Two

I couldn't sleep at all last night. After the bath, Reina decided to stay the night, which my mom thought was an "excellent idea". Since it was so late in the evening when we finished discussing Math, I really couldn't complain. She came prepared, bringing her school uniform and some extra clothes with her in her backpack. I thought it was weird that she had a large, bulging bag rather than the tote bag she normally carried outside school. Did she bring those clothes for me, or for Take-sensei? I wanted to ask her about her visit at his house. Were they alone? Did they really just practice her solo and do nothing else? On top of that, I was dying to talk to her about what happened in the tub—about her confession. Instead, I pretended to fall asleep the second I hit my head on my pillow. I listened to Reina's soft, steady breaths next to me until the first light appeared in the morning.

"Don't forget to finish the forms I gave you last week. Due on Wednesday!" my teacher hollered after my classmates who were exiting the classroom in a rush. I couldn't blame them as it's lunch time on a busy Monday. If you wouldn't zoom your way down to the cafeteria, the only thing left for you would be the chilled pork buns with a tiny chunk of fake meat in them. The lunch ladies wouldn't even give you ketchup packets, which I thought was the most corrupt thing to do in schools.

"Hey, are you done with your forms?" Shuichi emerged in front of me from the backside of the class.

Without glancing up at him, I could feel his unwavering stare. "Almost done. Reina is helping me with it," I said as I put my things back in my sachet bag. I took out my lunch and placed it on the table when he grabbed a chair and sat beside me. I looked at him questioningly.

"Um, Kumiko, can we talk?" Shuichi said, his eyes imploring.

Before I could answer, Reina, who turned up out of nowhere, beat me to it. "What about?" She pulled a chair from the other side and perched on it like it was her throne. She was appraising Suichi with a tight-lipped smile, her eyes glistening with superiority. "So? We're listening, speak."

Suichi got up abruptly, his chair knocked away in the process. "This has nothing to do with you," he said, glowering at Reina.

I glanced between them with worry. It's no secret that the two of them didn't like each other. Still, the reason for their animosity toward each other had been a puzzle to me even though we had known each other since middle school. Reina seemed bored more than anything, directing her gaze out the window, ignoring the towering boy completely. Shuichi looked at me after he put the chair back in its place.

"I'll message you, Kumiko," he said and marched toward the door.

"Everything about Kumiko concerns me," Reina said, loud enough for everyone in the classroom to hear. I could sense, without scanning through the room, that our classmates were watching us, curious of what was going on.

Shuichi stopped at the door. Turning his head very slightly to his shoulder, he retorted, thankfully, not as loudly, "She's not your girlfriend." He slid the door open and stepped out into the hallway.

Reina huffed. She rose to her feet, dumping her bento that my mom prepared for her on my table, which I didn't notice her holding earlier, and grabbed my hand before dragging me out of the room.

"Wait, Reina! Where are we going?" I had an idea where she was taking me, but I needed to say something to break the tension.

She let go of my hand when we reached the spot at the back of the school where I usually practiced with her. This had become our place since freshman year. "Who does he think he is? As if I didn't know that already!" she said, her skirt spiraling up as she span around to look at me. "What do you think he wants to talk to you about? He already got a girlfriend, who is our friend!"

"Reina, calm down," I said, fighting back a smile. "Do you want to be my girlfriend that badly? He was just asking about the college forms."

She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I couldn't believe you."

Reina was still visibly fuming when I poked her flushed cheek. I cooed, "Aren't you cute?"

"Don't make fun of me, Kumiko," she said, crossing her arms. "I'm angry."

"I know, but I'm not making fun of you," I said, unfolding her arms and latching her hands onto mine. "I think you're just jealous."

"I—I'm not jealous!" Reina was beet red. She pried her hands off of me, but I clutched them tighter. "Let go."

"Reina, you just need to be honest with your feelings," I teased further, intertwining our fingers together.

She narrowed her eyes at me, yet she did not attempt to pull her hands away. "I'm always honest with my feelings. That's why I—I had a talk with you about it last night."

That reminded me like a slap in the face. I dropped her hands involuntarily as I moved back, my gaze to the space in between our feet.

"Kumiko?" Reina said, worry in her voice.

