Together Forever

Chapter 11

The Worst Pain…

I buried my face in her chest and let out everything. There was no need to hide it. I was with Umi-chan. She understood me and didn't care about any of the other things going on. I held her as tight as I could and she did the same for me. As it turned out, she ended up walking me down the hall and into the infirmary. At first, I didn't really see a reason for me to be in here, but when she gently lay me down on the bed, it seemed to help out. She let me empty my tears before saying anything. All the while, she stayed by my side.

"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd never see me like that. I… I think I'm good now."

"So what happened," she asked as she grabbed my hand.

Immediately as she touched, her warmth gripped my hand and then spread through the rest of my body. This allowed me to get through what I needed to with a lot more ease.

"I was making my way to school in hopes of meeting up with Honoka. There was a lot that I wanted to talk to her about, but as I was walking, I spotted someone who looked a lot like her walk into an alley. I had a good feeling it was Honoka so I decided to follow her into it, but as I got the opening, I saw her making out with another girl. There was no struggle… The two of them were doing it because they wanted to. After that, I just ran to school with tears escaping my eyes and that's when I ran into you." Even though Umi-chan's warmth was comforting, I could feel my arms and legs start to tremble. Hearing those words come out of my mouth gave me chills.

Honoka was making out with another girl even though she had me. Why?

"So I'm guessing you haven't spoken to her at all this morning?"

I couldn't speak. I shook my head with great sadness.

"Okay. Just stay here and get some rest. I'll be sure to let your teacher know that you're not feeling too good."

As she stood up, I couldn't help but grab her hand to make sure that she wouldn't escape.

"Where are you going?"

"Don't worry. I'll go let your teacher know and then get you something to drink. I'm sure running here took a lot out of you."

"O-Okay."

At that moment, I let go of her hand and watched her leave the room in silence. Shortly after that, my eyelids grew heavy and I ended up falling asleep.

…

I had no idea how much time went by, but all I knew was that Umi-chan still hadn't returned. I looked at the clock and saw that it was lunch time. That's when I decided that it was time to get back into the swing of things. I couldn't stay in bed all day so I returned my feet and exited the room. As I was walking, I could feel my stomach starting to grumble so I changed my path and headed to the cafeteria. As I grew closer to the cafeteria, I could see a huge crowd of people amassing close by. It was in my way so I decided to investigate. When I was able to poke my head through to see what was happening, I saw Umi-chan angrily talking to Honoka-chan.

Slap!

"You don't deserve to be with Kotori. All she wants is to be loved and all you do is lie and cheat behind her back. You don't care at all, do you?"

"I care."

"You're lying again. You have no idea what kind of person Kotori is, do you? Have you ever spent any time with her? Have you ever cared about what she liked or what she wanted to do? Do you even know that you're the person who has caused so much pain and heartache to her? No… You don't. You don't care one bit. I've heard the rumors about you. You're the heartbreak girl that everybody talks about. You set your eyes on one girl and once they become boring, you move on to another without a second thought towards the other girl's feelings. You're…"

At that moment, Honoka-chan charged at Umi-chan and shoved her to the ground. The force of the attack sent her into the wall behind her. She hit it really hard, but still maintained her focus. As I watched, I could tell that Umi-chan only cared about confronting Honoka-chan.

"Why should I care about what you say? You're the school prince. You break girls' heart every day since you could never commit to a serious relationship with them. I've heard the rumors about you too. Whenever some girl tries to confess to you, you just give them a smile and say that you're busy. Admit it, you're just as bad as me… Maybe even worse."

"Don't you dare compare yourself to me. The only reason why I choose not to love someone else is because I don't want to let them in and then hurt them. You have no idea how precious a girl's heart is. What you're doing… You're giving them hope and then throwing it away as if it's trash. That's far worse than anything I'll ever do."

"You…"

"Alright, that's enough! Break it up or I will do it for you!"

It was so hard to break my concentration away from this argument when a teacher entered the fray. Quickly after they arrived, the scene dissipated into nothingness and Honoka-chan walked away. On the other hand, Umi-chan stood there motionless. I was afraid to approach her since I've never seen this side of her before, but I needed to make sure that she was alright.

"Umi-chan?" I walked up next to her and that quickly ended her previous façade.

