The Love Letter Lovelies

by Glee-chan

16.

The skies had grown even a darker shade of gray by the time school was out. Shiho looked out the window with anticipation worried about if she'd see Sora or not. The girl still hadn't messaged her one way or another. It really was starting to sprinkle out there and Shiho was sure rain wasn't that far away. Even though Sora didn't message her, it'd be crazy if she decided to still arrive at that park.

Checking her phone for the last time at her shoe locker, Shiho decided to go to the park anyway, despite having no idea if Sora would show up. As she went to go, she nearly bumped into one of the male members of her homeroom, and stopped herself. He looked at her, and gave a disrespectful nod in her direction and side stepped her. Something about that look rubbed her the wrong way and she turned around, watching him walk away.

"Hey, what was all that about?"

The boy stopped and faced her. "Sorry?"

"Just now, you gave me this weird look."

"Oh." The boy shrug. "Don't worry about it."

"Just tell me."

He ignored her and turned around again. "See you tomorrow, Inoue."

His voice was bitter. Shiho chased after him, opening up her umbrella as she exited the building. "Hey, come back. What in the world did I do to you?"

He stopped, his hands were in his pockets. "You didn't do anything to me, Inoue. Just leave me alone, okay?"

"You're really starting to piss me off." Shiho narrowed her eyes at him.

"Sorry about that. Maybe your girlfriend will make you feel better."

"What was that?" Shiho growled.

"Ugh." The boy grunted. "Fine, you really want to do this… okay. I guess I'm the guy who has to let the cat out of the bag, as it seems you and the others are oblivious to it." He wiped a rain droplet off his cheek. "Look, everyone in the school is talking about our Homeroom. Do you know what they call us? The Lesbian Class."

"Lesbian Class?" Shiho felt confused. How did everyone know about the Love Letter Lovelies?

"Yeah. When Izumi Kato went crazy over Akiyama, it became pretty obvious. Ozawa became protective, and all of you banded together. You even talk about girls openly. Every now and then some of us over here it. It's not a secret. Most of the girls in our class are freaking lesbians. You, Akiyama, Ozawa, Hino, Fukui are the ring leaders, but the others are falling in line too. Akai, Sano, Endo, Yukimaru, and even Harima are flirting with the idea because you lot are so popular. And as a guy in the class, it's annoying."

Shiho found herself blushing. She didn't realized they were so open about it. "W-What do you mean, annoying…"

"All the other guys in the school think the boys in our class are lucky to be with a bunch of lesbians, but it isn't. You don't do anything sexy and we get completely ignored!"

"We don't ignore you, that's not true."

"Isn't it? Let me ask you something. What's my name?"

Shiho opened her mouth then clothed it. She had no clue. "Point taken."

"So excuse me if I act a little bitter, Inoue." The guy said. "Who ever heard of a whole class filled with lesbians?"

Feeling her temperature rise, Shiho didn't know what to say. "So everyone knows?"

"Pretty much." The guy said. "Just stay away from the other girls in the school. It's bad enough there are no free girls in our class, you don't need to go around polluting the rest of the population with your sick fetishes."

Before Shiho could throw a punch at him, he was gone. She stood in the courtyard of the school, boiling with rage. Sick fetishes? Polluting the population? He made it sound like she was a disease. She screamed at the back of his head in a roar, but he ignored her.

After he left her sight, Shiho stomped towards the park wishing she knew what his name was. She wanted to pound him into the ground. Trying to calm herself down, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, then dialed Maria's number. It was the only number of the Lovelies that she had. Luckily Maria wasn't trying out a club at that moment and answered. Before she could get into pleasantries, Shiho spilled the contents of the the conversation she just had.

"Lesbian Class?" Maria repeated after Shiho had explained everything. "Well I guess what's done it done. Might as well not hide it anymore."

"How are you so calm about it?" Shiho asked her.