"What about Taki-sensei?" I said the first thing on my mind. "Aren't you in love with him? Didn't you say you wanted to marry him and have his kids someday? I even told you that I would support you—"

Without warning, Reina closed the gap between us, smashing her lips against mine. "I know what I said," she breathed when she drew back, her beautiful, intelligent eyes searching mine. I didn't know what she was looking for and it made me a little bit uneasy. But it wasn't only me. Her expression turned anxious when she said in a low, uncertain tone, "Kumiko? What are you thinking?"

I let out a shaky breath. "You took my first kiss."

Reina laughed, the anxiety she held gone in an instant. "You really have the worst personality, Kumiko." She regarded me under her long lashes for a minute, her smile sheepish and sensual at the same time. "To be fair, it's also my first time. Glad I shared it with you."

I was standing there, staring down at her with my mouth and eyes wide open as reality hit me like a ton of bricks. She did those things in the tub, then came her confession, and now she kissed me! Oh, my God! So, did she really like me like how she liked Taki-sensei? There was no way that could be true. "We really need to talk," I said out loud.

Her smile fell at the urgency of my voice. "Okay," she said, nodding. "After school?"

I bobbed my head. "Yes," I responded quickly.

"Then we'll talk where we had our first date, where I first professed my love for you."

The hike up to Mt. Daikichi was a blur. Reina was eerily quiet through the long, arduous walk, which unnerved me because that never happened before. Even during that time when she was angry at me for not telling her about Taki-sensei's wife, she spoke her mind.

"This feels like a déjà vu, only we didn't have our instruments now." I glanced up at Reina, who was four steps ahead of me. She was wearing a dress almost identical to the one she wore during our "first date".

"I want to relive that moment," Reina said, stopping in her tracks. She turned around and looked down at me. "What about you? Aren't you wearing a similar set of clothes?"

I wore sneakers, shorts, and a shirt. I chuckled at myself when I realized that my fashion sense had not evolved since then. I was suddenly embarrassed. "I don't have many clothes."

Reina only shook her head. She continued her trek up the last flight of stairs, waiting for me at the landing. "Then, it must be fate," she said. When I finally reached the top, her gaze was faraway in the flickering distance as if in a daydream. I slipped right next to her without a word. After what seemed to be forever, she took my hand gently in hers as we faced each other. "I feel happy when I'm here with you." She paused, her eyes examining mine again, as though the answer she was waiting for would pop out if she checked hard enough.

"Is there something in my face?" I decided to make a joke of the situation while I was at it.

Reina sighed, as if exasperated. "Is that really what you want to say after I declared to you my love?" She grunted. "You're horrible!" She moved away, but I stopped her with my arms around her waist. She shot me a halfhearted glare and put on a pout.

I couldn't stop the huge smile on my face at her rare display of childishness. "And you're irresistibly cute."

"You're still horrible and I hate you," she said, a slow smile wiping away the furrow in her brow.

Leaning close, I breathed into her ear, "And I love you, too." Her ears reddened at my words. I drew back a little and found a deep blush spread across her cheeks. She must have known she was blushing hard since she was so determined to hide her face from me. I lifted her jaw up, forcing her to set her eyes on mine. She was dazzling against the boundless shadows of the heavens. The distant gleam from the city lights accentuated her face immaculately. "You're so beautiful, Reina," I voiced my thoughts barely above a whisper, but she must have heard me still as her blush grew. "Do you want to hear a sincere confession?"

She nodded her head, saying nothing. But somehow, I knew what was on her mind like I could hear her uttering them. I ushered her to the baldaquin and we sat close, arms linking as she rested her head on my shoulder. It's as if our bodies were clamped as one as we watched the indistinct skyline.

"When did you know?" Reina started softly.

"I guess I have always admired you since middle school," I said, for once not beating around the bush. There was no reaction from Reina, so I thought she was expecting me to elaborate, and so I continued, "I applied to Kitauji High School to have a fresh start, to make new friends, create new memories and forget the old ones . . ."

She raised her head from my shoulder and focused her gaze back on me. "Why were you trying to forget about the past?"

"To move on from one Kousaka Reina? We didn't really have a good start," I said with a half grin. "Imagine my surprise when I saw you in the music room on the first day of school. I thought for sure I would never see you ever again. But there you were with all your beauty. And the rest, you know, is history."

