A/N: Aaaaaand, this one contains (very brief) mentions of onesided MitsuruxAkihiko! Again, in case you want to avoid it.
It took her awhile before she noticed, but once she saw—really saw—the way Aragaki and Sanada looked at each other, Mitsuru had to refrain from slapping herself with the shame of her previous lack of observational skill. The thoughts of both boys were in every look, every movement, every word.
Looking back, Mitsuru wondered if she hadn't always known, albeit subconsciously. After all, despite her initial attraction to Sanada, she had turned him down without a second through when he had approached her two months after living in the dorms, wringing his trembling hands and barely coherent enough to spit out his request.
It had been obvious then that he wasn't asking her out because he liked her, rather because he wished to prove something to someone. What or who this was was, at the time, a complete mystery to Mitsuru. It was likely, all things considered, that it had been unknown to Sanada as well.
When Aragaki made his mistake and paid for it with the life of the Amada woman, Sanada was the one who broke down. Leaving SEES was barely a decision for Aragaki, but for Sanada …
For weeks, Mitsuru barely saw him, assuming he was spending every spare moment he had hunting down his childhood friend and begging for his return. It wasn't until three months later that Sanada returned to the dorm sporting a black eye, a limp, and a set to his jaw that had Mitsuru shuddering with apprehension. One more week was spent with Sanada sulking in his dorm room before he approached Mitsuru, requesting to chase the shadows again, this time with a new vigor.
He never spoke while he fought, but the fire in his eyes, the power in his punches, screamed for Aragaki.
And that was how Mitsuru knew.
A/N2: I did notice reading through this that there's a statement that completely contradicts the chapter following this one. I won't say what it is, but I will point out that this is in Mitsuru's point of view, so everything said are her own thoughts and opinions. She may not necessarily be correct about everything...It's just how she personally interprets what she's seeing.
That really goes for everyone in all of these chapters. While none of the characters are lying, they can only know so much, and is there ever such a thing as a perfectly reliable narrator?
I will say though that they are all pretty intuitive, so if there are any incorrect thoughts that they have, they're minor and don't affect the general idea of this story.