"Kotori, are you okay?"

"Who cares about me? Are you okay? You hit that wall pretty hard."

"Oh you saw that," she asked as she turned her head away from mine.

"What do you mean?"

"I meant to confront Kousaka-san on my own. I didn't want you to know about because I knew it would hurt you even more. I'm sorry you had to see that."

"It's okay. I'm just glad to know that you care about me. That's the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you."

"Of course. I…"

"Huh?"

"It's nothing."

The two of us kind of stood there awkwardly for a few seconds until Umi-chan asked me something.

"Hey Kotori, could you me outside the school gates when school gets out today?"

"Sure."

"Thank you. There's something I really need to talk to you about."

"Okay."

…

Because of that incident, we were forced to go back to class. There was no way to ditch when the teacher plainly saw me and Umi-chan. During class, it was hard for me to focus because I had a lot of things going on in my head. I still couldn't shake the idea of Honoka-chan hurting me again. It just didn't seem possible for her to do something like that. We've been together so long and yet, she suddenly changes character like that. I didn't change at all. Why did she have to change?

However, there was another thing running around in my head. It was Umi-chan. Witnessing her scary side definitely gave me a different impression of her. I thought that she was just a nice, caring girl, but I've come to realize that she's super strong; something that I could never be. It was almost as if she was a different person. Her eyes, her tone of voice; everything about her when she was confronting Honoka-chan was completely different. I still couldn't believe that that was the Umi-chan who saved me from the roof only about a few months ago.

When school got out, I packed my things and made my way to the school gate. As I looked out towards the horizon, I saw Umi-chan waiting for me. I gave her the best smile I could muster up and the two of us walked off to a nearby park. During our walk there, Umi-chan said absolutely nothing. Her eyes were focused on the road of ahead of her while I couldn't help but stare at her the entire time. Even though the two of us shared our pasts to each other, there was still so much that I didn't know about this girl. She was different, but to me, it was a good different.

When we made it to the park, we sat down on the bench and waited a few more seconds. I didn't know why we were here so I just waited until Umi-chan said whatever it was that she needed to say to me.

"Kotori, I need to apologize for what I did today. That's not the usual me. I just got so mad that I couldn't hold it in any longer."

"What? You know you've already apologized for that? Why are you doing it again?"

There was a brief pause in our conversation.

"Because I care about you. I don't know the extent of the scene you witnessed this morning, but I know that it really hurt you. I don't want you to get hurt anymore. That's why I want to be the special person in your life. Let me make you happy. I promise to love and cherish you no matter happens."

My body tensed up. Her words were heavy and hit my full force. That's when it reminded me of when we were at my house and she stole a kiss from my lips. It was random, but comforting.

"But I…"

"I'm sorry. I don't want to believe that you still love Kousaka-san. After everything that she's done to you… After all the pain that you've been suffering… You can't love her."

"Umi-chan…"

At that moment, she stole another kiss from my lips. Unlike the first time, this kiss felt desperate. It was almost as if I was kissing someone who's never experienced love before. Now, I can't really say that I'm an expert at it either, especially in this lifetime, but I do know that the person kissing me, at that moment, was not Umi-chan. That's when I had to pull away from it.

"Why did you do that?" When I looked at her, I saw a few tears running down her face.

"Because I love you. I want to love you, and I want you to love me."

"I…"

"Please… You're the only person I have." That's when she dropped her head in sadness.

I couldn't ignore this so I walked up to her and raised her head back up to look at me.

"Umi-chan, you're the most important person in my life. When you found me on the roof, I thought I was just lucky that someone was passing by, but as we grew closer, I started to realize that you were special. Even with Honoka-chan on my mind all of the time, somehow, you stuck your way into my thoughts and it made me happy. When you kissed me the other day, I couldn't have been happier. I just…"

"What?"

"What if this doesn't end up working? You said it yourself. You'd end up hurting me or worse, I might end up hurting you."

"None of that matters. We can figure it out together. You wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you're worth it. I'm willing to give everything for you. I will make you happy, I will make you smile, I will protect you no matter what, I… I'll… I'll think of anything and everything that I need to do to make sure that we stay together, I…"

I grabbed her by cheeks to make her stop talking.

"If I'm good enough for you, I will be happy to be with you."

End of Chapter 11