"I'm the type of girl who doesn't care about what people think." Maria's voice sounded casual. "Yui-chan might freak out though. Let me break it to her, okay?"

"Fine fine." Shiho grumbled. "You tell the others too… I'm meeting someone."

"Oh, yeah I forgot, your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend."

Maria laughed. "'Not yet', yeah I know. Have fun, regardless."

Hanging up, Shiho continued to fume. How could Maria be so fine with being outed like that? In the back of her mind all this time she always just assumed the looks she got from people in school was just her imagination. It turned out that for once her paranoia was right, that everyone was looking at her like… like she didn't know what?

She arrived at the park, but Sora wasn't there. This didn't surprise Shiho as Sora would have a long walk to get there, even if she decided to show up. Standing under her umbrella Shiho cursed that guy for ruining her day. She wanted to know his name now more than ever.

Her mind broke away from all thoughts of bleeding out that smug guy when the top of her umbrella started making popping sounds from the noise of rain drops falling on top of it. It had started. It wasn't a strong rain, but it was certainly wasn't a sprinkle. Looking up as best she could from under her umbrella, Shiho looked at the sky.

"Akk! Great you're here!"

Shiho jumped as a running Sora dashed into the playground and joined her under the umbrella. She was panting heavily, leaving Shiho to correctly guess that she had been running for the last leg of her trip. She also completely wet. She must of gotten that way from both the sprinkling before then downpour, then the rain proper. Why didn't she have an umbrella?

"Sora-chan, you're drenched! Why didn't you call and cancel?"

"I forgot my phone at home, and I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you…" Sora placed her hand on Shiho's shoulder and breathed in heavily.

"You're sweet, but stupid." Shiho laughed at her. "I'm glad you came though."

Sora nodded, still catching her breath. "Can…we… sit… somewhere."

Shiho looked around, but the park was completely soaked by now. "I guess we can go to a restaurant."

Sora shivered. "Yes please."

"Is it really okay for you to stay in that uniform?" Shiho wondered. "Maybe I should walk you home."

"My legs are killing me!" Sora looked desperate. "My home's way to far away."

Shiho knew all about that, having traveled there four times by this point. "I…I guess I can take you to my house then…"

Sora smiled a wry smile. "Yeah… let's do that."

Dreading the decision, Shiho locked arms with Sora and started for her home. Once she suggested it, she felt embarrassed. Sora was so rich, seeing her home would be completely humiliating. But she couldn't just let her sit in a wet uniform and possibly get sick. Thankfully Sora was too exhausted to noticed little things like Shiho's apprehension. With each step Shiho felt more and more panic fill her. Sora would find out the girl she was dating was a joke.

They arrived at the Dragon Diner, to Sora's confusion. On entering, Shiho waved at her Father, who was working behind the counter then took Sora into the back room. Aside from storage, there were two stairways inside. One going up to the apartment above, and one going down to the basement/laundry room below. That's where Shiho's bedroom was. When she became old enough, she wanted her own room away from her brother, so her parents allowed her to sleep below.

Having taken Sora down, Shiho purposely avoided eye contact, as she searched for something for Sora to wear. "There's a small bathroom under the stairs, just over there." Shiho pointed. The room was so small she didn't need too. With the bathroom, the washer/drier, and Shiho's bedroom items the room was pretty tight. "You should take a shower before you catch a cold or something.

"Wow, you have your own bathroom in your room?" Sora asked.

Not knowing of Sora was mocking her or not Shiho still avoided eye contact. "This building used to be a two room apartment building. This laundry room was communal, so they installed a bathroom here. When my dad got the place, he converted the apartment on the first floor into a restaurant and kept the rest like it was before."

"That's cool." Sora pulled down her skirt without any hint of modesty. "I think it's awesome that you have your own bathroom and laundry room."

