A few weeks late but hey ho - Merry Xmas!
Since I haven't lived the story up to it's potential (i've been a bit uninterested in the Corpse Party fandom, there's not much activity as there was before) I'm gonna make this chapter extra special. As in long...with FLUFF!
Ayumi took a deep breath in.
It was in the early start of the two week break that she was granted before going to college, and she had a lot on her mind. Her plan to befriend, forgive and speak to Haruka had been thought out well, written out and discussed a few times over the phone with Sakura. Not that she needed much help; it just seemed a little less sadistic having support from another person then seeming lonely and desperate to stop the flow of hate from reaching her. Either way, she had made up her mind how she was going to do it, as well as where and when. Sakura had passed on the info that Haruka would be in the college on the third day of the holidays, for some unexplained reason, so Ayumi had already booked the ticket for the train to get to the college. The thing is, Sakura was going on holiday with her brother, mostly for research on his novel she was hoping to illustrate, and, let's just say she wasn't on the greatest terms with Yoshiki at the moment. Ever since that harassment Yoshiki managed to help her out of, she had been anxious to travel by train on her own.
She hadn't seen Yoshiki in person since the day he stormed out of her house due to frustration, though they had exchanged phone calls and texts every so often. She guessed that they really hadn't been spending much time together - even through the bullying indecent whilst he was supporting her, Ayumi hadn't really done anything sweet in return like all couples should, so she presumed he felt a bit neglected and lonely. As soon as she could confront Haruka, the sooner she could visit Yoshiki. Of course she felt bad at not putting him first, but she had the feeling it would be worth the wait for him.
It was in fact the third day; she had the orange ticket grasped in her pale anemic hands. The train screeched as it reached the platform, trusting its doors open, eagerly inviting the anticipating passengers in. With a quick glance around, Ayumi followed the people onto the bus, hurriedly choosing the seat closest to the door, just in case. At that moment, she felt an intense feeling of déjà vu surround her, as she spotted a tall, bleach blonde boy come towards her, a concerned look on his face. But as he passed her with no reaction, all hope that it might have been Yoshiki was diminished.
She then shook her head violently. No, she needed to stay focused on the task at hand. She shouldn't be distracted by a stupid thing. But Yoshiki wasn't stupid. She knew she meant the world to him, and she felt the same way entirely. Wishing she could just forget her lingering thoughts, she stared blankly out of the window with her glassy eyes and eventually dozed off into a fitful, light sleep until three stops later when she was woken up by something digging into her sides. She suddenly felt warm as she opened her eyes, but when she opened them fully, no one was around her, and she quickly left the train. Thank goodness she hadn't missed her stop!
The walk to the college felt a lot longer without anyone with her, yet it hadn't changed distance obviously, it just felt long and lonely without anyone for company. Nevertheless, she kept advancing towards the building, gritting her teeth as she went through the steps she had created and gone through numerous times in her head. After walking down fairly busy streets, full of students shopping, she reached the college, and entered through the reception by scanning the pass card she had received in the post the other day, as the prospective students were allowed to pass in and out in the two weeks holiday if they wished. She still had no idea why Haruka would be there, but really she had no need to question that anyway.
The next step was to find Haruka. To other people this may have been difficult, seeing how large the building was, however Ayumi had something else to go on. Sakura had told her before how Hachure loved Technology, so she instantly thought of the IT rooms, which were used for general research as well as digital art. So she began to climb the stairs, motivation forcing her up to the second story, where the computer room was located on the right.
There was no life in the computer room, apart from a vivid and repetitive tapping sound of a keyboard from the very corner of the room. A dark head was bobbing up and down, covering her slightly snobby looking features. That was her. The person who had made the past weeks a misery, ruined her friendship with Naomi, made her lose any opportunity of ever going out with Satoshi, damaged her relationship with Yoshiki, and generally had given her a stressful time. All through hacking, anonymous messaging, and all for what? Just because she was jealous of her scholarship win and envious of her cousin getting the chance to illustrate professionally? Frustration overwhelmed Ayumi as she stared at Haruka from across the room. She had done so much yet the emotion she showed was little. Wouldn't she show the smallest amount of guilt?
Clearing her throat, she moved across the room towards the girl, who barely acknowledged her presence. Taking a deep breath in, like she had done earlier whilst reminiscing, she addressed the girl.
"Haruka," she said, not bothering to politely call her by her surname. "You're Sakura's cousin, am I right?"
"That would be me," she replied, shifting her glance to Ayumi, her eyes flickering slightly as she recognized who she was, a slight smile came over her face. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want!" she shouted angrily, glaring at her sharply. "Explain yourself!"
"What on Earth are you talking about?" she quipped, looking back at her computer, which Ayumi quickly glanced at. Code, of course.
