Part II

Chapter 56

"Yes, it's mine."

Kagura shot a quick, quizzical glance at her sensei, and then returned her eyes to the book in her hands. The cover of it, and overall condition of the item, was in impeccable shape, and that fact alone testified to the the truth of Minamo's words.

It's like the thing was just printed today. Yep, it's definitely hers.

"...open it to page thirty-two, please."

Her sensei's voice was wavering, the woman sitting down next to her upon the couch. Kagura threw another glance towards her, and noticed Minamo's skin grow considerably paler, her breaths slightly erratic. By all appearances, it seemed as if she was going into another round of sudden hysterics, but so far, at least, she remained steady. "Are you ok?"

Minamo slowly nodded, a hand massaging her breastbone. "...I'm ok. It...doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would."

"Wait, what?"

The woman shook her head, and then sighed, looking towards her yearbook. "I'm fine. Just...open it, please."

Kagura waited a moment to make sure her senesi was in decent condition. When she was satisfied, she did as told, flipping the pages to the specified location. "...hey, whoa!" An amused grin spread across her face. "Is that you?"

"...yeah."

Upon this particular page was a series of group photos, each containing a few high school girls posing for the camera, all of them decked out in different club outfits. The only picture that Kagura cared about, however, featured just two girls, each of them wearing swimsuits in front of a school pool. One was tall, and quite beautiful looking to Kagura, and the other was already well known to her. "...dude, you look, like, totally the same. Except, you didn't have any bangs."

Minamo leaned over towards her with hesitance, checking out the picture as well. "R-really...?"

Kagura nodded enthusiastically. The other girl in the picture, shorter in stature, was her sensei. Her face as a teenager was almost exactly the same as it was an adult, and, apart from a more athletic build back then, hadn't appeared to have changed much at all. "Yeah! Man, I hope I age like you do. You seriously still look like you did in high school."

There was a small chuckle that came from Minamo, an obviously abashed one.

"So, who's that other girl? Your senpai?"

"...yeah."

Minamo's tone had suddenly grown quite dour in Kagura's ear. "Well, she's really pretty. She doesn't look too happy to have her picture taken, though."

"...it's because I held her hand."

Kagura scrunched her brow, wondering at the words. Minamo was indeed holding her senpai's hand in the picture, and appeared quite embarrassed doing so. "So? Did she not like her space violated, or somethin'?"

"...I guess, in a way. But, anyway, she was...really cool. She was sort of, you know...everyone's idol. Really cool, and beautiful..."

"So, what's her deal then?"

"She...didn't like me."

She peered at the woman. "Huh? Why?"

"Because I had a crush on her."

"...what?"

"...y-yeah..."

The color from the woman's face had all but drained now, Minamo looking as if all the life had just left her. "Wait...what about Yukari, then? I thought you had it for her in high school...?"

Minamo kept a hand by her face now, as if she were somewhat hiding behind it. "...she wasn't the first girl I liked. I...liked a lot girls...before Yukari."

Kagura was confused for a moment, and then recalled the conversation between her sensei and Eiko. "Oh, right...you said you've probably liked them for a long time."

"...yeah. I have. But..." Minamo let out a heavy sigh. "...I can't even remember when it all started. It's all such a blur now. I spent so much time trying to pretend I didn't like women...that I really did convince myself of it..."

"...did you just not want other people finding out about it?"

The woman shrugged wearily. "...I guess. I don't know. I just...I don't like being looked down on, Kagura. I hate it. It just makes me freeze whenever it happens, and I'd do anything to avoid that..." She shook her head. "I'm really pathetic. I get so scared when it happens. I'd do anything to stop that, feeling, Kagura. Anything..."

A few things were clicking together in Kagura's head now as her sensei continued to speak. "I guess I get it. You'd probably get some crap if people knew you were gay."

"I know I would. But, not some people. Everyone...would do that to me..."

Her heart sank a bit as she saw her sensei shrink in size now. "Hey, not everyone would! Come on...there's nothing wrong with liking girls. You would've had a lot of people on your side, too, like me and Eiko!"

"...I know. I know. I'm just a coward, Kagura." Minamo shivered. "Every time I just even think about it...if someone would think I was weird because of it...I would just die. I get so scared. I don't know why. It's really that, it's really...it's whenever someone thought I was gay, that feeling would come. It's such a horrible feeling...it's so painful, like...like I'm bleeding..."