Shiho continued to feel like a fool. She was sure now that Sora wasn't mocking her, but how could she even compare her room to the mansion she lived in. Her bed was used, her tv was old, her playstation was a generation behind, and she didn't even have a dresser, she used an old bookcase as one. It was completely mortifying to her.

"Well, I'll see you in a bit." Sora said as she walked naked into the bathroom.

After she found a towel, Shiho followed her and handed it to her. "Sorry… it's so cramped in there."

"It's fine." Sora called as she entered the shower. It was a standing only cubical.

Allowing Sora to wash up in peace, Shiho undressed herself. Her uniform wasn't wet, but it did get slightly damp. She thought she'd washed their uniforms while Sora was in there. Changing into something that was probably a bit to fancy for just hanging out in her room, Shiho went along with her laundry task, wishing she had a rope to hang herself. Up until that point, Shiho had made it a point not to really expose how poor her family was. Now she was completely exposed. She just wanted to die.

Sora came out, but wasn't wearing the clothes Shiho had laid out for her, she was covered in a towel. She walked over to Shiho's bed and sat down, patting her hair down with a second towel. Shiho watched her, thinking she looked like a lovely lily in a middle of a muddy bog. Sora was looking around the room with a small smile on her face. Shiho could only imagine what she was thinking.

"Are you just going to stand there all day?" Sora asked, turning to Shiho. "It's embarrassing."

"Oh…uh…sorry." Shiho took a seat next to her, feeling like a low common dog.

"What's wrong?" Sora asked. "Did you want me to put something on?"

"It's not that." Shiho still couldn't face her.

"Did you want me to take this off?" Sora teased.

Shiho gave a fake smile.

"Come on, what's wrong. I can tell you're bothered by something." Sora placed a hand on her shoulder.

"D-Doesn't it bother you… to be in a room like this?" Shiho eyes focused on a stain on the wall that had been there her whole life but she just now was noticing it.

"No? Why would it?"

"It's kinda small and… dingy." Shiho mumbled.

Sora blinked in confusion, then all at once it seemed to dawn on her what was the matter. "Oh Shiho-tan… you're worried about that?"

Shiho nodded, still not being able to look her in the eyes.

"I don't care about status, money, or anything like that. I care about important things… like you."

"But I'm poor. I had to save up for two months to afford these glasses. My mom said I should have just stuck with the old ones, but I didn't want to look like an impoverished freak. No one knows this side of me… Isn't that embarrassing to you?"

"No… I don't get why it does you… you come off as so confident, I don't understand."

"You might not know it, but I have insecurity problems. My cocky attitude is a front a lot of the time. I can't control what people think of me, or how much money I have, and even my personality. But the one thing I can control is how I look. Ironically the one thing I don't have a problem with myself is that. I work hard to make myself look better than I am. But in reality I'm just a fraud."

"Shiho-tan." Sora took a worried expression. "You're shaking."

She was. She felt completely naked even though it was Sora who was the one in a towel. Sora wrapped her arms around Shiho and the side of her face was pressed again Sora's damp hair. She closed her eyes. Sora pitied her, was that comforting or humiliating? She felt like crying, but she didn't want to look even more like a loser.

"Shiho-tan, I don't care if you're poor. I like you... not what you can buy me." Sora said then gasped slightly. "Uhh… I guess I kinda let that out, didn't I?"

Shiho didn't realize it until Sora pointed it out, but the other girl just admitted to liking her. She pulled away and looked into Sora's eyes for the first time since they went to her house. "You like me?"

"I know I wasn't supposed to say it until our third date. I guess I broke the rules." Sora pouted. "I understand if you don't feel the sam-" Shiho kissed her. Sora was surprised but returned the kiss.

When they pulled way Sora gave another pouting look. "We broke the rules again."

"New rule. If one of us is naked, then we're allowed to kiss." Shiho said quickly with a smile on her face. Somehow she didn't feel bad anymore. Sora liked her.

"In that case…" Sora grin her crooked grin, pulled open her towel, then kissed Shiho again.