Girlfriend the Second Part 5

Shouta jumped.  “I was…talking to Mandi,” he responded, face flushing a bit.
“Oh, I’m sure you were doing more than that!” she replied forcefully, grabbing him by the collar and forcing his face closer to hers.
He tried to pull his face away from hers.  “What reason do you have to think that?  I was only gone for ten minutes, at the most!” now Shouta was getting angry.  He grabbed her hands in his and forced her to let go of his shirt.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she slapped him, “I know what you were really doing!  You’re so horrible to me!  I can’t believe you!”
Shouta’s face stung.  He rubbed his cheek where her hand had struck it.  “What’s up with you lately?  Is it that time of the month for you…or what?” he snapped at her.
She threw a blanket and a pillow at him.  “Get out!  Just get out!  I don’t want to see you again until you can realize exactly what a boyfriend is supposed to do!” she yelled as she pushed him out the door.  He winced as it slammed behind him.
It was the second time he’d had a door slam behind him in the last day, and for a second time, he was at a loss.  Shouta didn’t know what to do any more.  Frustrated and upset, he threw the blanket and the pillow down on the ground and sat on them.  He ran his hands through his hair and rested his face in his hands for a moment.  If I keep this up, he thought, I’m not going to have any friends left by this time tomorrow!
Shouta kicked the pillow across the hallway.  He needed to go for a walk.
He took the elevator back up to the top floor again and paused for a moment when the gold-colored doors opened before stepping out into the hallway.  The lush red carpeting was soft and warm beneath his feet.  The moonlight and the city’s lights shone off of the marble flooring off to the side of the carpeting.  The silence pressed in on him again and he felt slightly afraid, even though there wasn’t anything to fear.  He walked down the hallway towards the big glass window.  Shouta had always liked that window; perhaps because of the particular view it gave.  The window faced the Magi Palace, which was owned by the Sorauki family.  In fact, the Sorauki family owned a lot of things…Shouta didn’t really feel like thinking about all of that right now, though.
Shouta turned his back to the window and the Magi Palace.  He looked back down the hallway and sighed.  He closed his eyes momentarily and focused his mind on a door, but not just any door.  On every floor of the Magi and Imperial palaces, there were doors that were only accessible to Magi and Defenders.  They could take whoever summoned them to any other floor on any of the two buildings.  It was faster and more practical than the elevators, but hardly ever used.
The outline of the door shimmered and appeared in the window.  Shouta wasn’t sure if it was there for a moment, but as he focused his mind more, he saw its outline pop out from the window.  The city moved through the background of the door, slightly distorted by the edges.  Shouta reached for the handle and thought Imperial Palace, Kitchen as he stepped through.  A warm breeze stirred over his skin as he entered it and a tingling sensation filled his body.  He closed the door behind him and was enveloped in darkness.  The white outline of another door appeared immediately in front of him and he opened that one, too.  He stepped out of it and found himself in the kitchen of the palace.  As soon as he closed that door, it melted back into the wall as if it never existed.
Warm, delicious aromas wrapped around him.  He smelled the night shift cooks making food, probably for some stuffy ambassador over in the residential wing.  The kitchen had two parts- a more restaurant-style area where the majority of food was cooked and a smaller, home-style area.  He was standing in the home-style area and its nostalgic yellow lighting reminded him of his home on Cessneae.  He snagged a cookie off of the counter and exited through the door that led to the hallway.
The hall was dimly lit.  The lights reflected off of the smooth tiled floor as Shouta shuffled his feet along it.  He took a bite out of his cookie and his thoughts wandered to Miranda.  How dare she accuse me of cheating on her, the little bitch! Shouta angrily thought.  He crunched the cookie into pieces in his hand.  Why hasn’t anyone been listening to me lately?  Not even stupid Sylvan…What the hell’s his problem?  Shouta was angry again.  He turned left down another hallway and slipped his KeyCard into the slot next to a door to open it.  This hallway was carpeted, since it was only for the higher-ranking officials in the palace, and wrapped around half of the building.  It was on the outside of the building; so the right wall was made of windows.  There were trees and plants placed intermittently along both sides of the curving hallway.  Many Intelligence and high-profile meetings were held in the rooms off of this hallway, but there was also one more room that was different than the rest.
This room was the only room on the right and it hung out from the palace.  It was made completely of windows, except for the floor, and it was a very nice place to go at night or when anyone needed some time to relax.  Only a few people could access it, and Shouta was very glad he could.  He just hoped he would be the only one in it right now.  Shouta slid his KeyCard through its slot near the door again and it opened observatory-type room.  He sighed with relief when he discovered it was empty and walked over to the far side of the room.  Shouta leaned on the railing running around the room and rested his forehead on the cool glass.  He stared out at the city and thought about his so-called friends.