She briefly recalled Eiko's mentioning of Minamo's dreams, and then put a hand on the woman's shoulder, attempting to relax her. "It's cool, it's cool..."

Both of Minamo's hands were over her face now, her head shaking back and forth in it. "That's why...that's why I hid it from Yukari. That's why I had to lie to her...I didn't want to, Kagura. I really didn't. I just had to..."

Kagura looked back at the picture of Minamo's senpai. "Oh...wait. Yukari knew you were into your senpai? Is that what happened?"

"...I don't know. I don't know what she thinks..."

"...'what she thinks' about what?"

There was a long pause in the conversation then, Minamo's voice so distant when she finally did speak. "...about, my letter..."

"Letter? What letter?"

Again, another few moments of silence ensued, the woman gradually collecting herself. "...my love letter. That's when it all started. That's how I first hurt her...that's why she hates me. That's why Yukari hates me..." Minamo finally lifted her head up, her eyes locked onto Kagura's. "She saved me, Kagura, and I treated her...I'm a terrible person..."

Kagura was becoming more than perplexed with her teacher's words again, but, at the very least, she was happy that Minamo was talking openly with her now. "...hey, um, I think you better start at the beginning for me. So you liked this senpai of yours...and then what?"

Minamo closed her eyes, as if she was considering the request. Then, slowly, she sat back into the couch, her arms folded as her hands clutched them, as if she were freezing. "...ok. Ok." She let out one last, final sigh. "Ok. Please, just be patient with me. This is so hard. You don't know how hard...I've tried to hide all of this...and forget about it, all this time. Just give me...a little time for it to all come out, please. I just...I hate remembering it all..."

"...I had a crush on my senpai, Kagura. It was my first year in high school, and it just happened. She was such an amazing and beautiful person. I know every girl in school loved her, but probably not in the way I did. So...I grew very close to her. She liked me at first, like I was just another one of her fans, but, that didn't last long. I over stepped my boundaries on quite a few occasions. I treated her as more than a friend, and I'm sure...yes, I'm sure she knew I had a thing for her. Within a few weeks, she always treated me like I was a pest, but, I didn't care."

"A lot of rumors went on about us then. I'm sure that was one reason she started to distance herself from me, because people were saying I must be gay, so, it brushed off on her as well. I don't think she cared about girls who were into girls, and probably thought they were weird. Yes, that's what it was. I just never had the guts to admit it to myself. My senpai thought I was weird."

"But, I still didn't care. I just wanted to be with her so badly, that I started even getting jealous of her best friends. That's when I decided I had to take the next step. I wasn't thinking. I was just so smitten with her, that I wanted her all to myself. I wrote her a love letter, and put it in her locker one morning. I thought, for the dumbest of reasons, that she would read it, and, then she would just...understand me."

"And that's when it all started, Kagura."

"I've always had to deal with rumors about myself being a lesbian. I know part of it was because I was a good athlete, so there was that stereotype. But, of course, it was true about me. How funny, right? In any case, I was used to them. I was always picked on a little by other kids because of it, and that continued into high school. But I think enough people liked me that they never paid any attention to it all, especially the teachers. I know the teachers always liked me, so because of that, I never had any real problems. I don't want to make anything big out of myself, Kagura, but I know a lot of people liked me. Maybe that's why some girls hated me."

"On the morning that I put that love letter into my senpai's locker, some other girls took it out. They were some kids I had known for a while, that had always picked on me. They just had it out for me. They took my letter and said they were going to read it in front of the whole class. I tried to get it back, but I couldn't. They were in the classroom then, and were about to read it out loud. I was so scared then, Kagura. I couldn't move. Everything just froze, like I was about to die. Everyone would know the truth about me, and it would be all over. I'd be the weirdo, and my family and friends...I don't even want to think about it. It terrifies me, Kagura, when people think differently of me. Especially...if it was about being gay. I told you...it scares me more than anything, I don't know why. I just freeze up. And my heart feels like it collapses, and I feel like I'm in pain, and that I'm terrible..."

"But something amazing happened then, Kagura. Yukari saved me. She was in my class, and she saved me! She got my letter back before the girls could read it. Then...then she read it herself. But she didn't actually read it. She made something else up. I know she read it. I know she knew exactly what it said, but, she still covered it up. She told everyone it said something else, about my senpai being a good friend, or something. When, really, it was a love letter. She saved my life then, Kagura. You don't know how amazing I felt then. Someone I knew next to nothing about had literally saved my life."

