AN: I'm not dead yet! Tis been a while, so thank you all for your patience!
A roll of toilet paper fell out of Risa's hands. She sniffed again, and made sure her face did not betray the little cry she just had. That was pathetic. As sensitive as she was, she can't believe she had a cry over that. Over him.
Well.
It was over. That was to be the end of that. It had proved to be another dead end. Haha, dead end. She laughed bitterly in her head.
(divider)
"I said, what's up with the face."
Riku's voice. It was to be expected. Her sister usually was the first to notice if something's up with her.
"Huh."
The short haired one sighed exasperatedly, and put down her fork. "You know, can you make it anymore obvious? Tell me what's up."
"Nothing." Risa said quickly, out of practice. "I'm just having an off day, ya' know?"
Riku looked skeptical and was glaring at her funny. Risa didn't blame her. She would do the same too.
"Fine fine. Tell you after dinner."
After all, Riku did deserve to know. If she couldn't even trust Riku, how could she trust herself?
(divider)
Dinner was not very satisfying. Risa was hungry, but could not find the energy to get seconds. It's the feeling you get while looking down at airplane food …you're hungry, but the environment and context makes your stomach churn. Not pleasant at all. Plus, she was also tired and sleepy, but sleep was out of the question. There was no way she could sleep with all the emotional buildup. Besides, she had promised to have a heartfelt talk with Riku. So she surrounded herself with cute, fluffy plush and pillows and tried to make herself as comfortable as she could. Riku sat in an inflatable chair on the other side of the room, fiddling with a pen and a notepad.
Wait…a pen and notepad? Risa paled a bit. What was this…an interview? Or worse…a session with a psychologist?
Riku was the first to speak.
"It's about Hiwatari-kun, isn't it?"
Risa coughed.
"Put the pen and notepad away. It's making me nervous."
Riku shot them a nonchalant glance, and ditched them in the nearest drawer.
"Yeah, it's about him. How'd you know?"
"Risa, are you being serious? It's all over the school."
Was it now… How did it escape her notice? Oh my, that cannot be good. Cannot.
"Right. Okay…" How should she begin?
Risa closed her eyes and willed the images to reappear in her mind. It was still fresh, and painful in a way.
"It began when I was going through my whole unhappy phase, you know, with Dark leaving, marks dropping…that kind of stuff. I saw Hiwatari-kun staring at trees all lunch, so I decided to talk to him. I don't know what I was thinking. I fainted one day…"
"on him." Riku reminded.
"Yyes. On him." She winced a bit. "He took me back to school in front of everyone. To be honest, I was both impressed and flattered. He must have had to plow through myriads of people, and endure all the weird stares. Anyway, what next was, I started eating after everyone had left, and yes, he just had to walk in. I remember thinking how at ease we both were in front of each other. And I guess it was that little incident that started the whole mess."
Riku simply nodded. "Tell me about the tutoring. How'd that happen specifically?"
Oh that. Riku has been nagging her ever since it's started. Well, time to spill.
"Remember the morning of the math test?"
"You forgot to study for it. And you were making these disgusting egg rolls."
Risa ignored the comment about her egg rolls. They were edible.
"I failed it, of course. You knew that. So I sat by myself on the cold stone steps, mustering every ounce of energy into feeling sorry for myself, for a few days, secretly hoping that Hiwatari kun would come talk to me. And I saw these birds…"
Riku suddenly interrupted again, "You wrote the poem didn't you?"
Risa felt her insides heat up. "Yes I did. What's funny is…he drew an amazing picture of birds for me."
"Where's it now?"
"Tell you later." Risa shifted herself around and stretched her legs. "K, and Hiwatari-kun, being the observer he was, knew that I failed. So he offered to help."
"He must have really liked you to do that. You know Hiwatari-kun isn't the type of person who'd just go up to anyone and offer to help. I can't even imagine him even initiating any sort of normal conversation."
"Riku, Hiwatari-kun's changed after the incident and you know it. He's not the same person anymore."
"And you look like you still care—"
Sadness flickered in Risa's eyes for a second.
"Let me continue."
Riku shut up at the tone of her sister's tone—a tone rarely used unless she was serious.
"I went over to his house. You, who were spying—"
"It was in full view, so I wasn't spying."
"Fine. You, who were watching, knew about it. It started to rain, the electricity went out. Somehow, we tripped over each other and he ended up pinning me against the wall. It was surreal."
Risa paused for a full three seconds.
"And you know what, it was then that I knew that I had truly chosen him. I was doubting and denying it to myself in my head, but deep down, I knew the truth."
Risa looked out the window and at the balcony.
"It's raining." Said Riku.
"Pathetic fallacy." Risa muttered absentmindedly.
"What?"
"Nothing. When you hear the rain, what do you think, Riku?"
"I like rain. It makes the world so fresh."
"Well, I hate rain. It was when Dark… let's not even go into that."
Riku nodded understandably. Rain was like bad luck for Risa or something.
"Anyway, so what happened was, we untangled ourselves when the phone rang all of a sudden."
"Oops, sorry. If I had know you guys were…"
Risa shot her a cut-it-out look.
"Yeah. You know the rest."
"So what made you so upset?"
Risa thought for a long time.
"Riku, have you ever hoped for something so much that it became almost real in your head? The only thing you missed was verification."
Risa continued without waiting for an answer. "That was what happened. But the verification never came. Instead, I got the complete opposite of what I was hoping for. There was nothing I could do."
It wouldn't hurt this much if you had said that you hated me. Indifference is worse. It means that I had zero impact on your life. All I wanted to do is touch your life is some way.
Riku got up wordlessly.
"Life does that doesn't it?" Risa said all of a sudden, her eyes dry. "We have to be strong, ne? Confront our problems?"
Because, if we run away from our problems, it'll just grow bigger, then come and haunt us.
Riku hugged her sister. "You are strong, you know that? …."
"Thank you, Riku." Risa said, "Let's go to sleep now."
(divider)
When Riku was safe in her bed, Risa got up. What she was about to do … was absolutely crazy. She did hear herself say that she had to confront her problems.
What has she got to lose?
(end chapter)
AN:
Birds will end next chapter! I can't express my gratitude enough to the people who have taken the time to review this story. It made me very very happy to know that there are people out there who not only like sxr, but also the way I've depicted them in this story. I realize that I didn't create a perky, happy and impulsive Risa. I made her depressed half the time. Anime characters—especially the happy ones, are often on a permanent sugar high in fanfiction. We know that nobody can be happy all the time.
I thought it was rather challenging to write in just Risa's POV, but I think having Sat's POV would make it very different.
I really want to improve my writing. If you have anything to say about this…suggestions, comments, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me.