"You've been hacking things! Send me nasty messages anonymously and under Sakura's name!" she cried frustrated. "You caused so much trouble, those fake things you posted... almost everyone believed them!"
"You can't prove that," she countered snidely. "How can you accuse me with no evidence?"
"Sakura explained everything! About why you even wanted to go to Art College with such talent in maths and technology. I can also find away to trace it, even if you did it on these computers."
"Well, isn't it all sorted now? You fixed it with your friends and you told everyone about the truth. No need to mention it now!" she retorted, losing her cool a little bit than normal. Her forehead was wrinkled and she looked a little worried, but didn't let her haughty mask slip too much.
"That's not the point! I just want you to justify what you've done!" she exclaimed, stressing in the tone of her voice.
Haruka sighed and looked at her, almost a mocking look on her stuck up face. She stared at Ayumi for what seemed like ages, judging and scrutinizing her at every single glance. There was just something sketchy about her every word and move, and Ayumi no longer felt safe.
"Do you know I felt? I had my various strengths, but Sakura always outshone me. I always felt like I was put in the shadows, while my amazing cousin basked in all the glory from the family for being such a great artist. Everyone loved her, and always spoke about her, never even considering how put out I felt..." she explained, not looking particularly emotional, although she still looked a little anxious.
"But, that has-"
"Let me finish!" she cut of Ayumi dismissively with a yell. "So I started stealing her work. I tried taking physical copies, but I was found out quickly by her brother, who promised not to mention it as long as I stayed away. Of course I couldn't do that, so I hacked into her computer files where she stored photos of her work to display online and edited them with Photoshop to make them my own. Then, I followed her into the Art College with my forged works, in hope I could become the illustrator and surpass her."
"That's...understandable, but stupid!" Ayumi reasoned. "You could have just talked about how you felt instead of forging...But it still doesn't explain why you'd take it all out on me! It's not fair!"
"I knew that I couldn't get at Sakura," Haruka told Ayumi, who trembled slightly under the coldness of her voice. "Her brother would...well. So as soon as I knew you had the Scholarship, I realized another person was better than me. Another Sakura to steal the lime light. That's all."
"That's all?" Ayumi repeated, clearly disgusted. "That was the only reason?"
"Yep." replied Haruka simply, tapping away at her code again, her calm face returning to her.
"How...dare you! YOU MADE MY LIFE A MISERY!" she screamed, getting dangerously close to her.
"You've over dramatic. It wasn't so bad."
"Shut up! If you were in my shoes..." Ayumi felt like crying. Her plan wasn't working, but surely there weren't any flaws?
"In your shoes?!" Haruka was suddenly getting up, a dark look flickering over her face. She slowly got up, turning the computer off with a single, quick click, moving on to approach Ayumi, with short, sharp steps.
"Haruka..." Ayumi squealed, edging back towards the door. "What the...hell..."
Haruka looked at her with angry, almost violent looking eyes, and raised her hand menacingly, turning her head to the side. She laughed a little, well, to Ayumi it sounded like more of a cackle in her ears. She instantly went for the door, but instead under Haruka's frightening glare, she cowered in the corner, startled and scared.
"Tell NO ONE!" Hakura whispered, smiling freakishly. "I have big plans...to make me noticed!" Face me, you-"
"GET AWAY FROM MY GIRLFRIEND YOU BITCH!"
A disheveled blonde blur whizzed past Ayumi's eyes, knocking Haruka off her feet in an instant. She was silenced straight away, squirming under the weight of one person. Yoshiki.
"Yoshiki...where?"
"Ayumi!" he yelled, glancing urgently at her. "This is assault! Call the police!"
"No it's not so bad, just help me get her to the reception," she replied, trembling all said nothing, nodding slightly and dragging Haruka out of the room by her arms as she screamed and protested but it was in vain. Eventually, after what seemed forever, Yoshiki got her to the reception, where they hurriedly look her to security and called her parents and the police, which made Ayumi feel decidedly bad. It was true she despised the girl for all she had done, but she genuinely felt sorry for all she had been through. However, it was the right thing to do, and she knew as much as that.
But there was one thing she just didn't understand. How had Yoshiki got there, and just in time to stop Haruka from pummeling her to a vicious pulp? As soon as the commotion was over, Ayumi found him in the crowd, pulling him out hastily from the crowd.
"Yoshiki," she called him, making him turn around as soon as he heard her worried voice. "I want to leave, I feel.."
"Okay," he replied, not waiting for her to explain. "Don't worry, I got you a ticket back...I guess I have a bit of explaining to do."
"Damn right!" Ayumi said, with a forced smile, but it was hard to hold the tears back. "Let's go..."
