Chapter 3

"Miyuki? Is that you? Why the hell are you calling me?" Shizuma asked, sounding rude without really meaning to.

"Shizuma, I don't have much time, Well, I have time but this long distance call is costing me a fortune. I am calling because I talked to Nagisa earlier. She didn't want to come talk to you herself so she asked me to do it for her," Miyuki spoke in her stern tone as she had always done before.

"So she actually wants to talk to me?" Shizuma said, more asking herself then asking Miyuki.

"Sort of. She told what happened between you two, and, well, what the fuck is wrong with you Shizuma! Nagisa has never done anything to hurt you, and that is how you repay her?"

"But-"

"No buts, Shizuma. I want you to apologize to Nagisa! But first, tell me, for the love of god why did you do it?"Shizuma was reminded of when she was a fourth year in school, and Miyuki was always reprimanding her. Some things just don't change. But she knew she had to tell her the truth.

"Ok, to make a long story short, she reminded me of an unpleasant event of my past and it just made me crazy, I didn't mean to hurt her at all, I would never hurt my little Nagisa. It's just that . . . She did something to remind me of Kaori." The call went silent for what felt like hours, but was really just a few seconds.

At long last Miyuki said firmly, "Well maybe you should tell that to Nagisa. She is hurt and confused, and she would feel better if she at least knew what was going on."

After another long pause, Shizuma replied, "I want to, but I don't know where she is or how to get ahold of her."

"I know where she is. I'll call her and tell her to come back to your apartment. I think this conversation needs to occur in person rather than on the phone."

"Ok, bye Miyuki."

"Good bye Shizuma, and don't mess this up," Miyuki replied, and then hung up her phone.

Shizuma knew that this time would come, but she didn't feel prepared for it. Her head hurt with the thought of seeing Nagisa again, having a face to face conversation, with no way to get out. Shizuma contemplated what she would say during their conversation, how much to reveal. She eventually decided to tell Nagisa everything, absolutely everything that happened with Kaori, the dream, everything. Hopefully Nagisa would understand the stress she was under with having to live with those kinds of things over her head. She could only hope right now though.

Not knowing what to do until Nagisa arrived, Shizuma turned the TV on. The channel that it was on had an unfunny sitcom on. Shizuma paid no attention to the TV though, as she paced nervously back and forth across the living room, sometimes stepping into the adjacent kitchen. After what felt like hours of waiting, there was finally a ring at the door. Shizuma sprung up in surprise, and then nervously stepped toward the door. She turned the doorknob slowly, as she pulled open the door as slowly as can be. There stood the love of her life, the one person that she could never live without, Aoi Nagisa.

"Hi," Shizuma said awkwardly.

"Hi," was the equally awkward reply.

"You want to come in?" Shizuma asked, sounding stupid as can be. "If we are going to talk, we should do it inside."

"Okay," Nagisa said quietly. Shizuma moved away from the threshold to allow Nagisa to enter. Nagisa settled down on the couch.

Shizuma offered Nagisa a cup of tea, which she silently accepted, and then Shizuma said, "I know I have some explaining to do. I promise, I will tell you everything. But what I want to say first is that I am so sorry. I can't express how sorry I am with words. I never ever meant to hurt you. I love you so much Nagisa, please forgive me," she was on the verge of tears during her desperate plea. Her face show the unbelievable sadness that was in her heart.

"But why did you do it?" Nagisa asked quietly, with an unreadable expression. Shizuma sighed.

"It's a very long story, but somebody has to hear it. It began 7 years ago, when I was a fourth year at St. Miator. My family was in charge of a large technology corporation, KatTech, and their main rivalry was a company called Masuki. This rivalry was horrible and bitter, the leaders of these two companies, one of which was my father, despised each other, and would literally murder each other if given the chance. During my third year, KatTech had the biggest business deal of their time in their hands, which would make my family, an especially my father, very rich. Before the deal was closed though, Masuki took it away. My father was furious about this, so angry that he created many plans to kill him. You see Nagisa, he was a rather mentally unstable man, and was obsessed with his honor. Soon afterwards, he found out that his competitor's daughter was transferring to my school, and from that he devised a plan. A horrible, horrible plan. He used me, he told me to get the daughter into a position so a hired assassin could take her out. He wanted me to have her killed." Shizuma was on the verge of tears during her story. Telling it out loud brought back memories she had worked hard to forget.

Nagisa had been silent the whole time, but suddenly she whispered, "That's horrible, but you would never do it though, right?" Shizuma sighed, and continued the story without directly acknowledging the question at hand.

"My father had always taught me that business is a dog eat dog world, and there are no things in business that are not fair. He would always say, 'All's fair in business and war.' So having been raised like that, I saw no problem with doing it. His daughter's name was Kaori."

