Becoming Her Lover

Chapter 8

The Ball

The next couple of days were kind of rough. Umi went to school in hopes of seeing Kotori again. Unfortunately, she wasn't there at all. She looked all over the place, but she was nowhere to be found. She asked Honoka and all of the other girls from Muse, but no one knew where she was. The only other option would to be to go her house to see if things were truly okay. The only problem was that she went there once and she wasn't there. Now, the real question was how she was supposed to communicate with her.

"Hey Umi-chan." She turned around as quickly as she could, but it was only Honoka.

"Oh, hi Honoka. What's up?"

"What's going on with you and Kotori-chan?" Umi widened her eyes.

"W-What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Kotori-chan actually called me yesterday and she seemed kind of depressed. Do you know anything about it?"

"No." At that moment, Umi couldn't help but feel jealous. Honoka received a call from Kotori and she didn't. It was obvious that Kotori didn't want to speak to her, but it almost seemed as if she was doing this to tease her. "What did you guys talk about?"

"She just asked if I could give her the school work for the days that she's missed."

"Does that count for today?" Honoka nodded her head. "Would you mind if I gave her the work for today," she asked as she reached for the things in Honoka's hands. However, Honoka turned her body to the side, preventing Umi from grabbing the papers.

"Whoa there, why do you want to do this?"

"Honoka, please, just let me give her the school work," she said with a stern voice.

"Alright, jeez. I was just playing with you." Right as she handed Umi the papers, she snatched out of her hand, nearly giving her a paper cut. After that, she stormed off elsewhere.

When the day finally ended, Umi packed up her things and made her way to Kotori's house. She wanted to call her. She pulled out her phone and stared at her contact name. Unfortunately, she hasn't been answering her for a while now so if she were to tell her that she was on her way to her house, she might not answer. She simply closed her phone and continued on her way to Kotori's house. When she arrived in front of her house, she stared at the front door and took a deep breath. She couldn't say it was her or else her plan would be ruined. She rang the doorbell and remained silent. After a few seconds, the door swung open and Kotori was standing there expecting Honoka.

"Kotori… I, uh… Here's the school work that you needed…" She grabbed it out of her hand and slammed the door shut before Umi could finish her sentence. "Wait, Kotori, I need to talk to you!" Umi knocked on the door, but Kotori refused to answer her. "Please open up."

"I'm listening." She was completely shocked to hear her voice. Umi cleared her throat and began her little spiel.

"Kotori, I am really sorry for what I said before. I didn't know that you balls that much. On the other hand, I'm not girly when it comes to things like that so my natural reaction was to say no. As happy as it would make me feel to avoid going to the ball, I'd rather see you happy attending it. What do you say? Would you still want to go with a lousy friend like me?" Umi waited for a response, but the longer she waited, the more it felt there wasn't going to be one.

"Bye, Umi-chan."

At that moment, it felt like she was stabbed through the heart. She was sacrificing so much by telling her those things and yet, she just gave her the cold shoulder. There wasn't much she could do now. She turned around and was about to head home when something came to mind. She turned back around and pressed her hand against the door.

"Tomorrow night, I'll be waiting for you at the front of the school. I hope to see you there."

…

The next day came around and everyone was in full swing for the ball. The whole school was making preparations for everything to be perfect. There was only one hour of instructions since most of the day had to be devoted to selling this school towards future prospective students. Moving away from those things, something that was odd was that Umi didn't show up to school. Kotori didn't either, but this wasn't really that surprising. Umi was a very good student and to hear that she was missing the day for no reason was just strange.

When night came, the area around Otonokizaka was bustling. All of the girls were prettying themselves up for the ball that they were all excited for. Even Umi was busy trying to look good. She managed to find a long, dark blue dress that fit her personality. Now, she was completing the finishing touches.

"Mom, can you zip up the back for me?" She pulled her hair up and turned her back towards her mother.

"There you go. You look so beautiful, sweety. I'm glad that you're doing this."

"Yeah, I know."

"So is Kotori-chan coming to get you?"

"No," she said nervously. "We're just going to meet there."

"Alrighty, have a great time." She grabbed her by the head and kissed her on the forehead. Umi grabbed what things she needed and headed out. Right as she stepped outside, she saw girls all over the place wearing beautiful dresses, all heading to Otonokizaka. For some reason, Umi started to feel really insecure about herself. She muscled through it, though, and continued on her way to school. When she got there, Honoka and Rin were already there.

"Hey Umi-chan, you decided to come!"

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"What about Kotori-chan, ~nyan?" Umi turned her head. "I don't know." Honoka saw her change in mood and immediately knew that this was something to leave where it was.

"Well, let's go Rin-chan. I bet Hanayo is already waiting for us."

"~Nyan." The two of them walked onto school grounds arm in arm, ready to have a fun night.

On the other hand, Umi simply stood in front of the gate and waited for Kotori. A couple of girls passed by her and asked if she wanted to accompany them, but she said that she had to wait for someone else. They were a little sad by her news, but knew who she was talking about. They smiled and skipped onto campus. Time went by, but Kotori didn't show up. Umi looked all around for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. At that moment, Umi sighed and knew what she had to do. She headed to Kotori's house in hopes that she could finally fix this tension that was in between them.

When she got to Kotori's house, she immediately headed towards the knock and rang her doorbell. When it opened, Kotori's mother was the one to answer it.

"Oh my goodness Umi-chan, you look so beautiful." Umi couldn't help but blush at this comment.

"Thank you Ms. Minami."

"So what's the occasion? Oh wait, don't tell me. The ball, right?" Umi nodded. "That sounds like such a good idea. Hey Kotori, how come you didn't want to go?!"

"Actually, Ms. Minami, that's why I'm here. I wanted to see if Kotori still wanted to accompany me."

"Oh, well, come inside. She's right in the living room." Umi slowly walked inside. When she cleared the hallway, she peeked around the corner and saw Kotori sitting on the couch. She was hugging her legs and watching something very depressing.

"Um, hi Kotori." Kotori slowly brought up her eyes and saw Umi in that long, beautiful, dark blue dress.

"Umi-chan," she said as she burst up from the couch. "What are you doing?"

"I came to take you to the ball." Kotori slowly walked over to her and held her hands.

"You didn't have to do this."

"I… I wanted to. I wasn't going to let you miss this opportunity." Out of nowhere, Kotori jumped into her arms and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be right down." Umi was totally in shock. She didn't how it was possible, but Kotori changed quite randomly just now. She looked at her mother and her mother just smiled and left the room. After a few minutes, Kotori shut the door to her room which made her look up towards the stairs. At that moment, Kotori walked down while wearing a beautiful white dress.

"Umi-chan, I'm ready." She was in awe. Kotori was beautiful to begin with, but seeing her in this literally sold the deal. She was the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

"Kotori, I… You're so beautiful."

"Aw, thank you."

"Alright, let's take some pictures."

"Sorry Ms. Minami, but we should head to the ball." She grabbed Kotori's hand and tried to get out the door, but Kotori held her ground. "Kotori, what are you doing?"

"How about we stay here? No one else deserves to see what you look like. You're the one who's too beautiful." Kotori pulled her into her body and kissed her on the lips.

"Kotori?"

"Let's have our own ball here."

End of Chapter 8