One Year Ago
Raito was at school on time the next day. He had left Mikami's house and returned home once the school day was over. He was thankful that Sayu had informed his mother of the excuse he made for his departure the night before. Raito would like to say that he felt better, but he knew the high that he had gained at Mikami's house would wear off very soon. However he had not anticipated how suddenly it would.
"Hey," Raito greeted Kiyomi with a smile that wasn't entirely fake.
The look on her face nocked the smile away a fraction of a second before her palm made contact with his face.
"What?" Raito stumbled back, his mind racing. Why did she slap him? He knew that he more than deserved a slap but she wasn't supposed to know about that.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" she demanded, taking an offensive stance to hide the hurt what she somehow found out about caused.
"How did you?" he stammered, there was no point in denying anything.
"You're not the only one in this school capable of skipping a day," she informed him with venom in her voice.
Skipping. Why hadn't Raito been more cautious? He had been so stunned by Mikami catching him, it hadn't occurred to him at all that he could be caught with Mikami. He was a fool.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing that came from his lips. Of course she wouldn't believe this. "It was a mistake."
"A mistake?" she repeated with mocking eyes.
Raito could tell that, with every word, he was breaking her heart. Each remark she made built a wall to conceal what she was feeling. Kiyomi had no idea how similar the two of them were. Still, he was going to keep making excuses.
"I'm was going through something, and it sort of just happened," this wasn't entirely a lie. "I don't feel anything for Mikami, I swear."
"What?"
Shit. Raito wondered what on Earth had happened to his brain and how he could possibly find it and get it back into his head.
"What are you talking about?" Kiyomi demanded.
"Who told you where I was yesterday?" Raito asked in turn.
"Does it matter?" she rounded on him. "Someone who actually cares about my feelings saw you sneaking out of Misa's house yesterday."
"Shit," he hissed under his breath.
"Then she saw you talking to Mikami at a cafe not too far from here," Kiyomi continued. "We asked him what happened this morning—"
"And he told you I slept with Misa," Raito could feel betrayal burning inside of him.
"Yes," Kiyomi was studying his expression. "Oh my God…"
"Whatever you're thinking, I can explain." Raito knew that maybe it would have been better from him to just shut up, but his instincts were to try to save himself.
"You hooked up with him?" the look of hurt and horror on her face was enough to make Raito want to run. Right now she hated him. Someone who hated him had just learned his secret.
"I didn't mean to—"
"Shut up," her voice was still wading in disbelief.
"It's not—" Raito searched for the right words. "I'm not—"
"Gay?" she asked. "You've been lying to me since we started dating, haven't you?"
"I lied to everyone about that," he admitted.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she looked like she was going to slap him, but instead she turned her back. "I can't look at you anymore."
Raito left before she walked away.
He didn't want to miss another day of classes, he couldn't remember a time when he was behind on school work and didn't want to find out how terrible it felt. However, he knew that with in an hour the entire school would know not only about how he had cheated on the prettiest, and smartest girl in the school, but that he had done so with Mikami. Were Raito not currently seething with anger that the boy had told Kiyomi about him and Misa, he would feel sorry that Mikami was being dragged into Raito's problems.
Panicking at the thought of the amount of eyes that would be on him should he try to get through school that day, Raito found his feet taking him off campus. He didn't think he could bare watching his classmates discuss his sexuality. Not conscious of where he was going, Raito ended up at the cafe that he and Mikami had gotten coffee the day before.
Having no where else to go, Raito bought a drink and some food and spent the next few hours at a table in the back of the cafe. He had been meaning to set some time aside to study for the To-Oh entrance exam, and some of the material he needed to go over was in his bag. Soon he was fully immersed in the information he was reading through, and it was only when a soft voice broke through his concentration that he realized how long he had been there.
"You mind if I sit here too?"
Raito looked up to see Misa, an oddly timid expression on her face.
"Go ahead," he told her.
"Thanks," she sat down across from him and set the drink in her hand down on the table. Raito's own drink had been empty for a while now. "I heard about the break up."
"I'm sure you have," he laughed darkly. "And I'm not sure I would call it a break up."
"Sorry," she sounded like she didn't know what else to say.
"I dug my grave," he responded. This knowledge didn't make it any harder to come to terms with what had just happened.
"Can I ask you something?" her voice was still hesitant.
"Yes," he gave her permission.
"Did you really sleep with Mikami?" she asked bluntly.
"Misa—" he wasn't sure how he wanted to answer this one.
"You're gay," it wasn't a question.
"Yeah," he sighed. "I am."
"Then why did we…" she seemed at a loss as to how to ask this one.
"It's complicated," he knew this was an awful answer.
"Sure," she crossed her arms. "So you're not attracted to me, right?"
"You're very attractive," he tried.
"Not an answer," she replied.
"No," he confessed. "I'm not."
"Then why did you come to my house the other night?" She wondered.
"I don't know exactly," Raito ran his hand over the back of his neck. "I meant it when I said that I was running."
"And sleeping with a girl helped?" she looked like she wanted to laugh, but then froze. "Wait…Is sleeping with me like sleeping with a guy?"
The horror in her voice almost made Raito want to laugh himself.
"No, it's not—"
"Oh my God," Misa cover her gasp. "You said I was better than Kiyomi, that wasn't because…"
"No," he cut her off before she could continue. "It was nice. But it wasn't what I wanted."
"Or needed apparently," she leaned back in her seat.
"Yeah," he muttered.
"Were you ever going to break it off with her?" Misa asked, and Raito bit back the urge to tell her that he was done with the questions.
"I don't know," he answered honestly.
"Then maybe it's better this way," she suggested.
"It's better now that the entire school knows my sexuality and hates me for cheating on her?" he asked sarcastically.
"Good point," she laughed a little. "You're kinda screwed."
"No pun intended?" he quipped.
"Very funny," she said sarcastically giggled anyway.
"Are you any better off?" he asked, knowing that she was a part of the story as well.
"Yeah," Misa shrugged. "Most of my friends don't even like Kiyomi. Not to mention some people also see me as a victim."
"Good for you," he muttered.
"Yup," she replied.
"I guess I should tell my family before they hear it some other way," he added, mostly to himself.
"You're going to tell them about why she dumped you?" Misa was a mix between horrified and humored.
"No," he said quickly. "I'm going to tell them that I like guys."
"Oh," she sounded relieved. "Maybe they already know."
"I doubt it," he sighed. "And if they do they've probably been hoping I wouldn't figure it out myself until I was out of their hair."
"You'll be fine," she told him.
"Hope so," he sighed.
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of raised voices from across the room. Raito looked up to see several boys from their school looking at him. He wondered if he and Misa could run for the cafe without being caught by any of them. After deeming this plan impossible, he decided that it would be better to ignore them until they left.
"Hey!" One of them said loudly. The next thing from his mouth was a insult that anyone with a brain would deem homophobic and idiotic.
"We can leave," Misa suggested.
"They'll get kicked out when an employee hears them," he told her. "I'd rather wait until then, if that's alright with you."
"Okay," she nodded.
"I'm probably going to have to deal with this for a while," Raito knew. "Might as well get used to giving them nothing to react off of."
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