CHAPTER 10: Hard Decisions

No, no, no, no, no. Miku was sitting on a closed toilet bowl, shivering and desperately trying not to freak out.

It's going to be okay, she kept telling herself. It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay.

She had the whole package: she was confused, embarassed, angry, and most of all, frightened. And the fact that all that she could do for the last couple of minutes was to sit in anticipation made things way worse. Miku was counting down the seconds in her head, but they all felt at least an hour apart, as if they knew she was scared and wanted to postpone the moment of truth as much as possible.

Finally, she closed her eyes, held her breath, begged for a miracle, and ever so slowly looked at the pregnancy test in her hand.

The last two months were pretty much perfect for Miku. She cherished every second of time that she spent with Kaito; he gave her so much love over such a relatively short time span that she was finally beginning to let go of the doubts and fears that she had been carrying with her for her entire life. As a result, she was able to put more energy into her performances, and the recent shows were probably the best in their group's history.

But eventually, something slowly began to spoil her happiness. When she and Kaito were -for whatever reasons -separated for a longer amount of time, Miku started to ask herself some honest questions. Was this true happiness, or was she lying to herself? She couldn't help but wonder how did she and the boy become a couple in the first place. She knew that he was in love with her before, but until that first night, she didn't think of him the same way.

Regardless of the angle she looked at it from, Miku couldn't stop thinking that she was maybe a giant hypocrite. It seemed as if she only was with Kaito either because they slept together, or because she was addicted to the feeling of being loved. Either way, she had to admit that she still didn't honestly like him in the romantic way and was therefore just using him.

Unfortunately, whenever her thoughts almost reached this point, she became too scared of herself to the point when she would immediately seek Kaito's comfort in which she could forget about all that, at least for the time being.

And this cycle would repeat itself until the last days of November with no evident way out. Because Miku felt horrible for even having those thoughts, she didn't tell anyone about them -not even Rin who knew almost all of her secrets. The star knew that it would be most reasonable to explain everything to Kaito and hope that he would be understanding. Every other day when they were still together would make that breaking point harder on both of them. But the idea of that made it even more difficult for Miku to confront her boyfriend, and so her guilt was only growing stronger and stronger.

And then, in this mindset, she woke up early one morning feeling terribly sick and throwing up multiple times. Because it was a show day, she had to devour some pills in the evening just to be able to pull through, and she did so only with enormous self-control. At first, she assumed it was just a random illness; but she was born doubtful, and some other scenarios naturally started popping up inside her head.

A few days have passed, Miku's period was late, and she was losing her mind. There was always the possibility that she was simply nervous; she knew anxiety might cause that in a woman. However, she just didn't expect to be so lucky.

Of course she and Kaito usually used protection, but every once in a while -being young and stupid -if they had to pick between no sex or unprotected sex, they would choose the latter, hoping that they'd be careful enough. Knowing this, the chances of a small accident happening some time ago seemed higher and higher every day until she couldn't take it any longer. Under an oath of complete discreetness, she begged Meiko, the most mature woman in the group that she trusted, to get her a pregnancy test.

Miku took a quick, careful peek, and then stared at the small stick in her hand just to make sure her eyes weren't playing a trick on her. Her mouth moved slowly; she smiled, and then began to cry with relief. Her sobs, washing up all of the emotions that she had in her, were echoing through the hotel bathroom. Suddenly, her heart felt a million pounds lighter.

Maybe it wouldn't have been such a big deal under other circumstances. If she was actually pregnant, she would have talked to Kaito, and together, they'd have had to decide what to do next. If they then decided to have the baby together as a family, marriage wouldn't have been a problem -being a Japanese citizen, Miku was able to get married at her age already. Sure, things wouldn't have been easy, but it would have been the most responsible thing to do.

However, it would have been much more complicated for the fact that both of their careers were depending on being on the road and performing. Miku couldn't do that in the latest stages of her pregnancy, and even after the baby would've been born, she simply wouldn't be able to work as hard as before. She'd probably have to pick between the child and her work -much like her aunt when Miku's parents passed away. And while it wouldn't have been fair to the baby to rob it of its mother, she was scared that she'd eventually hate it for the same reason she thought her aunt hated her.

