Poisoned Honey (Ayano x Budo)

Chapter 6

Budo's POV-

Its been about a week since I figured out about Ayano's true nature. I shudder just thinking about it again. I felt horrified and ashamed. Ashamed of myself, for falling for a supposed serial killer. If it was her who did it (although its already evidently clear it was), I wonder why she did it.

The only thought that occurs in my mind whenever I hear about murderers who kill innocent people is just,

'Why?'

I could've done something the day I found out, but I didn't know what to do and chose to remain silent.

The churning feeling in my stomach never left since that day, and frankly, got even worse when Amai's parents started posting flyers everywhere around the city in desperate hopes of finding their daughter. 

The cooking club was put on hold, and the members fell into despair. Although it wasn't confirmed yet, everyone assumed that Amai was dead. It added even more evidence to the case of Osana, assuring everyone that her death was not an accident. Taro became vengeful and started questioning everyone in the school who knew Osana before her death. 

Fights in the halls became prevalent, that my club members and I, often had to break apart. Most of the times the student council members helped.

Despite all of this chaos, madness and havoc, I just kept my mouth shut.

I couldn't tell why, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell the police. I kept Ayano in the Martials Arts Club even after figuring out her real motive behind joining the club. As for the private lessons however, I quit giving those as I felt too guilty to do so and simply told her that I'm too busy for that now.

 Whenever she looked or smiled at me, I tried my best to divert my gaze away from her. I guess I was just scared of letting her go to jail. I didn't know why though, since my feelings had definitely faded by then. I think...

 However, a part of me still believes she's a good person and everything I witnessed was just a misunderstanding. It's also part of the reason I haven't turned her in. 

That, and also because...

I don't have proper evidence. 

If I truly wanted to know if Ayano was the culprit, I'd have to study each and every small action of hers. 

-----RING!-----

I got up from the mat and slowly walked to class. 

Was I gonna get scolded for being late? Yeah.

Did I have more important things to worry about? Definitely.

I suddenly heard a blood curdling scream from afar. My eyes widened, wondering what had happened. 

I quickly ran to the sound of the screams and was horrified with what I saw. The dead bodies of Amai-Chan and Kizana-Chan lying there, blood all over their uniform with a knife lying next to them. I was horrified by the sight in front of me but was more-so confused and wasn't aware of what happened. 

'So.. Ayano didn't kill Amai that day?' I was confused.

After asking someone around me, I came to realize that Amai had come up to Kizana and stabbed her almost 10 times, before stabbing herself to death shortly after.

Neither was I aware of nor did I know how this could have been any of Ayano's doing. However, I did know one major thing that linked the crime to her.

'Amai was invovled.'