"I still don't know why she did that for me. She was a troublemaker back then, like she still is. You would have thought she would have told everyone what it actually said. I mean, I was a teacher's pet, and she was, you know, a sort of bully. We should have been enemies. But she didn't take the chance to kill me off. She saved me."

"No one questioned her when she read it, because, you know, it was Yukari. Why would a troublemaker like her lie about something like that? The class just believed her. Of course, the kids who hated me didn't believe it, but everyone else did, and that's all that mattered. Everyone let it go then, but, Yukari still had my letter. I had to get it back. I thought, maybe, she had done it to sort of blackmail me later on. She would keep the letter as a sort of hostage, you know? That's what I thought."

"But later that day, she met with me, and she just gave me the letter back. She didn't want anything. She just gave it to me. And then...and then she said the most amazing thing to me, Kagura. She said that she was happy to see me smile again. She just wanted to see me smile, and that was it. That's all she wanted...she didn't even know me, but that's all she wanted."

"And she smiled at me...so wonderfully. I'll never forget that face, even though...even though, really, I had tried to. I tried to forget it all, everything that had happened that day, because that's when I fell in love with her, Kagura. Right there...right there on the spot. I forgot about my senpai. I had met someone that was...that was actually nice. My senpai wasn't nice...I realize that now. I know I was annoying to her, but...I had never seen her do anything like Yukari had just done. To be honest, I hadn't met anyone else in my life that had done something like she had done. She was amazing...she was the kindest person I had ever met. She is, she really is. I know she has a lot of bad points, Kagura, but you don't know the real her. That's the Yukari I...still love."

"But then, I ruined it. I ruined everything. I got so scared of myself then. I was falling in love with another girl, and from all that I had just gone through, and all the trouble people gave me...of what they would think of me, I tried to suppress it then. I was terrified to fall in love with a girl again. I had to stop it somehow. I had to stop those feelings."

"Then...then she asked me. She asked me if I was gay. I knew she had actually read the letter, and that's what she must have thought: that I really did love my senpai, and that I liked girls. And I answered...Kagura, that's when I screwed everything up! That's when I did it. I told her I wasn't. I just flat out lied to her, to the person who had saved me. And she just believed me. I still don't understand why she did. I never will."

"Now, I wish she hadn't, Kagura. I wish she hadn't believed me. That sounds so ridiculous, but...I wish she hadn't. From then on, I had to keep that lie. She helped me out because she said I was nice and honest, and that she thought I was an actual good person, and...I didn't think the same of her. I thought she wanted to still get me somehow. I didn't trust her...after what she did for me, I didn't trust her. I'm so pathetic."

"And she still kept helping me! After that day, I was picked on more than usual those girls, because of that whole incident. But every time someone would give me trouble, Yukari would come and help me. There were even some times were...things got physical. Those girls really hated me, because they really did think...no, I should say, they knew I was gay. They wanted it known."

"But I still didn't tell her the truth. Every time she got in trouble for me, or had the teacher's on her case, I just watched her. She thought scaring those girls would stop everything. That's how she thinks. But... I was still too scared to tell her the truth...but it was way too late now. She never had a great reputation, but because of me, it became worse, because of the fights and things she got in. She was like my bodyguard. And the thing is...I kept getting more and more popular. I know it's so vain of me to say it, but I did...and I hate myself because of that. And I think Yukari hates me because of that too, now. Now that she knows I've been lying to her for half our lives."

"I ruined her life, Kagura. She lost friends because of me, she lost interest in her future because of me. Do you know she's a good writer? She really is. But no one took her seriously in school because of her reputation. No one wanted to be around her, and she gets so, so mad when she sees those old 'friends'...the ones who used to like her, or just got some laughs out from her, and then left her. And at the same time, I...I was popular. It's so wrong, but I even had a fan club, and Yukari...oh, I really am terrible..."

"She hates me because I ruined her life. I know I did. She thought...I know I was the only person she really trusted, after all she's gone through. She's such a trusting person, Kagura. She's never had many great friends...and now, I'm off that list. Forever. I know it. I let her down. I let her down so bad, Kagura...and now she hates me. I still love her so much, but...she hates me...she hates me, and I know...things won't ever be the same, because I'm just a coward."

"She wants to kill me now, I just know it. I know it, I know it, I know it...!"