Welcome back, my dear reader. Have you enjoyed the first tale? I sincerely hope so, from the bottom of my heart. Have you rested well? Come now, it is time to lift the curtain on the second tale. Perhaps this story is the truth, or it could also be a lie. At any rate, let us begin the second story together *giggle*giggle*
Chapter 4: Second Love, Part 1
22-year-old Ushiromiya Rosa stepped out of her classroom alone, her backpack full of homework. College wasn't as easy as Eva always said it was. Her soft brown hair was no longer confined to two childish pigtails, not since that incident. Rosa had grown up. She no longer relied on stuffed toys for friendship. She'd made a few friends over the years, and though they weren't all that close, Rosa was thankful she actually had real friends. As she slipped past the crowd, she found herself keeping an eye out for a particular upperclassman. Rosa knew she shouldn't be thinking about boys, not since she'd foolishly given her entire heart away to an idiot who crushed it to pieces before handing the fragments back to her. It had taken months for Rosa to put the fragile pieces of her naive heart back together. And yet, she'd given her not-quite-whole heart away again. This time, she hoped, perhaps rather naively, that this would be different.
He was an upperclassman, one year older than her. He had brown hair too, though his was a few shades darker than hers', and cut short. His eyes were dark purple, a strange violet colour. He had an easy smile and fair skin, and was incredibly tall. He wasn't in any of the top classes, but he wasn't stupid either. Rosa had only spoken to him once, when she'd stuttered out a shaky "e-e-excuse me" when he was blocking her way. He was the first boy who hadn't glared at her when she asked him to move. Instead, he'd smiled and apologized, bowing dramatically to let her pass. So her infatuation with him was more like a long-distance crush. His name was Nakamura Sora. Sora meant 'sky', and to Rosa, he was like the sky: beautiful, mysterious, and unreachable.
She sighed inwardly. Rosa's life was rather bleak right now. Ever since that fateful day, her fantasties and delusions of being rescued by a prince or a knight vanished, the castles she'd built in her head demolished. After all, Beatrice had been hoping for her knight to come rescue her too. And Ushiromiya Rosa, a 14-year-old with a small frame and sandy brown hair tied into two girlish pigtails, had come to free her. Knights didn't always free the princess. Sometimes things went wrong too. When little Rosa discovered the strange, beautiful, a little arrogant, yet childlike woman's broken body lying on the rocks with the contents of her head stained all over the rocks, all Rosa could do was stare at the red liquid pooling beneath her cracked skull, tinting her golden hair. She'd stared at the blood in horror, because that blood was on her hands, and no matter what, she'd never ever be able to wash them clean. Those bloodstained hands would always, always carry the crushing weight of her cross, but not carrying, supporting the weight of Ushiromiya Rosa's sin till it finally crushed her.
The weeks after that were full of nightmares, with her waking up screaming, biting back the name 'Beatrice' in case anyone ever found out her dark, dark secret. The weeks turned into months, which turned into years. At one point, she wasn't sure when, she'd pulled the hairbands out of her hair, getting rid of those stupid pigtails once and for all. She'd stopped talking to her plushies. She'd made real friends. She'd grown up. Krauss ignored her as usual, Eva eventually ran out of things to criticize about her younger sister, but she still suffered msny betrayals at Rudolf's hands. Rosa didn't mind that much though, for she felt like that was the weight of her cross, and being humiliated and betrayed by your older brother over and over again seemed like a small price to pay for a person's life.
While her mind was full of these dark thoughts, she hadn't been looking where she was going, and crashed into someone. "Oh, sorry!" Rosa ran her hand through her long hair. "It's alright." A very familiar voice sounded from the person she'd walked into. Could it be...? "You're...Ushiromiya Rosa, right?" Sora frowned for a moment, trying to remember her name. "Y-yes!" Rosa stammered, turning beet red. I know I don't deserve happiness, after what I did to Beatrice. But I... "I knew your brother Rudolf, back in high school. He's quite a horrible guy, from what I can see." Sora's voice cut into her mental babble, bringing her back to reality. "Rudolf-nii-san isn't that bad, he's just..." Rosa bit her lip, trying to defend a brother who hadn't cared all that much about her. Sora just laughed at her (adorable) frowning face. "He cheated on my sister last year." He said matter-of-factly. "Ah, sorry. Rudolf-nii-san is a bit..." She let her sentence trail off, suddenly aware of how hard her heart was beating. Ahh, what if my hair isn't neat? Is my shirt creased? Am I wearing a really stupid expression right now? "Ushiromiya-san?" Sora asked somehwat cautiously."Y-yes? Sorry, I've just got a headache." It was true, her head had begun to ache sometime during class, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and take a nice, long nap and temporarily forget about her sins.
"You look pale. I'll take you to the infirmary." Waving away her protests about "I'm fine", he escorted a blushing Rosa to the nurse's office, picked up some aspirin, and left. "Tha-thank you." She muttered awkwardly, feeling like a kid again, and taking a few pills before stuffing the rest into her backpack. He had also insisted on walking her to the dock, to make sure she'd get onto the ferry safely. "No problem. Are you sure you're alright?" Sora asked. I must've looked so pathetic. "Yeah, I'm alright." Self-conciously tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear, Rosa kept her eyes on her feet as they walked, dreading the teasing from her cruel siblings. "Eva-nee-san will kill me for being late." She said almost sadly. "My siblings are evil too. One time, I accidentally ate my older brother's lunch, and he decided to throw all my homework into a fire." He laughed. You think that's cruel? If I were in your place, Eva-neesan would scream at me till I cried, Rudolf-niisan would probably pour bleach into my shampoo, and Krauss-niisan would most likely find some way to make sure I go hungry for a whole day. Rosa bit down the hysterical laughter threatening to flow from her lips, and continued to smile pleasantly (she hoped she seemed pleasant, at the very least) while he talked.
