Chapter Five

A practiced breathing exercise was a three count, with her taking a deep breath just to think of something positive. Vega opted to give his own two scents, his tone conveyed his disappointment.

“Elise—she’s dealing a lot more than we ever did, Eric.” Vega emphasized, his patience was a godsend, yet she felt he understood her a bit better.

“ Do you really believe she can jump in? I say she needs to do it at her on pace. He asked Eric, it was nice to see her cousin husband was more sensible than he had been.

Still, Vega related to her issues with anxiety it made her think about his little sister Andrea. Somehow it made Elise feel a sense of comfort that he understood her feelings.

“Thank you, Vega..” Elise took a deep breath, she knew Eric was doing what he thought was best. No one, who was anyone wasn’t aware of the Honpō name, an elite family with a good home life, but the crowd Yasei was around—to put it at best, was overwhelming for her.

“Sweetheart, just remember to breathe.” He urged her, he was already in big brother mode, as she referred to his behavior. It was something that made her feel alright though it wasn’t as strange, and she learned his younger sister dealt with some of the same things she did.

“It’s okay, I’m fine.”She smiled, it was strained, he probably heard it in her voice but she focused on something positive.

“If it helps, Yasei did not have a motive.” Eric assured her sincerely, his husband smacked him upside the head. There was a slight shout followed by an ‘Ouch !’ over the phone, followed by hushed whispers about going too far.

Really? It was off putting to hear Yasei didn’t have a motive, so what did he really want from her to start out with. At a loss of what or how to handle this new source of information the only thing she could do was find out herself.

“I am mad at you Riccy, but….” her reply was annoyed, seemingly frustrated.

She decided it would be better to give it a shot, even if she really, really didn’t want to go through with this.

“I’ll give it a try, you are getting my apricot honey cake.”Elise chuckled a little slightly, he was doing his dance of ‘I did it.’yet she seems to have one stipulation.

She said firmly,”You’re mom, I don’t want her to know yet. That is all I ask Eric.”

Eric beamed happily, his excitement easily noticed,”You gotta deal, Lisse.” At least he seemed confident about this mess he got her in, not to mention she wasn’t too sure about this. All she could do was try at least to see where this went.

One thing she didn’t have to worry for now, if this was a big step there were her concerns, yet she wasn’t able to rest on her side as a wind chime ding on her mobile. Her eyes fell to the notification seeing an unknown number with a text making her aware of who it was.

After hanging up the phone, she glanced down to see the text had come from him rolling her eyes in annoyance there was no possible way she'd agree to this at all. Thinking about just getting this over and done with, she would take this one step at a time which were very, very slow steps because Yasei was too much of an unknown for her.

Uh, Elise it’s me Yasei.

I wanted to chat with you sometime, but there’s no motive. I just get a good feeling from you..

Just give me a chance,please.

By this point Elise had opened the message he knew she saw obviously read it, which was placed beneath his own text. Her fingers went to type a few times a message though her thumb pressed the delete button. Why was this so hard for her? Mentally cursed her Uncle Ric, she couldn’t be mad at him for trying to help, but she didn’t want to be pushed to socialize.

Her anxiety was already bubbling a sense of unease in her stomach. That flashback from the pat gripped her since the last truly never went away completely.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t regret this decision, chewing on her lower lip, to combat her nerves, shaky fingers tapped away on her phone to see a message.

Can she really do this? She was not sure about hanging out with him.

Elise had already told her cousin she’d give it a shot, so disappointing him wasn’t something she wanted to do. An angry huff left her breath if anything he got her involved in this mess.

Taking a deep breath, she typed her text quickly before she went to pull back from this decision knowing she was going to overthink too much and ended up stalling. The idea sounded appealing to just tell him her Uncle made a huge--if not big mistake by giving out her number to him.

Right now, it was more about thinking of her auntie who'd thought she needed to try this though she was going to hit Eric with pillows next time she hung out at his and Vega's house.

Look, you get one chance. My cousin decided to meddle, ugh!

I don't trust you at all.

But, I will give you one, and only one shot, Honpo.

Sending this text there was really no turning back after this. A bell indicating her text was sent and received not thinking Yasei would read it so quickly, she could see the three dots actively moving as he was typing away in his message.

What could he be possibly going to say?

The rear need to fixate things was rearing his ugly head, not to mention those little doubts coming to the surface in the root of her mind. It wasn't until then, she got a notification before she went into the tumbling merry-go-round that her thoughts were swirling in all sorts of negativity and dread while giving a sigh to herself.

What is the worst that could be so bad about this? I can do it...I think. She thought positively, she was going to not think about it. Nothing would not go wrong at all, she was thinking about telling herself about it. Her gaze glanced down at the text that he sent her reading it over to what he replied with.

Nah, I got a surprise don't worry ;3

It will be fun! I will text you the time, I'll come pick you up.

Ah, it was a surprise. Elise hated surprises for her own reasons though she was going to text Eric, he would owe her big time for meddling in her personal life again. Now, she had to mentally prepare herself for the situation that would undoubtedly be the worst time she'd have tomorrow.

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