Falling
Author: Anita
Fandom: Takarazuka RPF
Characters: Tsukishiro Kanato / Akatsuki Chisei, Kazama Yuno, Umino Mitsuki
Genre: yuri, romance
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Chisei thinks she's finally found the one for her in
Kazama Yuno. Yuno, despite their year-long relationship, started
displaying worried over Chisei's tightness with Tsukishiro Kanato. But
it's normal to message one of your best friends nonstop, right? To make
it worse, the two are to spend month apart when Chisei and Yuno find a
confession Kanato wrote in the past, and Yuno is convinced Chisei was
the intended recipient. How can Chisei prove to Yuno she's imagining
things and maintain both her girlfriend and her friend who's also a girl
when it's no secret she considers Kanato the most beautiful woman ever?
Previous Chapter | Chapter 16 | Next Chapter
Falling
Chapter 16
“Please, read this when you’re alone,” said the message Yuno had sent to her phone. The latest one. There were two previewed on the screen when Ari checked her phone, that and the first she had sent, which the phone only revealed it partially. It was too long for a preview. Ari gulped before she could even focus on the words of the other message. “I don’t know what she told you, but I called Reiko to come for…” the rectangle on her screen read, and she stared at the three dots indicating she had to unlock the device to read the rest. She remained that way until the backlight was gone. That was probably the first time she had seen Yuno type without honorifics; she’d only ever done that while speaking and rarely so.
Ari had gone straight to her phone when she arrived at home from Reiko’s. Her intention had been to message her and apologize for leaving without saying anything. She should have left a note, but her head was elsewhere, and she was too far to return when she realized it. She just breathed in the middle of her living room, where she had dropped her bag and phone after coming from the park.
What else was there about her calling Reiko? What had Yuno expected her to do after telling her everything? Ari hadn’t considered the different results for calling her to Harvest Hill. But Reiko wouldn’t have done any differently.
She removed her coat and lay on her bed before unlocking her phone. She was afraid it would be on her conversation with Yuno because she still needed time to prepare for how that sentence continued. It was easier than expected to message Reiko (a simple “Sorry for leaving without saying anything. Thank you for being there for me today. See you tomorrow!”, no stamps, no memes), but reading Yuno was a more troublesome task to fulfill. If only she could delay it more…
“It’s past midnight…” she said out loud after noticing the phone’s time display. This could be the excuse she needed, but midnight meant more than just being a late hour—the respite she’d allowed herself was over. “Time to wake up.”
She opened the app and found Yuno’s name, it was the second in the history of conversations, only under her message to Reiko.
“I’m undoubtedly alone now, Haru.” She grimaced but touched the name to reveal the longer message.
“I don’t know what she told you, but I called Reiko to come for you. I was so upset I wasn’t thinking and was ready to tell her everything, from the note that you never read to your current feelings for her. That way, I could confirm what I think and end our misery.
“But you never left Harvest Hill for her or anyone to take you home. I was waiting in the parking lot with your phone because you’d have to go through it. But you just stayed inside. The time allowed me to calm down, and I saw how intrusive I’d be, how it didn’t concern me anymore, if it ever did.
“I don’t regret ending things. It does hurt, but I’ve never felt this light now that I’m not the one holding you back. Perhaps, I already knew you had to be lying about confessing to Reiko. Or that Reiko herself hadn’t realized her own feelings. Whichever, I knew you weren’t supposed to be mine since that night; it was too perfect to be true. It was a mistake to insist.
“When she arrived in less than fifty minutes, probably with at least one ticket for speeding, I just told her we’d broken up and that you needed her.”
Ari had to reread that part before continuing to the rest of the message. She couldn’t believe that Yuno hadn’t told Reiko everything. So, what did all that fake dating mean? Had she just been comforting Ari? Nothing more? Why would she suggest a date then, if she didn’t know that being with her was the one thing that would trump losing Yuno and all else?
“Hell…” Ari said under her breath, feeling tired just thinking that there was more in Yuno’s message. But what else could it say? Yuno had never taken revenge, she’d really respected Ari’s time… That made Ari remember the pain from watching her walk away from the park. It had never been a lie that she loved Yuno. Because of that, such a heartfelt letter crushed her. Even more when she couldn’t be the one to comfort Yuno, as Reiko had to her.
The only thing she could do was to go on and read to the end.
“Reiko didn’t have to come,” the message continued “much less at that speed. She should have forced me to pay a taxi for you. That’s what I would have done if I were a friend. It’s what I was supposed to do instead of calling her and intervening in your life any further.
“And are you even friends? You have barely exchanged words since… I’ll guess since your kiss, but I wasn’t in Hakata to know the exact timeline. It’s still been too damn long. I’d avoid the awkwardness and not go there; wouldn’t she assume us ending was her fault?
“I’m not ready for us to have an honest talk yet, but I dread receiving that same treatment. Even if I have to withstand another ten years of receiving a hundred random links and pictures you love sharing, I can’t imagine my days without you.
“I also hope you’ll stop the self-sabotage and talk to Reiko. I’m sure you still haven’t, even after how we broke up, or how she came for you like some knight on a white horse. As sure as I am that she will return your feelings. I’m surrounded by idiots, that’s what makes me even madder. You’ll get to gloat if I’m wrong and just know you did everything you could about it.
I love you, but I’ll survive. We all will.
See you tomorrow?
Please, read this when you’re alone.”
When she was done reading the long message, Ari read it again, paying more attention to each word. Self-sabotage? Was it, even if Reiko turned out not to feel the same? Ari felt it would be selfish to confess already knowing the other person was happy with someone else. But Yuno had a point about doing everything. So much Ari wondered what to do with the pajama still on her. Her attempt to remove the meaning from the gifts had failed, and she was afraid the pajama now had even more meaning than that note in the knit cap.
The note.
Remembering Yuno had only taken the knit cap but that the note was still with her, Ari got up and ran back to where her bag still was, now gaping and looking pitifully abandoned. Fetching the note, she read it again and again. “Be with me?” A simple confession, but unmistakably one. She’d failed to notice how much it had affected her the night they’d found inside the hat, but it became more palpable now. To think it had been a little more than two months before… A blink and here she was. Alone.
She wouldn’t impose her feelings on Reiko, but Yuno was right about the note. She was going to give it back to the original owner.
Having decided so, she moved the note to inside her bag for the following day and went back to the phone. There was one last thing to do. “see you tomorrow,” she typed to Yuno, adding the cutest stamp she could find.
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