Luckily she didn't need to resolve any of that after all, but it made her think nevertheless. Neither she nor Kaito were ready for something like this; and who's to say that she would be this lucky next time? But the problem was, she realised that she could actually bring herself to sacrifice her career as a pop star to start a family -just not with Kaito. He wasn't the one she would want by her side as her husband, even if for no other reason than because she simply did not love him.

Someone knocked on the door. Miku flinched.

"Miku?" Luka's voice spoke up on the other side. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," she replied and forced herself to stop crying for a moment. "Go away."

"Are you sure? It doesn't sound like 'nothing' to me."

"Yes, please leave me alone," she retorted and sniffed.

Luka pushed the handle down, and Miku realised that she forgot to lock the door.

"Oh. I was actually going to ask Rin for help." The woman took a step inside. "What are you-"

Her eyes widened when she saw Miku covered in tears and the pregnancy test she was hectically trying to hide in her hands.

"Wait, what? Are you talking about me?" the twin shouted somewhere behind the corner.

"Oh my god, is that...?" Luka quietly asked, ignoring Rin's question.

"Oh, um..." Miku attempted to reply, but because she was panicking, she didn't say anything but a short series of incoherent syllables.

Blonde hair emerged in the door. "What's going on in here? Sorry, I'm talking to- whoa!"

"I'm not pregnant!" the star managed to spoke up exhaustedly. "It's fine."

Her two friends were looking at her with a mix of shock and relief.

"You know what," said Rin; "I can't think of anything to say to that, I'm just gonna walk away and pretend I didn't see this." With that, she turned around and left the hotel room; the door softly thumped behind her around the corner. Luka was looking behind her until she was gone; then, she turned her head back towards Miku with such expression that the girl felt tears coming back to her eyes.

"I know you're upset, but can you please just hug me now and yell at me later?" she asked her in a shaky voice. Luka sighed and did as she was asked; Miku held onto her and sobbed into her shoulder.

"You should stop being such a crybaby, you know?" the woman told her; Miku giggled shortly. "You're crying too much."

"It's just..." she managed to calm down just a little, but enough to stop weeping for the moment. "I can't... I can't shake off this feeling that all the bad things happen to me all the time. I can't take it." She sniffed.

"Well that's bullshit," said Luka. "First of all, you're not pregnant and that's good, right?"

"But I could have been! It's been the only thing on my mind for the last week, I just can't function like this!"

"Then don't! Honey, you take everything too personally. It's like all your emotions are ten times bigger than they should."

Miku understood immediately what her friend was implying. She'd been thinking about it for some time: apparently she was taking everything that has been happening in her life too seriously. Meiko or Rin, for example, were able to move through all the hardships with ease; that was a skill that Miku admired, but never learned it herself -it seemed incomprehensible to her. She could literally turn into a different person with each new impulse, sometimes changing from an enthusiastic shining comet all the way down to a dark, absent-minded black hole in an instant. She always thought this was usual, but she had been noticing lately that other people felt differently -which only strengthened Miku's belief that something was seriously wrong with her.

This would have been hard enough on its own, but once again, she was a performer -and a very serious performer of that, in the sense of having minimum space for her own personality on stage since every little detail had been carefully planed beforehand and expected to be carried out identically every time. Miku had to come out every evening smiling, dancing and singing like nothing was wrong, and the necessity to put on a joyful mask on her face a lot of times was taking its toll.

Nobody who knew that something was going on was really able to help her. Rin was probably doing the best work by just being a crazy careless friend: when the two of them were alone, Miku was able to forget everything a little and pretend she was happy. But Luka, for instance, had the idea that she could simply stop having these problems. She meant well, but in reality, she made it seem so unbelievably easy that Miku was even more upset in herself that she couldn't do it.

As for Kaito, he was convinced that her troubles could be "healed" by his unconditional and constant love. And while she appreciated it, the moments spent with him felt like a lie that she'd been telling herself. She didn't love him the same way -she only loved the feeling of being in love, or at least pretending so. It made her feel more like a normal human being in a way, but it wasn't fair to use him like that, and Miku was coming to realise that more and more every day.

"Are you even listening to me?" she suddenly heard Luka ask her. She looked up: her friend was looking at her, part worried, part impatient.

"No," Miku let out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry. I think I should be alone right now."

"Are you sure? I'm here for you all the way if you want."

