Disclaimer: Same as the last ten chapters. ;)
Author's Note: This is dedicated to all of you guys, because you rock.
Ruka stared, dumbfounded.
'You really can't hear anything?' Natsume shook his head.
Silent for a while, Ruka looked around, worried about whether his best friend was lying. Then, breaking the silence, Natsume spoke:
'Oh, I see why.' Natsume scoffed, 'You forgot to plug it in…'
But it shouldn't matter. Should it? Ruka thought to himself for a while, drawing the conclusion that perhaps Hotaru left the headphones.
'Can I use it?' Ruka asked, pulling his hand out to Natsume, nervously. Natsume, oblivious to the current situation, handed over the headphones to Ruka swiftly.
Ruka, slightly worried himself, put them on slowly, as if building the anticipation.
'Can you hear anything?'
Are you still there? I still have a couple of more people to get through, but if I'm losing you, don't worry, because I'm almost done.
He quickly took them off of his head, frightened to hear her voice so calm. He looked over at Natsume, who was waiting for a reply from him.
'Yeah, I can't hear anything.' Ruka lied, and tried to smile convincingly to Natsume while doing so.
Natsume, unaware of this, shrugged and pulled out a manga from his backpack to read. Ruka was slightly relieved, but not enough to stop him from wondering why in the world he was the only one to hear her.
Perhaps he was crazy. Yes, that certainly could be it. After all, he was a bit shaken after the crash. Perhaps he's just imagining the whole thing.
He shook his head relentlessly, assuring himself that he was insane. He glanced at Natsume, who had fallen asleep under his book.
Ruka took this as an opportunity, to finish hearing the things Hotaru had to say.
There's always got to be a person out there who is known to be 'bad'. Or, at least, socially labelled as such.
Now, I absolutely abhor the idea of social labelling. I'm sure a lot of people do. But we can't really argue against the fact that we act upon this label.
If a girl is good, or labelled good, then we know to trust her.
It's a naive thought. We're all human, aren't we? So people who are good people can mess up sometimes, and become bad people.
Now, you, Nobara Ibaragi, were always known as the good kid. The one who always did what was told. And for the most part, you were.
You probably don't know why you're here on this list, right? You're probably thinking, 'I can't possibly have done something bad.'
Well, here it goes.
After, well, Tono's incident, I had completely broken down. I tried my best to sweep away the memory, and make sure that I was never reminded of that night. Already I had felt like crap, and I didn't really have anything to help me.
Little did I know that during Tono's little scene with me, someone behind was watching. That someone was you, wasn't it?
You walked up to me, with all of the best intentions, the next morning at school. You asked to talk to me personally, so I let you.
'I know what you went through yesterday.' You told me, so bluntly that I was, honestly, quite surprised.
I tried to hide it from you, 'What are you talking about?'
You leaned in closer at that moment, and you told me, 'If you need anyone to help you, or anything like that, I'm here.'
I couldn't believe that someone was really telling me that, and I immediately thought that you were set up by somebody to do that. That somebody from our school was using this to make a fool out of me.
I was appalled, but still wanted to settle the issue domestically.
'I don't need your help.' I told you, 'Thank you, but no. I'm alright. And quite frankly, I don't need you.'
You were obviously upset by those words. After all, who wouldn't feel horrible when somebody rejects your help?
A few weeks later, we were studying self-esteem and confidence in our health classes. The teacher had told us to write our names individually on our own pieces of paper, pass it around, and get people to list a bunch of compliments about you there. It was a classic teaching method, and I believed it to be a good pass of time.
I was actually… excited. I wanted to know what people had to say about me. In fact, I felt as though I needed what they had to say. Some stupid part of my mind believed that this would actually make me feel better, and boost my self-esteem.
But guess what?
On the day that we were meant to have it returned to us, the teacher turned to me, and spoke:
'Sorry Hotaru, we seem to have lost yours. We really tried to look for it, but it's really gone.'
I didn't complain. After all, that would prove to be a feeble attempt to regain confidence that I didn't want to admit I had lost. I didn't want others to think I was weak, and encourage them to take advantage of me. So I kept quiet and just nodded.
Later that day, I saw you. And what do you know? You've got the list of compliments for me, right under your sleeve.
It really was shocking to me, that you would do something like that. I even expected more from you. Yet, you did, and no matter how many times I tried to blink, the image didn't disappear from my view. I didn't even confront you about it.
I can't blame you for acting on your anger. I'll admit that I was a bit harsh to you.
But then again, you can't blame me for putting your name on this list.
You're here because you took the one thing that could've helped me out of this pain, and stole it. Whether the comments written on that list were to be good or bad, I knew there must've been at least one person who wrote something positive about me. And it pains me to know that I will never read it.
I guess I could never know what was on that list.
But from what I know now, I guess I don't really want to know.
He remembered the real list written on the paper, quite clearly:
'Over confident.
A bitch.
She's such a little slut! LOL.
She thinks she's so smart, but she's not.
A liar. :D
An emotionless freak who doesn't understand anyone around her
I regret meeting her...'
Reminiscing, Ruka concluded that it was better that Nobara took that list from her.
He remembered how he didn't have enough guts to be the first to write something good about her on that list.
Suddenly, his heart took over, and he found himself brought in front of his desk against his own will. His hands grasped a pen, and scribbled:
Hotaru Imai:
Her raven hair, her amethyst eyes, her ruby lips all make her look like a goddess in my eyes. In my eyes, she cannot be compared to the sun, the moon and the stars combined.
Hotaru's a genius, who was misunderstood by people surrounding her.
I will never regret meeting Hotaru, nor will I regret seeing her for the first time.
The only regret that I have
Is that I didn't save her.
-Ruka Nogi.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading this awfully stupid chapter. :O I can't believe I finished it, though. I'm so sorry for the OOC ness; please do forgive me!
Oh by the way, don't forget to answer my poll which is about whether this story will have a sad ending or a happy ending. :) The future of this story is up to you guys! XD
