VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter twenty

act ii

how do we do this?
( carefully. )

chapter twenty

❛i think you should be pissed❜

━━━━━━

Things don't work out.

Chris doesn't have the magical epiphany Isashiki is talking about. Not the next day. Or the next one. Or the one after that.

Amara spends the weekend crying her heart out and eating; anger never sows its seed because this is her fault and she knows that. She took him for granted.

And she knows she has no right to be angry.

Chiyo and Hiro are pissed. Maybe naturally, because that's the best friend code, isn't it? But they can't go after him. Because they also know she's in the wrong.

They spend the weekend trying to console her. They put aside logic and try to put the blame on him, if only to get her out of her slump, but it doesn't work. She can't muster the energy to even be irrationally angry at him. She almost wishes she was a little less mature so that she could distract herself with that.

Then, somehow, she doesn't know who does it or how it happens, the news spreads to the rest of the school.

Those rumors that Hatanaka was talking about are confirmed, but the cherry on top is that they've broken up. By lunch on Monday, the simple details have been twisted into something else beyond recognition: she slept with him to get answers to assignments, to get back at her ex, to cross a name off some invisible list she has to impress her American friends.

She's the villain and he's the victim. If she wasn't so miserable, she would be laughing at how all her worries concerning her previous relationship were proved. The girl's reputation is always dragged through the mud. Never the guy's.

And for her and Chris, for their unfortunate seating arrangement that they can't change without fessing up to the fact that they were dating, they're trapped in a frigid limbo.

He's silent and distant and cold, his edges sharp and jagged, and she spends more time trying not to break down than paying attention to lecture. She hates it. The part of her that isn't wallowing in self-pity is angry that she's making herself smaller and so affected just because of this.The more rational part says that this should be familiar. Before, Chris locked himself away behind that cold facade when he was injured, silently suffering as he had to watch his friends excel and move on, his position taken by some mouthy underclassman. He was angry, then, too, but he was also miserable. This should be the same.

Right?

Amara isn't wishing that he's miserable too out of some weird revenge plot. It just eases her conscience to know that this did mean something to him, that this isn't a situation where he can lock away his feelings — them — and throw away the key.

As for their friends, they're split . . . but they also aren't.

Isashiki remains a neutral third party but is still supportive of her and Chris. She doesn't know where Kominato stands. None of the faces she knows — Tanba, Masuko, Kusunoki — say or do anything. A couple of unrecognizable third years glare at her when she passes the table. But she doesn't miss Sawamura's imploring look or the way Miyuki and Kuramochi glance at her.

Chiyo and Hiro are firmly on her side, though they don't necessarily punish his friends, either. They're back at their old table at lunch, too, and they fill the dreary silence with meaningless chatter. They noticeably avoid the topic of the Fall Formal.