[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 552 & 553. (Patreon)

Chapter 552: Pets.

It was meowing that woke me up. Meowing and whispering.

“Cake, I have to wake him up.” That was… Isabelle’s voice. And yet despite saying that, she was speaking in hushed tones like she DIDN’T want to wake me up.

Cake answered with a soft meow. I could still feel her sitting on my stomach.

“Come on, lunch is ready. Let me wake him up.”

Cake didn’t answer this time, instead laying down her head and resting comfortably on top of me.

“What does a guy need to do to get some sleep in his own room, dammit?” I said with a low groan as I sat up.

“Finally. I’ve been here for like five minutes but Cake wouldn’t let me get close to shake you.” Isabelle crossed her arms and grinned. “What’s with the early nap? Didn’t sleep well?”

“Like 20 minutes, if you must know,” I told her before being attacked by a big yawn. “What time is it?”

“2:30 pm. Mom and I came back twenty minutes ago. How long were you asleep?”

My neck felt stiff since I didn’t use a pillow, and the rest of my body was ever so slightly sore from the awkward position. Or maybe I was more exhausted than I thought. “A couple of hours, I think.” I rubbed the back of my neck and let out another yawn. “Were you with mom? Where did you go?”

Isabelle brought out her phone from her pocket, tapped the screen and showed it to me. I had to rub my eyes under my glasses because my sight was a bit unfocused and the photo she was showing me was something of a blur. I blinked and looked at it closer.

It was a picture of two dogs. Puppies, actually. “Are those… huskies?”

“Yeah. They were born six weeks ago. Maria introduced mom to these people whose female husky was about to give birth. They’re willing to give us two.”

I blinked. “Two? Seriously? That’s…”

Isabelle grimaced. “Yeah, I’m nervous too. But we figured a dog would get lonely easily, so…”

That makes sense. “So you’re thinking of adopting dogs since…”

“Since you and Cake are moving out,” Isabelle said. She didn’t look too happy about it, but kept a straight face. “Because you ARE taking Cake, right? I mean, look at her. She’ll die of depression if you leave her alone.”

Cake was still on my lap, licking her paws like she didn’t notice we were talking about her. She knew, I was sure. This damn cat is too perceptive.

I nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I just think it’s funny you were so against adopting her at first. I guess it’s true what they say about the cat delivery system?”

“Didn’t she get delivered to Noelle’s house?”

Isabelle shrugged. “She still ended up here.”

I looked at the picture of the two puppies again. “So you already chose them?”

“Yep. A male and a female. Mom liked them because, out of their other four siblings, these two stuck together. And actually, I have something for Cake.”

Isabelle reached into her other pocket and brought out a piece of fleece fabric, reaching out and getting it close to Cake’s nose. The cat’s ears perked up and she began to sniff the cloth all over.

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“A small piece of the blanket they were using for the puppies. The lady said it was a good idea to introduce animals by their scent first so they start getting familiar with it. Actually, she said it works for people, too. Especially babies.”

Please, let’s not bring up babies again. But that aside, it was a good tip. Introducing them by smell first… I’d have to take one of Cake’s blankets over to Diana’s house and give it to Red, then bring back something from Red to show to Cake.

“So… You said lunch was ready?”

“Ah! Yeah, mom told me to come get you. You didn’t answer your phone, so we got Chinese today.”

“Oh, that sounds good, actually.”

I grabbed Cake and set her aside. I got up from my bed and Isabelle laughed when she looked me up and down.

“You’re covered in cat hair,” she told me.

I let out a groan. “Tell mom I’ll be down there in a minute. I’ll get changed.”

I kicked Cake out of my room, too, after she tried to stay. I got changed into a plain black t-shirt and gray sweatpants, and god did it feel great. So comfy, so freeing, so… normal. It was almost nostalgic.

Ever since I started hanging out with the girls, I had to pay more attention to my appearance. I started to dress up in fancier clothes, but a t-shirt and sweatpants used to be my default.

I went down for lunch and said hello to mom. She had me tell her my side of how prom went, and thankfully she didn’t ask about what happened after.

“I mostly spent it talking to some friends before the girls forced me to dance. Isabelle’s lessons saved me, to be honest.”

“You’re welcome,” my sister said.

Mom smiled. “Did you have fun?”

“It’s… hard to say. I don’t know if I could call that fun, but I’m really glad I went to it. I’m just not good with parties and large crowds.”

“You need to get used to it,” Isabelle told me. “How are you gonna do live concerts if you can’t handle crowds?”

“By being on stage instead of in the middle of them, I think.”

Mom chuckled. “Oh, and remind me, at what time do I have to be at your school tomorrow for graduation?”

…

Right. That was tomorrow. Just one more day of high school, huh?

************

Chapter 553: Graduation.

