one of his most notable abilities. “Do you really think that you being considerate and kind now means my mom is not going to hear about this? Because I’m telling her what happened. Quit telling me what I have to do and get out of my room. If you get out of my house now, I might try to prevent my mother from finding and killing you.”

“Your mother already knows about this. I’m not stupid, one of the first things I did was call your parents.” Dante put the tube of medicine cream down on the bedside table and approached Naoki, intent on helping him sit up. “And they were okay with it. Your mother still wants me to take care of you until they come home, and I’m going to make sure you don’t do anything stupid so that by the day she arrives you will be totally fine.”

Naoki pushed Dante’s hand away violently.

“Don’t touch me. At all.” Ordained Naoki, who was stewing in fury.

Dante sighed and stepped back, but even if he was feeling guilty for everything, he could still be aware of the situation and take advantage of it. That was Dante, feelings only took a third of his attention.

“Then we have a deal. Am I right?”

Naoki seemed so confused.

“I don’t touch you, you don’t escape from here. That was the deal.”

“Get lost, Dante.”

“Then I’m guessing I can help you out with this cream.”

Naoki clenched his jaw. Not again. Dante couldn’t win all the time. Right?

“Deal.” Naoki extended his hand and shook Dante’s. He wasn’t planning on carrying out with the deal anyway, Naoki just wanted Dante to shut up. “Now get out of my room. And prepare a sandwich for me.” Saying that sentence filled Naoki with power, especially when Dante just shrugged and did exactly what he said. Maybe being injured wasn’t that bad, having Dante as his slave could no doubt provide entertainment. “And remember I like drinking pop with my lunch!” He shouted to Dante, who had already left the room.

He was having so much fun thinking of all the possible ways he could make Dante mad thanks to his injured condition, he forgot about the shoulder. The truth was that the pain was a hundred times less intense after Dante pushed it back in its place, so it was easy to ignore it and just enjoy his new servant.

The blond guy came back fifteen minutes later with a sandwich and put it down on the bedside table.

“Do you want me to help you sit up?” He asked. Dante was obviously making an effort to be polite, even if his expression was still empty of any emotion, even guilt.

“Did you already forget the deal?” Naoki teased him. “And I think I made clear enough that I wanted pop with my sandwich.”

“I didn’t hear that.” Dante lied.

“A deaf servant, so useful.” He rolled his eyes. “But you can hear me now, right? Go get it then.”

Dante went all the way down the stairs again, grabbed a drink grumbling and brought it upstairs.

“Happy?”

“Not really. I hate lettuce and there is a bunch on my sandwich.” Naoki made that up since he liked almost all the vegetables. His grandparents from his mother side were Japanese so his diet held greater variety.

“Set it aside on the plate.” Dante realized Naoki had sat up in his absence so he took the chair and relaxed into it.

“I can’t do that. Now everything smells like lettuce and I can’t stand it.”

“The lettuce barely smells what are you talking about? You’re just trying to bother me.”

Naoki didn’t answer, instead he set the plate aside and opened the pop “Whatever, I wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

Dante rolled his eyes and stood up to take the plate down and make a new sandwich, and Naoki couldn’t help but smile. The revenge he always wanted was coming true, and in the best way possible. Maybe he wasn’t being ridiculed in front of the entire high school just as Naoki had been, but he seemed really annoyed having to obey Naoki’s demands and for the second time in his live he wasn’t getting what he wanted.

‘Yes, Dante, get ready, I’m not going to let you win. Maybe during the rest of your life you will, but not while I’m around.’

“Here.” The freckled face of Dante appeared and caught Naoki smiling. “You have to eat something.”

“Did I mention that I like ice in my pop?” Naoki grabbed the sandwich and began eating it. He was planning on complaining about more ingredients but he found that he was really hungry to keep going with that.

“No you didn’t.”

“Well, it’s hard to drink this without ice, you know. Pop is meant to be cold.”

“I will do it next time.” Dante granted. No way he was going to go downstairs and upstairs again.

“You better remember next time…”

The bell rang and immediately Naoki quit smiling. They weren’t waiting for everyone. ‘Please don’t tell me this i***t is going to host a party at my house. Wait! Maybe it's not that. Maybe Loin came to see me since I can’t get out of here!’

Dante, who had his hands over his face, slid his hands down his face in silent relief before he stood up and left to get the door.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Naoki asked.

But apparently the blond didn’t hear him. Or pretended he didn’t hear him. Then there were voices downstairs, but it was obvious that the guest wasn’t Loin as a feminine voice echoed up the stairs and the tone was friendly.

Five minutes later, they both appeared in Naoki’s room. Dante and a young blonde lady stepped in. She was probably around twenty five, not much older than them in any case.

“Good morning, Naoki.” She smiled kindly. “You look much better now. Let’s see that shoulder.”

Naoki blinked in shock for a second. Was that the therapist? That young, sweet, hot lady?

He lost his voice.

She looked at Dante a bit confused and murmured:

“Have you even told him what happened?”

“I did. I guess he just wasn’t expecting such a nice woman as a therapist. He is bad with females, you know.”

Naoki blushed until he was the color of a tomato up to his ears, and his body burned with embarrassment. ‘How dare you Dante… how dare you say something like that in my face. I’m going to kill you.’

“Oh.” She blushed a bit too. “I see...emm...mmm… Well nice to meet you… my name is April and I was asked to take care of your shoulder yesterday night…”

Naoki tried to recover himself as soon as possible and answer like a normal person.

“Nice to meet you too, I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It’s okay. Are you done eating? I would like to have a look and add some anti-inflammatory cream on it.”

“Eh… what? Oh, this?” He let his sandwich on the plate “Yeah, I mean yes, I’m done.”

“Good.” She sat down next to the bed and opened the tube of cream. “Are you okay sitting like that?”

“I-I… I’m fine”

She began unbuttoning Naoki’s shirt, making it hard to breathe with her so close. It was also hard not to blush. He tried to avoid looking at her while she pulled off his clothes and that was the moment he saw Dante smiling. It was a small, sneaky smile, but it was a smile nonetheless and it bothered him.

“Can you get out the room?” Naoki demanded.

“What?” He was going to complain but the therapist looked at him and intervened.

“Just do it, Dante. It’s no big deal. We’ll be done in a minute.”

Dante bit his tongue and left the room without complaining, but he was getting more annoyed with Naoki the longer he stayed.

“Okay, applying the cream can be a bit painful,” warned April. “But don’t be scared, that’s normal.”

Naoki nodded his head and quietly watched her movements. How she was unrolling the bandage and then applying the cream carefully and gently. He made a couple of noises while she was rubbing his muscles to make them absorb the ointment. Naoki was doing his best to complain as little as possible but he couldn’t stop those short dry sighs or the little moans and whines when the rubbing was really hurting.

“Are you okay? We are almost done.”

“I’m fine.”

She wrapped his shoulder again and then gave him some advice before opening the door for Dante only to be surprised that he was there, standing right at the other side while Naoki was trying to carefully put on his shirt again.

“What about you? Are you okay, Dante?” She approached him and place her hand on his chest.

“I’m okay. My skin is so pale that it looks more painful but it’s not.”

“Okay, you better keep your body working because you have competitions the rest of the summer. You remember that, don’t you?”

“I do. I’ll be okay. Thanks for coming this quickly.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to do this everyday.” she complained, but obviously kidding.

And he escorted her to the door.