After what seemed like 3 minutes, the long walk to the ferry that Rosa usually took alone, was over. "Well, we're here. It was great meeting you, Ushiromiya-san." Sora grinned at her. Rosa couldn't help but feel like this was something out of the shoujo manga she used to read when she was young. "It was nice meeting you too, Nakamura-kun." She smiled cordially, waving before getting onto the ship. She endured Rudolf's teasing ("hehehe, my cute little sister finally got a boyfriend. I was starting to think she may not be interested too, since her older brother is so devastatingly handsome, yet she never admitted how good looking he was, hehehe~") for a while before casually bringing up Sora's sister's relationship with Rudolf. Predictably, he blanched, and left her to go annoy Eva instead. Rudolf was staying over at the mansion with his wife, Asumu, and their son, Battler. Rosa smiled to herself, hugging her bag to her (still rather flat, compared to everyone else's, even though she was already 23) chest, her broken world fixed again, for that short, precious time she'd spent with Sora.
The next day, during recess, Rosa quietly slipped out of the classroom, her bento box in hand. She didn't feel like interacting with her friends, so she headed to the deserted corner where she used to hide, alone, whenever she was teased by her other classmates. Anyone would've thought that college students wouldn't be so immature, but they were. At least none of them were as mean as Eva. Rosa had gotten another nightmare about Beatrice that night. The image of her friend lying sprawled on the rocks, her blue eyes flat and lifeless, her golden hair dipped in red, oh god, that red was just everywhere, and Rosa couldn't take it anymore, the smell of her blood and the cranial fluid leaking out of her head... She'd spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning, sobbing into her pillow, while whispering apologies to the deceased Beatrice. Her hands trembled. While walking, an object suddenly came flying at her, knocking the back of her head and sending her to the ground, the contents of her lunchbox spilled all over the grass. "Ow..." Rosa rubbed the back of her head, wincing. As she sat on the ground, trying not to cry out in pain, she heard a faint cry of "you're all idiots!", some laughter, and a pair of feet jogging towards her. The footfalls started to get louder and...
"Ushiromiya-san! Are you alright?" Nakamura Sora jogged over to Rosa, kneeling down next to her. "Yes." Rosa answered in a somewhat steady voice. "Those idiots had to throw the stupid ball around when you were walking by..." He sighed, shaking his head. Rosa bit her lip. They think I'm strange because I don't talk to anyone. That I'm a freak or something, just because I'm an Ushiromiya. Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt Sora's warm hands on her head, digging through her hair to check the wound. "It looks rather serious. I think you should be treated or something." He said concernedly. "N-no! I'm fine!" She insisted. Going to the nurse's office two days in a row would be beyond humiliating, and Rosa would like to avoid embarassment as much as she could. "The ball bruised the back of your head when it hit you." Sora spoke sharply. "I'm alright!" Rosa said stubbornly. He looked into her eyes sternly, and suddenly all Rosa could see was that deep, violet colour of his eyes, that beautiful shade of purple that was hovering somewhere between purple and dark gray, enchanting on a level she never thought was possible. Her own eyes were a warm shade of brown, nothing particularly special, she thought sadly.
"You've got an injury. What if it's actually more serious than it looks?" He reprimanded. "I..." Her brain couldn't form a sentence, her mouth opening and closing. Rosa's fair cheeks were glowing red, her heart hammering her chest. Sora sighed, before rising to his feet and grinned widely. "If you won't go, then as the duty of your friend, I shall carry you to the nurse's office. Please do not try to resist." He held out his arms toward her and Rosa shrank back instinctively. "N-no! H-how about this, once I get home I promise I'll ask the doctor to take a look, okay?" The words left Rosa's mouth in a hysterical stream, her brain only able to focus on the words "my friend". He...was her friend. Sora sighed once more. "Fine. Oh, but what about your lunch?" He gestured towards the food littering the ground. "I'm alright, really. And it's okay, I'm not hungry." Rosa insisted stubbornly, the thickheaded streak that came with being an Ushiromiya kicking in. Giving up, Sora sat down next to Rosa. They started chatting amicably, Rosa laughing at his ridiculous jokes and Sora grinning at the stories (the more amusing ones she'd chose to tell him, that is) of her family. The bell rang, soon enough, much to both the teenagers' disappointment. "I'll see you after school then, Ushiromiya-san!" The taller boy had called after walking Rosa to her class, making her friends squeal with delight. ("Uwaahh, Rosa's boyfriend is so cute!" "I heard he's an upperclassman~" "I want a boyfriend like hers'! He even walks her back to class!" "No fair!") Both Sora and Rosa had turned scarlet at her friends' shrieks, both of them hastily reassuring them that they were 100% not dating, identical embarassed looks on their faces, carefully not looking at each other.