Reina appeared troubled as she hesitated. "And that spineless boy?"

"Who, Shuichi?" I said and let out a short laugh, which earned an icy glare from Reina. "Why, are you jealous?"

"I am," she replied at once. The amusement was totally wiped off from my face as I realized that there was no ounce of lie or humor in those words.

"Why is it always him?" I said as my irritation built up. "I never liked him that way. We were just childhood friends and you know this!"

"I'm sorry, Kumiko," Reina said, entwining our hands.

I exhaled, calming myself down. "I'm sorry for reacting that way, too. But why do people always assume that I like him more than a friend? Clearly, I don't. If I did, we would be celebrating our second anniversary by now." I wanted Reina to laugh at that joke, but she didn't. Rather, she looked like she was about to cry.

"Because I have always felt like there was someone else that you like. If it isn't Tsukamoto, then who?"

That caught me by surprise. A lump formed in my throat. I was stunned and too occupied to say anything as the memories of Azuka-sempai shuffled through my mind one after another, memory after memory, and then her playing me her euphonium with her dad's composition by the river. That smile—that smile that she gave me, and only to me, was the one that got me the most.

"Is it—"

"You're mistaken," I interrupted her curtly. I had a feeling that what she was about to say would make this whole situation more complicated. And I disliked complication. "I don't like someone else," I lied to her face and I knew it was wrong, but I wanted her to believe that. But by the look she was showing me, she didn't.

"I like Taki-sensei," Reina said all of a sudden as though it was a big secret. I wanted to roll my eyes when she quickly added, "And I like you." The way she uttered it felt like she wanted me to believe it.

"Do you want me to believe it?" I said and she nodded her head firmly.

"Yes, and I want you to understand."

"Understand what?" I said in suppressed indignation.

"That it is okay to like other people at the same time." She was bearing herself with her usual proud and confident demeanor, but I could tell she was scared and insecure deep down. Just like I was.

We gazed at each other's eyes in silence for a long moment, trying to gauze the other's feelings. I was the one to speak up my mind first.

"I like you, Reina," I said with all honesty I could muster. "Maybe this is love or not, I don't know. What I'm sure of is, I really love being with you. It makes me happy. I feel content with you near me. And I always think you're special than everyone else since I first laid my eyes on you."

She raised our joined hands and positioned my palm against her cheek. I smiled at the contact, curbing the urge to kiss her. As if sensing my desire, she tilted her head and did what I was reluctant to do. She kissed me. But this time around, it felt more natural yet surreal. I cupped her face with my free hand and pulled her close. She opened her mouth and I moved my lips against hers clumsily until Reina took over the reins and showed me how to do it like an old master in the craft, even when she said she hadn't been kissed before. I pulled away at the thought and asked absent-mindedly, "How are you so good at this?"

Reina giggled and winked. "That's a secret I will never tell you."

"Why not?" I whined playfully. "Are there lessons? Where can I sign up for that?"

"Oh, believe me, Kumiko, you don't need lessons. You just need a lot of practice." She purred, "I can definitely help you with that."

"Do you offer private sessions, maybe every after class?" I said and bit my lips when I realized what I was suggesting.

It seemed that Reina got the message as her smile stretched like it was the something that she was anticipating for to hear all this time. "I'm a stern teacher. I won't go easy on you just because you're a beginner."

"You said it yourself, I'm a fast learner," I said and then kissed her. The soft moans that escaped her lips let me know that I was doing a good job.

Kissing Reina felt like a dream—that one particular dream that made you not want to wake up and when you did, for unexplained and irksome reasons, you just wanted to go back to sleep and replay those images in your mind over and over again. That was what I did when I got back home, in bed, and alone with my thoughts. I was playing those moments like music notes on a record. And each time, my heart swelled with bliss and guilt. Because I liked kissing Reina, but I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I couldn't do it for long.

Yet in the end, I fell as sleep with a smile on my face. For the first time in over a year, the thought of Azuka-sempai slipped my mind that night.

A/N:

Hello, again!

It's good to be back here! Hope you're having fun reading the story so far. I have fun writing it and can't wait to finish this story soon!

Tell me your thoughts and I make sure to respond on the next chapter.

Until then! Sayonara! ^^