Disclaimer: You should know by now neither the characters nor the concept belong to me. This was purely done for recreation.
Juri sat on her bed merely clutching her ever-present locket, her usually guarded expression much more open in solitude. It was an expression of immense emotional pain and burden. It was mainly caused by her current dilemma.
She wanted so badly to be able to rip off the locket and dispose of it, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't. She just gripped it, staring off into space, hopelessly lost in her own thoughts.
For so long, she only had feelings for one person, Shiori Takatsuki. And for so long, she never once had the courage to fully confront this obsession she had with her. No matter what happened between them, Juri still loved her with all of her heart, and it hurt to have these feelings for someone who obviously didn't feel the same. Despite all the years of unrequited love, the pain hadn't alleviated at all.
Instead, the pain had grown worse, and it happened purely because of the reappearance of one person. The fencing captain, the one person she had to reluctantly admit was better than her, was back. Ruka was the person who taught her how to fence, the one she treated as a possible superior. And he was dating her, dating Shiori.
This just forced Juri into a difficult spot; she could no longer tell herself that she had a chance, albeit a slim one. He had one advantage that Juri could never have; he was a guy. He could be the perfect fairytale prince for Shiori, something that Juri just couldn't. And no matter how she tries to tell herself different, she just couldn't accept the idea that Shiori could fall in love with anyone other than her. It just brought back so many bad memories.
Ruka looked exactly like Him. He looked exactly like the guy who took her Shiori from her the first time around. It was one of the reasons why the rift between her and Shiori was so deep. The resemblance was so deep that they were the same person in her mind. Ruka was deeply interrelated to the friend who betrayed her.
To make the entire situation even worse, Ruka knew; the bastard had to.
He actually smirked when he caught Juri looking. It was difficult to read what exactly the smirk meant. It could mean, "I'm better than you." Regardless of what it meant, it still didn't change anything.
Juri knew that Shiori only lived to make her jealous, which the bitch actually accomplished. But despite all this, she still loved her. Even if it could never amount to anything, the love is and always will be present. And in the end, that's what hurt the most.