"Yes, thank you. I have to... sort some things out first." She forced herself to smile. "I'll talk to you in the evening."

"If you say so," Luka said, smiled as well stood up. "Just remember that we all love you, okay?"

"I love you too. Thank you."

I may love you guys too much to let you put up with my crap, she thought when Luka walked away. I need to make some things right.


In the evening, not long after the show, Miku asked Kaito if they could speak in private. She wouldn't let him even touch her, fearing that she might not be strong enough to go through with it. It was hard enough as it was, and she didn't want to remind her body of how pleasant it felt to be, to put it delicately, treated with love.

The venue they were in had an underground parking lot; the two of them went down there and onto the bus, knowing that everyone else will probably stay behind until the time came to get on the road. Kaito felt something wasn't right: he was frowning and didn't say anything for the entire time they were walking.

"So," he finally said when they sat next to each other in the bus kitchen.

"So," she repeated and hated herself for what she was about to do. "I... Dammit, it's hard to talk about this."

Kaito reflexively moved his hand to comfort her, but stopped immediately, sensing her refusing posture. To cover it up, he stroked his hair nervously and laid his hand on the table. Miku noticed his fingers were shaking a little bit.

He knows, she thought, and almost felt like throwing up again.

"Listen," she spoke up. "I just need to set things straight between us."

Silence. She breathed out and briefly closed her eyes.

"I... I can't keep doing this to you, Kaito. You're such a sweet, nice and caring guy, and... you don't deserve this. I tried, I wanted to love you so much, but I just can't. I thought that I did, I thought that I should. But the thing that should be there... It's just not there on my side."

Silence. Miku would rather throw herself into a volcano than press on, but she had to be strong. This was the right thing to do.

"Every day that we're together makes it harder for me. Harder to pretend that the feeling is there, and harder to pull back and stop lying to myself. And to you. I don't want to hurt you ever, and I fear that the longer we would have been together, the more I would have had to hurt you sometime in the future. It... It makes more sense to end this right here and right now, before it's... before it's too late."

She finally turned her head and looked at him. Kaito was just sitting there motionless and he looked like he was about to be executed.

"Can you accept this, Kaito? I don't want to stop talking to you, I don't hate you. I just wish that we could go back to just being friends. And I know that's not a fair thing to ask either... But, I hope that we can at least try. I can't be anything more to you, probably not ever. I just don't want to completely lose you, and I'm afraid that I would've lost you more likely if we kept this thing between us going. Can you understand it?"

Once again, the bus went silent. He was looking at his hand on the table, Miku was looking at him, feeling lighter but also heavier at the same time and just waiting for the boy to finally say something.

After what felt like the first second of eternity, Kaito moved; he breathed in and out as deeply as he could.

"Wow," he simply stated. "That's... wow. I mean, it's not... It's not totally unexpected."

He seemed calm on the outside, but she could tell his heart had been shattered into pieces: his voice was almost inaudible, his hands were still shaking, and he refused to look at her in the slightest.

"I wasn't really happy either, you know?" Kaito continued. "I would have done anything for you. I needed to love you, I had no other option. I know we don't go together, but I refused to believe it. You're right, something was missing between us."

He straightened his back and looked in front of him absent-mindedly, probably thinking about what to say next. Miku watched him, slightly surprised by his confession.

He finally turned his head towards her. "I get what you're trying to say. We tried, and it didn't work out. It's probably best if we do move on from here. I guess I just needed to hear that from you."

Kaito wasn't able to smile at her with his mouth, but his eyes somehow looked more concrete all of a sudden.

"I don't know how hard it's gonna be, but... I will try my best to be your friend in the future."

Poor Kaito, Miku thought. Poor typical Kaito. Something bad's happening to him, and he's just giving in. He wanted to sound confident and in control, probably not to let her see that he was heartbroken; but she could tell how difficult it actually was for him, regardless of what he was saying. To hurt him like this, it hurt her a thousand times more. He really didn't deserve to be with someone like her.

They hugged slowly and appreciated the last moment they'd spend together as a couple. Miku knew that the second they let go, they will both be single again; she felt sad, but at the same time relieved that it was all over -in particular, this talk she was so scared to have.

After a while, they pulled back, and they were suddenly two separate people.