Nagisa gasped. Everything she knew was starting to come together. Shizuma couldn't imagine what Nagisa must be feeling, probably overwhelmed.

Shizuma knew it would be difficult to say this part of the story, but it had to be done. She continued, "My father told me about his plan. He was going to have me get close to Kaori, lure her to her vacation home, where the assassin would come from behind and stab her. I was a bit skeptical, but I believed what my father had always told me about business and honor, so I agreed to it. Upon meeting her, she liked me instantly. I worked to get closer to her, and she fell into my trap quickly and easily. But then something unexpected happened. I developed actual feelings for this girl, I didn't only want to be with her because of the plan, but because I genuinely cared about her. The more I got to know her, the more I disagreed with my father's plan. She was a sweet, innocent young girl, who surely shouldn't die because of a grudge she had nothing to do with!" suddenly, Shizuma started shouting and she burst into sorrowful tears.

"Why?" she screamed. "Why did I have to hurt the one I loved so much?" Nagisa sat beside her, not knowing what to do, so she reached over and gently wrapped her arms around Shizuma in a caring embrace. "It's okay, Shizuma," she whispered. "You don't have to think about it if it hurts you that much. I would never want you to hurt because of me." The way Nagisa looked into Shizuma's eyes showed how much she loved her.

"B-but what I did to you! Don't you hate me for that? Don't you at least want to know why?" Shizuma mustered between huge huffs of breath. She loved that Nagisa was embracing her like that, she just didn't understand why.

"Because I love you," Nagisa said kindly, "I know that things must be hard for you having had those experiences. I don't know why you pushed me, but I know that you didn't do it because you don't care about me, which is all that really matters. And if you don't feel ready to tell me what happened, than that's okay. I don't want you to hurt Shizuma, I really don't."

There was a moment of silence after Nagisa spoke. "I love you too," Shizuma said as the tears ceased to spill from her eyes, "which is why you have to know the truth."

Nagisa nodded politely in acceptance, as Shizuma continued, "So, the closer I got to Kaori, the more strongly I felt for her. I knew that I had a responsibility to my family, but my feelings thought otherwise. Because of this, I didn't tell Kaori about the plan like I really wanted to, because I wanted to help her. But I couldn't bring myself to take her to the vacation home, I loved her far too much to lead her to her demise. So I eventually brought myself to tell my father that the plan was off. As you can imagine, he was not happy to hear that. He started screaming at me and going into an angry uproar. The last thing he said was that if I did not bring her to the vacation home tonight, he would have my younger sister and my mother tortured and later killed, then he hung up the phone. I was so scared after that, I didn't know what to do. So I devised a plan of my own. I planned to fake the death of Kaori by bribing the assassin beforehand, and saving her family and Kaori. In hindsight, I realize this was a flawed plan, but I was too hysterical at the time to realize it. Part of the plan actually worked though. I got my father to tell me the location of the assassin, so we could plan a little bit. I found the assassin, and gave him money to not kill her, and he took the bribe without much consideration. I felt a huge worry lifted off me at that time. 'In order to stage it properly, you and the girl still have to go to your vacation home,' the assassin had said. This made sense to me, so I agreed to it. That night, Kaori and I left Strawberry Dorms to go to my vacation home, and I expected it to be amazing. We went there and shared a, um, romantic time, and everything felt perfect. We were embracing each other when she suddenly went limp. I was terrified to see a mass of blood on the floor. At that moment I realized what happened, I remember holding her body in my arms for hours afterwards, crying and screaming her name. Part of my soul had been lost. That is the dream that I had Nagisa. I dreamt of Kaori's last moments. And the way you embraced me reminded me of the dream, so that is why I freaked out on you like that. I am deeply sorry, you know that I would never want to hurt you."

Silence swept the room for what felt like minutes. Shizuma thought about how she had finally revealed her greatest secret. But Nagisa was the best person to reveal it to.

At long last, Nagisa said, "I forgive you, Shizuma, and thank you for telling me this."

"Shall we go on as if nothing had happened?" Shizuma asked, as this is what she really wanted to do.

"Sure," Nagisa said in her cute way, then stood up and began walking toward the bedroom. "It's getting late though, I'm going to bed"

"I'll be there in a bit," Shizuma replied. Nagisa nodded and entered the bedroom. As Shizuma sat alone on the couch, she pondered what had happened. She was very glad she was about to tell someone, and Nagisa was a good one to tell. But then her troubles with her father were not all behind her. He was the reason she was sitting in an old couch instead of an executives leather chair, the reason she worked at a fast food restaurant instead of being in charge of a major company. After what happened with Kaori, Shizuma's father banished her from the family, and they haven't seen each other again since. Shizuma was the heir to the corporation, but it was not hers because of her father. Shizuma's blood began to boil as she thought, now father, is the time of revenge.