He took her hand considerably, leading her out of the building as quickly as he could without any extra attention getting to them, especially Ayumi. That would just stress her out even more then she already was, and as far as he knew, he didn't want her to feel any worse. He handed over the tickets at the station, before boarding the train, Ayumi close behind him, following like a dog to his master. They quickly chose seats far away from the other passengers, so they could talk in private without being disturbed in any way. As soon as they sit down, the questions began pouring out of her mouth.
"How did you get here? Why? When...?" she asked, looking at him with desperate eyes. "I don't understand!"
"I had a feeling you'd do something like this - yet I consider myself impulsive, and you usually make intelligent decisions!" he laughed a little, but that just made Ayumi more frustrated.
"Answer me!"
"Alright, calm down," he said, turning towards her with a lazy grin. "I kind of maybe talked to Sakura about it. And I just had a bad feeling, you know? I got the last train from my nearest station - and saw you, asleep. I nudged you so you could get off, but didn't show myself."
"Why?" she inquired curiously, remembering she had felt something nudge her.
"I didn't want to distract you from your goal. Wait, weren't you planning to befriend her?" Yoshiki found himself asking her, making her sigh a little bit.
"I didn't go to plan. I thought she'd be snobby and everything, but it turned out just to be a huge act and she just went...I'm pretty sure she's deluded."Ayumi explained, with a nod at the end.
"Let's not talk about that anymore, yeah?" Yoshiki suggested, leaning back and kicking his feet up on the opposite chair next to Ayumi. "Come and sit by me."
Ayumi quickly shifted onto the seat next him; he put a comforting arm around her, but she just felt a little awkward around him - and he seemed to sense that too. He cleared his throat at the moment at tuned to face her, their faces scarily close.
"Ayumi...I'm sorry if I seemed a little distant, I've just had so much to think about. You've got your future all thought out for you - you'll become a world renowned illustrator, travel the world, get married to some fancy loaded guy-"
"Never!"
"-And I'll just be back here, wishing I took my education more seriously." he finished, ignoring her quiet protesting. "It's sad, but true."
"No way. You're going to be a hit music producer, tour the world and have a thousand chicks all over you!" she giggled, feeling the ice break as he laughed alongside her, looking a little more at ease.
"I doubt it." he replied, once the moment had passed. "I'm good for nothing really."
"Are you sure?" Ayumi questioned, glancing up at Yoshiki, who seemed to be pondering whilst staring outside the window. "Would I be doing this if you hadn't come to save me at the last minute?"
"I guess you'd be dead." he teased, making her look down on him a little bit with scorn. But then she really thought his words through. She doubted she'd be dead, but what if Yoshiki hadn't of been there. What would she have done?
"I'm so weak," she laughed a little, but it was a hollow and empty sound. "I can't even-"
"Let's suck at life together, yeah?" smiled Yoshiki, tilting her chin a little with a small nudge of his warm hand. Ayumi felt the blush creeping over her cheeks as he looked deeply into her eyes, noticing that Yoshiki seemed to be ignoring the obvious fact they were in public transport. Yoshiki seemed to notice that she seemed a little anxious and flushed, so just for her sake; he smoothly took her into his arms, embracing her instead. Ayumi tried to protest, but her yelps were muffled by his hold. Rolling her eyes, she hugged him back, smiling happily at how good it felt. It felt warm and friendly, with an air of comfort, a little like how it felt when she used to hug her father when she was younger.
Shortly after slowly breaking apart, they stopped at Ayumi's bus stop, and Yoshiki quickly lead her off with a gentle man like manner.
"Uh, shall I walk you home?" he suggested boldly with a grin. "I don't think your parents like me...but I like, love you so screw them!"
"Idiot!" she yelled at him, whacking him in the chest with a tight fist. "But I guess you can. They're probably at home though so be quiet!"
"What, do they not know about us?" he quipped, raising an eyebrow.
"Well Hinoe does. They don't really need to know, do they?" she retorted a little too defensively. "Geez, what would they say if they knew I was teaching some delinquent loser like you?"
Yoshiki didn't reply. Instead he slowly leant over, wrapping his arms around Ayumi with shining eyes, like he had just seen the best thing in the world, even though she had just insulted him. Ayumi found her head slowly shifting towards his, her arms on his broad shoulders, and her toes pointed from the ground. They exchanged rosy glances, before their lips met and they kissed, a small breeze blowing their hair around as they closed their eyes. The sunset backdrop was perfect for the moment; time seemed to be stopping still just for them in picturesque silence.
It was a different relationship. Not perfect. Not forced. It was just about right for the modern girl.
Thanks to all for following/faving/reviewing/just reading/etc ! It means a lot.
It's finally finished! I'm sorry it took so long, I've just been so busy with exams, moving, etc etc that I just haven't had time to write, which sucks because it's so fun!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter & fic. More to come another time.
Poffor xoxoxox