To tell you the truth, I don’t have much to say about graduation. It was a ceremony I went to and where they gave me my diploma. That’s about it. Although Alice and Grace did receive commendations for outstanding academic performance, so that’s probably my highlight of the ceremony itself.

Unlike me, everyone had plenty of people to talk to after. My sister was crying a river as she said goodbye to friends of hers who would actually be leaving town to study in other places. Mila and the others were in the same boat, actually. Mila was ugly-crying, not holding anything back.

The people I would’ve wanted to talk to were pretty busy as well. Thomas and Kevin, for example, were with their whole basketball team. I saw them leaving for the gym to play some games together for the last time. Ben and Mark, too, had their own friends to talk to.

I was feeling pretty awkward seeing everyone get so emotional. Senior year aside, I didn’t have good memories of high school. I wasn’t going to miss this like most others would. The people I wanted to stay in touch with weren’t going anywhere far, so I didn’t need to have any tearful farewells. I did talk to some classmates I’d grown close to in the last few months, but we kept it short.

There was actually something else I wanted to do. A place I wanted to visit one last time. I snuck out when I was alone and headed to the second floor of the main building.

I opened the door to the old music room and found the new lab, as expected. It was clean and with three rows of large desks made for groups to work together. Drawers at the back stored equipment and there were even sinks. Gone were the old broken desks, the unused P.E. mattresses, the scratched whiteboard. The old tiles had been replaced with new white ones and the lighting had improved not just thanks to the new lamps on the ceiling, but because they removed the thick curtains from before.

I went in and walked around the classroom with slow, gentle steps. I walked past the new desks, peeked out the windows and sat down on the floor, leaning against a wall for a moment before I felt silly and stood up.

This wasn’t my safe space anymore. I said goodbye to it long ago.

“Hah! See? I told you he’d be here!”

Mila’s voice made me snap my head back towards the door. She was walking inside along with Grace, Sarah, Alice and Noelle. They all seemed alright, but their eyes were a little red from all the crying.

“But why here? I thought you’d be in the club room,” Noelle said.

“Right, you never knew about the old music room, huh?” Sarah realized. “Man, that’s… weird.”

I got what she meant. Somehow it felt like Alice and Noelle had always been there with us, even though that wasn’t the case at all.

“Huh? I mean, yes, this used to be an old music classroom, but…” Alice trailed off, looking at me.

I smiled at her. “I used to come here to hide. You know, back when it was unused and before it got turned into a lab. It was my safe space for over two years.”

“Then we found out and invaded it,” Grace said with a small, wry smile. “Sorry about that.”

“It was for the best,” I told her. “You ended up being right. Thanks to you all, I ended up not needing it anymore.”

Mila chuckled. “We did so many dirty things here, too.”

“Yeah. We’ve got good memories here,” Sarah said. “And some not so good, but important. I still remember when I asked you to open the door for me and you did. You know, after that fiasco with Mark. To be honest, a small part of me hoped you didn’t open the door. I thought that if you didn’t I could just wash my hands off a bothersome problem. When you opened it, I felt a lot of pressure. Like… I was actually in on this and couldn’t walk away anymore. I’m glad it happened, but it was scary at the time.”

“Yeah. I think that was a turning point for me, too,” I told her. “Thanks for sticking with me. For being so patient.”

“Shut up. I did it because I wanted to.”

I chuckled. “Alright, let’s clear this atmosphere of finality. It’s not like we’re saying goodbye.”

“Don’t blame us. We’ve been saying goodbye a lot today,” Grace told me. “And… I’ll miss school, all things considered. It was a pain, but it was… simple.”

Noelle nodded. “Seeing the same people every day, having the same routines… It was comforting in a way. Things are gonna be more difficult from now on.”

“We’re all going to the same university, at least,” Alice said. “Well, all except Mila.”

Mila herself pouted. “Don’t you dare leave me out of stuff just because I won’t be around all the time.”

“We’ll still have our own, separate classes, so I doubt we’ll overlap too much,” Sarah said. “Still, let’s try to make our schedules match.”

“Before all that we’ve got summer vacation coming, though,” Mila said excitedly. “Let’s settle on some plans soon or we’ll end up doing nothing.”

Ugh, that hit close to home. How many summers went by in the blink of an eye for me? Days spent in my room doing nothing but playing games. Though I have some pretty good memories of great games I played, so I suppose it wasn’t a complete waste.

Alice’s phone rang all of a sudden. Without hesitation, she picked up the call.

“Hello. Yes, we’re still in school. Mm-hmm. Yes, I’m with him. Should I get him over to the entrance now? Alright. We’ll be right there.”

We were all more than a little confused.

“Um… Who was that?” I asked.

Alice smiled at me. “Your mom.”

“Hah?”

“Come with me. She says she’s waiting by the main entrance.”

I had no idea what was going on, but we all followed Alice out of the lab and to the school’s main gate.