History, a Chain Wrapped Around Itself
Miki looked around at the dorm before him, checked the paper in his hand. "Miki!" He looked up and saw a pair of older girls running up to him. "What are you doing here?" They had excited beaming looks in their eyes.
"Oh, I'm looking for Miss Juri's dorm room." She'd been to his dorm room many times before, but this was the first time he'd returned the favor. "You wouldn't happen to know where exactly it is?" He had the room number and directions, but every little bit helped.
"Oh." The girls sounded distinctly put out. "We should have known." They looked at one another a moment, turned back to him. "You go inside and head down the right wing, you can't miss it."
"Thank you very much." He bowed to them, that seemed to lift their moods a little.
"No problem Miki." The girls said, standing rather close to him. "If you ever need help from us on anything else...anything at all, here's where you can find us." They took out a paper, wrote their dorm room number on it, handed it to him, giggled and left. Miki scratched his head a moment but spared the matter no further thought. He went in and turned right and found himself at Juri's door.
"Miss Juri?" He knocked on the door. "Miss Juri, are you in here?" He'd looked everywhere else he could think to look, the fencing club, the library, the Student Council's room...
"Yes." Miki stopped knocking. "Do you need something?"
"Could I come in, Miss Juri? I want to talk to you."
"...That should be fine." Miki opened the door, it hadn't been locked; no one would go into Juri's room without her permission, no one. He saw her seated at her desk, hunched over and looking down at it. She didn't turn her head to look at him, didn't get up to greet him.
"Miss Juri, is something bothering you?"
"Why do you ask?" Her voice sounded strained, she'd sounded that way at times before, but not with him, not that he could recall. It made his hands tense up.
"Well, lately, you've been acting differently; you've been leaving the fencing club early, and the Student Council meetings as well, and, and when we walk past each other in the hallways, you don't even say hi or stop to ask me how I've been." Miki looked down.
"Do you really think so? I hadn't noticed anything of the sort." She still hadn't looked up, she was still seated at her desk.
"I really do think so, Miss Juri, and..." Miki bit his lip. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Her head turned a bit towards him, she turned it back towards her desk.
"I don't know what I did Miss Juri, but I must have done something to upset you; please tell me what it was and I won't do it again."
There was a pause. "I can assure you Miki, you've done nothing wrong." Another pause. "You may go now."
"But...Miss Juri." Her shoulders looked so tense, what wasn't she telling him? Could he really have done something so awful without realizing it? "If you could just tell me..." He reached out to that shoulder, the way she'd done to him so many times before.
"I said go!"
It took time for them to realize what had just happened, what Juri had just done; she'd turned and gotten out of her chair and struck his hand away before it could reach her. Miki looked down at his hand, saw the red on his skin, felt the sting as it persisted. "I'm sorry Miss Juir, I'm sorry!" He ran out from her room, cursed himself, why hadn't he listened to her? Now she was really mad at him, she hated him, he just knew it! Oh, how had he ruined things so badly, how?
"Miki..." Juri was leaning over her desk again, hands on her head. "You don't understand..." They'd been friends for so long, how could he think that he'd upset her? How could he think that she'd been avoiding him out of anger or displeasure? She looked down at the photo that she had on her desk, the photo that Miki would have seen if he'd gotten any closer; it was of her and him in their fencing uniforms. She traced her thumb over Miki's face. Her stomach churned and she turned the photo over. "Why is this happening again?"
Juri looked up and saw Shiori, the old Shiori, the Shiori from when she first realized that she was in love with her best friend. "I did it Juri!" She'd told her that day. "Look, I got an 88 on my test, just like you said I could!" That smile, that happy smile, that smile that came because of her, that she was able to help someone smile like that...
"Miss Juri, I did it!" Miki had said to her on that day. "I managed to win the fencing tournament, thank you so much for all our sparring I couldn't have done it without you!" Juri slumped over her desk. She'd seen Miki's genius from the start, his purity that allowed him to smile just like Shiori; was she doomed to ruin all that again, to repeat history and be bound to those same chains again?
"No." Juri sat up again, turned the photo back up. "Just a little time Miki, I'll have these feelings crushed, and then everything will be back to normal.